New Rules, New Reality: The Left Discovers Consequences
“SGT Shannon Tonra is happy, Charlie Kirk is dead. This clearly is not someone who should be wearing the uniform.”
As inspirational and accomplished as he was, I suspect even Kirk himself would have been surprised by the sheer magnitude of the response to his political assassination. Not since the passing of Princess Diana has the world witnessed such a global outpouring of love and compassion.
This is bigger than Charlie Kirk. His death by an assassin’s bullet transformed him into a symbol, a figure whose significance will burn ever brighter with the passage of time.
Kirk’s assassination has altered America and forced a national reckoning. In the days since the shooting, the political atmosphere has shifted with remarkable speed. Nowhere has this been more obvious than in the swift consequences meted out to Leftists who cheered his death, some losing positions they’d held for years. In just one week, the country’s tolerance for such rhetoric has abruptly narrowed.
While it’s too early to declare victory and claim that the Democrats’ grip on the national narrative has come to a sudden halt, this is nothing short of amazing.
The Left’s propaganda campaign launched in 2015 and intensified as their hostility toward Donald Trump deepened, has proved remarkably effective. Through relentless repetition, the Democratic Party’s corrosive framing of events has, for many Americans, taken on the weight of truth. Efforts to challenge that narrative have largely faltered, leaving wide segments of the public convinced that Trump is a modern-day Hitler who represents the gravest threat to American democracy.
On Wednesday, ABC, Disney, and primary affiliate Nexstar each moved to pull Jimmy Kimmel’s show over his lies to viewers about Kirk’s assassin — a decision greeted with wide approval on the Right. When the shooter was revealed to be a leftist, with a live-in partner transitioning from male to female, Kimmel told his audience:
We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.
The chef’s kiss came with Sinclair’s decision to air a tribute to Kirk in the very same time slot that would have belonged to Kimmel.
Kimmel had spewed blatant disinformation because it supported his political opinion. Despicable as his remarks were, he likely would have gotten away with them in the past. But times have changed.
Jimmy Kimmel: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” pic.twitter.com/y1IYxRPzMj
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) September 16, 2025
The revolting social media post below captures the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s death, where celebration replaced sympathy. The tone is unmistakably jubilant — an unsettling mix of mockery and triumph that spread quickly across platforms, underscoring how toxic the online climate has become.
PURE EVIL: Moments after Charlie Kirk was assassinated in broad daylight, radical leftists on TikTok began celebrating.
Charlie was a son, a husband, and a father. His life was taken—and they’re cheering.
These are the same people who preach “love and tolerance.”
They live… pic.twitter.com/xYqLAgIb4N
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) September 10, 2025
“SGT Shannon Tonra is happy, Charlie Kirk is dead. This clearly is not someone who should be wearing the uniform.”
SGT Shannon Tonra is happy, Charlie Kirk is dead.
This clearly is not someone who should be wearing the uniform. pic.twitter.com/2Lhg1ROqZZ— Olivia Krolczyk ✞ (@oliviakrolczyk_) September 12, 2025
But it didn’t take long for many of those who celebrated Kirk’s death to find themselves out of work. The tweet below provides a partial roll call of people who paid a steep price for their ghoulish remarks.
The list includes a Secret Service agent placed on leave for inappropriate Facebook comments, airline pilots, college professors, and, of course, the first to go, MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd.
People are getting fired left and right for celebrating the death of Charlie. 😂
• A Secret Service agent was put on leave after leaving vile comments on Facebook.
• Employees at Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and United Airlines (pilots and staff), suspended or fired… pic.twitter.com/H2ATOrtdaG
— Amiri King (@AmiriKing) September 15, 2025
These individuals discovered, in painful fashion, that while freedom of speech guarantees the right to voice even the most distasteful opinions, it does not shield anyone from the repercussions of what they say.
Accustomed to posting every shocking impulse, many reveled in ever more provocative remarks, chasing engagement and clicks as if that alone conferred immunity — until reality proved otherwise.
