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One of the best analyses of Tyler Robinson, the suspected killer of Charlie Kirk, was delivered in a since-deleted X post. An anon noted how absurd it was for a Middle American kid from a conservative family to gravitate towards left-wing content that hates everything about him. Only through the internet could someone like Robinson abandon his true background in favor of the bizarre, anti-white, trans-loving one he embraced. With so many bad takes about Robinson and the Charlie Kirk assassination floating around out there, it’s unfortunate this post disappeared.

In any case, your humble author promises to expand on it in a column that will NEVER be deleted.

Many have tried to blame the internet for Robinson’s crime and argued we may need to restrict it to prevent future tragedies. This isn’t one of those opinions. The internet obviously has its issues, but we should never push for censorship or increased regulation. That would just hurt conservative speech and not solve any problems. We should avoid obfuscating Robinson’s political motive by fixating on the internet as the problem. Kirk’s assassin killed him as an explicitly political act. It wasn’t driven by “nihilism” or mental illness. It was caused by leftism. Period.

All that said, it’s worth exploring the phenomenon of internet-based identities and how they offer an escape from physical world realities. The online world offers the ability to learn information you would never otherwise absorb and connect with people with whom you would never otherwise connect. It’s a gift, and it particularly benefits the right. Without it, right-wing thought would still be suppressed by the traditional media apparatus. 

Many Americans now practically live online. The internet identity they assume can become, in their own minds, their true self. This helps explain why men decide they’re women, why humans decide they’re furries, and why Middle Americans in the 21st century decide they’re 18th century monarchists or Stalinists. No one in the real world would recognize these identities as legitimate (outside of ideological brainwashing). But they can seem real online. 

All you are on the internet is an avi and a name of your choosing. You can present yourself as an anime girl, a hardened guerrilla fighter, a stormtrooper, or a black guy if you so choose. It’s all up to the individual. Off the internet, the anime girl is still a man, the hardened guerrilla fighter is still a desk jockey, the stormtrooper is still a handicapped Mexican, and the black guy is still a white dude. These identities don’t exist outside, but that’s not an insurmountable obstacle if you live online.

It can be harmless if these identities just remain some form of LARPing and people don’t try to make their online identity real. But transgenders show that many can take it to the extreme. In a normal world, an extremely small number of men would ever consider themselves women and vice versa. No one around them would pretend that they are actually women. With the internet, now hundreds of thousands of Americans fall victim to this delusion and try to make real the fake personas they create online. It leads to horrifying results, with middle-aged bald men dressing up as schoolgirls and other disgusting behavior. Worst of all, they force the rest of society to indulge their fantasies. It doesn’t matter if the “trans woman” has a beard and a husky voice. You’re supposed to call him “her.”

Charlie Kirk was one of the most vociferous critics of this delusion, insisting that there are only two genders. Such a simple statement could get one banned from social media in the recent past. And it still can get one killed today. Kirk’s assassin bought into the trans fantasy through his discord chat and strange porn habits. He felt it was “hateful” to point out the obvious and argue that a man could never be a woman. Robinson believed that a man could be a woman and other such nonsense. His detachment from reality in favor of online, politically-driven fantasy empowered him to kill. 

Robinson came from a conservative, Trump-supporting family. He looked like a regular kid. He even followed the life advice of conservatives and dropped out of college to go to trade school, despite a high ACT score. The trans-loving socialist persona he created on the internet was completely alien to his real surroundings.

Much of online politics is shaped by similar escapes from reality. Many leftists are guys who think they’re women, whites who think they’re just like non-whites, and first-worlders who embrace the causes of third-worlders. The Right has its own share of assumed identities, but it’s usually people adopting other ethnicities (or time periods) rather than changing their genders. Guys will imagine that they’re 17th century aristocrats, 20th century Germans, medieval Catholics, or modern-day Russians. The favored identity is “Heritage American,” but not everyone is one. You sometimes end up with fresh-off-the- boat migrants claiming they’re Heritage Americans, despite having no ancestors buried here. There are even cases of non-whites living outside of America who claim they’re Heritage Americans. This sometimes leads to bizarre encounters where an Indian tells a Mayflower descendant he’s a fake American.

Some of these right-wingers don’t bother to shore up their online identity. The Honduran identifying as a German doesn’t know any German besides “Sieg Heil” and doesn’t know much else about the country besides Hitler. But others try to assimilate to their new identity in real life. Many Orthodox converts try to learn Russian and begin giving their children Russian names, for instance. Of course, this is perfectly sane, unlike trying to claim you’re another gender. The simple act of conversion to a faith different from the one in which you were raised illustrates a deep commitment. That’s not a bad thing at all and can be a mark in the online world’s favor. But the point remains: Many would’ve never made that change without the internet. 

It would be a bit presumptuous to say the internet is the sole cause of America’s identity crisis. The country outside the internet is more responsible for that. If you’re an average American, you’re likely not that aware of your heritage, not deeply connected to any place, and not closely tied to any community. Deracination is the norm in America, especially for white Americans. They may have a family, and they may have a church. But others might not even have that. The only available identities are ones centered around hobbies or sports teams. Applebee’s doesn’t provide much of a culture. 

The internet offers the promise of something more, even if it’s fake and completely alien from your real self. Sometimes it can be something positive, such as a faith that gives your life meaning and offers a healthy community. Other times it can be very negative, such as a far-left trans discord that convinces a person to change their gender and celebrate violence against conservatives. It’s up to the individual to decide on their internet-derived identity—and that can lead to scary results.

It’s strange for people to base their identities on something from the internet, but it’s our world now. It’s only going to become more common with more people living online and the dearth of real-world alternatives. Many people would rather drift off into fantasy than deal with the mundanity or bleakness of their ordinary life. The rest of society has to deal with the results. 

There is hope that we can recover an authentic American identity that will prevent men like Tyler Robinson from falling for anti-white, pro-trans leftism. But it will take a whole lot more than shutting down the internet to make it real again.