Tom Williams via Getty Images

History has shown that attempts to divide the country have often resulted in violence.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has asked the CEOs of Discord, Twitch, Valve and Reddit to testify at a hearing on online radicalization. The hearing will be held on October 8, 2025, and is in direct response to the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk, an event some have tried to connect to the online communities the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, participated in.

“Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence,” Comer shared in the press release announcing the hearing. “To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes.”

Following Kirk’s death, law enforcement, regulators and the press have exerted significant effort to both understand Robinson’s actions and structure them into a coherent narrative. The fact that he seemingly engraved the bullets he used with references to furry memes and the game Helldivers implies he may have been immersed in online culture, and could have been influenced by who he interacted with there. But a recent report on his Discord chats suggests his motivations are hard to pin down, even for his friends.

In general, online platforms don’t escape scrutiny after tragic events, so these sorts of hearings are to be expected. Twitch and Discord were both investigated by the New York and New Jersey Attorney Generals following a 2022 shooting in Buffalo, New York, for example. Given the reaction to Kirk’s death, though, it remains to be seen how much the House Oversight Committee actually wants answers from online platforms, and how much it wants to lay the blame at their feet.

Before he died on Sept. 4 at the age of 99, psychologist Robert Jay Lifton left us with stark warnings about President Donald Trump and the American right. One of the country’s leading experts on how societies succumb to authoritarianism and collective cruelty, Lifton’s theory of “totalism” — an extreme, absolute devotion to a particular group or ideology — is essential for making sense of our present moment.

Writing about Lifton’s passing, New York Times columnist M. Gessen noted his observation that totalism “propels participants toward acting in the name of their ideology.” Lifton saw Trumpism, Gessen wrote, as “a totalist movement that promised to envelop its participants in a secure, closed universe of lies.”

But the psychologist knew that totalism encompasses more than authoritarian tendencies. It can help to explain social inequality, the culture of cruelty and how individuals treat one another in a society.

Trump and the larger right-wing’s revolutionary project has been called “Robin Hood in reverse,” where public money and resources are taken from the poor and vulnerable and given to the rich and powerful through legislation, such as the “Big Vile Bill,” and other policies that will make poverty, homelessness, hunger and other forms of social inequality worse.

According to a new poll released by the University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Americans are sharply split along partisan lines over what causes poverty and homelessness — and what responsibility, if any, the federal government bears in addressing them. “Republicans are more likely than Democrats to cite personal choices as major factors for both poverty (77% vs. 49%) and homelessness (77% vs. 51%),” the survey found. “In contrast, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to cite lack of government support as major factors for both poverty (61% vs. 21%) and homelessness (63% vs. 26%).”

This divide is stark, and it backs up a recent observation by New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie that the American right sees the market as the ultimate decider of survival. “The maintenance of a particular moral order in which survival — to say nothing of comfort — is earned in the market,” he wrote. “Those who can’t swim, or at least float, will sink.”

Since Trump’s return to power, this right-wing moral economy has become even more hard-hearted. Today’s conservatives and members of the right increasingly view human empathy as a weakness, something wholly alien. This attitude was reflected in Fox News host Brian Kilmeade’s suggestion on the Sept. 10 episode of “Fox & Friends” that mentally ill homeless people should be executed. After facing widespread condemnation, he apologized on Sunday for what he called his “extremely callous remarks.”

Decades of social science research shows that poverty — especially intergenerational poverty — is driven largely by structural and institutional forces beyond an individual’s control. A person’s family wealth, their access to education and even the zip code they’re born into shapes their chances at economic mobility. The myth of individualism and “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps” rarely stands a chance against those realities.

But there’s another issue at play that’s not addressed in the survey, at least not in the form of a question: Whether the American people are capable of connecting poverty, inequality and homelessness to the collapse of democracy and civil society under Trumpism. Sadly, the aggregate findings from the poll — and decades of other research — suggest the answer is no.