Some may claim that conservatives are weaponizing cancel culture, it’s worth noting that many of the firings were initiated by progressives within their own organizations.
And after all the damage the Left has inflicted by directing cancel culture against conservatives, as the tweet below reminds us, they’ve lost the right to lecture us.
You tried to ruin this kid's life for a smirk. Do not dare lecture us on cancel culture. pic.twitter.com/K8gKCeYh8b
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 18, 2025
Kirk’s death has altered the playing field. Tyler Robinson’s fatal shot did far more than end his life — it jolted ordinary Americans back to reality. It sparked a collective cry of “Enough.” Coming on the heels of two attempts to silence Trump, the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the anti-ICE riots, the murders of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., the attacks on Tesla dealerships, Tesla drivers, and the vehicles themselves, Kirk’s political assassination marked the moment it became clear that the Left was no longer satisfied with waging a propaganda war against the Right.
Aware they were losing the political debate, they had upped the ante to violence. And apparently, they’ve since learned that’s where many Americans draw the line.
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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Comments
The echo chamber was effective but perhaps its life cycle is nearing the end.
I don’t think most have learned a thing,
They could wake up smarter tomorrow for yesterday’s transgressions.
Will they choose to?
We are all long shots in God’s little casino of free will.
Stones may self-assemble into cathedrals.
Hey, it could happen.
“Place your bets… place your bets!”
Cannot wait for the pendulum to swing back… past neutral, all the way to the right. Absolutely cannot wait.
We are rapidly moving in that direction. I am very happy for it.
I have had leftists try to have me terminated for supporting Trump. “Hostile work environment.”
They didn’t like the fact that I was a 30 year veteran and retiree.
Until I wound up in HR for being too military, crossing my arms when I spoke to people (I still can’t put my hands in my pockets to this day), standing erect with an imposing demeanor.
So I countered with discrimination because of my veteran status, over age 40, wartime veteran with medals. I have a daughter who is an attorney. A letter from her in her married name discussing cease and desist.
Threats of a multi million dollar law suit.
I left the company, but not until I made them realize that veterans don’t play games. We win wars.
And we ARE at war.
The Left has only discovered consequences in a purely theoretical sense and not as part of their personal reality. Kind of like their relationship to the laws of supply and demand. It will take a lot more to make their discovery something that they really believe in and decide to take account of. And their accounting probably will not be non-violent.
Subotai Bahadur
I’m afraid you are correct. It will likely take some large scale culling of them for the rest to get the message. Does the right have the backbone for this?
Kill or be killed.
Makes me remember a vid I saw not long back. Texas State Trooper in HOTT persuit o a small black Cadillac coupe. Speeds well above 110, MPH, dodged through median to go the other way, other cars taking evasive action to stay alive, chase ran at least ten miles. , Kid took to supgce steets, got cornered at a backed up light, no escape. Cop bails, comes up to window gun dawn aiumed right at punks head. eality came crashing down on him. He was toast. Tried taking on the cop in a wrestling match, but was easily ested by the skilled copper. Cuphed and stuphed, c]M. Hook came to collect the Caddie. Multiple phelony busts.. speed above 110, reckless endangement, running to avoid arrest, resisting arrest, assaulting the copper He will do some time and likely lose his license.. Had the punk just pulled over and signed on the blue piece o paying paper he’d have paid a CNote and moved on. Now he’s wrecked his live.
I am convinced that many “adults” with this same mindset, “we are above the law”, will be getting their well earned and long overdue comeuppances in the next while.
My sense is that too many tumbled under the evil inphluence brought to us by the Kenyan head honcho who considers his sorry selph to be above the law and decency. It seems at least possible that this era is coming to a rapid end. Halleluja!
Steve Kelley, 9/17/25 cartoon at Townhall, excellent…
The constitution guarantees the right to free speech,
It also guarantees the right to remain silent.
Try the xkcd comic about free speech:
https://xkcd.com/1357/
Kinda says it all.
“Not since the passing of Princess Diana has the world witnessed such a global outpouring of love and compassion.”
