‘Republicans Pounce’: Iryna Zarutska’s Murder Exposed the Left’s Inherent Contempt
“They can’t help themselves. They’re just giving MAGA the easiest, most winning political issue without a fight. … They love their evil criminals and murderers that much.”
The Left’s response to the brutal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on the Charlotte Light Rail train on August 22 is destined to become Republican ad gold in next year’s midterms. Called out by the Right for their initial silence on one of the most shocking murders in recent memory, the legacy media’s delayed coverage — and the tone deaf statements from local politicians — may ultimately prove more damaging than if they had said nothing at all.
Because the crime was captured so vividly by the train’s surveillance camera, there was no way to spin it. The footage showed Decarlos Brown Jr. — a large black man with a lengthy rap sheet — pulling a knife from his pocket and, without provocation, savagely stabbing his unsuspecting victim multiple times before walking away, blood dripping onto the floor as he muttered, “I got that white girl.”
I'm calling on @AGPamBondi to charge DeCarlos Brown Jr with a federal hate crime
He's heard in this video saying, " I got that white girl"
This guy can never walk amongst us again, and if he only faces state charges, odds are he will pic.twitter.com/GbEZT40PkM
— @Chicago1Ray 🇺🇸 (@Chicago1Ray) September 9, 2025
Axios was among the first liberal outlets to acknowledge the story. But instead of confronting the horror, they twisted it into yet another ‘Republicans pounce’ narrative. Their headline read: “Grisly Charlotte stabbing video fuels MAGA’s crime message.”
The article opens: “MAGA influencers are drawing repeated attention to violent attacks to elevate the issue of urban crime — and accuse mainstream media of under-covering shocking cases.” Before even acknowledging the tragic — and preventable — death of a 23-year-old woman, Axios trains its fire on those “opportunistic” Republicans. That framing might please its regular readers, but the author’s barely concealed contempt gives the game away to everyone else.
Joel Berry, managing editor of the Babylon Bee, sees the Axios article and similar ones from the outlets that followed their lead as gifts to MAGA. “They [the Democrats] can’t help themselves,” he wrote. “They’re just giving MAGA the easiest, most winning political issue without a fight. They’re letting MAGA become the official party of ‘not getting stabbed on a bus by a psychopath.’ They love their evil criminals and murderers that much.”
Berry is right.
They can't help themselves.
They're just giving MAGA the easiest, most winning political issue without a fight. They're letting MAGA become the official party of "not getting stabbed on a bus by a psychopath." They love their evil criminals and murderers that much. pic.twitter.com/pYOdk2smFi
— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) September 8, 2025
Conservative podcaster Stephen L. Miller had the same reaction to a Politico piece headlined, “Ukrainian refugee killed in North Carolina gets dragged into political messaging war.” The article framed Zarutska’s murder as a weapon for Donald Trump and his MAGA allies to attack Democrats as soft on crime.
Miller wrote, “They can’t help Themselves. It’s engrained in who they are. They will never change.”
They can't help Themselves. It's engrained in who they are. They will never change. https://t.co/c6iVM7Evod
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 9, 2025
CNN’s Brian Stelter was extremely upset over how big the Iryna Zarutska story had become because most murders don’t become national news.
According to Stelter, this story garnered attention because of the release of “that gruesome video” and the “energy of pro-Trump activists.”
“It is Trump-aligned influencers who are posting up a storm about this on social media.” He said people like Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk “succeeded in making this senseless death a symbol of big-city crime.”
Stelter noted that “some of the comments around this story are baldly racist, stoking fear of African Americans because this man attacked a white woman. The open racism on sites like X today, it’s eye-popping.”
In fact, many murders do become national news — especially when the victim is black. The death of Michael Brown in 2014 triggered riots, dominated the headlines for months, and arguably reshaped race relations in America. Brown’s death turned him into a martyr.
The 2023 death of Jordan Neely — a mentally ill homeless man who was threatening riders on a New York City subway car before passenger Daniel Penny subdued him in a chokehold — remained a national story for more than a year.
The reason these stories remained prominent is that they fit the Left’s narrative — that America is a systemically racist country.
But the Left’s most useful, timely, and consequential hero was George Floyd, a drug-addicted career criminal who died in May 2020 after then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. The fact that Floyd was black and Chauvin was white provided the New York Times with the opportunity it had been waiting for since the previous summer.
During an August 2019 staff meeting, then-Editor-in-Chief Dean Baquet shared management’s plan to make “race” a top issue in the 2020 election. He told staff that the New York Times intended to “shape” political discourse in America by portraying then-President Donald Trump as a racist and by reshaping American history with slavery at the center of the narrative. This marked the introduction of Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project.
Although the New York Times moved forward with the 1619 Project immediately, advancing race as a primary matter proved more challenging. But Floyd’s death and the race-fueled riots that followed thrust systemic racism to the forefront of debate.
