Kirk’s assassination, while targeting a figure of hate, is the match that will ignite the gasoline of the far-right movement. It will be the beginning of its most violent and repressive chapter in recent memory. This single act has handed Donald Trump and his Project 2025 allies the perfect pretext to unleash the full force of their authoritarian ambitions against the left and the oppressed.

We are already witnessing the first steps. Today, seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were forced into lockdown by bomb threats, a clear sign of the violent backlash being unleashed. As WIRED reported, following Kirk’s death, “far-right influencers and extremist communities lit up social media with calls for violence against the left.” This is not mere rhetoric; it is a mobilization call. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes has already called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, pledging to rebuild his militia to protect far-right leaders. “This is a war, this is a war, this is a war,” far-right podcast host Alex Jones declared on his livestream. White supremacist activist Matt Forney stated plainly, “It is time for a complete crackdown on the left.”

We must understand: this is the green light. Trump’s repression now has its martyr and its excuse. The previous disappearances of students supporting Palestinian liberation were a warning. The Republican-controlled Senate’s accusations that the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a criminal entity for supporting protests were a prelude. The Department of Homeland Security’s directives to crack down harder on peaceful dissent laid the groundwork. Kirk’s shooting is the catalyst that will fuse these elements into a full-blown program of totalitarian rule. The crackdown on college campuses, the left, and any form of dissent will now escalate dramatically and with broad public justification from the right.

Without a powerful, organized working-class force to stand in his way, Trump’s regime will use this event to justify anything and everything. This is how totalitarianism begins: a state of perpetual crisis, fueled by a myth of victimhood, used to rationalize the silencing of all opposition. Defeating this cannot be accomplished with individual acts of violence, which only feed the regime’s narrative and strengthen its hand. It only strengthens their claim that they are the victims, justifying any level of brutality in response.

Their movement will not die with Kirk; it will metastasize. He will be transformed into a martyr, and new, even more vicious leaders will arise to take his place, empowered by this call to arms.

Since the shooting, the Democratic Party’s response has been precisely the weak and futile reaction that enables this slide into authoritarianism. They offer condolences and condemn “senseless violence,” but are too afraid to even criticize Kirk’s vile politics for fear of being accused of justifying the attack. They provide no strategy to combat the right because they are fundamentally unwilling to support the only thing that can: a mass, multiracial, multi-gender movement of workers and young people, independent of the political establishment, ready to use strikes, occupations, and mass demonstrations to fight back.

This was not a victory. It was the starter’s pistol for the most dangerous phase of the fight. Our only path forward is to get organized and build a movement massive enough to withstand the coming storm and finally end the capitalist system that breeds this endless hate and violence.