Exactly. Have you read the NYT article by Jane Gross
Diana’s Death Resonates With Women in Therapy
…But this week, when women went to their therapists in New York and its suburbs, an unlikely visitor often sat invisible, yet intensely present, in an extra chair. She was Diana, Princess of Wales, the preoccupation of many female patients, who were stunned by the power of their reaction to her death, unable to talk of anything else, obsessed with reading every word and watching every newscast, and dismayed that the men in their life hadn’t a clue what so moved them….
Even women who disdain the celebrity culture, who would never confess to reading People magazine or watching ”Life Styles of the Rich and Famous,” devoted entire 50-minute hours and hundreds of hard-earned dollars to dissecting the parts of Diana’s life that resonated for them. ”She spoke to their woundedness and to their battle to be heard and to be loved,” said Brenda Berger, a clinical psychologist in New York City and Larchmont, N.Y.
Men didn’t get it, both male and female therapists said, making the death of Diana yet another skirmish in America’s gender wars, a new chapter in ”Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.” Dr. Edgar A. Levenson of the William Alanson White Institute for psychoanalytic training said male patients dismissed the event with a brusque, ”It’s too bad she got killed,” while women considered her ”a member of the family.”…
It’s soap opera.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/13/nyregion/diana-s-death-resonates-with-women-in-therapy.html
Hardin thinks he’s the star of the Truman Show.
There’s a nice article by John Tierney in praise of strip clubs too. Back when the NYT wasn’t woke.
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/09/nyregion/the-big-city-monkey-business-strippers-testosterone-and-the-dow.html
I bet you have to put $1 under the NYT’s G-string before you can read it.
you can often get past the paywall by reloading and X aborting the reload a few times very fast until the opening page persists unblocked.
bypass paywalls clean extension for firefox (and iirc chrome also) works good.
There’s also Web archive: https://archive.is
You plug an article’s url into the black box on the bottom on the page, and most times you can retrieve an archived copy.
On another site, former LEO warns that so many people will have a tough time after seeing Kirk murdered right in front of them… on site and on TV. This is not the vicarious loss note above, but genuine loss. About a third of people living through horror/tragedy sail on, a third float in and out of problems and the final third never recover. The shooter (and by extension its supporters) have wounded so many. Kirk’s final tweet of Antifa being there which once again meant going in harm’s way. At least Erika knows Charlie’s life touched so many.
“About a third of people living through horror/tragedy sail on, a third float in and out of problems and the final third never recover.”
This can also be applied to veterans. Even with the meager services of the VA, PTSD from wartime experience can cause homelessness, anger, drug addiction, and other issues.
But men in general don’t dwell on the loss of celebrity. If we mourn, we mourn quietly.
The assassination if Charlie Kirk has had a profound affect on the right, to the point that we aren’t “burning down our cities and rioting” angry. We are “tired of your bullshit and we aren’t putting up with it anymore” angry.
That doesn’t require psycho analysis or happy pills. It requires a total destruction of those who won’t leave us alone.
And… ?
tldr
The tit for tat just solidifies the cancel culture no matter who’s in power, instead of supporting the structures necessary to have no cancels at all.
It would have been nice to have at least one party working on that.
So we’re a cancel country. Great.
The problem with your theory is that stupid people only learn from Direct experience. So we have to let the stupid people suffer from the effects of cancel culture before they understand that it’s not a good thing. Anything else simply tells them that they can do it to us and they won’t do it to them and by the way, that’s considered to be a weakness
As I’ve mentioned here before, this is game theory. Game theory says the best way to stop a player from cheating is not to remind him of the rules, but to start cheating oneself (tit for tat). Once the other player has lost the advantage that came from his cheating, he will stop. (But even if he doesn’t, the field has reached a new level, so play is once again fair even if being played by a new set of rules.)
Game theory gives a nominal victory on points. That’s a failure if society collapses, which has long been the reason not to give control to computers.
