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Is Charlie Kirk’s murder a tipping point?September 11th, 2025 |
 33 comments to Is Charlie Kirk’s murder a tipping point?Leave a Reply |
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From the Daily Mail: “Oxford University Union’s president elect is accused of celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination – after pair came head-to-head in debate weeks ago”; a somewhat negative reaction to the left’s celebration of political violence. Maybe, just maybe, the left has finally gone too far for the average opinion-former in the street?
At the very least, George Abaraonye’s future debates in the Oxford Union could be brutal …
Problem (or maybe salvation) is that conservatives generally work on an internal negative-feedback system, whereas progressives live at the mercy of positive-feedback triggers.
Will it trigger America splitting in two as in Kurt Schilchter’s entertaining Kelly Turnbull novels? No. What it will do is make it much easier to address anti-American leftist organizations such as teacher’s unions.
If the country is split almost 50/50, which is the anti-American view?
(Not complaining about your wording. Complaining that I’m afraid we let this go on so long that half of the country has been suckered into communism-is-good views. Which happens when you let your teaching profession be taken over by progressives.)
FWIW, I think the answer to the question “is this the tipping point” is no. I don’t think this will precipitate some rising up of the right, or not more than it has been. And this is the tragedy of Kirk’s murder: the right was rising up, it was finding its voice, it was saying “that which must not be said”. And that is LARGE part to do with him. I don’t mean his movement. I don’t mean his organization. I mean him, personally, that one specific man. Other things helped (the Trump lawfare in particular), but it is hard to underestimate the impact of this man.
Of course everyone is stepping up now saying “we will continue the fight”, “Charlie passed the torch, we will take it from here.” But unfortunately that isn’t actually true. It takes all the skills and talents built into this one man to make it happen. You can’t split it up any more than nine women can have a baby in one month. (BTW, thanks to Kirk we are allowed to suggest that only women can have babies.) There really isn’t anyone else.
Of course in the political realm we have some really great all stars, Vance, Rubio, DeSantis, and of course the big orange guy. But operating in the space where Kirk was — we have nobody anywhere close to his caliber, or able to fill his shoes.
Kirk’s loss is incalculable, first to his family, second to his organization, third to his country and fourth to the whole world. That one piece of shit with a rifle could do that much harm, though, I guess is the story of history.
It would be nice to think so, but I very much doubt it.
You’re making me feel out of touch, and I’m actually not.
I’ve sort of polled a bunch of friends and acqs at a lunch, and a surprisingly small percentage of that (generally conservative) group really knew much about Kirk before he was shot. And this wasn’t a dumb redneck group. Lawyers and retired judges and administrators. So, mostly, old. My age. Older than Paul Marks! 😉
Asking a bunch of 30-year-olds later, well, it was a less-informed or less-concerned crowd, and so I got a lot of “I’ve heard of him . . . .!”
General idea everyone in the first group seemed to share was that he was one of the new big young-rightie podcasters like that guy Ben something, or Tate, maybe . . . . but, also, most of this group just aren’t podcast people. (Geeze. Just give me a damned transcript. More accurate in 1/10th the time.)
And so, a lot of the significant people – i.e., with disposable contributable money – are just today remembering why they’ve venerated CK for . . . . forever! . . . .
And I say this, not to denigrate Charlie Kirk, but as evidence that we, the Right, have arrived at our own psychological Tipping Point.
We got pushed to the apex by the poor girl stabbed to death on the train. Being at that point on the day Charlie was murdered just triggered a whole new layer of endorphins and testosterone. Like a roller coaster cresting that first hill off the drive chain . . .
Is that a tipping point? Is it due to our love for CK, or due to where we happened to be mentally yesterday? The next week will tell.
(I have now listened to ten times the number of minutes of CK that I had pre-assassination, and I understand why he was valued and loved. What a gift he had. Wish I could have ever been half so quick and deep and right. Someone told him to go with his strengths, and, boy, did he ever!)
bobby,
Interesting comment. I’d never even heard of him until he was killed. OK, I’m a Brit but still…
On this side of the Atlantic it appears to be the case that sections of the left are getting called on their jubilations over his killing.
