Resolves to my personal judgement when sufficient information is released. I will not bet in this market. Resolves based on the state of information at market close (Nov. 9).
For reference, the Trump shooter would have been "indiscernible."
Update 2025-09-10 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): - Political lean will be judged on the US political spectrum.
Update 2025-09-10 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): - Transgender identity is not a political lean and is not necessarily sufficient on its own to determine resolution.
Pro-Palestinian activism alone is not inherently sufficient to determine political lean, but could have the potential to.
Additional evidence beyond these attributes will be required to resolve.
Update 2025-09-11 (PST) : If a culprit is arrested, but there's widespread likelihood that they're not the real perpetrator, this will only resolve if I'm 90% sure they got the right guy, and may resolve "no culprit caught" otherwise.
If their political lean is too wrapped up in, say, state-sponsorship, being a spy or secret agent, some baffling edge case like that, this will probably resolve "indiscernible."
1,000
1.00My plan with this market is to keep it open until the close date, but I reserve the right to resolve this market if something I deem blatantly obvious enough to warrant a resolution comes out, such as leaked neo-nazi chat logs or a bafflingly nonpartisan luigi-style manifesto (This feels unlikely, but not impossible).
I will give this market at least a week for an understanding of the shooter (or at least a narrative surrounding the understanding of the shooter) to coalesce. It is extremely unlikely this market will resolve before next Friday.
Former classmate describes him as a "Reddit kid" in high school https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1966636143425827122
@SaiVazquez A lot of the vibe shift towards clear left was in response to that standout interview. I still think it's possible but my credence is closer to a coin flip between left and incoherent now.
Suspect's high school classmate says Robinson was the only 'leftist' in a family of 'very hard' Republicans - The Guardian
All evidence I've seen seems line up with Tyler Robinson being a Groyper:
Fuentes talks a lot about hiding your power level, playing the optics game, etc. It's a major part of his strategy. I would expect acquaintances (which is the only character testimony I've heard) to perceive Robinson's political beliefs incorrectly. If he had any close friends who he would actually open up with, they would probably be Groypers too and give misleading answers to reporters. As such, I don't think any testimony from people who claim to have known him personally moves the needle much.
Fuentes' audience is highly irony poisoned. They are playful with words, as are neonazi groups in general.
Fuentes has been actively warring with Kirk for years now, sending his followers to Kirk's events to embarrass him and siphon his fans. They had substantive disagreements on animating issues, most notably Jews, Israel, and the Holocaust. Kirk had generally refused to engage with Fuentes or his fans, calling them "bad faith", "trolls", etc.
This heat had been turned up more so recently as Fuentes started to stake out a position against Trump himself for his support of Israel. This position reignited the "Groyper wars" with his fans constantly trying to get Kirk to debate Fuentes through various means.
Robinson's family and community are all highly red coded. No signs of parental abuse. On the contrary, his father turning him in strongly indicates he's a genuinely devout Christian. Base rate of someone from this background becoming an extremist leftist is low.
For reference, these are the bullet inscriptions. I think they are the strongest available evidence of his state of mind at the time of the shooting:
"Notices bulges, OwO what's this?"
"Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao"
"Hey fascist! Catch!" followed by an up arrow symbol, a right arrow symbol, and three down arrow symbols
"If you read this, you are gay LMAO"
An antifa or trans rights extremist shooter would not write things like this. They are all obscure memes, highly steeped in irony, playful, etc. They aren't in line with those leftist aesthetics at all, which are both usually far more hamfisted in their messaging.
A "No Kings" type Democrat isn't even in the realm of possibility. Such a shooter, if they even exist, would be targeting Trump anyway.
Lastly, "mentally ill with an idiosyncratic ideology" is less likely given the precision and accuracy of the shot. One shot, perfectly placed, instant kill. Shooters going through some kind of psychosis are more likely to miss their target, create collateral damage, or simply change target to someone else over a petty, inconsequential, or unrelated dispute. The execution and aesthetics of the shooting itself seems most similar to Brenton Tarrant, also a neonazi. Still, base rate of this one is high so still pretty likely.
@cthor I don't really understand the last paragraph here. The assassination attempt on the President was a single head movement away from succeeding, and that person had a completely incoherent ideology.
@cthor I don't buy this at all. One major error: base rates are misleading, because political assassins are severely out-of-distribution. Most children raised in stable right-wing households end up right-wing, sure, but most of them don't end up killing Charlie Kirk. The type of person, regardless of political ideology, who thinks that this is a good use of their life is likely to be bizarre in many ways including possibly this one. Also very unconvinced by psychoanalysis based on the death itself. You just cannot tell this much about a person based on the type of bullet holes they leave - in fact you can tell almost nothing.
