A bullet casing recovered from the rifle allegedly used by the killer of conservative activist and influencer Charlie Kirk had an inscription carved into it that read, “Hey fascist! Catch!”
A motive for the shooting remains unclear. Officials said recovered bullets—one fired and others still in the gun—had several engravings, some of them apparent references to internet memes and videogames, and their meaning is difficult to interpret. But there is little question that claims of fascism have risen during the Trump era as the nation’s political rhetoric has become more combative and at times dehumanizing.
“‘Fascist’ has become a go-to insult for political opponents perceived as authoritarian, intolerant, or really just simply disagreeable,” said Sean Westwood, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College. “By diluting the term, we may very well be unable to recognize and respond to a genuine threat for when it happens.”
Some Democrats have compared Trump to the world’s most infamous fascists, including Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Ahead of last year’s election, both then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris said they thought Trump was a fascist. On Tuesday, antiwar protesters confronted Trump at a restaurant and called him the “Hitler of our time.”
Trump also used the label to describe Harris on the campaign trail. “We have a fascist person running who’s incompetent,” he said last August. “She’s a Marxist, communist, fascist, socialist,” Trump said at a rally in September.
Erica Frantz, associate professor of political science at Michigan State University, said the term is attractive because it “can be kind of molded to suit the visions of different sides.”
Both parties also see the other as responsible for letting such language take root.
Facing calls to tone down their rhetoric following Kirk’s death, Democrats countered last week that Trump’s language is often dehumanizing and prone to promoting violence. Mike Nellis, a party strategist, said he “rejected the premise of the question” when asked whether Democrats should avoid comparisons to fascism in the wake of Kirk’s killing.
“The Republican Party doesn’t get to lecture anybody on language when the president of the United States calls his political opponents ‘vermin,’” he said. “If he wants to tone down the language, he can.”
Nellis pointed to the killing in June of state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat and former Minnesota House speaker, and her husband by a man posing as a police officer. “It is wrong for Republicans to pretend that this is only happening to them,” he said.
Authorities are still investigating the motive in those killings.
Jewish groups condemned Sen. Bernie Moreno (R., Ohio) in April after he called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) “Führer Schumer.” House Democrats proposed censuring Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) in 2023 over a series of controversial statements, including a social-media post that read: “Joe Biden is Hitler. #NaziJoe has to go.”
While there were condemnations of the killing and calls from both Republicans and Democrats immediately afterward to cool the nation’s political rhetoric, there are signs the latter sentiment is already fading away.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) on Friday reposted a video of an influencer calling Kirk a “reprehensible human being” and criticizing the right’s reaction to his death.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R., Minn.) condemned Omar, writing: “You used your platform to share a disgusting video—a video full of lies that tries to justify the actions of the deranged coward who murdered Charlie Kirk.”
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, suggested Friday on Fox News that it is the Democrats who are acting like fascists and that his father and his party have been the targets of more political violence than their opponents. He also seemed to reference Robinson, who is registered in Utah as a nonpartisan voter but hasn’t voted in recent elections.
“You can’t call someone who you disagree with, or simply can’t win an argument with, a Nazi, a fascist, a dictator, a greatest threat to democracy and the history of civilization, and then pretend you had nothing to do with it when the more radical wing—and there does not seem to be all that much difference to me these days—takes up arms and tries to kill those they disagree with,” he said.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Robinson “does come from a conservative family. But his ideology was very different than his family.”
So far this year, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has been one of the highest-profile Democrats to repeatedly present Trump as a fascist, including as the two have exchanged criticism about the president’s threats of sending the National Guard to Chicago to help reduce crime. Pritzker has likened Trump’s actions to when the Nazis “tore down a constitutional republic” in the 1930s.
The Jewish governor’s family history includes fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe, so Pritzker is deeply familiar with that era and was the driving financial force behind building the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.
After Kirk’s death, Pritzker joined calls for less heated rhetoric and condemned the shooting. On Friday, he praised Utah’s Gov. Cox for “calling for moral clarity at a time of uncertainty” in his appeal for an offramp on political violence.
A Pritzker aide, however, said the governor would continue to use words such as fascist when he thinks appropriate, as well as other words that were reportedly etched into the bullets recovered by authorities in Utah.
“The governor appreciates the significance and meaning of the words he uses and believes the president should use his words more carefully,” said Matt Hill, a Pritzker spokesperson.
Write to John McCormick at [email protected] and Jasmine Li at [email protected]
