Martyrs of the Right: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Is Fueling Anti-Left Hysteria

From Spain to Poland, from Weimar Germany to Israel, history shows how the killing of political figures — especially those tied to the right — can be weaponized to demonize opponents and fracture societies. In today’s America, a sustained anti-left campaign by Donald Trump and his allies has primed the country for exactly this cycle.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk has unleashed a wave of fury across America’s political right, with accusations hurled against the left as though the act itself were proof of a broader ideological conspiracy. The phenomenon is not new. Throughout history, the killing of figures associated with the right has often triggered not only grief and outrage but also hysteria, scapegoating, and the hardening of political lines. Examining earlier episodes —from Spain in the 1930s to interwar Poland, from Weimar and Nazi Germany to Israel —offers sobering insight into how the violent silencing of a single person can destabilize societies already straining under the weight of polarization. Today, Trump and his allies have waged a sustained anti-left campaign that primes the United States for precisely this kind of spiraling hysteria.

Spain: Calvo Sotelo and the Spark of Civil War
One of the clearest historical parallels is the assassination of José Calvo Sotelo in Spain in July 1936. A leading monarchist and conservative, Calvo Sotelo was abducted from his home and murdered by left-wing militants connected to government security forces. His death electrified the Spanish right. Already convinced that the Republic was sliding into chaos, many conservative officers and political leaders viewed the killing as final confirmation that Spain’s left had abandoned legality. Calvo Sotelo’s murder galvanized military conspirators who had been wavering. Within days, generals launched the coup that plunged Spain into its catastrophic civil war. The killing was more than an act of political violence—it became a symbol wielded to justify rebellion, repression, and mass bloodshed.

Poland: Narutowicz and the Fracturing of a Republic
Poland in 1922 provides another revealing case. The country’s first president, Gabriel Narutowicz, a moderate figure elected with left-wing and minority votes, was assassinated by a nationalist painter. Although Narutowicz himself was not a right-wing leader, the reaction to his death demonstrates how political violence could be twisted to serve nationalist narratives. Nationalist circles had already framed his election as illegitimate, blaming socialists, Jews, and liberals for foisting him upon the nation. After the assassination, propaganda hardened, deepening divisions in Poland’s fragile democracy. Violence fed the narrative of betrayal and conspiracy, leaving wounds that scarred the young republic. Even when the victim was not a rightist, the incident was used to attack the left, underscoring how assassinations could be weaponized to delegitimize opponents.

Weimar Germany: Political Violence and the Cult of the Martyr
Weimar Germany also illustrates how assassinations polarized politics. Political killings plagued the republic—over 350 in its first few years—most of them perpetrated by right-wing extremists against socialists, communists, and Jewish politicians. Yet when figures connected to the right were themselves targeted, their deaths were mythologized into martyrdom.

The murder of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau in 1922 by far-right conspirators is often remembered as a tragedy for liberal Germany. Still, Rathenau became a lightning rod for antisemitic hysteria, with his killers claiming they were saving the nation from “Jewish treason.” The asymmetry was stark: left-wing violence against right-wing figures was painted as a collective threat, while right-wing violence against leftists, liberals, or Jews was excused, minimized, or even celebrated.

This asymmetry is crucial for understanding the present moment. In Weimar, political assassinations were not interpreted as isolated acts; they were absorbed into pre-existing narratives of betrayal and conspiracy. The republic’s collapse was hastened by its inability to resist that spiral of hysteria.

Nazi Germany: Ernst vom Rath and the Weaponization of Violence
The Nazi era provides a stark example of how the assassination of a relatively minor right-wing figure could be magnified into hysteria and mass violence. In 1938, Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat in Paris, was shot by Herschel Grynszpan, a young Polish-Jewish man, in protest of Nazi persecution of Jews. Vom Rath himself was not a prominent political leader, yet the Nazi regime immediately seized upon his death as a pretext for nationwide violence, portraying it as evidence of a Jewish conspiracy against Germany.

