Chris Hayes's guests tonight included extremism expert Jeff Sharlet warning people NOT to celebrate or mock Kirk's death

[highplainsdem]

I saw his posts on Bluesky late this evening, and I found video of what he said on All In on Twitter and will post that in reply 1. I hope you'll read what he wrote first.

His background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sharlet_(writer)

The Substack piece he linked to: https://slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/the-struggle-is-long

If I have any credibility with you from twenty years of reporting on rightwing and fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Don’t celebrate it, don’t mock it. I’m not asking you to send thoughts and prayers. I’m begging you to not pour gasoline on a fire.

-snip-

We don’t know enough yet about what happened in Utah to say much that’s definitive, though perhaps by the time you read this we will. But already I can tell you this, from my years of reporting: Fascism’s guns are at the ready. Think before you spout off. Winning the struggle against fascism is what matters, not indulging conspiracism or owning the fascists or showing off your quick wit.

-snip-

There will be more to say, about what has happened and what will happen next. But a few things to be aware of right now: If you know Charlie Kirk’s name, you may mistakenly believe he’s one of fascism’s chief trolls, a Steve Bannon, a rhetorician. He’s both less and a lot more powerful than that, the kind of speaker who’s easy to goof on and the kind of organizer that the left and liberalism have too easily overlooked. He’s one of fascism’s chief organizers. He delivers: votes and dollars. He delivers youth votes the Right didn’t think possible. He built a massive organization. The scale of his influence will shape the fury of fascism’s response.

And that response won’t be directed at white men with guns, like the murderous fool who shot Kirk: Already Right’s rhetoricians are making proposals. Martial law. Mass arrests.

-snip-

Sharlet also posted about this on Bluesky, his account at https://bsky.app/profile/jeffsharlet.bsky.social . See the 3-message thread starting here

If I have any credibility with you from 20 years of reporting on rightwing & fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Leave aside morality: this isn’t a match in dry grass, it’s a torch. We do not want what this could ignite & we would not win.

— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) 2025-09-10T19:00:00.184Z

and the three separate posts below:

Rufo calling for mass arrests, Blake Masters & Cernovich calling for RICO against Dem & left funders, and a whole lot of everyday people begging for martial law, or, even worse, "gloves off." 99.9% of whom are just spouting off, but today if anything teaches us the damage that one .1% fool can do.

— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) 2025-09-10T20:26:11.014Z

This a federally-monitored website. The regime is on highest alert. Anyone posting advocacy for violence right now is a fedposter or a fool. This has nothing to do with what is right or wrong or what you have a right to say. It's simply a fact.

— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) 2025-09-10T20:48:50.593Z

Lot of people yelling at me for saying celebrating assassination is no way to struggle against fascism. I’m not asking you to mourn Kirk, a fascist. I’m asking you to respect yourself. There is no righteous form of murder. Takes more courage to fight for democracy than to embrace fascism’s methods.

— Jeff Sharlet (@jeffsharlet.bsky.social) 2025-09-11T01:53:11.442Z

Sharlet immediately got an idiot responding to that last post by advocating violence.

I'm going to post this OP now, then put the video from Chris Hayes's show in reply 1.

[highplainsdem]

1. Here's that video. The section with Jeff Sharlet starts a bit more than 25 minutes in.

[SheltieLover]

16. Ty!

[ImNotGod]

2. If MSM did their job we wouldn't be in this fucking mess, too late for any advice, I'm not playing nice

times they are a changing.

[markodochartaigh]

3. It's been almost two decades since

I read Jeff Sharlet's great book "The Family". Now it is also a miniseries on Netflix. Everyone should be familiar with it. Whether you are a blue dot in a sea of red or jet between your condo in a blue Ivory Tower and your chateau in Provence, we are all at risk.

[AZJonnie]

12. Me too. Fascinating and frightening work, whenever I see his name I recall it.

He's not wrong, that's why I personally and purposefully am not saying anything along lines that could constitute 'celebration', or declaring his murder to be 'okay', let alone 'good'. I will express that there is some great cosmic irony in the fact that someone who blithely downplayed the suffering caused by gun violence, who no doubt thought his money and influence would protect him ... became a victim thereof. That's not to say he 'deserved it', but rather that he tempted fate, and fate had the last word.

I will, however, criticize the Trump admin, and the rest of the fascists reactions and rhetoric, esp. the part where they imply that 'the left' is even remotely as responsible for gun deaths of this nature, or that we are the side that is advocating political violence, because that is bullshit. Trump has been spewing violent rhetoric against his perceived enemies since he came down the fucking escalator (and even before that).