Americans have historically been hyperfocused on individualism, which can make community-oriented thinking difficult. Europeans, by comparison, are better able to connect their individual troubles to larger systems of power and institutions. 

For example, while 76% of those surveyed — including 80% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans — believe the federal government should be responsible for addressing poverty, 6 in ten cite personal choice as why people remain in poverty or are homeless. 

Summarizing the findings of the new poll, Bruce D. Meyer, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School and one of the lead researchers on the project, told the Associated Press that “people are a little conflicted…[about] the complexity of what leads people to get in trouble in terms of their economic circumstances. And I think a lot of people are generous at heart and will help people out and think the government should as well, even when individuals aren’t blameless.”

This conflict is shown in other research, including a recent Pew poll that found approximately half (51%) of American adults want a bigger government that provides more services. But 47% desire a smaller government that does less. There are huge partisan divides: 75% of Republicans want a smaller government and 24% want a bigger government. Democrats want the opposite: 79% support a bigger government, and 20% want a smaller government.

Today’s Republicans are driven by a small government ethos. President Ronald Reagan famously articulated this vision: “I think you all know that I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

But as Trump expands his power and control over all areas of American life, those same so-called principled conservatives who spent decades howling about “states’ rights” and “big government” have fallen deafeningly silent. When Democrats like Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in office, these people waved their pocket Constitutions and wrapped themselves in the American flag as “patriots” and “defenders of individual rights and liberties.” Now, their values have been revealed as a sham — and about obtaining power to impose their will on other people.

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Research shows that today’s Republicans — especially the white working-class people who form the base of Trump’s MAGA movement — hold some alarming ideas when it comes to the social safety net.

They support government assistance primarily for white people like themselves, whom they deem deserving and to be “real Americans.” When they use programs like welfare or food stamps, they see it as temporary and justified. But when Black and brown people — especially women — use the same programs, they are labeled lazy, undeserving takers or “welfare queens.” They are ready, if not eager, to elect leaders who are willing to “break the rules” to “get things done.” Federal power, they believe, should be wielded to punish those they dislike.

Undergirding these notions, as well as Trump’s appeal to the white working-class, is how that group “resents professionals but admires the rich,” as Joanne C. Williams pointed out in a much-cited 2016 article published in the Harvard Business Review: “The dream is not to become upper-middle-class, with its different food, family, and friendship patterns; the dream is to live in your own class milieu, where you feel comfortable — just with more money.” 

While noting that “[p]rogressives have lavished attention on the poor for over a century,” Williams argued that the government’s focus on means-tested programs to alleviate poverty have excluded the middle class and “are a recipe for class conflict.”

But a society’s values are, in large part, reflected by how it treats its most vulnerable members — and America in the 21st century is growing increasingly Dickensian. In many cities today, it is a crime for the homeless or poor to use public spaces. Recently, Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to use its resources to forcibly place homeless people in camps, institutions or otherwise remove them from society. Under Trumpism, America’s prisons and mental health facilities are in danger of becoming de facto poorhouses. “Ugly laws” could soon follow. 

As American society continues to fracture, the public and their leaders must broaden their understanding of how poverty and other forms of social inequality are directly linked to structural — and political — violence.

“[W]hen a pregnant woman dies of sepsis in a hospital that could have helped her but is legally prevented from doing so, that’s political violence,” author Jessica Valenti recently wrote. “It’s political violence when a child is shot in their classroom because lawmakers refuse to take action on guns. An abortion provider being assassinated after years of conservatives calling them ‘baby-killers’ is political violence, as is the death of a person who had their medical claim denied by companies more interested in their bottom line than people’s lives.”

She concluded, “We live with this kind of violence, we experience it, every single day. We just don’t call it ‘political.’ To conservatives, it’s not even violence.”

