Inquest

And the death of lies about Charlie Kirk

Tyler Robinson in yesterday’s hearing. Screenshot

Majorities of Americans on both sides of the political aisle agree that “extreme political rhetoric used by some in the media and by political leaders was an important contributor” to Tyler Robinson’s rage against Charlie Kirk. But Robinson is not a “disturbed person”, as public opinion polling seemed to show in November. He is a man who loved a man who was medicalizing to ‘become’ a woman. Tyler Robinson seems to have preferred this homophobic transgressive romantic formula, gynandromorphophilia, or GAMP, the way other young, white men prefer blondes or redheads. Robinson waited until Kirk said the word “transgender” before pulling the trigger. He loved his boyfriend because she was a ‘girlfriend’. He loved the ‘girlfriend’ so much that he killed for ‘her’.

It is a tale as old as time, now told about an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying the sexual. Irrational obsession with a transgender partner is hardly an inherently leftist mode of ideology. Never an intellectual or academic, Robinson was driven by ideation. His rejection of conservative family politics probably helped to shape, even sanctify his sexuality, yet this is not a political indoctrination. Tyler Robinson never had to read Judith Butler or the continental school of philosophy to become a constructivist before he loved someone so much he would kill. Instead, he developed a ladyboy fetish. It is hard to enjoy a fetish when Charlie Kirk will not stop debating whether that fetish is really a civil right, or not. This, and not some political program, is why Robinson felt that Kirk ought to die.

Nevertheless, champions of the political program that includes GAMPs like Robinson, and ‘validates’ their ladyboyfriends as ‘women’, did celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk. As with Robinson, they excuse the murder of a man in the presence of his wife and small children for the crime of debating transgenderism because that is “hate”. This word, “hate”, justifies every ego-dystonic display of leftist arousal at the permanent silencing of debate. “Hate” is defined as whatever the person saying “hate” hates to hear spoken in debate. Cancel culture celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk and wrecked itself in the backlash. Free speech was supposed to come without consequences, they thought, because they were on the right side of history, and that makes it okay to be an asshole.

Yesterday, the trial of Tyler Robinson began the slow, grinding-out of truth from the chaff of lies about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Paranoid conspiracy-mongering on the right has threatened the foundations of conservative action, Candace Owens being the most notorious figure to do so. She is ‘just asking questions’, but they are stupid questions that will not survive the Robinson trial. The verdict is a foregone conclusion. The trial is in reality an inquest into the motive of the killer and the exact timeline of his actions. Unlike a podcast, there will be witnesses on the record and actual crime scene evidence will be presented. The purpose of the trial is to convict the lies about the death of Charlie Kirk and hang them until they are dead.

Chad Grunander in the hearing. Screenshot

District Court Judge Tony Graf heard this very point argued in the discussion of Erika Kirk’s motion for recognition as the victim’s representative: Charlie Kirk was clearly assassinated, a crime. The court only has to determine whether Robinson is guilty of pulling the trigger. As prosecutor Chad Grunander noted during his arguments, More than three thousand potential “lay witnesses” of the assassination might be influenced by media coverage, but this is no reason to stop the trial, or stop the press from reporting on it.

Defense counsel ended yesterday’s proceedings with a complaint that they have not received every last bit of the evidence available to the prosecution, yet. Given how much forensic evidence and witness testimony was gathered in the course of the investigation, that is not surprising. Moreover, it was only one moment in a hearing that lasted well over an hour, in which the biggest issues to be resolved were about media access. Judge Graf heard arguments about streaming coverage and moved the AP video camera across the courtroom afterwards. Robinson’s attorneys were upset that a wide angle shot at the beginning of the hearing had captured their client in shackles, potentially tainting the jury pool.

More than justice is at stake, here. Robinson clearly wants his image curated. “Defense attorney Kathy Nester has raised concerns that digitally altered versions of Robinson’s initial court photo have spread widely, creating misinformation”, Politico notes. “Some altered images show Robinson crying or having an outburst in court, which did not happen.” Random people on the internet making AI memes could potentially taint the potential lay witness, goes the argument, but it sounds like the client yearning to be portrayed as a brave freedom fighter.

Politico talked to two different hearing attendees. The first is evidently a skeptic from the Candace Owens school, which is to say a conservative with questions. Candace is only asking questions, after all, and he just wants answers to them. The second was a ‘potential lay witness’ who has his own questions.

Zack Reese, a Utah Valley University student and “big Charlie Kirk fan,” said he had skepticism about Robinson’s arrest and was seeking answers. Reese has family in southwestern Utah, where the Robinsons are from, and said he believes they’re a good family.

Brigham Young University student William Brown, who said he was about 10 feet from Kirk when he was shot, said he felt overwhelmed seeing Robinson walk into the courtroom.

“I witnessed a huge event, and my brain is still trying to make sense of it,” Brown said. “I feel like being here helps it feel more real than surreal.”

Two lost young men looking for answers. While they did not find any answers in this particular hearing, the process of justice was grinding lies to meal before them, slowly. Many more turns of the wheel are needed before the truth becomes a fine powder that can be made into food for thought. Judge Graf was soft-spoken, civil, complimentary, gracious — the opposite of a podcaster, really.

