Speaker 1: A zone media.
Speaker 2: This is it could happen here today. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Garrison Davis, and they're sure has been a lot happening
Speaker 2: this past year. I am kind of feeling emotionally exhausted
Speaker 2: and just numb in general. It's a different feeling from
Speaker 2: the political desensitization that my job usually provides me. I'm
Speaker 2: frankly still recovering from attending the DNC, even more so
Speaker 2: than the RNC. At the RNC, I knew I was
Speaker 2: going to be walking through the pits of hell, and
Speaker 2: despite the immense evil on display, the sideshow conspiracy theory
Speaker 2: freak nature of the event made it almost absurdly amusing.
Speaker 2: But the DNC kind of broke me between the infighting
Speaker 2: among Palestine protesters and the insistence from the official organizers
Speaker 2: TM to oppose any course of action that would actually
Speaker 2: disrupt the event or apply pressure to attendees, and instead
Speaker 2: just use the Palestine protests to promote their little socialist
Speaker 2: newspapers and political orgs. Meanwhile, inside the actual event, I
Speaker 2: was surrounded by some of the richest, most powerful people
Speaker 2: I had ever been around, and just watching them maintain
Speaker 2: their like Kamala is bracked party atmosphere at all costs
Speaker 2: and purposely blind themselves to the atrocities happening around the world,
Speaker 2: especially Gaza was a deeply unsettling experience like these are
Speaker 2: supposed to be the if not the good guys, at
Speaker 2: least the better guys or the less openly fascist guys,
Speaker 2: and like among the American right wings, unprecedented focus and
Speaker 2: organized attack on trans writes. This was the first d
Speaker 2: n C SINS twenty twelve to not feature a trans speaker,
Speaker 2: and trans people were never directly mentioned during the convention's
Speaker 2: prime time speaking slots. And now it's the election ramping up,
Speaker 2: and the Southeast still recovering from two devastating hurricanes, Israel
Speaker 2: escalating tensions with Iran, and with the backing of the
Speaker 2: United States continuing strikes in Lebanon and Palestine. I am
Speaker 2: just feeling more lost and discombobulated than I have been
Speaker 2: in years. So to cheer myself up, I decided to
Speaker 2: go to a Charlie Kirk and vivek Ramaswami rally at
Speaker 2: Georgia State University. Now to some that may sound just
Speaker 2: completely batshit or perhaps some form of bizarre self harm,
Speaker 2: but look like I've been covering far right rallies and
Speaker 2: writing about these weird conservative influencers for years now. It's
Speaker 2: almost second nature to me. Going to these events can
Speaker 2: feel paradoxically relaxing, even though it may trigger some stress.
Speaker 2: My body just kind of subconsciously knows what to do
Speaker 2: in environments like this. The RNC was so easy, it's
Speaker 2: like an autopilot just takes over, and so I thought
Speaker 2: going to this Turning Point USA event might help reset
Speaker 2: my brain by giving myself a simple task that I
Speaker 2: know I can excel at. But before we get into
Speaker 2: all that, first, for those more fortunate than I, here's
Speaker 2: some background on Charlie Kirk, also known as the far
Speaker 2: right podcaster with the Smallest Face. As a teenager, back
Speaker 2: in twenty twelve, Charles J. Kirk co founded in organization
Speaker 2: for campus conservatives called Turning Point USA, and then in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen he founded a sister organization called Turning Point Action,
Speaker 2: which focuses on elections and conservative political advocacy. Though initially
Speaker 2: more aligned with the so called alt light rather than
Speaker 2: the alt right, Kirk has slowly moved farther and farther
Speaker 2: to the right during the past ten years, and by
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, he embraced election fraud, COVID nineteen, and vaccine
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories. Also during twenty he started his own podcast,
Speaker 2: The Charlie Kirk Show, which is now somehow ranked as
Speaker 2: the number seven podcast for news in Apple Podcasts. So
Speaker 2: that's not good. At this point, Charlie has kind of
Speaker 2: taken the place of, if not surpassed, the role that
Speaker 2: was previously occupied by Stephen Crowder before his fall from
Speaker 2: Grace isteming from his breakup with Ben Shapiro and the
Speaker 2: allegations of abusing his ex wife. Through the Turning Point
Speaker 2: Action organization, Kirk is more tied in with the actual
Speaker 2: mechanisms of the Republican Party than even the Daily Wire is.
Speaker 2: Just this past Wednesday, Turning Point Action hosted a rally
Speaker 2: for Trump in Duluth, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. Trump
Speaker 2: spoke at this event, and Tucker Carlson made a very
Speaker 2: fascist speech advocating to refuse the results of the election
Speaker 2: if Trump loses and likening Trump to a quote unquote
Speaker 2: daddy figure needing to punish the country for being a
Speaker 2: quote unquote bad girl the past four years. It's a
Speaker 2: huge indictment against Americans. Deeply Freudian politics now. The event
Speaker 2: that I attended on October twenty first was a part
Speaker 2: of Charlie Kirk's Your Being Brainwashed tour, where Kirk and
Speaker 2: friends travel from swing state to swing state to debate
Speaker 2: college students on camera about why Trump is the better candidate.
Speaker 2: Charlie's focus on debating unprepared college students shows how he
Speaker 2: has kind of picked up the baton from Stephen Crowder
Speaker 2: and his old change My Mind videos, but this year, specifically,
Speaker 2: Charlie's version of this college debate content creation strategy is
Speaker 2: more in line with this overall strategy to inflate Kirk's
Speaker 2: political influence leading up to the election so that he
Speaker 2: can get more directly involved in the GOP's get out
Speaker 2: the vote campaign in key swing states. As a part
Speaker 2: of this strategy, Kirk has been on a bit of
Speaker 2: a media blitz the past few months to promote himself.
