In response to Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s killing last year, militias and members of the minutemen network called for more organizing and training, while engaging in online harassment and intimidation of those they believed were critical of Kirk. Some took inspiration from The Turner Diaries, a novel depicting an American race war, and continued the hard right’s tradition of using the book to promote violence against its perceived enemies.
In their reaction to Kirk’s death, militias, including some from the minutemen network, viewed his death as another example of being under constant attack, whether it be from worries about potential gun confiscation, globalization or far-left groups. For some militia members, Kirk’s death crossed a line in the sand, although the Southern Poverty Law Center could not document these militia activists’ concrete connection to Kirk or their movements being targeted for planned assassinations.
A central tenet of the militia movement is preparing for eventual conflict with its perceived oppressors. The bogeymen of the movement’s conspiracy theories tend to be the United Nations, the “deep state,” the federal government or whatever other entity is despised at the moment. Militias often try to mask their true intentions by combining their anxieties with other high-profile events, such as responding to natural disasters or hot-button social issues. However, they remain hyper-focused on their original conspiracy theories.1
The militia account Woodland.MM, which has more than 2,300 followers on Instagram and YouTube combined, published a video in September 2025 as part of a series on how to become a minuteman.2 Minuteman militias are an active network within the larger antigovernment militia movement. As the video’s narrator presents the importance of preparedness, a montage of clips from protests responding to George Floyd’s death plays on the screen, emblazoned with the words “Chaos Reigns Over the Country.”3 Consistent with the movement as a whole, he blames an “other” out to destroy his vision of the U.S.4
A call to arms
Kirk was killed on Sept. 10, 2025, while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University for his campus tour. The Utah resident accused of killing Kirk has no documented connection to the government or specific social movement or political groups.5 Public reactions ran the gamut from support for Kirk’s family and condemning violence to praise for the attack and Kirk’s death. For the militia movement, Kirk’s assassination fit well into its narrative of needing to prepare for expected conflict with those believed to be its foes.
Many militia and minutemen social media accounts expressed a common narrative of victimization. Common phrases shared included wanting “to be left alone,” which was a warning to the government and far-left groups, and “You are hated,” signifying their view that they are hated for their beliefs.6
The day after Kirk’s killing, Kaleb Irving, a Texas-based militia influencer with almost 2,000 followers, posted a 21-part story ending with an Instagram post reading, “A dog will only take a finite number of beatings,” declaring Kirk’s death to be the final attack to be tolerated.7 In the Telegram chat for PNW Guerrilla, a group based in the Pacific Northwest that is heavily involved in militia networking, the channel’s administrator posted two days after Kirk’s death, “Weird how the worse things get, NOW people are [direct messaging] me up the ass wanting to link up and train with us.”8 In addition to increased online discussion around training and networking, some militia-oriented followers went with more direct action.
Militia and supporting accounts participated in calls to action to dox (share personal details widely and suggest others use the information to contact and harass the individual) and pressure companies to fire employees who voiced what they viewed as critical opinions of Kirk or his death.9
On Instagram, militias and members of the minutemen network shared private citizens’ social media profiles, publicly shaming people who expressed opinions they disagreed with surrounding Kirk and his death. One such post included the caption: “Who wants to make a local employer call? DM me,” in what appeared to be an effort to pressure the individual’s employer to fire them.10 Barrel and Hatchet Trade Group posted a similar cry against an Emory University professor, lamenting that she was still employed three days after her comments that they found controversial.11
Citizen Manual 8: The Modern Minuteman by Jay Pallardy, a contemporary manual read by many within the minutemen network,12 outlines the militia as part of a movement willing to fight and die for “radical ideas of individual freedoms and liberties such as Freedom of Speech and Religion.”13 Militia efforts to intimidate their political opponents into silence come in direct opposition to their performative devotion to the U.S. Constitution, leaving the impression that such rights belong only to those agreeing with them.
Quoting The Turner Diaries, targeting infrastructure
In online discussions about how militia members should respond to Kirk’s death, some accounts promoted violence and directly referenced The Turner Diaries, a novel penned by a white nationalist that has inspired extremists like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. In response to an Instagram poll hosted by Woodland.MM asking, “What is the best response to this?” referencing Kirk’s death, one account responded with, “Day of the Rope,”14 explicitly referring to the day in The Turner Diaries when the white minority rose up and lynched Black, Jewish and LGBTQ+ people.
Support for attacking infrastructure was also shared. Woodland.MM posted, “Cut the Food and Water Supply,” alongside an image likely taken from a field training exercise.15 Also referenced heavily in The Turner Diaries, targeting infrastructure is seen as a successful tactic to undermine the government and create unrest.