Healthy democracies have a strong social safety net that helps to prevent and alleviate poverty and other forms of social inequality. Autocrats, authoritarians and demagogues, though, have little — if any — sense of obligation to the public good. They view power as a way of accumulating more wealth and resources for themselves and for their loyalists. These leaders have an interest in keeping their constituents vulnerable. Economic insecurity breeds malleability, and an increased willingness to seek out the protection of a strongman. Inequality, they know, is a dagger to the heart of democracy — and it’s one they enthusiastically wield.

“You could be next,” influencer and unofficial Trump adviser Laura Loomer posted on X. “The Left are terrorists.”

Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who popularized the demonization of critical race theory, suggested in a post on X that the “radical left” was responsible for the shooting, and urged the US government “to infiltrate, disrupt, arrest, and incarcerate all of those who are responsible for this chaos.”

Republican representative Derrick Van Orden from Wisconsin also blamed the shooting on “leftwing political violence” and warned on X that “Whoever does not condemn this is part of the problem. The gloves are off.”

On the floor of the House, after Democrats and Republicans observed a “moment of prayer,” led by House speaker Mike Johnson, for Charlie Kirk and his family, representative Lauren Boebert called for a spoken prayer. Some Democrats said no, and referenced the school shooting in Colorado that also occurred Wednesday. Shouting broke out, and Republican representative Anna Paulina Luna yelled across the aisle, “Y’all caused this.” One Democrat, according to The New York Times, responded, “Pass some gun laws!”

On X, Luna continued to blame the left: “EVERY DAMN ONE OF YOU WHO CALLED US FASCISTS DID THIS. You were too busy doping up kids, cutting off their genitals, inciting racial violence by supporting orgs that exploit minorities, protecting criminals, and stirring hate. YOU ARE THE HATE you claim to fight. Your words caused this. Your hate caused this.” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also posted about Kirk’s death, calling on people to “rise up and end this.”

Blake Masters, a twice-failed US congressional candidate once backed by Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel and endorsed by Trump, called for RICO investigations into non-governmental organizations as a result of the shooting.

“Left-wing violence is out of control, and it’s not random,” Masters posted on X. “Either we destroy the NGO/donor patronage network that enables and foments it, or it will destroy us.”

Masters was quoting a post from right-wing podcaster and conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich, who blamed the shooting on the left. “Congressional hearings now,” Cernovich posted on X. “Every billionaire funding far left wing extremism. Soros, Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman. Massive RICO investigations now.”

Chaya Raichik, who operates the anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok, simply wrote: “THIS IS WAR.”

On fringe platforms like Trump’s own Truth Social and The Donald, the rabidly pro-Trump message board that was responsible for some of the planning of the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, numerous users echoed Jones’ comments about war.

“War is coming,” one user of The Donald wrote on a thread dedicated to Kirk’s shooting. “War is here,” another responded.

Another user of The Donald wrote in the same thread: “Civil War is coming … this will give the left the blowback they’ve been begging white people for so they can play the victim and justify white genocide.”

The co-founder and CEO of the youth organization Turning Point USA, the 31-year-old Kirk is the latest victim in a spasm of political violence across the United States.

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans “The American Comeback” and “Prove Me Wrong.” A single shot rings out and Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before people start to run away. The AP was able to confirm the videos were taken at Sorensen Center courtyard on the Utah Valley University campus.

“We are confirming that he was shot and we are praying for Charlie,” said Aubrey Laitsch, public relations manager for Turning Point USA.

A person who was taken into custody at Utah Valley University was not the suspect, according to a person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly. It was not clear if authorities were still searching the campus for a suspect.

Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political organization. Immediately before the shooting, Kirk was taking questions for an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” an audience members asked. Kirk responded: “Too many.”

The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked.

Then a single shot rang out.

The event had been met with divided opinions on campus. An online petition calling for university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures. The university issued a statement last week citing First Amendment rights and affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.”

