One of Utah's and MAGA's Own

Before the arrest of Tyler Robinson, the Felon and much of media in the right wing echo chamber were hyperventilating and blaming the assassination of right wing provocateur Charlie Kirk - who made a fortune spreading divisive statements about gays, blacks, immigrants, and those he labeled as "woke" or liberals -  on the "radical left", transgender individuals Democrats and others.  All, of course with no evidence or proof of any kind to back up their incendiary claims.  With Robinson's arrest, some on the right have silent while others like the Felon's nasty son, continued the lies or tried to claim the shooter had been "radicalized" by attending college, never mind that he had attended only one college semester and was enrolled in a trade school for electricians.  A few things do appear clear at this point: Robinson comes from a MAGA family of Republicans and his parents appear to be what many would consider gun nuts who introduced their children to guns at a young age (reportedly, his mother has now deleted many Facebook photos of her children with guns).  Also, there seem to be growing suggestions that Robinson may have disliked Kirk because he was not extreme enough and might have been a follower of white nationalist Nick Fuentes, a far-right political pundit, activist, and live streamer who promotes white supremacist, misogynistic, and antisemitic views. As more information comes out, the Felon and MAGA world may continue to grasp at straws to support their unsupported claims.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at where we find ourselves at the moment:

Before the [Felon] president of the United States announced on this morning’s broadcast of Fox & Friends that the man who’d assassinated Charlie Kirk was finally in custody—“I think, with a high degree of certainty, we have him”—he had already told the American people who was to blame.

Within hours of Kirk’s killing, when law enforcement had not released so much as a photograph of the suspected shooter, Donald Trump addressed the nation, accusing the “radical left.” His assertion fanned breathless speculation on social media that the shooter was some kind of operative, an agent of organized political violence, or maybe even a point man in an elaborate conspiracy involving antifa, Israeli intelligence, or operatives working for Kirk’s rivals in the MAGA sphere. . . . . inaccurate press reporting, attributed to federal law-enforcement officials, suggested that the shooter had carved messages espousing “transgender” ideology onto a bullet casing.

Not many of the people speculating the loudest online predicted that the killer was a young man from a deeply pro-Trump corner of Utah, raised by registered Republicans. But that’s the picture of 22-year-old Tyler Robinson that began to emerge today, when Utah Governor Spencer Cox announced that Robinson was in custody and would be charged.

“I was praying that, if this had to happen here, that it wouldn’t be one of us,” Cox said of his fellow Utahns. The governor, who has made it his political mission to lower the rhetorical temperature in his state and the country, seemed at times to be talking directly to the president and to those of Kirk’s supporters who have portrayed his assassination as the first shot in a war with the left.

Robinson’s arrest prompted Trump’s opponents to excoriate the president and others for rushing to judgment. Former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger, an ardent Never Trumper, asked his followers on X to send him any instances of politicians or other leaders “blaming the left, or declaring some war, or anything before we knew who the shooter was.” Political point-scoring is inevitable and, for some, deeply satisfying. But the truth is, much remains unknown and unclear about why Robinson, a young man with no history of criminal activity, allegedly sought out Kirk and killed him on Wednesday with a long-range-rifle shot to the neck.

Even in reliably red Utah, support for Trump and his allies is hardly universal. The state’s Republican voters tend to prefer the gentler political stylings of their former senator Mitt Romney or the current governor, whose quixotic effort to find political common ground has often put him on a collision course with the president. Washington County, where Robinson and his family live, is a fast-growing area where unreserved support for Trump is expressed in MAGA flags that fly alongside the Stars and Stripes.

Authorities haven’t said what they think compelled Robinson to pick up a rifle and drive more than 250 miles to Kirk’s event. Robinson’s parents may eventually provide more answers. . . . . Federal investigators will surely scour Robinson’s communications and online presence looking for explanations. Investigators spoke with Robinson’s roommate, who showed them messages Robinson had allegedly sent about retrieving a rifle from a “drop point” and “leaving the rifle in a bush,” Cox said. Investigators later found a rifle in the woods near the crime scene wrapped in a towel, as Robinson had said it would be in his messages to his roommate.

Robinson also mentioned in his messages that he had engraved bullet casings, Cox said. One was scrawled with the words Hey fascist! Catch! Another was marked with a series of arrows—one pointing up, another to the right, and then three pointing down, an image that some have taken to refer to a gaming maneuver that summons a powerful weapon in the hugely popular Helldivers 2, an online shooter game.

Robinson’s political views will probably become clearer with time. But in the hours after he was first identified, in the absence of evidence that he was quite the exemplar of the radical left that Trump had predicted, the [Felon] president seemed more interested in changing the subject.

On the White House lawn this afternoon, reporters asked the president how he was holding up after the death of his close friend. “I think very good,” he said. “And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks? They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.” He took no further questions.