I know next to nothing of the man but I do know celebrating the assasination of a 31 year old father of two young children because of his opinions (opinions he would freely debate) is just sickening.
Next thing, they’ll be celebrating a mass rape and murder in Israel…
Perhaps the fake keffiyeh is slipping a bit. Let’s hope so.
The reaction of Mr Putin’s “RT” was revealing – supposedly Mr Kirk was not really murdered by the left, Mr Kirk was murdered by the “dark forces” that “control President Trump” and are “totally at odds with the MAGA base” – America “not being a democracy”.
This from the dictatorship that has controlled Russia for a quarter of a century, and deals with dissent by throwing dissenters out of the windows of high rise buildings.
Conservatives and libertarians who think Mr Putin is “on our side” should take note – he-is-not, and never has been.
Mr Putin may indeed by hated by other enemies of ours, but “the enemy of my enemies is my friend” is NOT true – often the “enemy of my enemies” is another enemy.
bobby b is correct – the threat to America is the domination by the left of the education system and the media, especially entertainment media, the leftist domination of the CULTURE.
As Andrew Breitbart was fond of saying – “politics is downstream of culture”.
This was precisely what Mr Charles Kirk was trying to address. And it must now be addressed by others.
When the banner falls because the banner holder has been shot dead, others must raise the banner – even knowing that the same may happen to them.
Fraser Orr:
Kirk was certainly a charismatic figure who got out the vote for Trump – but I think the preference-cascade snowball he helped set in motion is already rolling downhill.
Kirk’s murder is similar to the knife murder on the subway that preceded it the news cycle – and September 11 which follows it: yet another outrage that, in aggregate, eventually triggers rejection of the woke social agenda. Each of these incidents that breaks through the media silence is a “wake up call” for many fence-sitters and low-info people, and “the last straw” for others.
We are now witnessing the rapid deflation and discrediting of almost a century of progressive anti-Western identity politics. This is similar to how Theodore Dalrymple documented the rapid unraveling of Soviet social consensus after Glasnost. Lies that had been imposed for decades quickly lost their power. Recently a survey circulated in which over 70 percent of young college students said they had mouthed agreement with Left-wing opinions to avoid censure… It is likely that an incident like this – and the repulsive reactions of some Lefties – will galvanize conservative voices rather curtail them… more and more people will be emboldened to contradict the Woke dogma as the Left “loses the narrative”.
Assuming the assassin leans Left – they made a grave miscalculation (or showed the childish, impulsive behavior so typical of wokesters)… Kirk’s assassination will only confirm and energize the young people he already touched (many of them young men alienated by the Dems), and cause many more to recoil and reconsider who their “fellow travelers” are. It’s certainly caught the attention of many apolitical folk.
——————–
I am hopefully confident that folks in Trump’s administration are already planning to flip this – instead of all that money that USAid funneled to leftie causes, there must be a “Reconciliation Council” that sponsors “educational” on-campus events by Turning Point and other conservative groups… the Kirk murder is a “teaching moment” that lets us “confront and root out the deep hatred and intolerance” in our campuses. I would also welcome Boards of Inquiry investigating the “murderous” hostile atmosphere…
The Left must now be subjected to the same struggle sessions and shakedowns they administered to others… I welcome video footage of professors, film producers, and others confessing their past sins and reiterating their commmitment to true diversity of opinion. Amazing what Federal funding (or the threat of its termination) can acheive.
The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.
– Kierkegaard
@bobby b
Asking a bunch of 30-year-olds later, well, it was a less-informed or less-concerned crowd, and so I got a lot of “I’ve heard of him . . . .!”
For you and me asking “a bunch of 30-year-olds” is what we’d describe as “asking a bunch of young people”, for Kirk’s crowd that is called “asking a bunch of old people.” 😉
Kirk’s organization was arguably the main get-out-the-vote organization in the last election. They trained tens of thousands of people to go out and knock on doors, help people get to the polls, argue the case. I think there is good evidence to suggest that his get-out-the-vote was the thing that pushed Trump over the edge. I think without him we would have President Kamala Harris. You might check out this article.