Speaker 2: Some listeners may have seen the viral video featuring Charlie
Speaker 2: Kirk debating twenty five quote unquote woke college students for
Speaker 2: over ninety minutes. This video, from the YouTube channel Jubilee,
Speaker 2: has over twenty million views and like just as an
Speaker 2: aside Jubilee is just so deeply evil. This company claims
Speaker 2: to advocate for like empathy and human connection while turning
Speaker 2: life and death political issues into fucking game show segments
Speaker 2: for YouTube ad revenue, often pitting media trained conservative activists
Speaker 2: against just random clueless liberals. I hate this company. They
Speaker 2: are so bad, but I digress now. I actually attended
Speaker 2: a Turning Point USA event on the GSU campus last year.
Speaker 2: It was a smaller event that was ostensibly about defending
Speaker 2: the Copcity training facility in a Atlanta, though halfway through
Speaker 2: the event it just stopped being about Copcity and it
Speaker 2: just turned into an ad for Turning Point USA and
Speaker 2: this other political organization started by Candice Owens called BLEXIT,
Speaker 2: which stands for the quote Black Exit from the Victimhood
Speaker 2: mentality unquote. This was one of the most racist events
Speaker 2: I've ever been to. The main speaker, in his best
Speaker 2: metrosexual attire, blamed black people for creating situations that result
Speaker 2: in police murders. Said that the real problem is that
Speaker 2: black kids are never taught accountability and that in the
Speaker 2: MLK days, people only ever advocated for more police training.
Speaker 2: He also claimed that rap music is causing a spike
Speaker 2: in violent crime and ranted against jay Z and Beyonce
Speaker 2: and closed by saying that we need to support more
Speaker 2: conservative rappers and singers. It was really bad, But on
Speaker 2: the plus side, I went undercover to this event, and
Speaker 2: when talking with the Turning Point USA officials, I convinced
Speaker 2: them that I was actually a student at a different
Speaker 2: nearby university, and I reserved the right to start a
Speaker 2: fake TPUSA chapter in that school. So hopefully that will
Speaker 2: never happen, since I'm the one who's supposed to be
Speaker 2: doing it. For the Brainwashed Tour event this past Monday,
Speaker 2: I dressed like an unfashionable campus conservative and donned my
Speaker 2: Reagan movie baseball cap acquired at the RNC welcome party,
Speaker 2: and arrived at campus an hour early to scope out
Speaker 2: the terrain. They didn't announce the exact location for the
Speaker 2: event ahead of time, so for about half an hour
Speaker 2: I just walked around to GSU with the fucking Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan hat, looking for like a TPUSA booth. Now, luckily
Speaker 2: I spotted some people with red mega hats that I
Speaker 2: tailed to the nearby Hurt Park, where it was immediately
Speaker 2: evident that this would be a much big, bigger event
Speaker 2: than the Copcity one I attended a year prior. In
Speaker 2: the middle of the park was a big table with
Speaker 2: microphones set up for questions and debate, and on either
Speaker 2: side there were booths with turning point stickers, buttons, flyers,
Speaker 2: a pocket constitution, and sign up sheets to get involved
Speaker 2: in their political advocacy programs. I took home a big
Speaker 2: button that read Republicans are Hotter, and I got another, uh,
Speaker 2: what I would call a brat style button, but brown
Speaker 2: instead of green, that reads high period stop being a
Speaker 2: socialist period thanks period. Not good. Not good. But I
Speaker 2: watched the crowd grow from like twenty people I would
Speaker 2: say around two hundred. You know, it got kind of fluid,
Speaker 2: but yeah, around two hundred to fifty. Maybe A small
Speaker 2: majority were students or at least young, and appeared to
Speaker 2: be equally made up of liberals and conservatives, with the
Speaker 2: rest of the crowd mostly made up of conservatives from
Speaker 2: all ages who came to campus just to see Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2: As the event was about to begin, TPUSA staff moved
Speaker 2: all of the older, quote unquote non college students out
Speaker 2: of frame of the cameras to make the video seem
Speaker 2: more focused on liberal college students, and after waiting in
Speaker 2: the surprisingly warm October sun for over an hour, Charles J.
Speaker 2: Kirk finally arrived thirty minutes late from the official start time,
Speaker 2: tossing free mega hats wildly into the crowd, one of
Speaker 2: which I am now in possession of. For this leg
Speaker 2: of the tour, Kirk has been accompanied by the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four Republican presidential candidate with the tallest hair, vivek Ramaswami, who,
Speaker 2: by the way, has also won the Cool Zone Media
Speaker 2: Award for Presidential care Candidate with the most Nick Fuentes
Speaker 2: Groyper Energy. So there you go. I can't believe I've
Speaker 2: seen the vek Ramaswami like four different times this year.
Speaker 2: That doesn't feel good. But do you know what does
Speaker 2: feel good? That's right, these products and services that support
Speaker 2: this podcast. Okay, we are back. It's time to finally
Speaker 2: talk about this fucking rally. So I'm not gonna go
Speaker 2: over like the whole event play by play, because there
Speaker 2: was over two hours of quote unquote debating that I
Speaker 2: have neither the time nor the desire to recap, but
Speaker 2: I will mention some of the overarching topics and common
Speaker 2: lines of questioning even as the first student took the mic,
Speaker 2: I knew that this was gonna be a rough day.
Speaker 2: The first person to quote unquote debate, Charlie and Vivek,
Speaker 2: stated that their quote primary opposition to Trump is that
Speaker 2: he's anti American and anti patriotic unquote. They said that
Speaker 2: they believed that Trump fundamentally undermines American values, and they
Speaker 2: specifically invoked Trump's rhetoric online about suspending the Constitution and
Speaker 2: the whole January sixth incident. Now, look, I don't think
Speaker 2: this is a very compelling line of attack, especially in
Speaker 2: a debate setting. And I just don't believe that patriotism
Speaker 2: is like an inherently good thing. And I think Grifters
Speaker 2: and Conman are pretty dark American. But Vavek and Kirk
Speaker 2: responded by talking about how social media censorship in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty was a much greater act of anti Americanism, although
Speaker 2: later on in the day they defended Elon Musk in
Speaker 2: his running of Twitter, since he's a private citizen and
Speaker 2: should be allowed to do whatever he wants with his
Speaker 2: own platform. This is course ironic amidst reporting from The
Speaker 2: New York Times that Musk and the Trump team colluded
Speaker 2: to suppress information damaging to Trump on the platform, basically
Speaker 2: exactly what the right was accusing the old Twitter doing
Speaker 2: the last election. But none of that really matters. There's
Speaker 2: no such thing as hypocrisy. You can never hold anyone
Speaker 2: account to this sort of thing on the right. Charlie
Speaker 2: Kirk then just went on to deny that Trump called
Speaker 2: to suspend the constitution.
