What if Tyler Robinson turns out to be a far-right radical lunatic? There's evidence suggesting he's a Groyper. By Hal M. Brown
By the time the sun comes up tomorrow, assumingTrump hasn’t ordered the end of the world overnight, this may be old news, so I am posting it as my second Substack for today.
I didn’t know what a Groyper was although I’d heard the term. The cartoon below (click to enlarge), which someone posted in a Facebook comment, explains what it is and why there is good evidence to suggest that the reason Tyler Robinson shot Charlie Kirk was because he wasn’t extreme enough.
For a fulsome explanation of the Groyper movement here’s the Wikipedia entry.
Excerpt:
The Groypers, sometimes called the Groyper Army, are a group of alt-right, white nationalist, and Christian nationalist activists led by Nick Fuentes. Members of the group have attempted to introduce alt-right politics into mainstream conservatism in the United States and participated in the January 6 United States Capitol attack and the protests leading up to it. They have targeted other conservative groups and individuals whose agendas they view as too moderate and insufficiently racist and nationalist. The Groyper movement has been described as white nationalist, homophobic, nativist, fascist, sexist, antisemitic, and an attempt to rebrand the declining alt-right movement.
Groypers are a loosely defined group of Fuentes's followers and fans. After him, there is no clear second in the Groyper hierarchy. Groypers are named after a cartoon amphibian named "Groyper", a variant of the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. In February 2021, the Groyper movement splintered between Fuentes and Patrick Casey over fears of infiltration by federal informants and doxing at the 2021 America First Political Action Conference, held by Fuentes. Jaden McNeil of America First Students joined in support of Fuentes's conference and accused Casey of disloyalty to Fuentes. In May 2022, McNeil distanced himself from Fuentes in an "interpersonal clash of egos" following conflict over his former position as treasurer of Fuentes's America First Foundation.
You probably recall that Donald Trump hosted a dinner with Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) at Mar-a-Lago on November 22, 2022. That meeting drew criticism due to Fuentes' known racist and antisemitic views. Trump later claimed he was unaware of Fuentes' background at the time of the dinner.
The following, from Wikipedia, is very relevant because it describes a major falling out between Nick Fuentes and Charlie Kirk:
In the fall of 2019, Charlie Kirk launched a college speaking tour with Turning Point USA titled "Culture War", featuring himself and guests such as Rand Paul, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lara Trump, and Dan Crenshaw. In retaliation for the firing of St. Clair and the Politicon incident, Fuentes began organizing a social media campaign asking his followers to go to Kirk's events and ask provocative and controversial leading questions about his stances on immigration, Israel, and LGBT rights to expose Kirk as a "fake conservative". At a Culture War event hosted by Ohio State University on October 29, 11 out of 14 questions were asked by Groypers. Their questions included "Can you prove that our white European ideals will be maintained if the country is no longer made up of white European descendants?" They asked Kirk's co-host Rob Smith, a gay, black Iraq War veteran, "How does anal sex help us win the culture war?"] Fuentes's social media campaign against Kirk became known as the "Groyper Wars" Kirk, Smith, and others at Turning Point USA, including Benny Johnson, began calling the questioners white supremacists and antisemites.
Another Turning Point USA event the Groypers targeted was a promotional event for Donald Trump Jr.'s book Triggered, featuring Trump, Kirk, and Guilfoyle at the University of California, Los Angeles in November 2019. Anticipating further questions from Fuentes's followers, it was announced that the event's Q&A portion would be canceled, which led to heckling and boos from the mostly pro-Trump audience. The disruptions forced the event, originally scheduled to last two hours, to end after 30 minutes.
Groypers' targets for heckling quickly expanded beyond Kirk and Turning Point USA to other mainstream conservative groups and individuals, which they sometimes collectively call "Conservative Inc.", including Young America's Foundation and its student outreach branch Young Americans for Freedom, which included such speakers as Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire and Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch.Groypers' questions often focus on United States–Israel relations, immigration policy, affirmative action, and LGBTQ conservatives. They regularly use antisemitic dog-whistles, including questions about the USS Liberty incident and references to the "dancing Israelis" conspiracy theory alleging Israeli involvement in the September 11 attacks.
The only hard evidence that has come out so far as the what might have motivated Tyler Robinson to shoot Charlie Kirk is literally “hard” evidence because it is what he reportedly wrote on his 2 ½ long 30-06 shell casings which the police recovered.
The idea that Robinson was motivated to shoot Kirk because he wasn’t extreme enough is the complete opposite of the narrative MAGA is spinning. It may turn out that instead of his being a far-left radical lunatic he is a far-right radical lunatic.
If, and this “if” must be taken cautiously unless and until we know more, if we discover that Robinson was a militant Groyper and supporter of Nick Fuentes this would totally derail and upend the MAGA portrayal of him as a far-left radical lunatic.
Now it turns out that Robinson was dating a person transitioning from being male to female (article), at least this is what the FBI is saying. If true it may be a factor in his deciding to kill Charlie Kirk. It may have nothing to do with the Groyper culture.
In Suspect in “Charlie Kirk Killing Left Messages, But No Motive” the issue of Robinson being part of the Groyper movement is addressed:
Some have attempted to draw a link between Robinson and the far-right Groyper movement, a decentralized group of white nationalists who follow Nick Fuentes and coalesce online around obscure and extremist meme culture. The movement had been at odds with Kirk’s brand of conservatism for some time. Some noted that a Halloween costume worn by Robinson closely resembled a Groyer mascot, and that the Bella Ciao song appeared on a recent public Groyper playlist. But experts on the group have downplayed the evidence released so far.
Fuentes, the unofficial figurehead of the Groypers, has publicly condemned the shooting of Kirk, writing on X that “my followers and I are currently being framed” for Kirk’s killing “based on literally zero evidence.”
All this so far boils down to the fact that nobody save Robinson himself knows for certain what movtivated him to shoot Charlie Kirk.
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That scenario certainly seems likely and would offer a lot of explanations for the motive.