Just a few minutes after the shot that cost Charlie Kerk on Wednesday (10.09.2025) in the Utah USAthe calls to ‘civil war“Social media flooded, mainly in X. The term reported more than 129,000 times on the same day and 210,000 the next, compared to an average of 18,000 daily references in the past months, according to a New York Times analysis.
The New York Times study, based on data from Tweet Binder, stresses that many of the messages containing the term “civil war” in the US were also republished on other platforms, such as Truth Social, Tiktok and Instagram.
The mobilization came mainly from Republican officials, conservative media and far -right personalities. Among them, Alex Jones (founder of Infowars), Tea Raitzik (creator of the Libsoftiktok account, known for attacks on LGBTQ+ community) and Influencer Andrew Tate. The latter was confined to a simple “Civil War” on X, a post over 16 million times.
A dynamic reappear
The rise of this rhetoric is not new: at every politically critical moment, the ghost of the civil war returns to the networks. Following the FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago in 2022, reports had reached 118,000 within two days. In July 2024, when Donald Trump’s assassination attempted at a pre -election rally in Pennsylvania, reports exceeded 260,000 within 48 hours.
For Jared Holt, a researcher at Open Measures who monitors online influences, the phenomenon proves that the rhetoric of civil war is no longer on the sidelines: “The real danger is that it creates a” legalization “framework for threats and violence against political opponents.”
Politicians and influencers at the front line
On Wednesday, Republican MP Derik Van Orden accused the Left of “leading America to a civil war”. Others, such as Martzori Taylor Greene, have given indirect appeals to national mobilization against the Democrats. Influencer Matt Fortey wrote that “every democratic politician must be arrested”.
Ilon Musk, owner of X and the most much -made person on the platform, reinforced the tension with a war message: “If they do not leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die.” Its post was shown over 1.7 million times and garnered more than 37,000 likes.
Either we fight back or they will kill us https://t.co/pCQHFHCVml
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2025
Some voices for expansion
On Thursday night, some conservative commentators tried to throw the tones. David Brodi, of Christian Broadcasting Network, acknowledged that Kerk’s murder could be perceived as a trademark for a civil war in the US, but praying to never turn into violence.
“We have to pray like never before,” he wrote, in a political landscape in the US that is becoming more and more divided.