Speaker 3: Here's a clip he never had.
Speaker 4: You're misquoting him. But let's just look at what he did,
Speaker 4: not just rhetoric.
Speaker 2: Nice little quick pivot there from Charles. But yes, technically
Speaker 2: Trump didn't say suspend. He actually said terminate, which is
Speaker 2: like worse. I don't know. In twenty twenty two, Trump
Speaker 2: posted on truth Social calling for the quote unquote termination
Speaker 2: of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in
Speaker 2: the Constitution unquote, in response to the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 2: I don't know how Kirk thinks that saying terminate is
Speaker 2: better than suspend. Of course he doesn't. He's just playing
Speaker 2: this game. It doesn't matter. Kirk went on to lie
Speaker 2: about the nature of January sixth and whether Trump literally
Speaker 2: personally committed the legal act of insurrection, eventually saying that
Speaker 2: even if Trump did it would be thrown out under
Speaker 2: the new presidential immunity ruling by the Supreme Court, and
Speaker 2: stating that though Trump didn't actually do a coup, the
Speaker 2: Democrats did actually do a coup to get Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: on the ticket. Okay, sure, buddy. Now, part of Kirk's
Speaker 2: just flagrant January sixth revisionist history was claiming that Ashley
Speaker 2: Babbitt was suddenly killed with no warning as she was
Speaker 2: retreating from the Capitol, and just none of that is true.
Speaker 2: That just isn't what happened.
Speaker 4: The only person to die on January sixth is a
Speaker 4: Trump supporter killed by one of Nancy Pelosi's bodyguards.
Speaker 2: Okay, even that part isn't true. Two other Trump supporters
Speaker 2: died of heart attacks, and another died holding a don't
Speaker 2: tread on Me flag after being trampled by fellow rioters. Now,
Speaker 2: a student countered Kirk's claim of Babbitt's innocence by confirming
Speaker 2: that he believes in stands your ground laws that if
Speaker 2: you're breaking into property you can be shot.
Speaker 4: Hold on, But Ashley Babbitt was unarmed. Isn't the whole
Speaker 4: kind of shtick of the American Left? Like don't shoot
Speaker 4: unarmed people. If I break into your house, then I
Speaker 4: was unarmed but broken I was breaking into your house,
Speaker 4: was George Floyd? Was that a rightful death?
Speaker 2: Okay, first of all, incredible deflection, but oh yes, as
Speaker 2: if these two situations are in any way comparable, a
Speaker 2: black man being pinned down and choked to death for
Speaker 2: over nine minutes and a woman leading a mob intent
Speaker 2: on killing US politicians right up to the last line
Speaker 2: of defense protecting set of politicians as they try to
Speaker 2: evacuate the capital. Kirk tried to make this same gross
Speaker 2: George Floyd compared Grison like an hour later, again to
Speaker 2: booze from the audience. Later in the day, a second
Speaker 2: student hit the Charlie Kirk debate chair debating on whether
Speaker 2: Trump is anti American, and mentioned Trump's recent comments talking
Speaker 2: about a quote unquote enemy within, some enemy inside the
Speaker 2: United States that poses a far bigger threat than foreign enemies.
Speaker 2: The veck claimed that Trump was referring to people who
Speaker 2: shot at Trump, and Kirk claimed that it was a
Speaker 2: reference to drug cartels.
Speaker 4: So Donald Trump is talking with enemy, then he's talking
Speaker 4: about the cartels that are here that are poisoning our streets.
Speaker 4: With drugs that are bringing illegal guns into the country.
Speaker 4: That is the enemy within. Yet we say Russia is
Speaker 4: an enemy. Russia has never attacked the United States of America.
Speaker 2: Curious Russia comment there, certainly, but like for this enemy
Speaker 2: within thing, we know that's just not true. Trump has
Speaker 2: specifically named multiple Democrats as the enemy within. It's not
Speaker 2: about cartels, it's not about people shooting him. There's just
Speaker 2: non stop lying coming from Kirk and Novek, and none
Speaker 2: of the students are like equipped or researched enough to
Speaker 2: call him out on it. Another common topic of debate
Speaker 2: was war and the insistence that Trump didn't start to
Speaker 2: any new wars, unlike Biden and Harris, who have personally
Speaker 2: started wars. I guess, with Kirk crediting Biden for starting
Speaker 2: the Russia Ukraine War by financing the Ukrainian defensive, as
Speaker 2: well as roping in Harris by saying that she was
Speaker 2: quote in charge of the Russia Ukrainian War before it happened, unquote,
Speaker 2: which really doesn't make much sense as a sentence. The
Speaker 2: VEK later added that Kamala Harris was personally in charge
Speaker 2: of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which again just isn't true.
Speaker 2: The Vek is parroting a failed attempt by Republican lawmakers
Speaker 2: from last September to invent some way to blame Harris
Speaker 2: for the Afghanistan withdrawal now that she is the presidential nominee.
Speaker 2: Harris is only mentioned three times times in the three thousand,
Speaker 2: two hundred and eighty eight pages of interview transcripts from
Speaker 2: the Foreign Affairs Committee's investigation of the withdrawal, but by
Speaker 2: far Charlie and Avek's main focus on the topic of
Speaker 2: war is just defending Russia.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's going to negotiate an end of that war.
Speaker 3: That's reasonable.
Speaker 5: Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have created that war and
Speaker 5: escalated that over the last three year.
Speaker 2: Trump did not really end any wars in his first term.
Speaker 2: In fact, he increased US troop levels in twenty seventeen
Speaker 2: and raised the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan from
Speaker 2: drones strikes by three hundred and thirty percent, according to
Speaker 2: Brown University. Still, Leveck tried to frame Trump as the
Speaker 2: much more principled anti war candidate, in which candidate was there.