Just as Baquet anticipated, it took about a nanosecond for the Democratic Party, the rest of the legacy media, and Big Tech to follow the New York Times‘s lead. And so, in the midst of a pandemic and a deep recession, America’s “systemic racism” became the most pressing matter of the day. Baquet couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome.
It was the right crime at the right time. The truth is that liberals didn’t care one whit about the life of George Floyd; it’s just that his death fit their narrative so well.
After a decade of hoaxes, the public has caught on to the Left’s game. Downplaying the barbaric murder of a young woman at the hands of a predator who never should have been released from jail, and trying to turn it into a “Republicans pounce” story is not a good look.
Brian Stelter is upset the Iryna Zarutska murder has become a national story.
"It is Trump-aligned influencers who are posting up a storm about this"
"Some of the comments around this story are racist, stoking fear of African Americans because this man attacked a white woman" pic.twitter.com/Aki9W6WDVr
— Thomas Hern (@ThomasMHern) September 8, 2025
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Extreme contempt for all not in the bottom of the crab bucket.
“Cult? We’re not in a cult! You’re in a cult!”
TY Elizabeth.
An inconvenient murder is no longer a tragedy, it is a barely talking point for the left. The giant issue of race has totally obscured the issues of cashless bail, and incompetent judges. If nothing else, their story should be that this murder is a turning point, and if it is not, God help us.
We are not upset by an isolated murder.
We are upset by the systematic abuse of bail.
In this case there are plausible claims that the judge stood to profit by releasing a mentally ill man to her private clinic.
These people literally burned cities (destroyed entire city blocks in some cases) for George Floyd, Michael Brown & Freddie Gray, who were all suspects with PRODIGIOUS criminal histories and died while being lawfully arrested for real crimes. And yet, they’re entirely unmoved by the clearly racially-motivated assassination of the pretty blond white girl and calls anyone a ‘racist’ who thinks it was a horrible crime.
It’s wholly inexplicable…if you still considering journalist ‘news people.’ They’re clearly not. It all makes sense when you realize they’re simply propogandists, nothing more.
Maybe more murders should become national news stories. Democrats don’t want them to because it shows how bad it really is in Dem run cities
You have to be against murders even if they’re not interesting. That’s a rule of law sort of thing.
News is about audience, quite a different thing.
Exactly. The more audience that sees how many murders there are in democrat run cities, the more people see how terrible democrats are at running cities. And how terrible they at governing generally. Which is why they don’t want murders to be national news and play the “local crime story” card.
The left and especially Obama/Holder set race relations back 80 years. They did it to advance a political agenda. You can’t hate them enough. There willing enablers in the lsm were more than happy to cheer them on. The unfortunate and grisly murder is a reminder of how the left is willing to sacrifice ordinary citizens to the cause.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. >50% of ALL violent crime in the country is committed by 6% of the population. Black males are comprise the 6%. These are FACTS, not allegations.
As someone posted on the NY Post comment section this morning, “Arguably, one of the greatest “successes” ever perpetrated by the American left has been convincing millions of Americans that it is better to endure a completely dysfunctional sub-culture in its midst than be called a name for daring to point it out.”
Enough!
To reinforce your point, people should take note of the behavior of the other passengers in that train car immediately after she was brutally attacked. Do they run to her aid? Nope. Did they call 911? Nope. In fact, as you watch the CCTV footage, you’ll see an obese black woman peering at the dying girl. Is she on the phone with 911 receiving instructions on first aid? Nope. Instead, she’s using her cellphone to take a video of the girl desperately clinging to life. It is almost 2-minutes before someone finally comes the girl’s aid. Dysfunctional sub-culture, indeed.
Black, urban America is wholly indifferent to the suffering of others and NO ONE, absolutely no one in the media will talk about it. Honestly, I’m surprised she wasn’t robbed. Had it been later in the night or on the street where they knew cameras weren’t ubiquitous as they are on train cars, she very likely would have been.
Especially notable since black, urban Americans are also disproportionately the victims of these violent crimes. By a proportion similar to the perpetrators.
It’s not 6%. It’s an even smaller subgroup among that 6%. The perpetrator here didn’t commit one crime, one time. He’s a career criminal with 14 arrests and five year prison stretch and who knows how many crimes he didn’t get arrested for committing. Supposedly with a schizophrenia diagnosis and his Mother begging for State to commit him on top of his criminal history.
The foolish soft on crime policy failures combined with a refusal to spend $ and political capital on reopening our Mental Health Facilities is how this occurred. This dude should have been locked up in prison or a mental health facility. Instead our touchy feely leaders often refuse to confront the ugly truth; there’s a relatively small group of criminals/loonies who must be removed from society. If that means building more prisons and mental health facilities (it does) to lock them away, that’s what’s gotta happen. Can’t ‘eliminate’ crime with more prisons/mental facilities but for dang sure those locked up can’t reoffend in wider society while incarcerated for 25-life.