Here is the entire hearing, for those who care to watch. I am not giving a quiz later. But I remember watching videos of Charlie Kirk debating with students after his murder and being impressed with how not-hateful he was, how incredibly kind he was, even though he was thrilled to explain how the college kids were wrong about everything they thought they knew. Everyone who cheered his death, who still does, because they think “hate” is a capital crime, admits by doing so that they hated what Kirk said, and stood for. They hated him, and so they call his words “hate”. So does Tyler Robinson. I am putting the video here so that anyone who wants to argue with me about this hearing, later, can point to the exact point the judge became white supremacy, or cisheteropatriarchy, or whatever. They can be specific, or shut up.

The slow, fine grind of justice will get to the evidence that matters most for the people who Just Have Questions. Why did the bullet stop inside Kirk’s body? The answer will not be that he was “a man of steel” as the surgeon who examined Kirk suggested, saying it was a “miracle” the bullet did not injure anyone behind him. The answer will not be that Kirk was killed by a complex web of conspiracy and a second shooter as Candace Owens has risibly suggested. No, the factual answer will be that Tyler Robinson chose mushrooming and/or low-grain ammunition that would stop inside Kirk’s body. He was probably even conscious of bystanders, since his act was rational, being fully rationalized. He had a plan. The court will go over every detail of it.

The dissonance between Tyler Robinson, the nice, clean-shaven young man in the curated courtroom image, versus Tyler Robinson, the love-sick paraphilic young murderer, will resolve in the guilty verdict to come. What matters most, what made yesterday’s hearing important, is how that verdict gets handed down, at the end. It matters that everyone watching at the end feels the trial judge was scrupulous, the lawyers competent and engaged, the press given enough access to be sure there were no shenanigans.

Now, I am not saying that Candace Owens will ever stop spreading ridiculous fairy tales about the death of Charlie Kirk because of this trial. Rather, a full and complete accounting of the crime, of every step that Robinson took, with the testimony of his father, who turned him in, will make conspiracy-mongering much harder to monetize. Erika Kirk has displayed incredible patience, so now, no one will blame her for whatever she does to defend her fallen husband’s reputation. If she sues Owens for a billion dollars, there will be few objections, now. “Stop. That’s it. That’s all I have to say. Stop”, she said in her first public remarks on the matter this week. Erika has been collecting receipts. Owens, who has claimed to know Charlie’s heart better than his wife, has been collecting cash on her husband’s name. Indeed, she has done very, very well.

By coincidence, during September — the same month in which Charlie Kirk was assassinated — YouTube changed their algorithm to favor TikTok-style ‘shorts’. Two channels I follow, The Quartering (Jeremy Hambly) and Clownfish TV (Thom Pratt aka Kneon) immediately called foul as their revenue was affected. Not only was everyone being replaced with AI slop, there are epochal changes to the entertainment industry forcing the migration of old media to YouTube, so that longtime creators will be competing with major media companies. Not coincidentally, more people watch YouTube on their TV screens than their smart phone, tablet, or computer screens, now. As the pseudonymous entertainment industry reporter WDWPro explained recently in this video, the “flavor change” of Candace Owens’s channel has defied this algorithmic trend. In fact, it “may have tripled her views”, he says.

Podcaster Tim Pool uses the term “social engineering” for what Candace Owens is doing, here, but in fact her behavior is a result of audience capture. She is at core an attention farmer. On social media, ‘engagement farming’ determines the big winners. Every platform has its own rules, its own algorithms. Treat the YouTube algorithm as a game, and learn to win the game for cash, and you too can be an engagement farmer in the land of the free, where Americans are allowed to game algorithms for profit. Fundamentally, it is all about getting and keeping attention. Owens has attracted an audience, and wants to keep it. She will do anything to keep it.

Owens makes outrageous claims. Over time, under pressure, she produces new, even more sensational claims to keep her audience captured. For example, Owens reported as fact that Brigitte Macron, first lady of France, is a man. Macron subsequently filed suit for defamation in Delaware. During September, her lawyer told the court his client would submit medical evidence of her biological sex. Hoping to maintain her algorithmic performance, during November, Owens accused the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN, for Groupe d’intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale) of taking payment from the Macrons for her assassination. This sort of drama escalation is typical of the social media personality who has been captured by their audience.

Schmuck fight, everyone! Schmucks fighting!

Pressed for evidence of her supposed intimacy with Charlie Kirk’s ‘real’ thoughts on Israel, Owens finally produced screenshots of irrelevant text messages that are probably fake. Because she is a rational actor, Owens will avoid every reckoning as long as possible to maximize her profits. The trial of Tyler Robinson meanwhile grinds on, however slowly, in exceedingly fine detail. Officially, it is the adjudication of an alleged assassin. In reality, it is the inquest into the lies about the assassin of Charlie Kirk. Candace Owens has profited on that “flavor change”, but there will be a limit to the suspension of the audience’s disbelief — as well as the patience of Erika Kirk. Both things will give out in due time, perhaps even at the same time.