Speaker 3: A major war in the Middle East? Was there a
Speaker 3: major war in the midleaser Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: There were multiple arms deal packages to Saudi Arabia for
Speaker 2: the war in Yemen, and the US increased its involvement
Speaker 2: in the Syrians Civil War under Trump. But to Thevek's
Speaker 2: earlier point, I really don't see no way Trump would
Speaker 2: end the war in Ukraine. That isn't just giving more
Speaker 2: territory over to Russia. But to Charlie Kirk that might
Speaker 2: not be such a bad thing, since he seems to
Speaker 2: be kind of fond of Russia.
Speaker 3: You know who is the enemy?
Speaker 4: China is the enemy, Hey, Russia, Well, Russia's not the enemy.
Speaker 4: Exactly how many of your friends have died because of Russians.
Speaker 2: Here's another SoundBite from the VEK.
Speaker 5: Joe Biden and Kyple Harris, along with some Republican help.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna admit is sending more money to escalate that
Speaker 5: war that otherwise would have resolved itself if we had
Speaker 5: just negotiated peace back in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Resolves itself. Sounds a lot like the VEK just means
Speaker 2: that Russia would have just seized territory, and like later
Speaker 2: on the VEK argued that Ukraine just shouldn't be getting
Speaker 2: any NATO protection at all.
Speaker 5: So the US actually made a commitment back in nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety to say that NATO would expand not one inch
Speaker 5: past East Germany.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, I wonder what may have been different geopolitically in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety in relation to Russia the vas. I wonder
Speaker 2: if anything has happened since nineteen ninety that might affect
Speaker 2: certain Slavic territories of a vek I wonder, Oh my god. Now,
Speaker 2: the topic discussed probably the most during this event was immigration.
Speaker 2: Even the liberal college students seem to believe that an
Speaker 2: influx of immigration was the biggest problem currently facing the
Speaker 2: United States. Kirk claimed that Kamala Harris let ten million
Speaker 2: new quote unquote illegal immigrants into the country, and like
Speaker 2: no the total population of undocumented immigrants in this country
Speaker 2: has fluctuated between ten to twelve million over the course
Speaker 2: of the past twenty years. Though, like JD. Vance, Kirk
Speaker 2: considers most immigrants illegal regardless of their actual status. Kirk
Speaker 2: claimed that the quote unquote nine million immigrants seeking asylum
Speaker 2: that have come into this country under Biden are all
Speaker 2: illegal because they are quote cartel sponsored fraudulent asylum claims unquote.
Speaker 2: Kirk said that these false asylum seekers pay cartels ten
Speaker 2: thousand dollars to be smuggled into the United States.
Speaker 4: They're all illegal because they're we know it's actually we
Speaker 4: know it to be true.
Speaker 3: It's not the question line. They're frauds.
Speaker 4: They're defrauding the American immigration system, is what they're doing.
Speaker 2: When pressed for proof on this, Kirk just stumbled, and
Speaker 2: Vivek took over and later just plugged his new movie
Speaker 2: about illegal immigration.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean so, for example, what is the asylum
Speaker 4: claim if you're coming from from George Korea?
Speaker 3: Actually?
Speaker 2: Wow, wow, very very convincing stuff happening. Theaveck argued that
Speaker 2: most immigrants lie about seeking asylum in order to enter
Speaker 2: the country, and since that's illegal, that makes them more
Speaker 2: likely to commit other crimes once in the United States.
Speaker 5: So right now, our immigration system literally selects for the
Speaker 5: people who are most willing to lie to the US
Speaker 5: government to get in. And that's why it's no surprise
Speaker 5: that the people whose first act of entering the country
Speaker 5: breaks the law often continue to break the law while
Speaker 5: they're already here.
Speaker 3: I don't think that's racist or xenophobic.
Speaker 5: I think it's a fact based on who we're actually
Speaker 5: selecting to come into the country.
Speaker 2: In actuality, Immigrants and especially undocumented or quote unquote illegal immigrants,
Speaker 2: are far less likely to commit crimes than US citizens.
Speaker 2: Most research puts it between forty to sixty percent less likely,
Speaker 2: at least according to Stanford, the Texas Department of Public Safety,
Speaker 2: and the Cato Institute, all famously liberal organizations. One thing
Speaker 2: that Kirk kept trying to do is pander his nationalism
Speaker 2: towards the racially diverse audience of Atlanta students.
Speaker 4: The people in this audience, which is a very diverse audience,
Speaker 4: specifically Black Americans, should be incensed that they're being replaced
Speaker 4: by foreigners. Black Americans are now being put aside so
Speaker 4: that a bunch of foreigners can come undercut wages and
Speaker 4: fill your city. The black community, which you obviously both
Speaker 4: care a lot about, is actually not being prioritized. Instead,
Speaker 4: people from the Third World are coming in and Black
Speaker 4: America is getting put last, which seems to be a
Speaker 4: common theme over the last sixty years when Democrats are
Speaker 4: in control.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, we'll find that, Thank you guys, so much,
Speaker 3: thank you, thank you guys.
Speaker 2: The worst part is that this seemed to work the
Speaker 2: audience seemed to resonate with this grossly fascistic framing, seemingly
Speaker 2: unable to recognize what Kirk was doing, and at this
Speaker 2: point I was just like fucking losing it. Vi Veck
Speaker 2: said that if you don't know English, you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: allowed in the United States, and like no one cared,
Speaker 2: no one pushed back on that. A pro Kamala person
Speaker 2: repeated false migrant crime wave rhetoric in her question about
Speaker 2: the Venezuelan refugee crisis. That student said that three hundred
Speaker 2: thousand Venezuelan refugees came to the United States in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, and Kirk then claimed that three million more
Speaker 2: would arrive if Kamala is elected, along with twenty million
Speaker 2: more immigrants. Kirk promised that if Trump's elected, any immigrant,
Speaker 2: whether legal, undocumented, or a refugee, just any immigrant who
Speaker 2: commits a crime like a dui will be immediately deported.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately, when pressed to defend or even just openly
Speaker 2: express their own personal views on whatever the topic of
Speaker 2: debate was, multiple students just like completely backed down, saying
Speaker 2: that they would rather quote unquote stay out of the
Speaker 2: political realm or in another instance, political charge fair enough,
Speaker 2: what are you doing. You're trying to debate about access
Speaker 2: to abortion or if all immigrants should be rounded up
Speaker 2: and deported, But you don't want to get quote unquote
Speaker 2: too political. What are you talking about. I'm sorry you
Speaker 2: couldn't get a fast dunk on Charlie Kirk, but come on.
