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The legal prosecution against Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, is underway. Earlier this month, a judge held a preliminary hearing to determine whether prosecutors had enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial. (It’s expected that the case will.) When Kirk was fatally shot in September, conservatives predicted his death would be a catalyst for a revival—a moment of remaking America, and one heavily infused with conservative Christian values. But no such revival was forthcoming: The conservative movement fragmented after Kirk’s death, divided by a host of wild conspiracy theories over the “real story” behind the killing.

If MAGA had any hope of uniting around Robinson’s prosecution, it evaporated almost instantly. Instead, the pretrial this month resurfaced the schisms. While the legal proceedings played out, conservative content creators rushed to social media to accuse each other of idiocy, bigotry, plotting, and evil.

Candace Owens, the far-right personality who has turned fully against her former colleagues at Turning Point USA—the group Kirk led before his death—and against President Donald Trump, leads the faction that opposes the official narrative about Kirk’s killing. Owens and her allies argue that Kirk was not killed by a lone 23-year-old, instead claiming, dubiously, that evidence points to a broader conspiracy. She tends to speculate that Israel was behind the killing and that other Turning Point figures,........

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