Last week, Kirk posted on X images of news clips showing his visit to Utah colleges was sparking controversy. He wrote, “What’s going on in Utah?”

Officials react

Trump and a host of Republican and Democratic elected officials decried the shooting and offered prayers for Kirk on social media.

“We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom. GOD BLESS HIM!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The shooting comes amid a spike in political violence in the United States across all parts of the ideological spectrum. The attacks include the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband at their house in June, the firebombing of a Colorado parade to demand Hamas release hostages, and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvania’s governor, who is Jewish, in April. The most notorious of these events is the shooting of Trump during a campaign rally last year.

Former Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who was at the event, said in an interview on Fox News Channel that he heard one shot and saw Kirk go back.

“It seemed like it was a close shot,” Chaffetz said, who seemed shaken as he spoke.

He said there was a light police presence at the event and Kirk had some security but not enough.

“Utah is one of the safest places on the planet,” he said. “And so we just don’t have these types of things.”

Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago in 2012 by Kirk, then 18, and William Montgomery, a tea party activist, to proselytize on college campuses for low taxes and limited government. It was not an immediate success.

But Kirk’s zeal for confronting liberals in academia eventually won over an influential set of conservative financiers.

Despite early misgivings, Turning Point enthusiastically backed Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016. Kirk served as a personal aide to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, during the general election campaign.

Soon, Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into the culture wars and heaped praise on the then-president. Trump and his son were equally effusive and often spoke at Turning Point conferences.

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Richer and Sherman reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Michael Biesecker and Brian Slodysko in Washington contributed to this report.

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A man named Vance Boelter allegedly shot and killed Melissa Hortman, a Democratic Minnesota state representative, and her husband Mark Hortman at their home at some point early Saturday morning while, according to law enforcement, impersonating a police officer. He also allegedly shot state senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman at their home. They are alive, but remain in critical condition.

Law enforcement has said they found a manifesto and hit list in the alleged suspect’s car, which included politicians, abortion providers, and pro-abortion rights advocates. There were also allegedly fliers in his car for the “No Kings” protest against President Donald Trump, which took place in cities across the US on Saturday.

The 57-year-old, who has been identified as the suspected shooter by law enforcement, runs an armed security service with his wife, and has been affiliated with at least one evangelical organization, a ministry he has also run with his wife, according to a tax filing reviewed by WIRED. (His wife could not be immediately reached for comment.) According to public records and archived websites reviewed by WIRED, the suspect served for a time as the president of Revoformation Ministries. A version of the ministry’s website captured in 2011 carries a biography in which he is said to have been ordained in 1993.

According to an archived website for the ministry reviewed by WIRED, the suspected shooter’s missionary work took him to Gaza and the West Bank during the Second Intifada, where, the website states, he “sought out militant Islamists in order to share the gospel and tell them that violence wasn’t the answer.”

A later version of the site was designed, according to an archived copy, by Israeli web design firm J-Town. Charlie Kalech, CEO of J-Town, tells WIRED that the alleged suspect was, in his recollection, “clearly religious and evangelistic. He had lots of ideas to make the world a better place.” The suspect, whom Kalech said was “nothing but nice to me,” commissioned J-Town, Kalech recalled, because they’re Jerusalem-based, and he said he wanted to support Israel.

Over the previous several years, according to LinkedIn posts, he was also the CEO of Red Lion Group, which according to an archived copy of its website had aspirations in the oil refining, logging, and glass production sectors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In a 2023 sermon reviewed by WIRED and delivered by the alleged shooter in Matadi, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is on the border with Angola, he preached against abortion and called for different Christian churches to become “one.”

“They don’t know abortion is wrong, many churches,” he said. “They don’t have the gifts flowing. God gives the body gifts. To keep balance. Because when the body starts moving in the wrong direction, when they’re one, and accepting the gifts, God will raise an apostle or prophet to correct their course.”

”God is going to raise up apostles and prophets in America,” he added, “to correct His church.”