Charlie Kirk's "Debate Me, Bro" Act Wasn't Politics "the Right Way"
By: timjacobwise (Medium)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Debate isn't the answer to political violence. But there might be another, better option
Tim Wise
In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, many of his supporters, and even some of his critics, like Ezra Klein, have suggested that what made the killing especially horrific is that Kirk had been open to debating and calmly discussing issues on campuses, even with people who strenuously disagreed with him.
As Klein put it, Kirk was "practicing politics in exactly the right way," by "showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him." Presumably, Kirk was some latter-day Socrates just hoping to engage in elevated philosophical discourse, and thus, to kill him is particularly awful because it suggests that some would rather settle political differences with bullets than with better arguments.
This all sounds very nice. But it's rubbish.
First, Kirk, whose killing was indeed terrible — not because of the way he lived but simply because murder is wrong — did not merely engage in good-faith debates with political adversaries.
He also held forth three hours a day on a podcast where he said, among other things, that:
- We need to launch a “soft civil war” in America’s cities by way of mass deportations.
- Even legal immigrants , especially those who aren’t white or who are Muslim, aren’t real Americans.
- Christians who vote for Democrats aren’t really Christians, or if they are, they are offending God by their political affiliation.
- Men who don’t vote for Donald Trump aren’t really men .
- Kamala Harris is more ambitious than Satan. And finally,
- Jews have been “pushing hatred” against white people, and they control virtually every institution in America.
He also spearheaded the Professor Watchlist , which sought to intimidate and run progressive or left-leaning professors out of higher education.
So yeah, not Socrates. Not even William F. Buckley.
Second, even when he did show up on a campus to do the debating thing for which he is being so uniformly praised, it’s hard to view the spectacle as a good-faith engagement. Frankly, setting up shop on the quad flanked by a “prove me wrong” sign or a “change my mind” table suggests a kind of performativity to the exercise, and one that diminishes greatly the high-brow nature of the practice.
Debates like this are about “owning” your adversaries, not learning from them or being open to nuance. They are intended to produce viral clips that can be shared and monetized online, which naturally leads those engaged in such debates, if we can really call them that, to make the snarkiest, often most extreme and uncompromising versions of an argument, because that’s what people want to watch: like professional wrestling, but with words.
Here is a video of Charlie Kirk saying "Every thing Democrats love, God hates"
Charlie Kirk: "If you're a Christian that votes to the Democrat Party, you are voting for things that God hates" | Media Matters for America
I'm sure God spoke directly to him every day.
Imagine if Ilhan Omar was killed, and a Democratic president said she was "legendary" and said he would construct a statue of her at the capitol, and the New York Yankees gave her a moment of silence before a game. And she was given the Presidential Medal Of Freedom posthumously. Y'all would be losing your minds.
The woman who is busy reposting videos celebrating the assassination of a pundit?
Bigotry delivered with a smile is still bigotry.
The canonization , so to speak, of Charlie Kirk , is well, outrageous. There are hundreds , and more likely thousands , of hours of him on video. Much of that is Kirk demonstrating he is far right, a Christian nationalist, racially biogoted, and homophobic (based on biblical principles). He operated that way with freedom of speech protections. Thats good.
They are not reasons to proclaim him an American icon or a secular saint. Quite the opposite.
So many on the left trying spending so much time and energy to demonize someone days after they were murdered. How classy can one get? S/ Well, at least there are a few less I hate Trump articles in the msm
Just in response to so many on the right trying spending so much time and energy to canonize someone days after they were murdered
Bullshit. Own the truth and don't try to blame someone else for some on the left boorish behavior,
Right back at you.
Good reply. Right up there with i know you are but what am I.
Thank you! Trying to match the debate language with the debater.
The fun part is that you are trying to insult me with the reply that I basically copied word for word from you, thus insulting yourself.
Nice try
He was criticized, and rightly so, long before he died. It’s not as if people are seizing the opportunity to do it now, for the first time. That criticism doesn’t simply go away, especially when people who supported him are trying to hold up the things he said as worthy of our collective respect.
If you just wanted to say his murder was wrong, most people would agree. But the Right is talking about the tragic silencing of this “great man” and his allegedly profound message. So, naturally, people take a look at that message and respond with an opinion.
And by the way, it is possible to condemn his murder and condemn the things he said while he was alive.
well done
see 3.1.1
It seems all the bullshit the left is trying to do to diminish his message and importance is backfiring.
No, you brought this on. You and the rest of his admirers. Even now, look at how you want to frame the event. You’re not talking about murder, or guns, or violence generally, or his family. You care more about his message than you do about the man or the act itself.
So since all you want to talk about is his message, that’s what we’re talking about.
His message is simple "When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence"
The rest is his opinions. Some I agree with and some I don't. He also showed the ignorance of some people unable to support their claim with anything but bumper sticker sayings. Maybe they will walk away and give a little independent thinking to the issue.
Not only that, Turning Point has received 18,000 new chapter requests where before they had 9000 college chapters and 1100 high school chapters.
I don't know who can replace the leadership shown by Charlie but the fear of being a conservative on college campuses took a major hit. The silenced are no longer silent and they have something to say, they will not be afraid or canceled anymore.
It would be nice.
If people thought for themselves, 99% of our extremists would evaporate overnight.
I'm just not optimistic.
It seems they would rather take the easy way out; call Charlie racist, fascist and any other name they can think of so they don't have to think about what he said.
I keep coming back to a Tweet from Chris Williamson related to the lack of intellectual investment in the political sphere. It just seems more pertinent by the day.
Perfectly said. Leave your brain at the door and let someone else do your thinking for you seems to define 75 to 85 percent of the people
Yeah, I’ve seen some clips of his “debates,” and they’re a joke. They’re full of the same straw man tactics, deflections, and misrepresentation of “facts” that I see in online “debates.” Unfortunately, many political debates are like that, these days, but the ones like Kirk did, where the “hero” sets up the debates are pure propaganda from the jump.
But of course, this charade isn’t even the worst part of it. It’s the message of the propaganda itself. The antisemitism, the homophobia, the misogyny, the racism, the anti-immigrant bigotry, and so on. And the way people embrace this “common sense” bigotry because it was delivered with charisma.
Charlie Kirk debated people who were mainly 10 years younger than him, college students. As hard as they try, the average college student does not have the wherewithal to debate someone who spends all their time in that space. He has the "facts" that he wants to present ready and loaded, and they have to answer on the fly.
Even with all that being the case, some of the college students held up to him quite well.
“It’s the message of the propaganda itself.”
His death, while tragic and indefensible, does not diminish the nature, the intent, nor of the ramifications of the dialogue.