Now that we have discovered the LDS background of Tyler Robinson, alleged murderer of the popular political figure Charlie Kirk, questions will naturally be asked about how his religion may factor into his profile. Was he a radical lefty? We do not know. He may have opposed Trumpism as some LDS conservatives do. He took his opposition much too far in committing a heinous crime that is also an attack on free speech.
This video briefly discusses how Tyler may have opposed Trumpism without being a radical leftist in the tradition of Mormon conservative opposition to Trumpism.
"He disturbs the laws of his country, he forces himself upon women, and he puts men to death without trial.” ~Otanes on the monarch, Herodotus Histories 3.80.
His grandmother has publicly said they must have the wrong man, she says her entire family are Trump supporters, that she doesn't even know anybody who is a liberal. Tyler has worn a Trump shirt in the past, and there is literally nothing to indicate he's anything but a bred conservative. The alleged casing markings are all from 4chan video game culture (as Doc Cam has explained). Including the "hey, catch this fascist", followed by the controller arrows for dealing with a bomb. Cryptic messages to his online community engraven into the "golden" casing of a bullet rather than a thin metal plate.
I've been quiet on this because up until recently there's literally been nothing that's come out that would indicate much of anything (which hasn't stopped Ajax from making an utter fool of himself as always with his desperate nonsense). Even now we have a murky picture. I don't think we know what's in this guy's head and even as new information becomes available, there's always going to be room for one side to say he's playing a role to throw people off the scent. He was really liberal pretending to be conservative or really conservative pretending to be a radicalized liberal. People will believe what they've set out to believe in many cases.
One thing people don't get is that there is a ton of infighting within the far right. Good luck trying to find a common thread of belief on 4chan. I also observed the culture of Gab for a while, and the animosity is off the charts between people that from a birds eye view, you'd think are all in agreement. I suppose it's not so different than two churches opening up across the street from each other who preach nearly the same thing but end up as bitter rivals, denouncing each other as Satanic. At the end of the day, there is a zero-sum element to the spoils of propaganda. No leftist is a stumbling block to rising in popularity on the right, but other rising stars on the right are competition.
While there is certainly an online culture issue here with young men, I think Mormonism deserves a nod. Tyler isn't going to shake a lifetime of molding by Yankee White conservative Mormons because he went to Utah State for a single semester and at some point, potentially committed the grave sin of empathy. Neither do I think online extremism can do so either. I think Tyler is in a difficult situation. A big factor is his extreme intelligence. Mormonism is obsessed with Truth and a stark black and white world. This is so pervasive, that even when Mormons apostatize, they often do so in the most off-the-wall black-and-white ways. A great example would be the brother who outed the hedge fund, and then went on to publish some really naïve nonsense. Ex-Mormons can become very annoying secular humanists, for example. A high intelligence can be a contributing factor to this. The obsession with Truth for many leaders (cluster B) is a self-serving manipulation game that the members in the pews take way more seriously than they do. A high intelligence can drastically complicate the problem if the pew member is cluster A and feels betrayed -- when a truth turns out to be a lie.
So it could be a discovery of left-leaning views or it could be a betrayal by certain in his own establishment who have departed from the real-real truth. The overpowering literalism of Mormon conditioning could snap a person of a) high intelligence b) possibly cluster A (I'm speculating), c) encounters real ambiguity in the world for the first time.
I'm going to mention this before somebody else beats me to it. I wonder if he'll be granted a presidential pardon. Or if it will at least be seriously suggested from voices on the right. Ajax is way behind -- Nancy Mace has already gone from demanding capitol punishment to come back (it never left in Utah!) to suggesting that Tyler and his victim would have been friends if they'd had the chance to know each other. This is a family feud, and I wouldn't be opposed to the pardon and to the forgiveness Nancy Mace has called for (though I think there is Larping here, forgiveness is a Christian belief still and I do not forbid them from practicing it). I would be opposed to the pardon by a Democrat president or if the perpetrator were truly a "liberal". But this is in the family, so let the family decide. What kills me is Tyler's age and intelligence, I just hate to see someone with so much talent go to waste. That doesn't do anyone any good.
His grandmother has publicly said they must have the wrong man, she says her entire family are Trump supporters, that she doesn't even know anybody who is a liberal. Tyler has worn a Trump shirt in the past, and there is literally nothing to indicate he's anything but a bred conservative. The alleged casing markings are all from 4chan video game culture (as Doc Cam has explained). Including the "hey, catch this fascist", followed by the controller arrows for dealing with a bomb. Cryptic messages to his online community engraven into the "golden" casing of a bullet rather than a thin metal plate.