Speaker 2: But perhaps the most disheartening moment was when Charlie Kirk
Speaker 2: was challenged on his opposition to the Civil Rights Act.
Speaker 2: Someone asked why Charlie thinks that the Civil Rights Act
Speaker 2: was a mistake. Kirk started by saying that even if
Speaker 2: some of the original intent was good, it's now being
Speaker 2: used for bad things, like allowing men in women's locker rooms,
Speaker 2: to the complete shock of the questionnaire, Kirk and Vivek
Speaker 2: then went on to explain why we should repeal the
Speaker 2: Civil Rights Act.
Speaker 4: The fanfare that the Civil Rights Act is met with.
Speaker 4: It's almost like the new Constitution. We talked about the
Speaker 4: Civil Rights Act more than the Constitution. Is it is
Speaker 4: cited more than the Constitution. We almost had a new
Speaker 4: American founding in the nineteen sixties with the Civil Rights Act.
Speaker 5: So let me share a couple of couple hard facts
Speaker 5: with you, which is that turns out that you're much
Speaker 5: more likely to end up in prison, you're much more
Speaker 5: likely to end up in poverty, you're much more likely
Speaker 5: not to graduate from high school if you grow up
Speaker 5: in a single parent household versus dual parent house So
Speaker 5: today you're talking about upwards of sixty percent of black
Speaker 5: kids born into single parent households rather than dual parent
Speaker 5: What number do you think that was in the nineteen
Speaker 5: fifties before the Great Society? Probably it was even less
Speaker 5: twenty percent twenty percent back then. So then we look
Speaker 5: at what the results have been of this entire agenda.
Speaker 5: Put the Civil Rights Act, put the LBJ, Great Society.
Speaker 5: Black Americans are worse off today even economically in terms
Speaker 5: of mobility than they were back then, in the name
Speaker 5: of laws that were passed to supposedly advance black interests.
Speaker 2: Oh God, do you know what that can actually be
Speaker 2: attributed to. It's the massive increase in policing and the
Speaker 2: cartional justice system that was specifically intensified as a conservative
Speaker 2: reaction to black people gaining more civil rights in society.
Speaker 4: The Civil Rights Act has nine different titles in it,
Speaker 4: and you have this this leviathan that was created and
Speaker 4: something that most Black Americans don't support is men and
Speaker 4: female sports. Would you agree.
Speaker 3: Men playing in female sports?
Speaker 4: I have no, Yeah, I know, no, no, for sure, right,
Speaker 4: believe it or not, The Civil Rights Act is now
Speaker 4: being used to keep men playing in women's sports. So
Speaker 4: the Civil Rights Act was used to help Black America
Speaker 4: originally totally get that, but now the.
Speaker 3: Way it was written is that any.
Speaker 4: Claim of identification, so someone says I'm a woman, therefore
Speaker 4: I can compete in your volleyball team, they come in
Speaker 4: with a civil rights claim. And so what we're saying
Speaker 4: is no, no, no, it should be specified to racial,
Speaker 4: not gender all that other stuff. And there were all
Speaker 4: these other provisions as well.
Speaker 2: All right, how sad is it that this kid was
Speaker 2: convinced that the fucking Civil Rights Act is bad through transphobia.
Speaker 2: It's so fucking predatory what Kirk is doing here. This
Speaker 2: was so fucking gross to watch in person. As the
Speaker 2: day went on, things just started to get more and
Speaker 2: more kookie. A whole batch of like libertarian Austrian traded
Speaker 2: economists went back and forth with Charles in a Vak
Speaker 2: on tariffs, free markets, and the validity of the economic
Speaker 2: philosophy of Frederick Hayek. This fucking dude with a little
Speaker 2: mustache who ostensibly got up to debate Kirk on abortion,
Speaker 2: said that quote, I think my generation has started to
Speaker 2: abuse the option of abortion. Unquote, like why the fuck
Speaker 2: are you up there debating him? Then Jesus Christ and
Speaker 2: then what I would call generously a himbo in a
Speaker 2: white dude's for Harris shirt said that Kamala's greatest accomplishment
Speaker 2: is being an idol. After debating Kirk about FEMA money
Speaker 2: being spent on illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, Kirk just continued to
Speaker 2: to spew COVID nineteen conspiracy theories to very little pushback.
Speaker 4: They were wrong about everything. They were wrong about six
Speaker 4: feet of sould his spread. They were wrong about the
Speaker 4: vaccine safe and effective.
Speaker 5: They were wait, they were wrong about whether the Arthur
Speaker 5: revolves around the sun.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: One student just got so fed up up with Kirk's
Speaker 2: endless rambling about topics unrelated to their question and decided
Speaker 2: to walk away, which then, of course, Kirk claimed as
Speaker 2: a rhetorical victory.
Speaker 3: How to biden laptop misinformation? Where did the virus come from? Biolabs?
Speaker 4: No, it's exactly how fun it's okay go to your
Speaker 4: epics class.
Speaker 2: I was losing it and frankly just shocked at how
Speaker 2: little pushback Charles and Vivek were receiving for what I
Speaker 2: saw is very clear lies and manipulative debate tactics. The
Speaker 2: majority of people clearly did not think too hard about
Speaker 2: the question they were going to ask, or let alone
Speaker 2: research the topic of debate beforehand. I saw people in
Speaker 2: line to ask a question using chat GPT to generate
Speaker 2: questions to ask using a prompt about how to debate
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk at a turning point USA event, like what
Speaker 2: the fuck is going on now? I fundamentally refuse to
Speaker 2: participate in quote unquote debates like this for reasons that
Speaker 2: I will soon get into. So I just started taking
Speaker 2: notes of all the things Charlie was lying about, and
Speaker 2: I was right at the very front of the crowd.
