From a U.S. Army soldier at Fort Bragg and a New Orleans firefighter (pictured below), to a Southern University law professor, social media has been flooded with gleeful hate after Wednesday’s assassination of Kirk, 31, president of Turning Point USA, and a husband and father of two.
The theme of all of the online posts is that Kirk, described by his liberal critics as a Nazi-like hater of minorities, transgenders, and women, deserved to die.
“You reap what you sow,” Reid Friedson, identified on X as a Cornell University professor, wrote in a post that said Kirk’s organization created a “new generation of “Hitler Youth.”
In another post, an army soldier named Guillermo Muniz reportedly wrote that the U.S. Constitution exists to protect Americans from government persecution.
“It does not protect you,” he wrote, “from being held accountable for your actions by other people.”
However, the Pentagon announced rather quickly people in a military uniform will also be held accountable for making such comments online.
“It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American. The Department of War has zero tolerance for it," Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, wrote on X.
Parnell’s post was shared by War Department Secretary Pete Hegseth. “We are tracking all these very closely — and will address immediately. Completely unacceptable," Hegseth wrote.
In addition to the U.S. army soldier, social media sleuths identified comments from a U.S. Navy petty officer, Anthony Hyland, who has 1.5 million TikTok followers.
“The off-ramp to the high road is closed,” Hyland states in a profanity-filled TikTok post. “We are not going to be made to feel bad for your bull [expletive] hero that consistently spewed harmful rhetoric.”
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The he-had-it-coming theme has enraged Kirk’s supporters, especially close friends who knew him, because they say the slain 31-year-old was a kind-hearted person, a loving Christian, and a devoted husband and father.
In one online encounter, horror author Stephen King was challenged by Dave Rubin after claiming Kirk “advocated stoning gays to death.” The response from Rubin, who is homosexual, was he “broke bread” with Kirk many times and he was always kind and respectful to both Rubin and his husband.
Rubin called King “more monstrous than any of the characters you have ever come up with.”
In a comment to AFN about the Left celebrating Kirk’s death, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson called it “sick and reprehensible” behavior.
“Charlie Kirk was a great American patriot who was willing to have a conversation with anyone,” Jackson told AFN. “Any deranged leftist celebrating his senseless assassination should be ashamed of themselves, if they even have a sense of shame left.”
Christian apologist Alex McFarland tells AFN he knew Kirk personally through public appearances. They shared a stage together in public and prayed together in private.
“It’s very sad, the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” McFarland says. “This brutal, wicked murder of a person simply because he said things that some people disagree with.”
The online hate is so great that someone has now created a website named Charliesmurders.com. The website describes a “permanent archive” to identify people who promote or glorify political violence.
The Kirk-defending website includes online comments from Erin Gudge (pictured at left), an Oregon school board member for the Philomath School District. She wrote she will not mourn someone "who spewed hatred" for mothers whose children died in school shootings, a likely reference to Kirk's defense of the Second Amendment.
After online backlash, a lengthy follow-up post from Gudge is a mixture of apologizing and also insisting she was not "rejoicing" in Kirk's death.
"That interpretation is painful to hear," Gudge wrote, even though she states twice she did not mourn Kirk's death.
In an X post about the hate directed at Kirk, Jason Howerton writes he was not surprised at the “horrific things” but he was surprised that educated professionals, such as teachers and physicians, are “openly celebrating the death of a good man.”
One of those examples is Anna Kenney, an Emory University pediatrics associate professor. Citing claims Kirk has said gay people deserve to die, and black women aren’t smart, she wrote “good riddance” about his death and called him “a disgusting individual.”
One inevitable problem with the fast-moving counter-attack online is accuracy. That might have been exposed in a post by Scott Presler, the GOP activist known for registering new voters, who identified the “reap what you sow” comment from Reid Friedson, the Cornell University professor.
Reacting to Pressler’s post, however, Cornell commented in the post that Friedson is not employed at the university and states he has not been employed there since the 2017-2018 school year.
An online search for Cornell faculty by AFN did not find him listed there.
FIRE warns about 'Cancel Culture'
For this story AFN reached out to FIRE, the free speech advocacy group, for a comment about the online fight between Kirk’s haters and defenders.
“This cycle repeats itself after every tragedy, and it's just Cancel Culture with extra steps,” Adam Goldstein, FIRE vice president, stated.
“Trying to get people fired might feel good in the moment, but it undermines American values,” he stated. “We need to be willing to hear each other and give each other grace in our worst moments."
Goldstein’s plea to be more civil is being drowned out by the Right, however, that is following another theme: Kirk’s assassination woke up the Right to the Left’s demonic hatred of anyone with an opposing view.
“This is how they talk to each other. Anyone with a Democrat in their life knows this,” TV host Jesse Kelly wrote. “They laugh when you get hurt, and they want more of it.”
