Charlie Kirk’s assassination will mark the moment the cultural tide turned.
It was a few minutes before 3pm on September 10th, I had just joined a Zoom call with Addison Wiggin for our weekly planning session around a book project we’re working on. Moments after I joined he said “Oh my God, Charlie Kirk has just been shot – at an event in Utah”.
We talked a bit about the ramifications of what this could set off – and speculated on whether he would pull through.
Later in our call we learned he had succumbed to his wounds, and the symbology was not lost on me: it was the day before Sept 11th, one of those dates everybody remembers exactly where they were.
Because what was certain then was that the world had just changed. We were in a whole new ballgame, uncharted territory, and we’re still in it today.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination feels similar. Most people had never heard him speak—and are now forming their opinions from whatever their preferred media mouthpiece says.
Given the left-wing, illiberal stranglehold on media and culture, none of it is flattering. Conservatism is routinely conflated with the “far-right” (whatever that means these anymore) and is treated as ipso facto morally reprobate.
The Left Dances on Charlie’s Grave.
The hot-takes poured out within minutes, showing exactly where the lefties wanted to steer the narrative:
- MSNBC host Matthew Dowd initially speculated that the shot may have come from “a supporter, shooting in celebration” but later pivoted to, (paraphrasing) “Awful people, say awful things to awful consequences”.
- Rachel Gilmore (basically Canada’s Taylor Lorenz) – ruminated that Kirk being murdered by what turned out to be a radical antifa-aligned leftist might make the “the far right more extreme”.
- Democrat politicians like Mark Kelly were quick to link the shooting to escalating political rhetoric
- Illinois Governor JB Pritzker also pointed to the Jan 6 protestors – but omitted the two attempted assassinations on Trump that occurred since.
None of this should be a surprise – the West’s political and ideological left have absolutely no capacity for introspection and barely measurable levels of empathy.
What is surprising, to the left, is the knock-on consequences to their shameful behaviours from a corporate and popular spheres that have had enough with the old zeitgeist and the cultural pendulum is now swinging the other direction, with a vengeance.
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The End of “Diplomatic Immunity” for the Far-Left
Since COVID—and the old order’s failed lunge at a global social-credit technocracy —the public has steadily lost faith in industrial-era institutions: Big Government, Corporate Media, and late-stage globalism (ESG, DEI, and the rest of it).
The pendulum has swung back through the centre, hitting several key beats along the way—mostly in the form of nationalist or tribal populism.
Oct 7th
Many details of how Oct 7 happened remain baffling to me—but what mattered for the zeitgeist was the reaction by the radical left.
This marked the first real shift in popular opinion—though unevenly (in Canada, Hamas cheerleaders still shut down Toronto streets every weekend).
The backlash focused on academics and labour organizers openly celebrating the massacre, but even Meta—once quick to throttle anything smelling of “Trumpism”—turned its censorship machine the other way, deboosting Hamas content and demonetizing prominent accounts.
The Targeted Killing of Brian Thompson
The targeted murder of United Health CEO Brian Thompson in December ’24 further brought out the berserkers who were lionizing his assassin – but there began to be even more palpable pushback in the zeitgeist against these extremist positions.
Taylor Lorenz made headlines after defending and celebrating the murder, and faced severe criticism on social media platforms and some professional ostracizing, including being uninvited from industry panels and removed from contributor lists at several outlets.
Charlie Kirk and The Turning Point
In marketing there is a playbook called “grabbing the microphone” which is shorthand for: take control of the narrative while everyone is paying attention.
It’s about being the loudest, (shrillest?) voice in the room when the conversation is still fluid. Whoever “grabs the mic” seeks to frame the issue, define the terms, and sets the agenda. so that everyone else ends up reacting.
Within minutes of the murder, the usual “influencers” began clamouring for position, among them, Canada’s Rachel Gilmore, who tried to turn this into a lecture on how the far-right would react poorly to left-wing lunatics sniper-firing killshots into the heads of prominent conservatives from 200 yards…
Imagine how twisted she has to be that this is her first thought after a man was shot in the neck for expressing his views.
