Kirk’s tragedy lights the authoritarian rehearsal

Trump and allies treated death as fuel, blaming the radical left without proof and paving ground for authoritarian narratives

Political violence is an open wound in US society. The death of Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist known for his fiery and divisive rhetoric, is first and foremost a human tragedy. It is the ultimate failure of dialogue, the darkest end point in a debate that should be locked with ideas, not with weapons. In a minimally healthy society, such an event would serve as a moment of collective pause, mourning and deep reflection on the country’s direction.

This is not what happened. As might be expected of a political machine that has been feeding on hatred and polarization for years, the extreme right-wing, led by its maximum figure, Donald Trump, has not lost a second. Even before the body cooled, before any investigation, before a drop of respect for lost life, the tragedy was kidnapped, packed and transformed into gross ammunition for the cultural war that they feed themselves.

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American right promises revenge on behalf of Kirk

The episode reveals, in a crystalline and frightening way, the modus operandi of the new far right: the cynical exploitation of suffering to advance an authoritarian agenda. The statements of figures like Elon Musk, classifying the left as the “party of murder”, are not just hyperbolic; They are calculated. It is the strategy of strawman brought to paroxysm: create a monstrous caricature of the political opponent to justify any measure, however extreme, against him.

Trump’s reaction, however, goes beyond opportunism. It is the central piece of a power project. By immediately attributing moral authorship to the “radical left” without a single proof, the former president did exactly what experts like Harvard’s Steven Levitsky feared: he pulled the trigger of a dangerous narrative that has, as sole purpose, repression. His words did not seek to calm, unite or reflect. They are designed to set fire, divide and, crucically, prepare the ground for the next climb.

The deliberate and repeated comparison with the Reichstag fire is not a rhetorical accident. It is an open manual. Matt Servy and other right -wing ideologues know exactly what they are invoking: the moment when the Nazis, after blaming the communists for a crime, used the justified panic to suspend civil freedoms, arrest opponents, and dismantle Weimar’s fragile democracy. By shouting “Reichstag”, they are not doing a historical analysis; They are announcing their intentions. They are saying, at full lungs, that they wish to use Kirk’s death as a pretext for “total repression”, to arrest opposition politicians and ban a rival party.

This is where danger is no longer theoretical. Trump has already demonstrated, in his first term, a deep contempt for democratic norms. Now, with the expanded executive branch and a republican party completely subdued to his persona, he has the instruments to transform this rhetoric into action. The threat of “troops on the streets”, alerted by Levitsky, is not a paranoid delirium. It is a logical extrapolation of the past actions of a president who has already used federal forces ostensibly and illegally against protesters.

It is essential, however, not to fall into the trap of false equivalence. The call to the moderation on both sides, though well-intended, often ignores the fundamental asymmetry of the moment. Yes, there are marginalized and reprehensible voices to the left that celebrate violence, and must be vehemently rejected. But there is no equivalence of power, platform or strategic intention. On the one hand, there are isolated individuals on social networks. On the other hand, there is a former president, the majority party in Congress, media tycoons and an integrated communication machine that coordinates, in unison, a narrative that explicitly aims at the total delegitimation of opposition and the emptying of democratic institutions.

Charlie Kirk’s death is tragic. But the far-right response to his death is an existential threat to US democracy. They do not cry the loss of a life; They celebrate the acquisition of a new hammer to unleash blows against the foundation of the political system itself. Instead of a moment of union, we are witnessing an open rehearsal to authoritarianism, where mourning is a luxury that they cannot have, as there is a lot of work to be done in the construction of the internal enemy.

Hope, tenuous, lies in the resistance capacity of institutions that still remain standing and in the discernment of a population that, tired of violence, can finally see the cynical game that unfolds. Kirk’s tragedy need not be the American Reichstag. It may be the moment when society, horrified by the instrumentalization of hatred, decides to say “enough” and choose, once again, the difficult and worn but vital, road of democracy. The abyss is in sight, and only a collective and firm rejection of this logic of civil war will prevent the fall.

With information from Financial Times*