By Doug Casey
September 26, 2025
International Man: The official story surrounding Charlie Kirk's assassination has been eclipsed by the flurry of information that something bigger and more nefarious could be at play.
Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and journalist Max Blumenthal have made serious claims about powerful donors who were displeased with Kirk in the days before his death.
What do you make of all this?
Doug Casey: First, let me say that I was only marginally familiar with Charlie before this. I wasn't his market, and he was just a name. And even now, all I really know is snippets of his speeches. I could go back and listen to his podcasts. But what he actually said or believed isn't that important. What's important is what people think he said or believed. The Wokesters clearly hate him.
From what I can tell, he seems like a decent, sincere guy-well-read, thoughtful, well-intentioned. But I'm automatically suspicious of anyone who's been out trying to change the world since age eighteen.
Has anyone assisted him in his quest?
My understanding is that most of his funding, which was substantial, came from Zionists. He was always a huge fan of the Republican Party.
That's understandable in that it's a better alternative than the completely toxic Democratic Party. I presume he supported Israel because it's ethnically European, has always presented itself as a US ally, and evangelical Christians believe it will play a part in immanentizing the eschaton.
All we know, however, is what we see and hear in the media. And Charlie was a media phenomenon. But, it's said, he was changing his views towards Israel. He was feeling controlled by them and felt threatened. Some say that Israel took him out because he was going off the reservation and questioning their party line. Independent thinkers are dangerous and unwelcome in the world of realpolitik.
I don't, however, think Tel Aviv arranged his shooting. Not because they're loath to assassinate anyone who might be a threat; they do that promiscuously, anywhere in the world. Rather, because the risk of getting caught would be humongously out of proportion to any possible gain.
If I were writing a screenplay, I'd probably finger a radical coterie in the White House. Charlie's death could create a martyr, energize "the base" against the Left, and justify lots of new laws.
So who done it?
At least since JFK, for the last 60 or so years, almost all of the assassinations and mass murders in the US have been indeterminate. Sure, they all have cover stories. In the case of JFK, was Oswald the killer? I've always doubted that. With RFK, was Sirhan Sirhan his killer? There's a lot of doubt about that. The circumstances of MLK's assassination were equally murky.
The numerous school shootings have been blamed on everything but prescription psychiatric drugs, which were almost universally used by the miscreants.
The 2017 mass murder of 61 and wounding 850 by "high stakes gambler" Steven Paddock in Las Vegas? I'd say the odds of any truth in that cover story are Slim and None. And Slim's out of town.
What really happened on 9/11? It's obvious that we have nothing like the whole story, starting with the fact that all three destroyed buildings collapsed in their own footprints, including Building 7, which wasn't hit by a plane.
We don't know who killed Charlie Kirk, and maybe we never will. Why weren't his security scanning the roofs of nearby buildings? Or using a drone to do so? They haven't found the bullet that's supposed to have killed him. That's odd. It couldn't possibly have been a.30-06, as is widely alleged. Even if it wasn't a hollow-point, the entrance wound looks quite small and neat. And initial word from the autopsy is that there's no exit wound. It's said he was wearing body armor that deflected the bullet. Under his T-shirt? Ridiculous.
There are many unanswered questions. I suspect most of them will remain unanswered, or the media will parrot fatuous answers that somebody fabricates, as they have with the numerous other recent instances of political or ideologically driven violence. The broad public is incapable of critical thinking. They believe what the Authorities tell them. And even if they're suspicious, nobody wants to chance being labeled a "conspiracy theorist."
In any event, there's a good chance Charlie will serve as a catalyst, like John Brown did in 1859. I expect that there will be other events like this.
International Man: What struck you most about the reaction to Charlie Kirk's reported death-both from the Right, who saw it as a devastating blow, and from parts of the Left, where some responses seemed dismissive or even celebratory?
What does that tell us about where the country is right now?
Doug Casey: It's been obvious to me for the last 10 years-maybe much more, I'll have to check past letters-that the US is heading towards a breakup. It's uncertain whether it will be peaceful or violent. But one thing is for sure: the Red and the Blue people increasingly hate each other. And people with very different philosophical and moral beliefs can't, and shouldn't, inhabit the same political entity, especially when a powerful government is bankrupt, corrupt, and untethered.
