The Rise of American Schizo-Politics

In the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, I thought it would be prudent to upgrade my firearms collection. So, for the past two months, I’ve been in and out of my local gun shop, filling out paperwork and purchasing components for a new pistol and a new shotgun. During this period, I’ve gotten to know some of the men behind the counter, and, after one recognized me for my appearance on Joe Rogan’s show, I’ve talked politics with them.

Last week, when I went to pick up a new red-dot sight for the pistol, the conversation turned back to Kirk’s murder—with a twist. One of the gentlemen told me that he believed that the official story—that Tyler Robinson assassinated Kirk as a way to stop “hate”—was fake. I was taken aback, but after asking some questions, I realized that he had accepted some of the schizoid narratives emanating mostly from Candace Owens, who has insinuated that the official story is a cover-up.

Owens, whose YouTube channel has more than 5 million subscribers, has raised questions about camera angles and underground passageways near the shooting site; suggested that Israeli cellphone signals detected on the day of the shooting might have had something to do with the assassination; and argued that the alleged shooter’s chat messages, released by the FBI, are, in fact, fabrications deployed in service of a grand cover-up.

This narrative is, of course, nonsense. The evidence released to the public is persuasive. In this account, a young man named Tyler Robinson, who had a transgender-identifying boyfriend and was “terminally online,” assassinated one of the Right’s most effective communicators, Charlie Kirk, because he had “had enough of [Kirk’s] hatred.” Law enforcement obtained chat logs, video, forensic material, and the murder weapon. Robinson’s parents, according to law enforcement, turned him in.

If we wish to attribute the Kirk assassination to a larger cause, we could point to what I have called the “left-wing terror memeplex”: a system that radicalizes disturbed individuals and spins them into random acts of violence. But for some, the random, distant, and chaotic nature of this system is not satisfying enough, and the perpetrators are too banal—or perhaps too “normal”—to serve as symbols of pure evil. Thus, figures like Owens discount the mainstream narrative and divert attention toward an elaborate conspiracy plot, reminiscent of a thriller film. The acts of violence must trace to other sources: traitors, the Jews, the Deep State.

We seem to be entering a period of digitally driven “schizo-politics,” in which both sides’ fringes have developed a web of political narratives, conspiracies, and counter-conspiracies. On one side, we have the left-wing terror memeplex, optimized toward radicalization and random acts of violence. On the other side, we have a paranoid right-wing variant, which refuses to accept reality—“maybe we didn’t really land on the moon”—and directs a growing segment of the population down rabbit holes.

The rise of American schizo-politics is a sociological problem, but it’s also a technological one. The nature of the Internet changes how narratives move through society and tap into the population’s psychological weaknesses and temptations. On the left, this phenomenon creates real physical danger, motivating the most disturbed nodes in the network to commit acts of violence. On the right, conspiracy theorists offer a sense of control, certainty, and meaning to those who lack it, stitching together seemingly random and chaotic events into a coherent narrative, but ultimately separating their audience from reality and undermining the Right’s ability to maintain political discipline—something Charlie Kirk once managed effectively.

What is the solution to America’s schizo-politics? Each side requires a different approach. The problem of the left-wing terror memeplex is diffuse, complex, and difficult to stop. Confronting it demands a close study of digital structures, radicalization narratives, and the identification of disturbed individuals who may turn to violence. It requires law enforcement to infiltrate and disrupt the Left’s system of decentralized violence.

The problem of right-wing conspiracism also presents a significant challenge. Those on the Right should resist any call to revive the old censorship model, which was used to suppress conservative ideas in the guise of “trust and safety.” Instead, they should work to redirect audiences captured by conspiracism and build credible, mainstream institutions capable of commanding attention in the digital sphere—while recognizing that a small portion of the population may be beyond reach.

There is no going back. Digital politics is here to stay. It requires all of us to meet the challenge.

Photo by Adam Gray/Getty Images