He does have a podcast but what he mainly did for a long time was organize events on campuses (literally maybe a hundred a year) where he sat and just took questions from all comers for hours and hours and hours. Watch his videos of this but don’t listen to Kirk, listen to the crowd. Thousands and thousands of college kids yelling in support when he says that men can’t become women, or booing someone saying that she has a right to an abortion at 40 weeks, or chanting USA whenever he talks about President Trump, or applauding when he points out that the left wants to argue about pronouns when he wants to talk about why college graduates can’t get a job and why it is inconceivable for them to imagine buying a house.
This is on campuses that are indoctrination centers for left wing ideologies. Colleges in southern California and Boston. He dared to go on campus and face the crowds and try to talk some sense into these kids — and succeeded. These are young people, a group that just a little while ago with entirely captured by the left. His organization has chapters in almost every college and high school in the USA. And he created that ex nihilo in a handful of years.
Talk about a “safe space”. He created safe spaces in nearly every educational institute in the country where it was OK for kids to say they supported Trump, or didn’t accept DEI, or rejected reparations for black people, or thought men couldn’t become women, without the tsunami of hate that they would normally have been met with before Kirk’s organization.
This isn’t just some podcaster. I mean he is that. But so much more.
And there is another thing — they call him the Trump whisperer. He quietly in the background has or had immense influence on Trump. He is one of the few people who can really influence Trump and change his mind. I think it was really he, along with Carlson, who convinced Trump to choose Vance. And he had deep influence on many of Trump’s cabinet picks. It is he, unlike most of the warmongers in the Republican hierarchy, that convinced Trump to a restrained response to Iran. He had huge influence at the White House that he honestly used to the good of the country rather than his own self agrandizment.
I’ve said before he was a very religious man and he pushed that a lot, which are things I don’t agree with. He was uncompromising, for example, on abortion, I position I don’t take. But I don’t have to agree with everything the man said to be a fan. And even if not a fan, at least a recognition that he was one of the most important people in the politics of the last ten years.
Fraser Orr – absolutely, and very well put. Mr Kirk was getting through to students – which is why a leftist student (from another college) murdered him.
In their whitewash of Mr Mandani, the Democrat candidate for Mayor of New York City, the Economist magazine (which dishonestly pretends that socialism in America is “like Social Democracy in Europe”) quotes a Georgetown University Professor saying being a socialism “attracts the opprobrium of elites” – it seems not to occur to this Professor that he is part of the “elites”, and that far showing hostility to the evil (the utter evil) that is socialism – he and much of the elite, have been whitewashing it for many years. It is the ordinary people of America who oppose the evil of Collectivist Tyranny (socialism) and rightly so.
This Collectivist world view has spread even to families in once conservative Arizona – not to hard working men in factories or on building sites, but to 22 year old students who have no knowledge of the real world.
His father is a good man and he must be in torment now – but it must be said, to send your child to these schools and these universities (which are saturated in evil) is very dangerous.
And it is also the culture – including on-line culture, where “moderators” (and so on) forbid “right wingers” answering back the endless leftist propaganda, on many sites.
It is no good expecting your child to be “a political” – everyone has a basic world view, if it is a world view that is not based on reason and experience, it will be a world view based on the Collectivist propaganda from the other academics and others.
It certainly is not a “tipping point” as far as the socialist Supreme Court in Brazil is concerned.
The Presidential election in Brazil was blatantly rigged – but the deposed President Bolsonaro was careful not to say so, even being OUT OF THE COUNTRY when protests against the rigged (fraudulent) election took place.
However, the socialist Supreme Court has found him guilty anyway – and this is the regime that the Economist magazine (only two weeks ago) said was “an example to other democracies”, fully supported election fraud and socialist courts.
The Economist magazine presents itself as ANTI socialist, and this week is pretending to care about the murder of
Mr Kirk – but, in reality, it would send people like Mr Kirk to prison (for “election denial”, or “climate denial”, or whatever) or to reeducation establishments.
The distinction between the “anti socialist” international establishment elite, and the socialists, is a distinction without a real difference. They are both about power – and crushing everyone else under their boot.
Henri Saint-Simon who hoped, two hundred years ago, that Collectivism be brought into effect by Credit Bubble bankers and Big Business types, would be delighted.
