Standing behind a lectern festooned with hats, flags, bumper stickers and even a commemorative MAGA coffee mug, Republican officials on Friday announced with somber faces that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old accused of fatally shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk, was “deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology.” Officials added that the evidence — a Mauser rifle, inscriptions of “Bella Ciao” lyrics on unfired rounds, and a sarcastic “if you read this, you are gay, lmao” — left “absolutely no doubt” that Robinson had been radicalized by “the dangerous meme pipeline.”
Governor Spencer Cox (R) told The Wall Street Journal that investigators were “shocked” to discover a suspect who didn’t even have a party registration but did have, according to Cox, “leftist thoughts at a dinner table,” which he described as “basically a manifesto, but in casserole form.”
“We’re treating ‘Bella Ciao’ lyrics the same way we’d treat an ISIS pledge video,” one official explained while adjusting a MAGA lapel pin. “It’s evidence of training.”
Authorities also revealed that one bullet casing included an internet-age taunt. “This alone proves how dangerous the radical left has become,” Cox said gravely, “and how memes are now weapons of mass destruction.”
Despite Robinson being an unaffiliated voter enrolled in an electrical apprenticeship, officials repeated the word “indoctrinated” a total of nine times in a five-minute statement. Reporters noted that the press area smelled strongly of Sharpie from freshly inked “Stop the Indoctrination” signs. As of press time, no Republican official had addressed whether the presence of MAGA hats, flags and stickers at the press conference signified their own indoctrination, citing instead the “double standard” of leftist meme culture. Robinson remains in custody on aggravated murder and related charges.
