The new McCarthyism

As the country argues who's responsible for political violence, is a new blacklist being written?

Sep 16, 2025

When we talked last Wednesday with Knight First Amendment Institute director Jameel Jaffer about the threats to free speech in the Trump 2.0 era, we couldn’t have foreseen how the reactions to the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk — and the reactions on the right to those reactions — would make those threats even more dire and wide-reaching.

One can question the appropriateness of or sense in speaking ill of the dead, even when the person in question is a public figure who’s made their name on the basis of boundary-pushing debate. But there’s something deeply ironic in lauding Kirk as a martyr for free speech while shutting down critics and making that threat very material. Since last week, dozens of people — from Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah to comic book author Gretchen Felker-Martin to teachers, delivery drivers, and other regular folks — have been fired from their jobs for posting on social media with their thoughts on Kirk’s death — and the voices responsible are calling for the firings of thousands more.

That private employers are shutting down speech is certainly disturbing — though free-speech protections for private-sector employees are surprisingly foggy, and more so than ever in the age of social media. But official voices have joined in, too. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered his staff to identify service members who “celebrate or mock” Kirk's death. Louisiana representative Clay Higgins promised to “use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.” Unofficial Trump advisor Laura Loomer, who’s been behind a number of high-profile White House firings already, has promised to make “everyone I find online who celebrates his death Famous, so prepare to have your whole future professional aspirations ruined if you are sick enough to celebrate his death.”

Now, there’s even a list, a website called Charlie’s Murderers (we’re not going to link), which over the weekends was calling for users to submit names of those supposedly celebrating the murder. The site has closed down its submission form for now and toned down its copy, but as of Sunday night, it had claimed more than 60,000 submissions.

It’s always tempting in times like these to say that this “isn’t us.” But the country has been here before, with neighbor denouncing neighbor as the state backed ostracism from work and community. And it’s not even so distant: Donald Trump’s political roots reach back to Joe McCarthy, through Roy Cohn.

No one wants the blacklist back.