Speaker 2: So whenever TPUSA publishes the video Charlie Kirk destroying silly
Speaker 2: liberal college students, you should be able to see me
Speaker 2: pretty clearly in the background in my fucking Ronald Reagan
Speaker 2: a hat, just furiously scribbling down notes. Though I would
Speaker 2: recommend watching with an ad blocker not to give Kirk
Speaker 2: extra money. The whole event was a pretty pathetic affair.
Speaker 2: By my count, there were only eight liberal leaning challengers
Speaker 2: who questioned Kirk compared to thirteen conservative leaning questionnaires who
Speaker 2: entered a friendly discussion with Kirk. Out of all, the
Speaker 2: liberal debaters, too backed down because they didn't want to
Speaker 2: get too political, and three others appeared to be at
Speaker 2: least somewhat swayed by Kirk and Vivek. Now, Like, I
Speaker 2: can't entirely blame these students, right, Like, this setting is
Speaker 2: not a real debate. Kirk holds all of the power.
Speaker 2: He does this for a living, and he fucking brought
Speaker 2: a friend with him to health. It's two of them
Speaker 2: versus one. It's Kirk and Vivek. There's a reason he
Speaker 2: prefers debating college students rather than working professionals. Most students
Speaker 2: are not prepared to effectively counter Kirk's claims and don't
Speaker 2: have enough general knowledge on current events to call him
Speaker 2: out on every one of his many lies. And even
Speaker 2: if they do catch him on something, Kirk will try
Speaker 2: to project authority to sway the uneducated audience into believing
Speaker 2: that he is correct, just because teens are chronically online
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that they have better media literacy, critical thinking,
Speaker 2: or know how to determine the validity of information. A
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four survey by News Literacy America found that
Speaker 2: only fifty percent of teens could identify that in article
Speaker 2: labeled as branded content on a news site was in
Speaker 2: fact an advertisement. Barely over half of teens could accurately
Speaker 2: identify an op ed with the word commentary in the
Speaker 2: headline as an opinion piece. Forty four percent claimed that
Speaker 2: a company's own press release was more credible than an
Speaker 2: independent news report on the same subject, and thirty four
Speaker 2: percent of teens incorrectly labeled a random picture of damaged
Speaker 2: traffic lights as quote unquote strong evidence supporting a viral
Speaker 2: false claim that hot July temperatures had melted traffic lights.
Speaker 2: These teens surveyed said that local TV news and TikTok
Speaker 2: were the most trustworthy sources of information, and thirty five
Speaker 2: percent of teens said that professional journalists are more biased
Speaker 2: than social media content creators. Meanwhile, forty five percent said
Speaker 2: that journalists are just as biased as these TikTok influencers.
Speaker 2: Let's do a test right now now. Try to see
Speaker 2: if you can determine that these following clips are in
Speaker 2: fact advertisements. Okay, we are back now. This was technically
Speaker 2: my first time seeing this format of conservative YouTube debate
Speaker 2: in person. The videos that get published online later get
Speaker 2: heavily edited down, and while I was going at it
Speaker 2: in my notepad, I started to recognize the repeating patterns
Speaker 2: that Kirk and Vivek employed to gain dominance in almost
Speaker 2: every single debate matchup. So now I'm going to talk
Speaker 2: about some of these common tactics used by Kirk. When
Speaker 2: Kerk Orvivec wants to end a particular line of questioning
Speaker 2: or move on to the next person, they'll just restate
Speaker 2: their own opinions as fact and then end that debate,
Speaker 2: leaving the impression that they won. They can just stop
Speaker 2: whenever they feel like they have made the final point
Speaker 2: that gives them victory. Here's the VEC.
Speaker 5: The number one human attribute that our legal immigration system
Speaker 5: selects for isn't who's smart. Isn't who's going to work hard,
Speaker 5: isn't who loves the country. It's are you willing to
Speaker 5: lie to the US government or not? If you are,
Speaker 5: you get in.
Speaker 3: If not, you don't. That's the way it works.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And here's another example from Kirk.
Speaker 4: Black Americans are treated far worse than illegals in this country,
Speaker 4: and we have, we have violated our social contract to
Speaker 4: our own citizens. And I just want you to think
Speaker 4: about that, okay, is that if you break into America,
Speaker 4: you get a flight to the country the city of
Speaker 4: your choosing, You get taxpayer funded luxury hotels, you get
Speaker 4: a taxpayer funded phone, taxpayer funded food stamps, whereas many
Speaker 4: Americans are struggling to even make ends meet.
Speaker 3: So thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what a convenient way to say a bunch of
Speaker 2: bullshit without having to back any of it enough. Now,
Speaker 2: of of course, welfare programs like food stamps and even
Speaker 2: assistants to get access to smartphones, since they basically are
Speaker 2: now requirement of everyday life, those programs do exist, right,
Speaker 2: Those are important programs. But those free flights to any city,
Speaker 2: that's actually a reference to New York City's reticketing program,
Speaker 2: which offers one way bus or plane tickets out of
Speaker 2: the city. This program was actually started because the governor
Speaker 2: of Texas sent forty thousand immigrants to New York against
Speaker 2: their will, and those quote unquote. Luxury hotels are actually
Speaker 2: a small part of an emergency housing program that utilizes
Speaker 2: some converted hotels as well as airport motels and even
Speaker 2: office buildings as temporary shelter for immigrants. But I'm sure
Speaker 2: Kirk would rather these people just be homeless living on
Speaker 2: the street. I'm sure he wouldn't find ways to complain
Speaker 2: about that too. A very common Kirk tactic to avoid
Speaker 2: answering a question is just to simply flip it around
Speaker 2: and ask the students a different question that might eventually
Speaker 2: be related to the student's original question, but not necessarily.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you just one more question. Can men
Speaker 3: give birth? Can men give birth? Yeah?
