Across the country, ordinary Americans are being fired for expressing their opinions about Charlie Kirk’s killing. Sometimes, those opinions are despicable — like support for his assassination. But in other cases they are anodyne, like expressing distaste for some of Kirk’s offensive statements in life.

Prominent right-wing voices, like Laura Loomer and the social media account Libs of TikTok, are gleefully identifying more targets — including police officers, high school teachers, and nurses. An anonymous website, called the Charlie Kirk Data Foundation, is building a blacklist based on more than 60,000 reports of allegedly unacceptable reactions to the killing.

Guest-hosting Kirk’s radio show on Monday, Vice President JD Vance encouraged people to “call their employers” when they see someone celebrating Kirk’s killing. Chillingly, both he and guest Stephen Miller vowed a federal crackdown on left-wing organizations that they claimed, without an iota of evidence, bore some responsibility for Kirk’s death.

“The last message that Charlie sent me was…that we need to have an organized strategy to go after the left-wing organizations that are promoting violence in this country. And I will write those words on my heart and I will carry them out,” Miller said. “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have to the DOJ, DHS, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks. It will happen and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”

Per the Wall Street Journal, some of the policies under consideration — for deployment “as soon as this week” — include stripping left-wing organizations’ tax-exempt status and weaponizing anti-corruption laws against them. Already, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is claiming to be screening visa applications based on social media statements about Kirk. Attorney General Pam Bondi has threatened (unconstitutionally) to prosecute anyone engaging in “hate speech” relating to Kirk’s death — and to punish employers if they fail to fire their staff members who have impugned his memory.

“Employers, you have to have an obligation to get rid of people. You need to look at people who are saying horrible things. And they shouldn’t be working with you,” she said

© Vox