Last September, Stephen Parshall, a self-identified member of the Boogaloo movement, was sentenced to life with possibility of parole for a foiled plot to bomb a power station near a Black Lives Matter protest following George Floyd’s murder.16 The Boogaloo movement is a subset of the militia movement whose followers are preparing for a political civil war, and, at times, trying to instigate one. According to a criminal complaint, Parshall and two others wanted to “create a chaotic and confusing scene for the upcoming protest” to force “the government to show its hand.”17
Another piece of the political violence puzzle
Following Kirk’s death, militias and their supporters contributed to a larger online breeding ground of extremist voices promoting violence against their perceived enemies as justified.
The modern militia movement was founded, in part, to train extremists on how to interact with conservative movements by using less overtly racist and antisemitic language. It also focused on making government workers and those engaged in civil engagement the target of intimidation. Surveys show the movement’s success in spreading its views regarding political violence.
A 2024 survey by the Centers for Violence Prevention at the University of California, Davis, reported that 10.4% of self-identified “MAGA [Make America Great Again] Republicans” believed there would be a civil war in the next few years, and 7.8% of MAGA Republicans thought the U.S. needed a civil war.18 These perspectives on civil war are hallmarks of the militia movement. The survey also found self-professed MAGA Republicans were more than twice as likely “to consider violence usually or always justified” to reach a political objective.19 Kirk was a central figure in the MAGA world,20 and the threatening nature of responses by some of his supporters seems to follow that trend.
Bridging Divides Initiative also found that local officeholders were “chief targets” of threats and harassment following Kirk’s death. It recorded more than 80 threat or harassment incidents in September 2025, which was a nearly 280% increase over August 2025. Nearly half of these incidents “were directly related to responses to Kirk’s death,” which were seen as “real or perceived criticisms of Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA.”21
For the first time in 14 years of tracking attacks on American political figures, an NBC News poll taken in October 2025 recorded that a cross-partisan majority of respondents agreed that rhetoric played an important role in an attack, instead of believing it was related to the mental instability of the attacker. The poll also found that 60% of registered voters believed “extreme political rhetoric” was a contributing factor to Kirk’s death.
Image at top: Photo illustration by the SPLC. (Source images from Getty and iStock.)
Citations
1 An example: Woodland, “The Modern Minuteman Series – Introduction,” September 19, 2025, YouTube video.
2 Woodland, “The Modern Minuteman Series – Introduction,” September 19, 2025, YouTube video; Woodland.MM, Instagram post, January 29, 2026.
3 Woodland, “The Modern Minuteman Series – Introduction,” September 19, 2025, YouTube video.
4 Ibid.
5 Richard Fausset, “The Police Found Messages After Kirk’s Killing. What They Mean Is Unclear,” The New York Times, September 13, 2025.
6 Screenshots of militia social media posts following Charlie Kirk’s death: PNWGuerilla (Fan cult), Telegram post, September 10, 2025.
7 @Kalebprevailarmament, Instagram post, September 12, 2025.
8 PNWGuerrilla (Fan cult), Telegram post, September 10, 2025.
9 @barrelandhatchettg, Instagram post, September 16, 2025; @barrelandhatchettg, Instagram post, September 16, 2025; @Kalebprevailarmament, Instagram post.
10 @Kalebprevailarmament, Instagram post, September 16, 2025.
11 @barrelandhatchettg, Instagram post, September 16, 2025.
12 Examples: @realgruntproof, Instagram post, March 3, 2025; Central Virginia Irregulars, Instagram post, November 25, 2024.
13 Jay Pallardy, Citizen Manual 8: The Modern Minuteman, 2024.
14 @Woodland.MM, Instagram post, September 11, 2025.
15 Woodland.MM, Instagram post, September 11, 2025.
16 Krystal Nurse, “Boogaloo member Stephen Parshall sentenced for plot to blow up substation near BLM protest,” USA Today, September 8, 2025.
17 Cassie Miller, “The ‘Boogaloo’ Started as a Racist Meme,” Hatewatch, June 5, 2020.
18 Garen J. Wintemute, “PREPRINT: The MAGA Movement and Political Violence in 2024,” University of California-Davis, 2025.
19 Garen J. Wintemute, “PREPRINT: The MAGA Movement and Political Violence in 2024,” University of California-Davis, 2025.
20 Allan Smith, “How Charlie Kirk rose from a teenage activist to a MAGA star,” NBC News, September 15, 2025.
21 Bridging Divides Initiative, “Data Snapshot: Threats Against Local Officials Spike After Charlie Kirk Shooting,” December 18, 2025.