Speaker 5: If they're a transgender.
Speaker 2: Q. The audience's shocked response. These people probably don't even
Speaker 2: know if this refers to a transgender woman or a
Speaker 2: transgender man. Whatever. For another example, here's how Levek responded
Speaker 2: to a question about voter fraud allegations.
Speaker 3: Do you think dal Trump committed a coup against the
Speaker 3: US government?
Speaker 2: This was part of Kirk's response to a question about
Speaker 2: US aid to Israel.
Speaker 4: What is your strong opinion about the civil war happening
Speaker 4: in the Central African Republic?
Speaker 2: For another example, a student asked Kirk what should be
Speaker 2: done about hate crimes against Venezuelan immigrants in cities like Chicago.
Speaker 1: I think that we.
Speaker 3: Should do about I have a question, So what part
Speaker 3: are chicagi from?
Speaker 2: So these are all just classic red herricks. Here's another.
Speaker 4: You admit that the Hamas tried to commit genocide on
Speaker 4: October seven?
Speaker 2: Also simply not what a genocide is now. Sometimes students
Speaker 2: can catch what Kirk is doing with red herrings and deflections,
Speaker 2: but even when drilled down on the original line of questioning,
Speaker 2: Kirk will try hard to pivot away whenever the momentum
Speaker 2: is not going in his favor.
Speaker 4: You guys are super focused on technical things that we
Speaker 4: could talk about forever. Let me just ask a question.
Speaker 4: I asked you, what is Kamala Harris's greatest accomplishment? Can
Speaker 4: you tell me what that would be?
Speaker 2: Perhaps the most common tactic Charlie Kirk employs to maintain
Speaker 2: control over the interaction is instead of just stating his opinion,
Speaker 2: Kirk will throw a question back to his opponent with
Speaker 2: the intent of getting them to say something that's in
Speaker 2: support of Kirk's own argument. Alternatively, Kirk will ask a
Speaker 2: question that the student probably doesn't know, like some specific
Speaker 2: stat but something that Kirk already has a prepared answer for,
Speaker 2: so that he can throw off his opponent, make them
Speaker 2: question their own ability to debate, and make himself seem smarter.
Speaker 2: Here's a short compilation.
Speaker 4: If there was a policy that made markets more free
Speaker 4: but hurt your country, would you support it? Do you
Speaker 4: believe that FDR was right and partnering with Joseph Stalin
Speaker 4: to defeat Hitler?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So, I guess two questions with tariffs? How do you
Speaker 4: avoid a Tariff's? Ask another moral question?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 3: Is it ever okay to do something evil? After an art?
Speaker 3: Under abortion?
Speaker 4: Do you carve out a new morality? Is there like
Speaker 4: a different kind of morality that we apply only to abortion?
Speaker 4: At what point does it get human rights?
Speaker 3: Let me ask you just a question.
Speaker 5: Do you know which nation is the biggest supplier of
Speaker 5: the US military today?
Speaker 3: You could probably guess it.
Speaker 4: Is your phone paid for by US taxpayers. Let me
Speaker 4: ask you, did you have a vacation this summer in
Speaker 4: a luxury hotel paid for by taxpayers? Ten people are
Speaker 4: murdered in Chicago. Out of those ten, how many of
Speaker 4: those cases will be solved on average. Do you think okay,
Speaker 4: so you said he suspended wanted to suspend the constitution?
Speaker 3: Did he do that when he was president?
Speaker 2: His arcumentative style looks pretty goofy when it's all broken
Speaker 2: down into its respective parts. Now to circle back to
Speaker 2: my stance of just never engaging with these bad faith
Speaker 2: debate spectacles, lastly, I'll show you what happens when you
Speaker 2: quote unquote do well against someone like Charlie Kirk. I
Speaker 2: think the only time Kirk was really thrown off was
Speaker 2: during one of the very last matchups, with a student
Speaker 2: asking about Kirk's support of military aid to Israel despite
Speaker 2: his alleged anti war stance and his call for the
Speaker 2: US to pause all foreign aid until the southern border
Speaker 2: is secured. Like usual, Kirk first tried to deflect by
Speaker 2: using red herrings and turn questions back on the student.
Speaker 4: Let me ask you a first principal question. Do you
Speaker 4: think the Jewish people have a moral right to their religions?
Speaker 3: Do not have any?
Speaker 2: Kirk then failed to accuse the student of anti Semitism.
Speaker 2: Kirk then tried to trick the student into saying that
Speaker 2: Hamas is more morally good than Israel, but the student
Speaker 2: saw what Kirk was trying to do with his bizarre
Speaker 2: moralistic framing.
Speaker 4: Do you think that Israel as it's currently constituted is
Speaker 4: morally equivalent with Hamas?
Speaker 2: The student quite wisely did not answer Kirk's precariously worded
Speaker 2: yes or no question, and instead reframed the question in
Speaker 2: their own words, and only then stated their opinion that
Speaker 2: both Hamas and the IDs actions can be constituted as evil. Still,
Speaker 2: Kirk wouldn't relent.
Speaker 3: So which one is better? Which one is good? Is better?
Speaker 2: His nonsensical framing was once again rejected, But then Kirk
Speaker 2: accused the student of being propagandized and then asked if
Speaker 2: they had personally been to Israel to assess the situation.
Speaker 2: And this is when everything fell apart.
Speaker 6: Let me tell you this that you know that there's
Speaker 6: Arab serving in the Knesset, and you know that why
Speaker 6: your point of Jews saying I don't like Jews because Israel.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna I'm gonna go back to this because
Speaker 4: I think it's so interesting though, which is that I
Speaker 4: believe that the Jewish people do have a right there
Speaker 4: in Cstralhia.
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, you believe that they should be
Speaker 6: leveling buildings because that's.
Speaker 3: Their in central. I'm not I'm not defending every decision.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what they're doing.
