Tyler Robinson: Radicalized Into Leftism at One of the Most Conservative Ag Schools in America?

Utah State in Logan, Utah has been conservative since 1888 – a small agricultural hub turned college town in northern Utah – the idea it forged Robinson’s extremism is partisan theater.

The right’s attempt to shift Tyler Robinson’s politics onto the left is already underway. The spin began quickly, a scramble to reframe his actions as something foreign, something disowned. Yet Robinson’s background is plain enough: raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, Mormon), shaped by a conservative household, drawn to guns and Trump’s orbit. His trajectory did not bend left. The facts are clear – his actions align with the radical right, not the left.

Eric Levitz cites ADL data showing that between 2013 and 2022, right-wing extremists were responsible for the overwhelming majority of extremist-related killings in the U.S., directly contradicting claims that political violence today is “all from the left.”

---

Preliminary reports from Utah reinforce this picture, with growing evidence pointing to Robinson’s alignment with alt-right nationalism. Sources familiar with Robinson note that he was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, Mormon). His trajectory appears driven less by opposition to liberal politics than by a conviction that his own party was not conservative enough – a conviction he ultimately acted upon with lethal resolve.

Images highlighting Tyler Robinson’s background and reported affiliations: social media posts identifying him as Charlie Kirk’s killer, speculation about ties to Nick Fuentes’ “Groypers,” and photos linking Robinson to pro-Trump circles.

At the same time, more than one individual has mentioned Facebook posts from his mother claiming he was radicalized at Utah State University (USU) in Logan, Utah. I’ll explain shortly why that seems unlikely – but if it were possible for USU to radicalize someone as thoroughly Republican as Robinson in a single semester, we should all be alarmed. That would be terrifyingly efficient, and over the span of a four-year degree the output of radicals would be astronomical.

A Facebook comment claiming Robinson’s mother said he became “extreme left” while attending Utah State University, before later moving to St. George for electrical school.

Except, to the best of our knowledge – and across the expanse of the internet as far as we can tell – Robinson is the first radical to emerge from USU since the university was founded in 1888 as the Agricultural College of Utah. Agricultural schools have long been notorious hotbeds of radical leftism, of course – if one counts crop rotations, irrigation methods, and dairy science as subversive Marxist theory.

As per

Eric Kaufmann

’s October 2022 report analyzing the political demographics of U.S. universities, Utah State ranks as the second most conservative campus in the nation¹:

…at the right of the chart, we see the only two colleges with anything close to a conservative majority, Utah State (49% conservative), Brigham Young University (BYU) (48%), and Hillsdale College (76%). Plots by party identification show a very similar pattern: thus, only two colleges have a Republican majority: Utah State (51%) and Hillsdale (72%).

Eric Kaufmann’s 2022 analysis for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology shows Utah State University as the second-most conservative campus in the United States, with a Republican majority comparable only to Hillsdale College.

Even with the slightest scrutiny, the claim that Robinson was radicalized at USU falls apart. Utah State is one of the most conservative campuses in the nation. The more telling story lies elsewhere: in the wider alt-right ecosystem – media feeds, online echo chambers, and purity spirals that convinced him his party was never pure enough, never cruel enough. That is where Robinson’s politics hardened, not in a lecture hall in Logan.

What remains, then, is not a mystery about Utah State but a refusal to confront where extremism really incubates. It thrives in the spaces where grievance is monetized, where purity is weaponized, and where violence is rehearsed long before it is carried out. That is the curriculum Robinson followed.

---

1. The Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI). Diverse and Divided: A Political Demography of American Elite Students. CSPI Report No. 7. Eric Kaufmann. 3 October 2022.