Tit for tat? We’re a very long way from balancing the scales. What you are effectively arguing is that when A hits B that B shouldn’t retaliate in kind b/c to do so is somehow wrong. Bullies who initiate violence or in this case ‘cancellation’ do not respond to platitudes nor will they stop their attacks until met with consequences severe enough not only to thwart a particular attacker but to serve as an object lesson to deter others.
In this case the public raised hell and the affiliates made a business decision which in turn sparked the network to stop Kimmel. IOW this was the marketplace in action. It isn’t comparable to the wokiesta cabal and the star chamber they employed to directly demand media and tech companies remove (cancel) voices on the center or right.
I have been thinking about this, and I have reached several conclusions.
One, as much as I despise cancel culture, I don’t see an easy way to make it illegal in general; if anything, I can even see it being ok in the right circumstances.
Two, how many times were people canceled over a tweet made ten years ago as a teen in high school (or even earlier)? In most of these cases, I can’t help but wonder “can’t we show some grace?”
Three, I’m ok with firing people over their celebrations of someone innocent who was murdered, especially when those celebrations are an immediate response to the assassination.
Babylon Bee long ago: Prodigal Son Expelled after Old Tweet Discovered
I agree with your premise. But this isn’t cancel culture. It Accountability Culture.
I support it 100%
It would have been nice if we didn’t have people like you telling us that we have to bend the knee to a group who won’t back down.
F you, and F them. We aren’t capitulating anymore.
We will force them out of their jobs, we will force them into financial ruin, and we will destroy their families. Not like the assassin of CK. The kind of destruction of putting into financial ruin, where they can’t get a job, can’t get a paycheck, and can’t be on the streets without being harassed.
A woman on the internet named Megan Farina ruined her husband’s electrical company business for her evil smirk and comments. Her “non-apology” didn’t work.
It shouldn’t.
Leftists like Kimmel and so many others can still speak their mind despite justifiably losing their jobs for their horrible words and actions.
Charlie Kirk will never speak again.
This is not “tit for tat”.
The present leftist narrative is the right supports cancel culture now that the shoe is on the foot, but there is no moral equivalence between, say, being canceled for stating a man can never be a woman and being held accountable for celebrating or advocating murder.
“Oh but people kill themselves over your microaggressions, and thus your speech is violence,” says the conflicted mind of a leftist.
Charlie Kirk’s greatest legacy is he was able to get through to some of these people, which is really saying something because it’s by no means easy to do.
* now that the shoe is on the other foot
Sgt Shannon Tonra forgot that, as a uniformed service member, she’s limited in she can and cannot say under the UCMJ. Big mistake–verylikely a career-ending one as well.
There are a number of military members getting a ride awakening. Soon to be former Sgt Tonra is about to learn the limits of military members freedom of speech especially while wearing a uniform.
Rude awakening. Darn spell check
As Scott Adams has said…. these people were virtual signaling in their “bubble” thinking that they were expressing an opinion held by all.
The fatal progressive overreach in action.
Ah, yes: the illusion of consensus. Takes a naive little kid to point out that the emperor is buck nekkid.
Nothing wrong with the majority refusing to be silent and demanding consequences for those who violate the norms of society. Dancing on the grave of someone who stove to engage in open good faith debate and was assassinated while doing so by the same sort of wokiesta loons posting nonsense is not acceptable. It is well past time we return to enforcing social stigma, shame and shun those who refuse to comport themselves within the guard rails of ‘polite society’. No one will stop the weirdo wokiestas from speaking (from our side) but no one has to listen to them, employ them, work with them, socialize with them. Bring back shame and pariah status.
I think that is one of the tenants of Rules For Radicals.
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
another do nothing low iq dei tonra
Leftists getting someone fired for saying something as simple as there are only two sexes, or all lives matter, is Cancel Culture.
Leftists getting fired for celebrating a brutal murder and advocating for further violence is Justifiable Punishment for horrible and potentially dangerous behavior.
The two situations ARE NOT comparable.
Leftists getting someone fired or arrested for not following COVID bullshit is cancel culture.
Leftists forcing people out of their jobs for not taking the “vaccine” is cancel culture.