Execution absolutely, 100%, prevents recidivism.
They insist on talking in abstract about things you can plainly see in video footage. They complain that this murder is used to push a narrative that democrats are soft on crime when you can see and feel that they are, in fact, soft on crime. They do everything they can to deter you from confronting the reality that unfolds around them.
Criminals have been winning for too long in this country.
“They-Democrats- can’t help Themselves. It’s engrained in who they are. They will never change.” It is becoming clear that there can be no living in community with them either. The evil that is race politics and identity politics has filled the space where the human soul used to be.
Well put. How can any moral person support a Party where these killings are OK to tolerate because of their policy on Climate Change, or whatever? I hope that this is a Dukakis/Willie Horton moment (of the 1988 Presidential election) to effect some positive change, but I see very few adults in the room.
That’s the “fundamental change” Barack Obama promised. And he delivered, in spades.
Nice turn of a phrase, there.
Where are the white riots? Or more accurately, where are the protest riots for this latest victim of black racial violence against white people. We used to have them right into the 20th Century. Go to Wikipedia and enter “list of riots,” and you will see white people did once riot in the US. Example: “1921 Tulsa Race Riot.” Remember this is Wikipedia, a leftist dominated enterprise repudiated by its founders for bias.
The Democrats and their allies in both parties and the MSM fear that white people might start to fight back en masse. This is why virtually all the major newspapers spiked the story with the exception of the New York Post. The brutality of the Iryna Zarutska would move any reasonable person to rage. The fear on Zarutska’s face as her attacker is about to plunge a knife into her neck gets seared into one’s memory. No wonder the mayor wanted the video suppressed. The sleeping giant might wake up.
Another instance of a story being blown out of proportion is the Tratvon Martin case, where suddenly olive skinned George Zimmerman became a white Hispanic.
Two weeks ago, a trans school shooter that the MSM would have referred to as a “female” the day before the shooting suddenly became a white “male.”
The Communists are gambling – perhaps correctly – that this murder will have no effect on the elections this year and beyond.
They may be right. The Communists open support for Hamas and the slaughter of Jews after 10/7 should have ended Jewish support forever, yet Harris still got 66-79% of the vote in 2024 (depending on what source you believe). Blacks have been enslaved by welfare state fascism for decades, yet they still overwhelmingly vote for their tormentors. AWFLs tolerate rape and violence against women if they can get free abortions as a payoff. White suburban parents tolerate open discrimination against whites and Asians by universities so long as their own children get into the Very Best Schools (TM). The list goes on.
Honestly- I don’t see evidence that incidents like this have caused a sea change in politics. Decades of relentless Communist racial propaganda have made non-blacks terrified of standing up to the monsters, whether they are roaming the streets or elected to public office. That may not be reversed anytime soon.
but dems keep winning
how are they doing so?
what is in the local waters that keeps dems>>black matriarchy in the lead?
like I said,,the dens are NOT in disarray…thats the msm cloak to keep the
maga-come-latelys questioning the maga agenda ( see epstein pr for that proof)
the left has both imported voters as we know and have cowed the good people into fearing the black matriarchy
and its fear that they thrive on
they couldnt handle an actual contest of their stret armies vs maga
they have to stab to death the innocent from ( mostly) repeat offenders who the left actually sanctions to be on the streets to create and keep the chaos alive
its prison rules…been saying this for 6+ decades and now its become normalized …
you cant get an aoc or mamdami etc to be a “natural” in the spotlight without that normalization of criminality
Dems keep “winning” because they cheat, lie, steal, murder…
Dems also keep winning because Republicans are not yet a fighting party. Too many of our numbers still vote as one and done and all will be well. It won’t. There is still a large group of ‘fainting wing’ Republicans out there. These Rs want to get back to their normal lives believing all is well which it isn’t. Right now Dems are being driven by blind rage. It will show in off year elections as well as the mid terms.
Blacks should pray that whites continue to obey laws.
True that. If the Right ever crosses that final line…
See what I call the “Adam Selene” solution described about a third into “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” by Robert Heinlein.
Pound the mountain over and over and over until it doesn’t exist.
Actually, I was thinking of:
“Let me mention those fink spies out of order.
…
So Adam Selene announced that these persons had been employed by Juan Alvarez, late Security Chief for former Authority, as undercover spies–and gave names and addresses. Adam did not suggest that anything be done.
One man remained on dodge for seven months by changing warrens and name. Then early in ’77 his body was found outside Novylen’s lock. But most of them lasted no more than hours.”