So much hate in her. pic.twitter.com/cVx7uRXZY0
— Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) September 10, 2025
To her chagrin, it all went pear-shaped when former Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer retweeted it with his own commentary. Gilmore proceeded to meltdown on Blue Sky – relentlessly trying to pivot the entire narrative to be about her – and ended up protecting her tweets on X.
Some of the hot-takes were truly and astonishingly horrific:
this woman is unwell pic.twitter.com/cg95iT7vOh
— Mark E. Jeftovic (@MarkJeftovic) September 13, 2025
But what came next was surprising to many:
- Aforementioned MSNBC’s Matt Dowd was fired within hours of morbidly asinine comments
- The meth head in the above video worked for BC Legal aid – she was either fired or had already been terminated (BC Legal Aid’s statement distancing themselves from her alluded that she was already a former employee, her LinkedIn still listed them as her current employer as of Sept 11).
- The University of Toronto humanities professor who posted “Shooting’s too good for so many of you fascist c**nts” has been placed on leave.
- The Toronto grade school teacher who subjected his students to videos of the shooting while drilling anti-MAGA talking points into their skulls has been removed from the classroom
- More of the same from across the USA
Suddenly “Cancel Culture” is a Bad Thing.
karma’s a bitch pic.twitter.com/p4gp9ecsoB
— Mark E. Jeftovic (@MarkJeftovic) September 12, 2025
When I released Unassailable just ahead of the massive censorship and cancel-culture wave of the COVID Pandemic (you can download a free e-book version here), I included a warning to all those who assumed that being “on the right side of history” was an immutable condition that would last in perpetuity:
Maybe today, that means “if you are a social justice minded progressive you have nothing to worry about”.
But people forget that pendulums swing, that history has certain cycles of mean reversion and then overshoot.
In the years after 9/11, I remember vividly how the neo-conservative narrative utterly dominated the mainstream media, and the word “liberal” was practically a slur. Those days are certainly gone. Do you think these days won’t be?
What happens when everybody on the “safe” side of the narrative today is no longer considered acceptable tomorrow?
We’re starting to find out. Although in this case, it could plausibly be argued that where the right side of the spectrum of political discourse was censored and canceled for perfectly defensible beliefs (i.e family, tradition, faith, conservatism, freedom of speech and association) – the left are getting theirs for basically allowing their toxicity, narcissism and sociopathy to run riot.
In the past, the left-dominated media wouldn’t even concede that “cancel culture” was a thing, or if it did exist, it was all good as long as the left was protected from it
As the left whines about getting fired for celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, just send em this little reminder. pic.twitter.com/1qa5G4ku40
— TheQuartering (@TheQuartering) September 13, 2025
Now, all of the sudden, “cancel culture” is a crime against humanity.
Teachers being fired for showing their grade-school students videos of kill-shot while telling them this is all MAGA’s fault is “a clampdown on free speech”.
As The Guardian ruminates:
“Reactions on social media to the murder of far-right activist Charlie Kirk have cost multiple people their jobs as authorities in numerous states clamp down on critical commentary.”
Oh dear.
Countless careers and lives have been destroyed by radical left activists, buoyed by mainstream media, over their beliefs, actions and opinions. People were fired for tweets, for liking tweets; kicked out of restaurants for wearing “MAGA” hats – AirBnB rentals canceled, it was – to use the correct word for it: persecution.
Now all that has changed (we’ve actually been chronicling this shift for years in the premium newsletter, we call it “The Fall of Woke Capitalism”).
This process has been slow-rolling across Western nations, some places faster than others, but my prediction is this event has poured fuel on the fire.
It appears that the era of left-wing dominance in the corporate sphere and the public mind is over.
Mass public support and grief for Charlie Kirk
Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, gave an impassioned speech declaring the same shift outlined above, but at the popular level:
“In this world, you have no idea. You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry”
In the 72 hours since the assassination, mass vigils and public acknowledgements have taken place the world over:
Candlelight vigil for Charlie Kirk on Rudder Plaza at Texas A&M. pic.twitter.com/qZpc6J4jiK
— Texas Darlin’ 🎀 (@TexitDarling) September 12, 2025
Vigil for Charlie Kirk. Sydney, Australia.