One takeaway is that you can forget calls for "unity." They're nonsensical and impossible. The other takeaway is that "democracy", now more than ever, is just a charade.
I've always felt that modern democracy was just mob rule dressed up in a coat and tie. But at this point, so-called democracy is about grabbing as much of the trillions of dollars of spoils that the US government dispenses every year as possible-and gaining control of the apparatus of the State to oppress the other guy. Forget about the "loyal opposition." These people hate each other.
International Man: In the wake of Kirk's assassination, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Justice Department would "absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech."
Further, President Trump said he would designate Antifa as a terrorist organization.
What's your take on these developments?
Doug Casey: Hate speech is unpleasant. I don't like it any more than anybody else does. But it's important that there be no regulation of what people say. Not just because the First Amendment guarantees free speech, but because if you do regulate speech, who decides what's hateful? It's not an objective standard. It's an opinion. And in a highly politicized environment like today's, that's asking for trouble.
I'm all for people being allowed to say things that are hateful, simply because how else can you know who they are and what they believe? Trying to preclude hate speech is about as stupid as trying to enforce loving speech.
I like to know what's going on in people's minds, as opposed to trying to guess. Forewarned is forearmed. Suppressing so-called hate speech is like putting a lid on a pressure cooker. At some point, it will blow. The best solution to so-called hate speech is open discussion.
Pam Bondi, like most everybody in the Trump administration, has no philosophical core. She impresses me as a dim bulb who'll do what she's told.
Antifa is a destructive organization; its views are antithetical to the founding principles of the US. But on the other hand, the US founding principles have been disintegrating for many decades. The problem is that if Trump can designate Antifa as a terrorist organization, it gives him the right to round up the usual suspects arbitrarily. It's a step towards martial law. Designating an organization-even if it's full of sociopaths and criminals like Antifa-as a domestic terrorist organization opens the door to the Democrats, when they're re-elected in 2028 (which I believe they will be), to put the shoe on the other foot. We're on the way to a genuine police state in the US.
International Man: In the past, you've suggested the US could be headed toward a kind of civil conflict. Can you expand on what dynamics you see fueling that possibility today?
Doug Casey: It's impossible to have 330 million people under the same political umbrella. Especially when the government controls 40% of the economy and has regulations for everything, it wouldn't work even if the US were still homogeneous, as it was before the 1960s. But now it's made up of many radically different ethnic, racial, linguistic, and religious groups who have nothing in common. Worse, strapped taxpayers are forced to carry 100 million non-producers.
Is there a solution to these problems? There are several possibilities. One is that the US amicably splits up so that birds of a feather can flock together and have their own political unit. That would mean that California, for instance, splits from the US, and its coastal regions and cities would split from the interior. That's a theoretical, but highly unlikely, solution.
A second solution, the best one, is that 95% of the US government is dissolved, and it goes back to its original constitutional principles. A military to defend against foreign enemies. Local police to defend citizens from domestic violence. And a court system to resolve disputes without resorting to violence.
Since the government is directly or indirectly at fault for most of our problems, cutting it back 95% would be a good start. But that's not going to happen either.
What's most likely is something like a civil war. Either the country splits up violently, or one group violently captures the apparatus of the State and suppresses the losers. Or maybe everything somehow holds together under a police state of some description. I hate to think of that as both the "best" and most likely outcome...
International Man: Many see an economic and financial crisis on the horizon. How do you think the potential for political and cultural conflict factors into the country's outlook?
Doug Casey: My guess is that all these simmering demographic, social, and political antagonisms will be catalyzed by a financial collapse. With all the markets at all-time highs, while the bankrupt US government takes increasing control of the economy, using the Fed to create more debt and more currency to patch up the sinking ship. A financial collapse is in the cards.
That will be accompanied by an economic collapse, with lots of bankruptcies from indebted companies, governmental entities, and individuals. We're headed for lots of unemployment and a much lower standard of living.
Reprinted with permission from International Man.