Across the US, hate-filled leftists are in disgrace and losing their jobs as teachers, health workers, TV pundits, pilots, military personnel, bureaucrats, lawyers and even a comic book writer after being outed on social media for rejoicing at the assassination of beloved free speech activist Charlie Kirk. Angry, broken-hearted conservatives have taken the gloves off and digitally gone after those who felt it legitimate to express joy at the cowardly slaying of another human being.

A new phase of the political battle is emerging, call it civil or social terrorism, where you will be hounded online and offline if you callously think violence is a righteous tactic. Cancel culture is coming for those who created it. Among those caught up in this shameful group are local identities such as MP Zali Steggall and influencer Abbie Chatfield, the latter saying she is ‘in fear’ after airing her views on Charlie’s death. Social disgrace and shaming has proven an effective weapon online, once digital sleuths reveal identities. Although, many young leftists are so naive in their bigotry and cruelty they have no trouble posting under their real names, and are shocked to themselves be targeted.

This grassroots doxxing initiative is being complemented at the federal level, with Trump right-hand man Steven Miller announcing new efforts to go after the radical left groups that foment violence, and Trump floating the notion of racketeering charges against notorious leftist donor George Soros. ‘This is not fringe anymore,’ Miller said. ‘There is a domestic terrorism movement growing in this country.’

Because it is mostly leftists who believe in righteous violence – a Network Contagion Research Institute poll earlier this year found around half of leftists thought the murders of Elon Musk and Donald Trump could be justified, many more than conservatives.

A website charliesmurderers.com has been set up with a reported 40,000 names, with plans to maintain it as a doxxing library, to name and shame those whose humanity ends where political disagreement begins. Effective Trump activists Scott Presler and Laura Loomer have joined the doxxing fray. Moreover, Charlie’s movement Turning Point USA is reporting 32,000 new requests to set up US chapters, on top of an existing 9,000 college chapters and 1,100 high school chapters. Not only are some quitting the left over this repellent ghoulishness, but many more of the silent majority have been radicalised. This assassination may have awakened a proverbial sleeping giant, accelerating and amplifying Charlie’s messages of faith, family and free speech, rather than extinguishing them.

And conservatives now feel driven to act in new ways to protect themselves from murderous leftist violence, voiced and amplified unapologetically in legacy media and through Democrat politicians. As Virginia GOP Rep. Nick Freitas put it, ‘Murdering Charlie is going to be remembered as the day where we finally woke up to what this fight really is. It’s not a civil dispute among fellow countrymen. It’s a war between diametrically opposed worldviews which cannot peacefully coexist with one another.’ Or as high-profile media conservative Matt Walsh said: ‘I cannot “unite” with the left because they want me dead.’ And there have indeed been online calls to slay Walsh next. ‘Democrats are the party of murder,’ wrote Elon Musk, in a viral post that pretty much encapsulates an increasingly inflamed and tense debate.

Kirk’s murder is the direct outcome of nonsense academic arguments that words are equivalent to violence, and that those on the right are fascists and Nazis, and deserve to be extinguished. The left has dehumanised conservatives, normalising violence with their overblown ‘Hitlerisation’ and fascist narratives, and turning everyday Christians into targets. This is the extremism behind Butler shooter Thomas Crooks, New York assassin Luigi Mangione, Black Lives Matter rioters, Antifa shock troops and trans school shooters. Sadly, the huge numbers of fatuous individuals celebrating Kirk’s death on social media reveal that the problem is widespread, and that many feel violence towards conservatives is justified.

Kirk’s assassination is only the most recent exclamation point of a wave of violent headline-dominating crimes across much of the West. If it’s not fatal machete attacks on children in Melbourne, stabbings in Europe and rape gangs in England, it’s mass shootings and murders in the US. The legacy media tried to ignore the graphic slaying of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska for about a week, until the impact of the eyeball-searing images forced the story to the top of the news cycle. Then the live-streamed shooting of free speech advocate Charlie Kirk erased all other news from media desks for days. This cascade of events seems to have changed the Overton window, radicalising many. Acute observer Matt Taibbi said: ‘There’s something new and frightening in the tone of the responses to Charlie Kirk’s killing…. America’s really changed.’

Much of that is due to the profound extent of Charlie’s global impact, becoming clearer with vigils around the world. His digital footprint was enormous, with nearly six million followers on X, eight million on Tiktok and four million on Instagram. Many young people grew up with Charlie as a unique, calm reference point in a swirling, confused online world; it would be a mistake to underestimate his giant legacy. Trump credits Charlie with helping propel a surge of young men towards the right in the 2024 election. ‘I’ve never seen young people, or any group, go to one person like they did to Charlie,’ said Trump. Executive producer of Charlie’s podcast, Andrew Kolvet, claims around 16 to 17 million young men had voted for Trump after listening to Charlie. This man ignited a youth movement, and they will remember him.

The question for the US now is whether the right chooses to stoop to the political violence of the left, or eschews any remaining shred of tolerance and compassion and plays vengeful hardball within the law. The canard that political violence emerges equally from left and right has been put to bed, with it being beyond argument at this point that it’s the left that foments terrorism.

This shooting seems destined to backfire, martyring and glorifying Charlie into an even greater messenger and symbol of his traditional values. As the Babylon Bee put it, 12 million more Charlie Kirks have been created after his death. It would be a bitter irony if Charlie’s death is what it takes to make his organisation truly the turning point to a morally rearmed and strengthened US.