And, returning to the example of the corrupt regime in Brazil, it is a good friend of both Mr Putin, and the Islamists in the Middle East.
If you are friend of “Lula” you are not a friend of Western civilization – however “elite” you may be.
Fraser Orr: Yeah, I have my finger on the pulse of the 35-year-old youth of America. 😉
A troubled and formerly addicted young man who I have been mentoring for several years spoke to me about Charlie Kirk yesterday. I have never discussed politics with him so to hear his admiration for the man and genuine sadness at his death came as a surprise.
Only a sample of one but still interesting.
Which happens when you let your teaching profession be taken over by progressives.
You get a generation being taught and growing up believing this:-
https://youtu.be/6M-qsVS8zeU?feature=shared
Let’s hope so. We can wring our hands and ask ‘what can men do against such reckless hate’? Or we can ensure that we no longer tolerate the intolerant as we have done for so long.
John – yes indeed Sir.
JuliaM – we must tolerate the intolerant.
Even such people as the President Elect of the Oxford Union debating society – who can not seem to string a sentence together without swearing, who greeted the murder of Mr Kirk with sadistic glee, and whose so called “apology” was filled with yet more smears against Mr Kirk.
Yes – we must tolerant even this Oxford person.
We must NOT fall into the abyss of killing people for saying things we despise.
Killing them, no. Ensuring they face the consequences of their vile behaviour, good and hard, and no longer tolerating them because ‘freedom of speech and association’, most definitely yes.
I see a lot of high-minded, rarefied comments here, but little consideration, if any, to practical issues.
Some of the practical issues that i have in mind:
* If you need surgery, would you go to a hospital which employs an anesthesiologist who approved of the Kirk murder? (And there was one.)
* Would you go to a hospital which employs nurses who approved of the Kirk murder?
* Would you send your kids to schools with teachers who approved of the Kirk murder?
* If your kids choose a university with profs who approved of Kirk’s murder, would you pay for tuition?
* Would you eat food carried to your table by a waiter who approved of Kirk’s murder?
* Would you trust people who approved of Kirk’s murder to dispose of your garbage safely?
If someone of rational mind says to someone who is mentally ill “see that guy? He is a monster! He should be killed!”, then I disagree with your thesis.
bobby b – and others.
If we accept the principle “we must not tolerate the intolerant” then it is WE OURSELVES who will be persecuted – indeed that has been going on for many years now. As the powers we declare US the “intolerant”.
The Collectivists have ruthlessly used this loophole in the thought of J.S. Mill and Sir Karl Popper.
Rather the law should punish people for what they do – not for their opinions.
However, Snorri asks specific questions – and he deserves an answer.
And on most of the questions I must say I AGREE with his position – I would not do business with or employ such people.
This in no way violates their Freedom of Speech – they can carry on saying “Paul Marks should be killed” or whatever, it just means that I will have nothing to do with them, and I hope no one else will have anything to do with them.
This is called “shunning” and it is NOT an aggression against them.
And it is NOT the “Cancel Culture” of the left – which includes horrible persecution (shouting people down – “doxing” them, sending “SWAT” teams to their homes – and so on).
Shunning is not Cancel Culture – and I agree with Snorri that Shunning (not having commercial relations with) such people is correct.
Paul gets it right: the problem in the examples that i gave is not what those people say, but what they think. I am glad that they exercise their freedom of speech, so that i know where to find them. Actually, i fear that their canceling will have a chilling effect, and then we’ll not know where to find them.
But my example was right out of settled USSC law regarding freedom of speech.
First, I’m not government.
Second, even if I were, there exists, and has long existed, an exception, in which the utterance of “true threats” can be enjoined. Stopped, by me or the state. This is not an act of speech – of communication. This is a physical act of starting into motion other acts which will harm me.
Without doing a treatise here, my example meets that “true threats” definition.
Third, screw him. He is not going to tell the crazy man to kill me without my objection. I will always retain and use that power, if not that right.
Yes Snorri – as grim as it is, it is good to have the poison out in the open so we know who the evil people, who wish us dead, are.
