SerpApi.Org
The legal prosecution against Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, is underway. Earlier this month, a judge held a preliminary hearing to determine whether prosecutors had enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial. (It’s expected that the case will.) When Kirk was fatally shot in September, conservatives predicted his death would be a catalyst for a revival—a moment of remaking America, and one heavily infused with conservative Christian values. But no such revival was forthcoming: The conservative movement fragmented after Kirk’s death, divided by a host of wild conspiracy theories over the “real story” behind the killing.
If MAGA had any hope of uniting around Robinson’s prosecution, it evaporated almost instantly. Instead, the pretrial this month resurfaced the schisms. While the legal proceedings played out, conservative content creators rushed to social media to accuse each other of idiocy, bigotry, plotting, and evil.
Candace Owens, the far-right personality who has turned fully against her former colleagues at Turning Point USA—the group Kirk led before his death—and against President Donald Trump, leads the faction that opposes the official narrative about Kirk’s killing. Owens and her allies argue that Kirk was not killed by a lone 23-year-old, instead claiming, dubiously, that evidence points to a broader conspiracy. She tends to speculate that Israel was behind the killing and that other Turning Point figures, including Kirk’s widow, Erika, participated in the cover-up. Owens’ arguments are often nonsensical, but because she commands an audience of more than 6 million YouTube subscribers, they have enough power to force the rest of the commentary class to rebut them.
Fox News, for example, ran segments addressing the conspiracy theories. The Daily Wire published a rebuttal to one particular argument about the bullet’s trajectory. The National Review’s editorial board published a summary of the “damning case” against Robinson. Countless other MAGA influencers published scornful responses on social media. Prominent MAGA influencers such as the conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec are calling for Robinson to receive the death penalty.
But the MAGA movement should know by now that these conspiracy theories were inevitable. For one, the Kirk killing was destined to become tied up with the internet’s passion for true crime. On YouTube, the videos about Kirk aren’t only by journalists and political actors. Some are by amateur forensic analysts and would-be internet sleuths with podcast names like The Murder Men that dissect the killing as if it’s a 1980s cold case.
More importantly, however, the MAGA influencers are all well aware of the financial incentives behind the conversation. Owens, who has been casting about for conspiracy theories related to Kirk’s death since the day it happened, had long ago given creators some sort of cover for mining the “controversy” for content. Even though there is no evidence of anyone beyond Tyler Robinson being involved in the killing, the very existence of a challenge to the official narrative means social media creators can invoke a “debate” and rehash the conspiracy-theory arguments for a higher view count. Shawn Ryan, whose YouTube show has 5.7 million subscribers, interviewed Owens, as a neutral party, to simply hear her out. Smaller accounts regurgitated Owens’ claims in their own videos, with no apparent value added.
This has proven a rich vein for smaller accounts. A content creator named Baron Coleman received 503,000 views on a single stream about “suspicious” issues with the killing—far more views than he has followers. Two “independent” podcasters who embraced the conspiracy theories posted photos of themselves camping out in order to secure their spot in line for the hearing; their “coverage” was amplified heavily online.
But though most members of the right-wing media class have harnessed these trends for their own gain in other contexts, they’re clearly frustrated by this conspiracy theorist cohort. To them, Robinson as a lone actor is a perfectly satisfactory explanation for Kirk’s killing, as it buttresses arguments about the left’s violence. Owens’ antisemitic conspiracy theories actively make the conservative movement look worse. And so people associated with Turning Point USA and the Daily Wire continue to decry Owens and other prominent conspiracy-theory content creators as vultures. The conspiracy theorists have hit back with as much heat, accusing the “mainstream” right of being, in Tucker Carlson’s son’s words, “a seething legion of Zio-bots and other paid liars.”
In an effort to redirect the conversation, some of the right-wing accounts have tried to stir up their own outrage at the legal proceedings, complaining about the cost of Robinson’s defense to the taxpayer or about the lengthy timeline. (A case in which a state is seeking the death penalty, as the prosecution has indicated it will, usually requires more time.) But those efforts don’t seem to have caught on.
The problem is that it’s hard to argue with real conviction that a murder couldn’t be staged when your movement has so fully embraced conspiracy theories at large scale. Donald Trump Jr., who attended the hearing, prefaced a Fox News appearance arguing against the conspiracy theories by noting he was “someone who is a big skeptic on a lot of things, who’s called it out for a long period of time.” Often, commentators first clarify that they’re open to questioning narratives before arguing that this specific narrative shouldn’t be questioned.
The infighting within MAGA isn’t new. The incentives to create content about that infighting aren’t new, either. But perhaps nothing before has made it so clear as the Kirk conspiracy theories that no one has narrative control on the right. And as was indicated by this hearing—a teaser for a potentially much bigger event—it’s likely only going to get worse for the MAGA movement.
