Normally, when I see a person wearing a t-shirt with an American flag and an eagle, I think, “patriot” and probably MAGA. Now, though, I’m having my doubts. Instead, I think we’re going to discover that a lot of venomously anti-MAGA people will be parading around in black t-shirts with flags and eagles on them as an homage to Charlie Kirk’s murderer, who wore that shirt when he pulled the trigger.
We’re all painfully familiar by now with the image showing Kirk’s killer right before the shooting:
Public domain.
According to reports when that image first hit the news, the t-shirt appeared to be a shirt from the Disabled Veterans National Foundation. It shows an eagle in flight in front of an American flag, with the words “Land of the Free” above the image and “Home of the Brave” below it. It is a classic patriot’s shirt.
The same shirt instantly began to be marketed as a Charlie Kirk shooter shirt. See, e.g., here, here, and here. (I saved screen grabs if the purveyors delete the listings.)
Walmart, which doesn’t always police its online marketplace as well as it should, turned out to be selling the same t-shirt, which could be searched by looking up “Kirk shooter.” Walmart, to its credit, quickly reacted, and that search now yields nothing at all.
So, who’s searching for, paying for, and wearing these t-shirts? According to a Fox News story, at least one person arrested for vandalizing a Charlie Kirk memorial was wearing that shirt:
A teen arrested after blatantly trampling over a memorial for Charlie Kirk outside the Turning Point USA headquarters on Sunday was wearing a T-shirt appearing to resemble the same shirt worn by Kirk's alleged assassin in security footage released by the FBI.
During the FBI's manhunt for Kirk's assassin, law enforcement released security camera stills of the suspect just before he allegedly shot and killed Kirk. The suspect in those photos, believed to be 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, donned a long-sleeve black T-shirt with a distinct American flag design overlaid with an American Eagle. Gold and silver lining on top and below the American flag can also be seen.
Meanwhile, video of the defacement of Kirk's memorial on Sunday, which took place outside Turning Point USA (TPUSA) headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, showed the vandal wearing a short-sleeve black T-shirt with what appeared to resemble the same logo that was on Robinson's shirt in security footage released by law enforcement. Kirk established TPUSA in 2012 and was killed while appearing at one of their events.
Hmmm.
Yesterday, while at my local grocery store in my purple-voting neighborhood, I saw a young, dreadlocked black man in a celebratory mood wearing the same shirt. My companion and I debated whether he was former military wearing a patriotic shirt (because we live in a community with a lot of current and former military) or whether he was a leftist celebrating Kirk’s assassination. My friend, himself former military, thought the guy was making a patriotic statement; I wasn’t so sanguine.
If I had to predict the future, I’d say that we’re going to see a lot of leftists wearing this shirt or similar ones, just as conservatives had fun with the “Let’s go Brandon” shirts in 2021. As you may recall, the “Let’s go Brandon” phenomenon happened after an NBC Sports reporter pretended that crowds at a NASCAR race were chanting “Let’s go Brandon” in honor of winner Brandon Brown, rather than what they were really saying: “Eff Joe Biden.”
After that, conservatives donned “Let’s Go Brandon” gear as a lighthearted “If You Know You Know” (“IYKYN”) message to other conservatives out there in Biden’s America. It was like a secret handshake, where people, without obscenities or direct attacks, shared their disdain for Biden in an America where the FBI was tracking down hundreds of people after January 6 and spying on thousands more for wrong-think.
I predict that, for leftists, the IYKYN secret handshake will be an ostensibly conservative, patriotic t-shirt that celebrates the political murder of a man whose only sin was going to college campuses to debate students—always politely, respectfully, and with good humor—about their leftist political beliefs. While the “Let’s Go Brandon” meme was a discrete way to say you didn’t like the current White House occupant, anyone on the left wearing this t-shirt will be making a very dark statement that those who disagree with him deserve to die.