Speaker 4: Interrupt every you're interrupting, I'm gonna have for our next
Speaker 4: question because you're not arguings. Not much a debate because
Speaker 4: I believe that Israel should exist in its current form,
Speaker 4: you do not, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Last couple of the.
Speaker 4: Moral confusion on the Israel topic is it's it's hard
Speaker 4: to clear up in a veny like this.
Speaker 2: Again, like these aren't real debates. If the conversation goes
Speaker 2: any way other than how Kirk wants it to go,
Speaker 2: he has complete control of the environment and can move
Speaker 2: on to a more desirable opponent because, like, beyond convincing
Speaker 2: any gullible people that might happen to be in the crowd,
Speaker 2: the real reason Kirk does events like this is to
Speaker 2: make content. It's YouTube debate. These debate videos rack of
Speaker 2: thousands and sometimes millions of views on YouTube and TikTok,
Speaker 2: and every single person that participates as if these are
Speaker 2: real debates is directly helping Charlie Kirk and make money
Speaker 2: and grow his brand. This TPUSA Brainwash Tour will continue
Speaker 2: into November, and I'm sure Charlie Kirk will keep doing
Speaker 2: events like this in the years to come, regardless of
Speaker 2: who wins the election. So what's the options to counter
Speaker 2: something like this? I'm of three minds. My default response
Speaker 2: to stuff like this is usually just to ignore. Don't
Speaker 2: give these attention hounds what they're looking for, don't try
Speaker 2: to debate, don't try to own Charlie Kirk with facts
Speaker 2: and logic. There's no real benefit from engaging with him
Speaker 2: and his ILK on their own terms. But there will
Speaker 2: always be at least a few college students who think
Speaker 2: they can get one up on Charlie Kirk. So since
Speaker 2: these events are gonna continue to happen even if my
Speaker 2: friends and I withhold our participation, the second option is
Speaker 2: just to simply confuse. This is what I call the
Speaker 2: skibbity bite in strategy, one which I deployed against the
Speaker 2: my pillow guy, Mike Lindell in front of the Israeli
Speaker 2: Consulate as he tried to set up as much attention
Speaker 2: as possible during the DNC them skibbity Biden, Sir, skibbity Biden.
Speaker 5: If you buy one.
Speaker 2: This was probably my favorite moment of the DNC. This
Speaker 2: strategy of complete confusion doesn't just deny the subject what
Speaker 2: they want if you're the my pillow guy attention from
Speaker 2: reporters or, in the case of Charlie Kirk, an unfair
Speaker 2: debate against a non media trained college freshman. But the
Speaker 2: Skibbity Biden strategy also eats up their time, prohibiting others
Speaker 2: from being able to engage on the terms decided upon
Speaker 2: by turning point USA. The more time you spend spewing
Speaker 2: your near unintelligible gibberish about how Warhammer connects to US
Speaker 2: foreign policy or explaining your made up conspiracy theory about
Speaker 2: how the Hawktua girl is a CIA asset. All of
Speaker 2: that is less time for some nineteen year olds to
Speaker 2: challenge Kirk on his abortion views, and a knowing Charlie
Speaker 2: Kirk is just a fun bonus. Now that I think
Speaker 2: about it, This is essentially the patent Oswalt filibuster tactic. Now,
Speaker 2: obviously Kirk has control of the mic and probably won't
Speaker 2: let you ramble on about gibberish for too long, so
Speaker 2: this strategy becomes more successful if you can get a
Speaker 2: whole team lined up in front of the microphone now. Finally,
Speaker 2: the last option is disruption through force, preferably in a
Speaker 2: way that limits the possibility of creating an on camera
Speaker 2: spectacle that can be utilized by TPUSA. This has typically
Speaker 2: not been a common tactic used to counter turning point
Speaker 2: events on campus, but it may be time to reconsider.
Speaker 2: Forceful disruptions were often utilized when figures like Milo Uanapolis
Speaker 2: toured college campuses back in twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: and more recently against campus events featuring Daily Wire employees
Speaker 2: like Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh. Historically, this strategy has
Speaker 2: not been applied to Charlie Kirk, as he's been viewed
Speaker 2: as less radical than some of these other figures. But
Speaker 2: I just don't think that's true anymore. Kirk is spreading
Speaker 2: and normalizing hardcore as xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric across college
Speaker 2: campuses with little to no resistance, not to mention his
Speaker 2: complete embrace of conspiracy theories and use of transphobia to
Speaker 2: undermine civil rights. There's many ways to disrupt events like
Speaker 2: this through forceful means, sound disruption, visual disruption, physical disruption,
Speaker 2: Planning an alternate event to take place at the same
Speaker 2: time and place big banners with Charles's tiny face carefully
Speaker 2: placed in view of the debate cameras. Creative opportunities abound,
Speaker 2: but it requires people to be actively monitoring when and
Speaker 2: where these events take place and actually plan a counterdemo
Speaker 2: ahead of time, and that just doesn't seem to be
Speaker 2: happening at the moment. And so I thought going to
Speaker 2: this event would help reboot my brain, cheer myself up,
Speaker 2: and amuse me with Charlie's childish display of debate kid politics.
Speaker 2: But it just left me more sad watching hapless kids
Speaker 2: fall prey to Kirk's transparent scheme, just feeling like I
Speaker 2: had no way to stop the train wreck. But it
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be this way. With a few friends
Speaker 2: and a little preparation, there is an alternative, and hey,
Speaker 2: it could happen here. Well that's my recap on this
Speaker 2: fucking Charlie Kirk rally. Oh and heads up, next week,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be no Spooky Week episodes for the first
Speaker 2: time in four years. Sorry, the world has just gotten
Speaker 2: too spooky this year. Between the election and hurricanes and
Speaker 2: the genocide and Gaza and everything else happening, the world's
Speaker 2: just too spooky. I'm really just not feeling Halloween pilled
Speaker 2: as I usually am. Hopefully things will get better soon.
Speaker 2: But in lieu of Spooky Week, we actually have a
Speaker 2: special series from James on the Darien Gap, so you
Speaker 2: have that to look forward to next week. Goodbye everyone,
Speaker 2: see you on the other side.
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