I am reminded of something that bobby b must face – as he lives in Minnesota.
The doctrine of “Trans Kids” – i.e. the desire of the left (for want of a better word) to so confuse, to so indoctrinate (via the education system and the media – especially the entertainment media), children that the children will “consent” to drugs and even surgery that will sterilize them – prevent them ever having children of their own, and have boys treated as girls and girls treated as boys.
It is as if certain Roman Emperors had returned to this Earth – in all their vileness.
There is no limit to the perversion, no limit to the evil, no limit to what the left will do – even to children.
And this is a mainstream thing in the “Democratic” party – their city Mayors (for example of once conservative Salt Lake City), their State Governors, their Federal politicians, their academics and media people – they rejoice in wickedness, wickedness of the vilest kind.
In the face of all this, their desire to murder us is not the worst thing about the left.
“Shunning” is not the same as “canceling”. It is passive. Not active. To use what might seem like a ludicrous example I am not a member of a golf club simply because I have no interest in the game. Do I therefore want golf clubs shut down? No.
I do though have an interest in Snorri’s points…
* If you need surgery, would you go to a hospital which employs an anesthesiologist who approved of the Kirk murder? (And there was one.)
Dunno. With the NHS you don’t get much choice and at the risk of sounding flippant if it’s the “gasman” then you’re out of it anyway…
* Would you go to a hospital which employs nurses who approved of the Kirk murder?
If they are otherwise competent then OK.
* Would you send your kids to schools with teachers who approved of the Kirk murder?
* If your kids choose a university with profs who approved of Kirk’s murder, would you pay for tuition?
I’ll take these two together. No. Would I pay to have my children indoctrinated with evil? No!
* Would you eat food carried to your table by a waiter who approved of Kirk’s murder?
Hmm… Generally I don’t engage in debates with waiters that go much beyond “What is the soup of the day?”. A pub, mind… I have engaged in much deeper conversations in some pubs than you get at university seminars.
* Would you trust people who approved of Kirk’s murder to dispose of your garbage safely?
Yes. My relationship with the the bin lads round here doesn’t verge into morality. Good lads here – they aren’t bin-colour NAZIS.
NickM – yes indeed.
I support “shunning” and I am against “cancel culture” – they are very different things.
@NickM: the issue is not so much whether someone you are interacting with on a commercial/service basis is likely to know what your politics are, its what they would likely do to you if they were to discover them, by some means or other.
Would you be happy to anaesthetised by an anaesthesiologist who had supported CK’s shooting, if you knew they knew you voted for Trump? Or cared for by a nurse who was a rabid supporter of Palestine if you knew they knew you supported Israel in the current conflict?
The question is how secure are you that such people would treat you fairly if they discovered you were of a different opinion to them? Personally I would consider it significantly likely that such people would seek to harm me in some way were they to discover my views differed from theirs. Maybe not to literally kill me, but certainly to make me suffer pain, discomfort and long term negative healthcare outcomes to satisfy their own twisted sense of morality. And as such I wouldn’t want to be treated by them. Why should I want to be treated or cared for by someone who would wish me harm if they knew more about me than they actually do?
But if enough people “shun” the golf club, then it is effectively canceled. They’ll have to repurpose the land.
A more important distinction might be between canceling for substantive reasons and canceling for partisan reasons.
EG a biology professor who denies the theory of evolution (without offering cogent arguments) would be canceled for substantive reasons; not so if he proffered an unpopular political opinion in his private life.
NickM,
shunning is the exact same thing as cancelling. That’s what it originally meant in early America and elsewhere. Shunning meant economic and social power players in a village voluntarily refraining from economic congress with those they disliked. It was standard nonviolent coercion, just like leftist businesses debanking conservative dissidents today.
Permeni – no it is not. Shunning does not involve mobs shouting people down, or threatening them and their families, or sending SWAT teams to their houses with false reports to the police.
Shunning is not Cancel Culture – I hope you never experience Cancel Culture.
Meanwhile the Governor of New York State has formally endorsed Mr Mandani to be Mayor of New York City.
Mr Mandani does not believe in shunning, he very much believes in Cancel Culture. He and the savage mob he leads.