I've been quiet on this because up until recently there's literally been nothing that's come out that would indicate much of anything (which hasn't stopped Ajax from making an utter fool of himself as always with his desperate nonsense). Even now we have a murky picture. I don't think we know what's in this guy's head and even as new information becomes available, there's always going to be room for one side to say he's playing a role to throw people off the scent. He was really liberal pretending to be conservative or really conservative pretending to be a radicalized liberal. People will believe what they've set out to believe in many cases.
One thing people don't get is that there is a ton of infighting within the far right. Good luck trying to find a common thread of belief on 4chan. I also observed the culture of Gab for a while, and the animosity is off the charts between people that from a birds eye view, you'd think are all in agreement. I suppose it's not so different than two churches opening up across the street from each other who preach nearly the same thing but end up as bitter rivals, denouncing each other as Satanic. At the end of the day, there is a zero-sum element to the spoils of propaganda. No leftist is a stumbling block to rising in popularity on the right, but other rising stars on the right are competition.
While there is certainly an online culture issue here with young men, I think Mormonism deserves a nod. Tyler isn't going to shake a lifetime of molding by Yankee White conservative Mormons because he went to Utah State for a single semester and at some point, potentially committed the grave sin of empathy. Neither do I think online extremism can do so either. I think Tyler is in a difficult situation. A big factor is his extreme intelligence. Mormonism is obsessed with Truth and a stark black and white world. This is so pervasive, that even when Mormons apostatize, they often do so in the most off-the-wall black-and-white ways. A great example would be the brother who outed the hedge fund, and then went on to publish some really naïve nonsense. Ex-Mormons can become very annoying secular humanists, for example. A high intelligence can be a contributing factor to this. The obsession with Truth for many leaders (cluster B) is a self-serving manipulation game that the members in the pews take way more seriously than they do. A high intelligence can drastically complicate the problem if the pew member is cluster A and feels betrayed -- when a truth turns out to be a lie.
So it could be a discovery of left-leaning views or it could be a betrayal by certain in his own establishment who have departed from the real-real truth. The overpowering literalism of Mormon conditioning could snap a person of a) high intelligence b) possibly cluster A (I'm speculating), c) encounters real ambiguity in the world for the first time.
I'm going to mention this before somebody else beats me to it. I wonder if he'll be granted a presidential pardon. Or if it will at least be seriously suggested from voices on the right. Ajax is way behind -- Nancy Mace has already gone from demanding capitol punishment to come back (it never left in Utah!) to suggesting that Tyler and his victim would have been friends if they'd had the chance to know each other. This is a family feud, and I wouldn't be opposed to the pardon and to the forgiveness Nancy Mace has called for (though I think there is Larping here, forgiveness is a Christian belief still and I do not forbid them from practicing it). I would be opposed to the pardon by a Democrat president or if the perpetrator were truly a "liberal". But this is in the family, so let the family decide. What kills me is Tyler's age and intelligence, I just hate to see someone with so much talent go to waste. That doesn't do anyone any good.
Yeah, I didn’t think there was much chance that he is a lefty. Late last night I watched Dr. Todd Grande unpack the bullet message that connected to furry/trans culture, and he opined that it made no sense for a trans person to leave such a message in support of their cause.
"He disturbs the laws of his country, he forces himself upon women, and he puts men to death without trial.” ~Otanes on the monarch, Herodotus Histories 3.80.
I think my point is there is a near zero chance he is a "lefty" even if he became friends with die-hard liberals at Utah State for the 3 months he was there.
We're all familiar with the saying: you can take the bear out of the woods, but you can't take the woods out of the bear.
A more sophisticated way of saying this would be the entirety of the 2003 Yale Mormon conference. Wasn't the premise of the conference that religion is like language? You can't shift from being a lifelong TBM to being a truly cultural liberal overnight. It's the right and their politicians who film themselves with guns and teach that scores are settled with guns. Alex Jones. They throw themselves into the camera to teach this. His president had just recently said that Chicago would learn what it means to be "the department of war". Most people recognize the grift that this kind of LARPing is, the dangerous precedent it sets, but there is going to be that small percentage who take it seriously. Mormonism is a very literalistic religion where there is going to be a larger percentage of people who take the extreme rhetoric seriously.
