Roughly a year after conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated, new reporting this week looked at how the shockwaves from that attack are still shaping American political life.
Kirk, who founded the youth-focused conservative organization Turning Point USA and built a large following as a commentator and campus speaker, was killed in an attack that drew national attention and prompted a wave of tributes and reflection across the political spectrum. A memorial to him at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, where photographs show mourners gathering, has stood as a physical reminder of the attack in the time since.
According to the reporting this week, the assassination opened the floodgates of neighbor-on-neighbor doxing, the practice of publicly identifying and exposing private information about people, often in retaliation for something they said or posted online in the aftermath. The reporting concluded that the damage to political discourse in the country remains a year later, describing lasting effects on how Americans engage with one another, particularly online, around political disagreements.
The retrospective arrives as the country separately marked the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks this week, with the annual Tribute in Light installation once again illuminating the skyline above lower Manhattan, a coincidence of the calendar that added to a reflective tone in national coverage this week.
The story is part of a broader pattern of concern about the tone of American political life heading into the fall campaign season, as candidates in both parties navigate a highly charged environment ahead of November's midterm elections, where officials in both parties have called for lowering the temperature of political rhetoric even as high-profile disputes continue online.
Expect continued attention to online political conduct and doxing as the midterm campaign intensifies through the fall.
What is doxing?
Doxing means publicly revealing private information about a person, such as their identity, address or employer, typically without their consent and often as a form of retaliation.