On September 10, 2025, a husband and father of two young children was assassinated while speaking to a large crowd of college students in Utah. There is no motive yet, as of this writing the perpetrator has not been captured, but all signs point to this being a deliberate attempt to silence a well-known conservative voice.

Charlie Kirk, 31, founder of Turning Point USA, collapsed on stage at Utah Valley University after being struck by gunfire. He later died at the hospital. The shock of his death comes just over a year after two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump, underscoring a disturbing escalation of political violence in America.

The Rhetoric That Preceded the Violence

For years, Democratic leaders have painted Trump supporters not as opponents but as existential threats. During a primetime speech in 2022, President Joe Biden declared that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” He called the movement “semi-fascist,” language that sharpened the divide between ordinary political competition and mortal enmity.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris accused Trump of being a “fascist”. Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned of a “sinister MAGA campaign” and claimed Republican policies would cost lives. The Democratic National Committee institutionalized this messaging, launching weekly “MAGA Malarkey: The Extremism You Missed From Republicans This Week” posts. Outside activist groups like the SPLC went further, targeted Kirk’s Turning Point USA by name as an “extremist group.”

This rhetoric framed millions of Americans—and figures like Trump and Kirk in particular—not just as wrong, but as dangers to democracy. That is a narrative that invites radicals to see violence as justified.

A Timeline of Escalation

In the past decade, a pattern has emerged. Conservative leaders have been repeatedly targeted with bullets and violence. Liberals have faced incidents too, but far fewer. The imbalance is striking.

• 2017: A left-wing gunman opened fire on Republican members of Congress practicing for a baseball game, nearly killing Rep. Steve Scalise. Later that year, at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, a neo-Nazi rammed his car into a crowd, killing counter-protester Heather Heyer.
• 2017–2018: Sen. Rand Paul was tackled and injured by his neighbor in Kentucky, and later accosted with his wife on the streets of Washington, D.C.
• 2020: Federal agents broke up a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. While heavily infiltrated by the FBI, it still underscored how political violence had entered mainstream politics.
• 2022: Paul Pelosi, husband of then-Speaker Pelosi, was assaulted with a hammer in his home by an unstable intruder who cited political grievances.
• 2022–2023: Solomon Peña, a failed Republican candidate in New Mexico, orchestrated drive-by shootings at the homes of Democratic officials. No one was killed, but it showed the trend spreading.
• 2024: Two assassination attempts were made against Donald Trump during his presidential campaign — one in Pennsylvania where a rally-goer was killed, and another in Florida where an armed man was arrested before firing.
• 2025: In Minnesota, Vance Boelter targeted Democratic legislators at their homes. Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed, Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were wounded, and others were on his list. Three months later, Charlie Kirk was shot dead in Utah.

This timeline shows that while both sides have endured violence, the most prominent assassination attempts and killings in recent years have disproportionately targeted conservatives, culminating in the murder of Charlie Kirk.

What Fascism Really Is

Historically, fascism was not just harsh rhetoric or authoritarian leanings. It was a system of government: one-party rule, suppression of opposition, censorship of media, militarized street enforcers, and violence normalized as politics. Mussolini’s Blackshirts and Hitler’s Brownshirts didn’t just argue — they silenced opponents through beatings, intimidation, and killings.

But fascism doesn’t vanish when it loses power. Stripped of government, it becomes a movement, still using intimidation and violence to delegitimize and silence its opponents. A fascist minority is no less fascist in its methods; it simply operates from the streets instead of the state.

That distinction matters today. America is not a fascist state — Trump was elected democratically, institutions remain intact, and opposition parties operate freely. But the tools of fascism — demonization, scapegoating, and the silencing of dissent through violence — are appearing with alarming regularity.

Charlie Kirk’s assassination is the clearest example yet. He was not censored by a dictator’s decree but by a bullet meant to silence his voice. That is violent censorship. His murder was not only the loss of a young husband and father — it was a warning of where America is heading if violence becomes the way we decide who gets to speak. For his wife and two children, the political arguments don’t matter. They lost him because someone decided his words should be answered with bullets. Real fascism is an American murdered for exercising his free speech.

Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk.

Dave Soulia | FYIVT

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