@bens Trump's head barely moved in terms of physical space, mostly only rotated. If Trump hadn't moved his head at the same time, the shot was aimed at the very front of his face. It might've taken out his cheeks, nose, jaw, and/or mouth, but none of these would be fatal. More notably, Trump's head was facing the same stage right angle only 3 seconds prior. It was only facing stage forward for 3 seconds before shifting back to facing stage right again when the shooter shot. It was a miracle of timing for Trump to move at that moment, sure, but the shot was also poorly aimed. A better aimed shot would've killed regardless. Robinson was further away and hit the neck, a much smaller target. Both of those distances are fairly easy to hit on target from a prone position for a decently trained, prepared, and resolute shooter.
@cthor I appreciate the arguments for the possibility of him being a groyper, but to psychoanalyze the shooter based on the observed accuracy of a single shot is absurd. Speaking as a recreational shooter.
@Martlet it is weak evidence yeah and "mentally ill with an idiosyncratic ideology" is still most likely just from base rates. Most shooters are mentally ill with idiosyncratic ideologies. But it's still evidence one can update off: effective shooters more often have coherent ideologies than the average shooter.
@cthor Multiple leftists have noted the vaguely left vibe/aesthetics (hasanabi, 2) of his references. It doesn't mean too much in terms of any explicit ideology but undercuts your argument that the memes suggest he must be a Groyper. Also, an Occam's razor read of the inscriptions is that the left coded messages outnumber the the right coded (2-3 vs 1?). But I think he's not nearly as ideological as many would like to believe, maybe a mix of Crooks (not ideological, very weak evidence of anti-Trump sentiment) and Luigi (centrist vibe but "hard left" on health care)?
@cthor As someone who had this theory earlier when the evidence was sparser, partly false (like the campaign contribution), and more volatile, I think it's wildly biased to say "all" of the evidence points to groyper. I understand that groyper is one of very few ways he could possibly be right wing, but the classmate interviews are all saying he was either vaguely extreme or left wing; not a single one of them has said he was right wing like his family. The context of shooting Charlie Kirk with bullets covered in gamer and left wing slogans is also a much more left-leaning context than for example Luigi shooting a healthcare CEO with uninscribed bullets. If he's not a sophisticated false flagger, he's almost certainly left wing, and he's almost certainly not a sophisticated false flagger at this point.
(also yeah as @PlainBG pointed out from a cultural perspective multiple leftist online streamer/commentrary people flipped to admitting he was probably left late yesterday)
@Panfilo As it seems he was extremely online, his politics will be quite easy to figure out from his online footprint. I would not put that much weight into interviews of classmates. Guardian already had to retract their interview with a classmate that claimed he was right wing. My 0.02€ are on him either being a right leaning edgelord/groyper or a leftist rebelling against MAGA parents. I find it somewhat unlikely he would be a centrist, but it is possible his political positions are incoherent enough for the indiscernible option.
IMO if there is damning evidence of him being left wing, the Trump administration will attempt to use this politically and show us the evidence within a couple weeks.
However instead if there is damning evidence that he is a groyper / right wing (or motive is unclear) the Trump administration is far less likely to tell us.
@EricBolton Yeah, like shooting a right wing speaker with bullets that say, "Catch, Fascist". I guess we'll just have to wait for his views on tax policy.
@CraigDemel He’s also a guy who’s shared edgelord gamer memes which is right-coded. He’s from a politically conservative family, he dressed as Trump for Halloween, and he loves guns. And leftists aren’t the only people who hate Charlie Kirk, Groypers hate him too.
@CraigDemel Point is, there's evidence for and against. Gen Z spends a lot more time on the internet and has somewhat unpredictable views.
Given how fast information seems to be flowing upward, Trump would probably have heard of a slam dunk by now and said something about it, no?
@EricBolton My bet is that memes are a generational signal, not political, and shooting someone is a political signal.
@GuyCohen This seems implausible, and I haven't been able to find any evidence of Fuentes calling Kirk "fascist". I have been able to find the New Republic calling him a fascist, though: https://newrepublic.com/post/187497/donald-trump-charlie-kirk-christian-nationalism-democrats
@EricBolton Adding to this – the desire to quickly move on suggests Robinson's views were maybe not so left-coded:
Trump: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lynlwxpjf22r
Nacy Mace:
The FBI held onto the arrest info until Trump could announce it live, which suggests Trump has a fair measure of control over the way new information is flowing.