Democrat Senator Chris Murphy has warned of dark times following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, accusing Donald Trump and his allies of waging a deliberate campaign to smash political dissent.
As tensions continue to escalate in the wake of Kirk’s death, Murphy claims MAGA acolytes are deliberately stoking divisions in order to eliminate any forms of opposition to their agenda.
“Pay attention. Something dark may be coming,” the top Democrat lawmaker wrote in a lengthy post on X.
“The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent.
“The right has been looking for a pretext to destroy their opposition for a long time,” Murphy added.
“Increasingly, the right views the left as an existential threat to a white, Christian majority nation and thus must be destroyed…at any cost.”
Pay attention. Something dark might be coming. The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent. 1/ Here’s what’s happening. https://t.co/UI8X9EabBR
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) September 14, 2025
The ominous warning comes days after officials arrested 22-year-old suspect Tyler Robinson over the fatal shooting of Kirk, the high-profile conservative activist whose Turning Point youth organization helped Trump win back the White House last year.
Details are still emerging about Robinson and what his motivations might have been, but in the days since the attack, keyboard warriors have launched online campaigns to get anyone who criticizes Kirk fired, right wing extremists have called for civil war, and some in the administration have openly vowed to use whatever tools they have to “dismantle” the Left.
“The last message that Charlie Kirk gave me before he joined his creator in heaven was he said that we have to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Fox News.
“I don’t care how. It could be a RICO charge, a conspiracy charge, conspiracy against the United States, insurrection. But we are going to do what it takes to dismantle the organizations and the entities that are fomenting riots, that are doxxing, that are trying to inspire terrorism, that are committing acts of wanton violence.”
Trump on Sunday also warned that left-leaning groups will be investigated, although he did not provide details. When questioned on whom he plans to probe, he simply said: “We’ll see. We’ll be announcing.”
Tensions have spilled over into the media as well. On Monday, longtime Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, the last remaining full-time Black opinion writer on staff, said she was also fired by the newspaper last week over “unacceptable” social media posts she made after Kirk’s assassination.
This came after MSNBC fired political analyst Matthew Dowd for describing Kirk as a “divisive” figure who pushed “hate speech”.
Murphy, an outspoken critic of the president’s, warned that already divided America was now entering a more perilous phase.
“Leaders across the political spectrum have spoken out about the need to depoliticize our fight against violence,” Murphy said, praising Utah’s Republican Governor Stephen Cox for “leading the way.”
“But Trump and his lieutenants are spinning a lie. That the only threat is from the left…. We should condemn political violence of all kinds, whether it comes from the left or right or is directed at Republicans or Democrats.”
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) takes measurements around Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s home after her husband Paul Pelosi was assaulted with hammer inside their Pacific Heights home early morning on October 28, 2022 in San Francisco, California, United States.
Anadolu Agency/Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
In reality, political violence plays out from both sides of the aisle.
In 2022, for instance, an intruder fueled by conspiracy theories that Nancy Pelosi was part of a plot to steal votes from Trump entered her home and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer. Trump and his son, Don Jr, later mocked the attack.
Earlier this year, a masked man dressed as a police officer also murdered Minnesota Democrat Melissa Hortman. A list found in the gunman’s abandoned car included names of Democrats and figures with ties to Planned Parenthood or the abortion rights movement.
And Trump also almost lost his life during a rally in Pennsylvania last year, when 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, who was a registered Republican at the time, opened fire.
However, when asked on Sunday what he could do to unite the country, Trump insisted that right-wing extremists were not the problem.
“If you look at the problem, the problem is on the left. It’s not on the right,” he told reporters.
The post Top Dem Fears ‘Dark’ Times Ahead After Charlie Kirk Murder appeared first on The Daily Beast.