Within days, the assassination led to Kristallnacht, a coordinated pogrom in which synagogues were burned, Jewish businesses destroyed, and thousands arrested. Vom Rath was turned into a martyr, his death weaponized to justify systematic terror against an entire population. The manipulation of his assassination demonstrates how political killings can become instruments for inciting hysteria, scapegoating, and violence — dynamics that resonate with the contemporary framing of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Israel: Rabin and the Price of Demonization
The Middle East also offers a cautionary tale. When Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by a right-wing Jewish extremist opposed to the Oslo Accords, Israel was stunned into mourning. But the atmosphere leading up to Rabin’s murder was charged with right-wing fury, stoked by Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies. Posters depicted Rabin in a Nazi uniform; rallies branded him a traitor. Although Rabin himself was a centrist rather than a rightist, his killing highlighted the dangers of the relentless demonization of political opponents. The aftermath sparked debates over whether the right bore collective responsibility, exposing the same dynamic of accusation, hysteria, and recrimination.

Rabin’s assassination shows that even when the slain figure is not of the right, the climate of demonization — especially one driven by the right — creates fertile ground for political murder. His death derailed the Oslo peace process, demonstrating how hysteria and scapegoating can have consequences that reverberate for decades.

America’s Present: The Trumpian Narrative
The United States now finds itself in a similarly dangerous cycle. Long before Kirk’s assassination, Donald Trump and his associates were waging a relentless campaign against the left, portraying Democrats and progressives as existential threats to the republic. In 2019, Trump tweeted: “The Democrat Party is the party of the Squad, open borders, socialism, late-term abortion, and crime.” In 2020, during protests after George Floyd’s murder, he warned: “The Radical Left is trying to destroy our country.” These messages were not one-off barbs but part of a sustained effort to delegitimize political opponents as enemies rather than rivals.

That drumbeat of rhetoric created fertile ground for hysteria when Kirk was killed. Trump himself quickly declared, “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.” At a rally soon after, he doubled down: “We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”

Others followed suit. Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden told reporters, “You’re at fault,” blaming the media as the “propaganda arm” of the Democratic Party. Right-wing outlets, from Fox to fringe broadcasters, quickly declared Kirk a martyr, with hosts insisting the left bore responsibility regardless of the attacker’s motives. “We are in a war,” proclaimed one influential commentator, a refrain that ricocheted across social media.

In this climate, the assassination was not treated as the act of one person. It became proof of a grand conspiracy, the latest evidence of a supposed leftist campaign to destroy America. Just as Franco’s generals seized on Calvo Sotelo’s murder, or the Nazis on vom Rath’s, Trump and his allies are turning Kirk’s death into a rallying cry for their narrative of existential struggle.

Martyrdom, Hysteria, and the American Future
What binds these cases together is not only the violence itself but the interpretation of the violence. The death of a right-leaning figure at the hands of someone associated—rightly or wrongly—with the left is rarely treated as the act of an individual. Instead, it becomes a prism through which entire movements are judged. Grief transforms into anger; anger into suspicion; suspicion into hysteria. The slain leader becomes a martyr, a rallying cry, a justification for repression or retaliation.

In Spain, that logic led directly to civil war. In Poland and Weimar, it deepened instability and hastened democratic collapse. In Israel, it shattered the Oslo peace process. Today in America, Kirk’s assassination risks becoming another pivot point, where political violence is collectivized into ideological blame. In the age of instant communication and algorithmic amplification, this process unfolds with unprecedented speed. What in 1936 took weeks to harden now crystallizes in a click.

The lesson of history is not that such hysteria is inevitable, but that it is perilous. Assassinations magnify polarization, especially when leaders and media outlets weaponize them to delegitimize their opponents. The United States now faces the same test that Spain, Poland, Weimar and Nazi Germany, and Israel once failed: whether it can resist the siren song of martyrdom and scapegoating, or whether Kirk’s death will become the spark that accelerates a nation already teetering on the edge.

Please check out my new book, Op-Ed: Musings on War & Peace in the Middle East and Beyond.