I’ve been watching a lot of Charlie Kirk videos lately. Given the massive uptick in subscribers and view counts, I’m far from alone. I take some small comfort in that, if I’m being honest. The last thing that leftist loon wanted to do was make Kirk’s message more viral than it already was, but that’s exactly what he did. We’ll see what happens, but we could be witnessing a political sea change, particularly among the youth, the likes of which this country has never seen in such a short time. Wouldn’t that be something?
When I watch them, I always put myself in the place of a left-leaning young person. Is the tone right? Are the arguments convincing? Do the points land? It’s a fun and satisfying intellectual exercise. The answer to those questions are almost always a resounding yes, because Kirk was a generational master of effective communication, a talent undoubtedly honed almost to perfection by years of practice. I imagine people starting to question their paradigms, their view of reality, the way they see the world. Does socialism really make the lives of ordinary people better? Can a man really become a woman? Is leftist nihilism really the answer? Maybe it’ll take years for them to finally see the truth, but countless seeds were and are still being planted and some will undoubtedly sprout and bear fruit.
One interesting thing about those interactions was that Charlie wasn’t really talking to the questioner. Well, he was, but not primarily. That’s because he knew two things: 1.) The questioner was likely an ideologue whose mind would never be changed, at least not right there or in a way that was evident while the spotlight was on, no matter what evidence was presented. 2.) In an interaction like that, you are always speaking to the audience, both live and the millions who would later watch it on video. Convince enough of them and it doesn’t matter what the questioner thinks.
In other words, the goal was always to change minds. If one of those minds was the questioner, great, but if not, the minds of those watching. And given that Kirk and his organization have received much of the credit for making serious inroads in the youth vote in the 2024 election, I would say the mission was more than accomplished.
The interactions he would have with black college students were particularly fascinating. For far too long far too many conservatives have avoided discussing race-related issues with black people, especially in person when you can’t hide behind a keyboard. It’s weird. It’s awkward. Even worse, you might get accused of being a ‘racist,’ a ‘sin’ akin to murder or something these days. Better to just ignore the topic altogether or even cede points to the political opposition.
But that’s not how Charlie Kirk rolled. He would engage anyone, anywhere, on any topic, and he wouldn’t hold back if the questioner was a black person who wanted to challenge his opinion on DEI or another race-related topic. He was spitting facts, and he wasn’t afraid to do it.
An example that one might think would lead to some awkwardness was when Kirk brought up black crime. On the surface, it might be easy for many to avoid the topic based on the fact that you’re literally telling a black person that people of their race are responsible for a staggering percentage of violent crime. But he did it in a way that always respected the individual. His message was that people are responsible for their own actions and that they aren’t collectively responsible for the actions of others who share the same skin tone. Just as white people aren’t responsible for the actions of their slave holding ancestors or other white people now who commit mass shootings or other crimes, law-abiding black people aren’t responsible for the actions of their criminal element.
What they are collectively responsible for, however, is the way their society enables criminality and coddles and infantilizes its criminals. As a result, black communities pay a horrific price given that most crime is black on black. And so he would challenge them, in the same way Malcolm X did, in the same way Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama once did in simpler, braver times. He didn’t seem to care that he was a white man. The truth was the truth and could stand on its own.
It was obvious that Kirk cared about people, regardless of color, and those interactions never, from what I saw, resulted in black questioners exploding in rage because of uncomfortable facts. It’s an example all of us should follow, especially in reaching out to those different from us. We should never stop talking to people, even if they seem too far gone to ever change.
Charlie Kirk blazed a trail that, if followed and added to, could result in the massive, long-term, generational defeat of the left we’ve all been hoping for. Sadly, we will have to do it without him, but he showed it can be done.
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