I think there are some other factors also. Mormonism might be its own messaging bubble, but it's a pretty stable bubble. It might be that credibility is bought sustaining an unrealistic whitewashing of history. However, that whitewashing at any given time is a stable, known quality. In broader conservative culture, the constant lies are hard to keep up with, which lies are you supposed to believe to be cool? I think that might add a lot of pressure to somebody who is also psychologically prone to literalism.
I think my point is there is a near zero chance he is a "lefty" even if he became friends with die-hard liberals at Utah State for the 3 months he was there.
We're all familiar with the saying: you can take the bear out of the woods, but you can't take the woods out of the bear.
A more sophisticated way of saying this would be the entirety of the 2003 Yale Mormon conference. Wasn't the premise of the conference that religion is like language? You can't shift from being a lifelong TBM to being a truly cultural liberal overnight. It's the right and their politicians who film themselves with guns and teach that scores are settled with guns. Alex Jones. They throw themselves into the camera to teach this. His president had just recently said that Chicago would learn what it means to be "the department of war". Most people recognize the grift that this kind of LARPing is, the dangerous precedent it sets, but there is going to be that small percentage who take it seriously. Mormonism is a very literalistic religion where there is going to be a larger percentage of people who take the extreme rhetoric seriously.
I think there are some other factors also. Mormonism might be its own messaging bubble, but it's a pretty stable bubble. It might be that credibility is bought sustaining an unrealistic whitewashing of history. However, that whitewashing at any given time is a stable, known quality. In broader conservative culture, the constant lies are hard to keep up with, which lies are you supposed to believe to be cool? I think that might add a lot of pressure to somebody who is also psychologically prone to literalism.
Very insightful post, Dean. Yes! The literal minded Mormon kid is much more likely to take the LARPing seriously and act on it.
"He disturbs the laws of his country, he forces himself upon women, and he puts men to death without trial.” ~Otanes on the monarch, Herodotus Histories 3.80.
I think my point is there is a near zero chance he is a "lefty" even if he became friends with die-hard liberals at Utah State for the 3 months he was there.
We're all familiar with the saying: you can take the bear out of the woods, but you can't take the woods out of the bear.
A more sophisticated way of saying this would be the entirety of the 2003 Yale Mormon conference. Wasn't the premise of the conference that religion is like language? You can't shift from being a lifelong TBM to being a truly cultural liberal overnight. It's the right and their politicians who film themselves with guns and teach that scores are settled with guns. Alex Jones. They throw themselves into the camera to teach this. His president had just recently said that Chicago would learn what it means to be "the department of war". Most people recognize the grift that this kind of LARPing is, the dangerous precedent it sets, but there is going to be that small percentage who take it seriously. Mormonism is a very literalistic religion where there is going to be a larger percentage of people who take the extreme rhetoric seriously.
I think there are some other factors also. Mormonism might be its own messaging bubble, but it's a pretty stable bubble. It might be that credibility is bought sustaining an unrealistic whitewashing of history. However, that whitewashing at any given time is a stable, known quality. In broader conservative culture, the constant lies are hard to keep up with, which lies are you supposed to believe to be cool? I think that might add a lot of pressure to somebody who is also psychologically prone to literalism.
My exposure to right-wing ideas came entirely through the LDS Church at a very young age. It is not so much that I heard leaders speaking right-wing ideas from the pulpit as that I was swimming in a society full of people who had right-wing, conspiratorial views. Honestly, it is not at all a surprise to me to find that an LDS kid could be radicalized by far-right people via the internet. Let's not forget DezNat and how even people working with FAIR were associated with that movement. And what was one of that movement's views? Bring back Brigham's Utah. Bring back Blood Atonement. There is a very unhealthy radical right-wing aspect to Mormon culture. I do not believe it is necessary to be right-wing to be Mormon--far from it--but you can practically trip over and fall into right-wing friends and views in many North American Mormon congregations, especially in the western states.
Last edited by Kishkumen on Sun Sep 14, 2025 4:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
"He disturbs the laws of his country, he forces himself upon women, and he puts men to death without trial.” ~Otanes on the monarch, Herodotus Histories 3.80.
Thank you, Everybody Wang Chung. It looks like the stuff about his online life is bearing out thus far.
"He disturbs the laws of his country, he forces himself upon women, and he puts men to death without trial.” ~Otanes on the monarch, Herodotus Histories 3.80.