His impact extended to the opposite side of the planet. pic.twitter.com/7WfgSwxsxm
— The Other Paul (@TheOtherPaul2) September 12, 2025
These public displays would never have happened four years ago – when the left was undeniably in control of the zeitgeist and mass public grieving was only staged (and permitted) for progressive heroes …like George Floyd.
Had Kirk been murdered then, the Big Tech platforms would likely taken down any pages or crowdfunds that sprang up in support, or at the very least de-boosted them.
Now that script has completely flipped. When Office Depot employees in Michigan refused to print flyers for a Charlie Kirk vigil, because they viewed the material as “far-right propaganda” they undoubtably felt secure in doing so, because they had the last decade of history and experience informing them that their position was unassailable.
They were fired.
It remains to be seen what happens next – I’ve been warning cancelholics for years that they would probably not like what happens after the pendulum reverts.
We’re all about to find out.
Some say this ever-increasing polarization and these seemingly ritualistic events are all orchestrated by shadowy actors playing the long game. My take? It’s something deeper—and I’ll unpack that in the next edition of The Bitcoin Capitalist.
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Excellent, essay, Mark. We used to say "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" but in my home we prefer to cook duck.
The people who want to celebrate vileness don't like having a mirror held up to them. People who were triumphant about bringing consequences to people they didn't like do not like having consequences brought to them.
Well said, Mark. I look forward to your next piece.
I want to point out that social media cancelation started with banning ISIS accounts back in 2014-2018. And, going forward, the left saw the opportunity to lump ISIS with Christian conservatives as "far right" when calling for social media censorship of conservatives. Along with labeling normies as conservatives. The expansion of the domestic terrorist label from ISIS to MAGA was to be expected. Also, to be noted, banning ISIS accounts was counterproductive since the reason wasn't to sanitize social media, but to hide the fact that there was significant support for ISIS. That was a bit too inconvenient to be out there in the open.
This will continue. Now that people are getting canceled for anti-semitism and now for celebrating Charlie's assassination as you correctly point out that censorship soon turns against those clamoring for censorship. In the next iteration, we will see the left turn around and cancel people for Islamophobia. While people might think the left is losing the cultural war, the left and the Islamists aren't going anywhere and at best will bide their time for a few years. The left has been around for decades and this is but a momentary setback. Eventually, when Judeo-Christian conservatives are gone, the left and Islamists will fight it out (like in the middle east) with a categorical, final defeat of the left in favor of Islamism (again like in the middle east). It will take longer in the US, but with Europe gone, they won't be able to stand alone.
To add to why Judeo-Christianity (along with classical liberalism) will soon die. It will continue facing periodic attacks from the left and Islamists, to sap the spirit. Events like Charlie's assassinations will continue, until eventually the Judeo-Christians convert to Islam as a way to organize against leftists, since the leftists are blind to Islamism and have a convenient alliance with them for the moment. It's demographics, it's the constant indoctrination and propaganda and universities. One thing to note about Charlie's killer is that the shooter came from a Republican family. This is the left and Islamist's wet dream: to indoctrinate your enemies progeny against them. It's what they have been doing for centuries. It's too early to call this the end of the cultural war. I would urge a deeper analysis, looking at the next generations and the past centuries. In fact one of the problems is that people keep underestimating the problem, even now with this talk about the cultural war shifting.
I have no side in this. This has been my prediction since 2012, and it seems more correct every day for the past 13+ years. In fact it's been going faster than I had thought it would.
Unconfirmed, the Charlotte subway murderer, Decarlos Brown, has already been released to a mental hospital for evaluation for 60 days to see if he is fit to stand trial.
https://x.com/ExxAlerts/status/1967055199274782806
California has this recent loop hole too. If you were insane at the time you committed the crime you don't stand trial and instead get diverted to "alternative treatment". I bet this is how this animal got released the other 14 times and here he is again working the system. Isn't anyone who purposefully takes another individuals life mentally ill?
The feds need to charge this guy with a hate crime, death penalty, and take it away from the local gov