You want to talk about a lack of decorum? Trump is the guy who, on the day of 9/11, instead of expressing a WORD of sympathy for the unknown 1000's of people dead, bragged that he now had the tallest building in Manhattan. And he's been a seething mass of animus who most assuredly gets off on the idea of physically harming anyone who opposes his will or gets in his way.

He can stuff his 'radical left lunatics' nonsense where the sun don't shine. HE IS THE CAUSE, he is the one with the most violent and offensive rhetoric, AND actions. Dude has absolutely ZERO desire for any sort of peace, and every single day he wakes up with the idea of causing chaos, hurting people, enriching and empowering himself, and exacting revenge. He is NOT a good person, in short.

[JI7]

4. I think we should talk about him by saying how much more influential

he was than Trump (among conservatives).

[Keepthesoulalive]

5. You live in fear

We are used to this. Shooting black folks in church, in grocery stores , jogging and just plain existing. I will not act like this is something we should fear and we should hide our pain and this man has caused many of us emotional pain. Please stop insulting us by asking us to deny our deep feelings, it is what it is.

[Crunchy Frog]

6. This seems similar to the murder of Kirov engineered by Stalin in 1934.

He was made into a martyr and a saint, and his killing served as the pretext for the unleashing of the beginning of the Great Terror.

If Trump's not familiar with the history, his good buddy in the Kremlin certainly is.

[Bread and Circuses]

7. Nope! I am not cruel and I'm not posting 'celebrating' ....

He said that it was acceptable that some will die so that guns cab to be everywhere ( paraphrasing ) .

He also thought that Empathy was dumb. (Paraphrasing )

The honest way to comment about his demise is just that.

Therefore,
He would be OK if he was killed by a gun and he doesn’t want words of kindness or compassion for his family.

That’s what we’re doing.

Stone Cold - Kirk received what he put out into the universe. A violent death.

[roamer65]

8. As Bubblehead himself stated.

This is the price of having a 2nd Amendment.

It is what it is.

[Jirel]

9. He's an idiot.

Does this fool believe any of this wasn’t coming? That it was just a matter of time before we saw full fascist political repression in its ugliest form? That not speaking will prevent it?

The coup is in the past tense. The longer people want to hold on to some sense of normalcy with weasel words like these, the more ground we will lose. Capitulation and appeasement will get us nowhere.

The fact is, the gloves must be off for the people, just as they for the fascist autocracy. I know that’s a scary thought. But WTF do you think was happening when Mango Mussolini pardoned the January 6th violent insurrectionists? WTF do you think was happening when ICE was given carte blanche to run around masked, kidnapping people off the streets? WTF do you think was happening when the government stopped paying attention to judges and SCOTUS began cementing dictatorship in ruling after ruling? The sooner we stop pretending and whispering and “going high,” the sooner we get down to the nitty gritty work ahead.

You are literally living in late 1930s Germany. You’d better start coming to terms with the fact that the gasoline has been poured, and it wasn’t poured by people playing the world’s smallest violin for Charle Kirk burning in hell with Rush Limbaugh tonight. We’re watching the last people to get a clue in America running scared - generally the non-psychopathic white, heteronormative, christian people who are comfortable in their lives - as they realize what it feels like to have been black, brown, poor, disabled, non-citizen, female, genderqueer, and/or members of a minority religion in this country, all along. All this sturm and drang is happening among the neoliberal set because suddenly THEY are learning how much they relied on privilege, and are intensely uncomfortable about losing it. So do, please, clutch that last pearl, apologize to all the groups that have been taken for granted as allies while losing ground under even OUR administrations for years, put on your leathers, and get ready to rumble.

[Jspur]

10. As a 42 year old US born Indian guy

whose parents are from India your post really resonated with me. I agree with you 100 percent and I feel anybody whose acting scared shitless right now believing that appeasing MAGA, Republicans, is going to stop horrendous things from happening is a damn fool with no life experience of dealing with bullies. Growing up in the South and dealing with extreme racism I learned real quickly that you can't appease bullies. You only have three options which is to fight the bully, flee, or submit to the bully. These white Neo-Liberals like you said are clueless because they never had to deal with this type of racism and bullying that non white people have had to deal with their whole entire lives. They are now getting a taste of it and are scared shitless with no clue on how to handle it. The reality is when a bully is in power they are going to come at you regardless of how nice you are to them. It's just the cold reality you have to deal with.

[Woodycall]

13. Well said

[Duncan Grant]

11. Your silence will not protect you. -- Audre Lorde

Meditate on that instead.

[BoRaGard]

14. .

[SheltieLover]

15. Ty for posting this!