Finding Charlie Kirk

On September 10, 2025 Charlie Kirk was shot and killed. I had no clue who he was. I do not frequent college campuses or listen to right wing media. Those were apparently Charlie’s stomping grounds. On this same day there was another shooting at a school in Colorado. The Kirk shooting seemed to overshadow that. It also seemed to get far more attention than the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband earlier this year, at least in MAGA world. So I felt I had to do some research and see who Charlie Kirk was.

I listened to a couple “debates” he engaged in with college students as well as a Q and A he and his wife did for a gathering of young conservative women. I also listened to his show centering around the engagement of Taylor Swift. I am not actually a Swiftie per se, but I do like her. My feeling was that his ultimate goal in the debates was not to exchange ideas, for he was very good at interrupting his opponents and not listening, but to convert those he spoke with, or those who were listening, to his way of thinking. He was proselytizing under the guise of debate. His other venues were just other platforms for him to showcase his ideas, which would be why he was doing them.

I found this debate at Cambridge rather interesting. It’s short.

Here is an interview with Tilly, who participated in that debate. It is rather long, but an interesting analysis of the debate and, perhaps, how the left can try to counter some of the conservative right’s ideas.

One of the points I found interesting in the analysis was that when trying to counter the conservative right’s ideas it might be a good idea to try to paint a picture of what those ideas would look like in real life.

I think that what Charlie Kirk was advocating for was a time when women had little or no rights and were treated as little more than chattel by their husbands. Rather like Afghanistan is today. Or perhaps as written in “A Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood. Not a world I would like to live in being a woman. For the most part I think I would have issues with a lot of what Charlie Kirk was supporting.

Since Kirk’s murder the responses have been extreme, either crass glee by his detractors or intense grief by his fans. Again, Trump and his supporters have played the divisive card, vilifying everyone on the left as being the cause of Kirk’s death. I beg to differ, the cause of his death was a young man with a gun. A young man whose motive is really yet to be determined, despite all the speculation, as he isn't talking. 

Supposedly Charlie Kirk believed in freedom of speech. If that really was the case he must be horrified at the extreme measures his followers are taking to smother it.