And don’t apply the left’s own ‘Luigi Rule’ to Teresa Stokes, the unelected DEI magistrate who saw to it the murderer was out on the street.
meanwhile the lefts claim that they are not for after birth abortion goes into the toilet with the stories out there of females who gave birth and then trashed the child and what do the courts do…..
of course….female is given ,,at best,,,,probation
the left knows how to win
lie cheat steal etc
so I guess we’ll play by the rules
wwjd rules and become slaves but damnit wwjd rules will apply
israel knows what to do with the blmplo
why doesnt america???
Where is the untruth that the video (among other things) does help fuel the MAGA crime message?
It’s a matter of emphasis. Axios and leftists have one.
Legal Insurrection and rightists have another.
The left has no choice, they cannot respond on the facts and they can no longer stay quiet; the imagery here is over the top/in your face and explicit. Their “hero” of the last decade or so is seen clearly as the psycho-killer from a slasher film and our “hero,” the victim, is Snow White, the image of American purity that they recently tried to destroy, and she doesn’t even have the slasher movie stigma of just having been seen having sex. This is the apotheosis of the TikTok political era; this makes Willie Horton look a freshman marketing class project. Nothing will ever be the same.
What annoys me about this is one is… it’s one of hundreds, probably thousands of deaths from leftist policies with criminals in the last 2-3 years alone.
I run out of fingers counting the number of wrong way crashes in I-5 in Washington State, not to mention other vehicular homicides caused by zombies with dozens of felonies (often, but not always illegal aliens). The killings are indiscriminate on political affiliation so there’s still a 45% chance the victims did NOT vote for this.
Safety was the irrefutable factor in leaving the blue state hell hole, though so much else contributed to it. Walking around with a 9MM with one in the chamber, OC spray, and 6 years of BJJ was not going to save me nor my family from getting hit by these missiles.
While I’m not from an area with a subway, same stuff happens on public transit everywhere. If I had been a bystander at this event and gave this guy the dirt nap he needs, I’d be the one in jail. Several cops in Wa have been tried now under their anti police initiatives and at least one was convicted. Ferguson and Inslee have set the ACAB lynch mob out on those found not guilty, along with all other cops.
But the nation only wakes up when its a pretty blonde girl. Not to detract her death which is an abomination… but FFS, this is not new news. It’s just news some can no longer ignore.
When Republicans screw up, that’s the story. When Democrats screw up, the Republicans’ reaction is the story.
–Jim Treacher
The left views everything through the lens of oppressors vs. the oppressed, with themselves as the champions of the oppressed. Their entire worldview is based on the moral supremacy that comes from that.
Once they categorize who are the oppressors and who are the oppressed, it is inconceivable for them to see those roles reversed in any way. That would destroy their narcissistic worldview. They can’t let that happen.
It’s high time a minority got charged with a hate crime in a high profile case. The hate crime statutes don’t say it’s hate only when white people do it.
Daily Wire today reports that the killer claims he did the deed because she was “reading his mind” using the chip The Man had installed in him earlier. But we all notice that as he was leaving the train, “I got that mind reader” was not was he was mumbling.
since the black wing is the most violent core of the dnc they have proven over nad over
be it legalized murder aka abortion or just plain suspects and victims over and over….they are willing to do what it takes to advance the wht patriarchy overthrow
fjb put so many in positions of power and long before him the courts codified racism against whts as a legal and (maybe) worse
MORAL obligation to do so..
there is no equality in real life
sure ,,in a hollywood movie you can do what you want
but even the producers of those movies wouldnt live in a majority blck hood
and yet along with sec8 morphing into “affordable housing” ( I mean come on…you dont want to tell police and fireman and teachers that they cant live where they want to,,says the threatening rhetoric from the lefty)
we are falling faster than a dei flight crews plane from the skies
it can be stopped…and trump is trying but he cant do it alone and most of the gop see that what they think is inevitable
the black matriarchy takeover as “just the way it goes”
the gop compromises with these mentally ill criminals
well that escalated fast… Elon getting into the game.
https://x.com/eoghan/status/1965781449388573103
For those without X accounts who can’t follow the context of what he’s paying for here, “Elon Musk has pledged $1 million to fund murals honoring Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee who was tragically killed in Charlotte, North Carolina. This initiative aims to support artists in creating artworks that reflect her story and raise awareness about public safety and criminal justice reform.”
And it’e easy to predict that murals glorifying Snow White are going to go over just as big with the MSM and their street army as jeans ads glorifying Snow White, I expect to see clever new vehicles designed that can do vertical burnouts.
Potatohead needs to experience some of this nonexistent urban violence himself. Maybe someone will still fork in the potato and he’ll wake up.
Damn right Repubs pounce on this as should any decent minded person! This guy should not have been walking loose and should be made into the poster boy of why being soft on crime matters!
During a phone call with his sister, which was shared with the Daily Mail, Brown offered this excuse for what happened: he claimed that he had no control over what happened because the federal government put material in his body.