Charlie Kirk was a conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA in 2012 with the purpose to counter similar liberal groups. He chose colleges and universities as the venue for his lectures and discussions. He challenged students to prove him wrong. “He treated higher education as a war zone, with faculty and students who did not share his preferred ideology as an enemy to be defeated,” Isaac Kamola, a director at the American Association of University Professors, told the New York Times.
He was tapping into a college tradition of fierce debate and political rifts. Vimal Patel, a reporter for the Times, reminds us, “Colleges have often been the setting for America’s most divisive and memorable cultural flashpoints, over communism and racism, the Vietnam War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Kirk had some success with his goal to persuade students to his point of view. He did it with composure and with no hesitation to affirm absolutes. During Q&A, Kirk would often respond to questions with a question of his own. He would preface his question by referring to a widely accepted value that vaguely related to his point of view. He would then ask the student, “Do you agree…?”
Agreement with Kirk’s general example would by extension suggest that the student agreed with Kirk’s original assertion. If the student did not want to make the connection, then Kirk would win the debate. As Alice Speri, who wrote for the Guardian, explained, “Kirk pioneered a style of ideological warfare against what he viewed as bastions of leftism, helping turn campuses into cultural battlefields….”
It seems these “battlefields” were more a setting for widening the gap of disagreement than as a means to bring students into his ideological camp. For example, he spoke against gay and transgender rights. He defended Christian nationalism. He condemned what he called gender ideology. He championed right to life. He demonized DEI. He said, “Large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.” He claimed the idea of climate change was “complete gibberish, nonsense and balderdash.” Statements like these raise negative visceral reactions in many people, as well as inviting rational dissent.
Debates can make good theater. They can be interesting and capture a competitive spirit. Charlie Kirk had the presence, the talent, the intellect and the skill to be a winner. He was a successful popular right-wing political activist, an author and a media personality. The goal of his organization, Turning Point USA, is “to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government.”
However, an unintended consequence of his movement was the alienation of more and more people from one another. If each “side” is becoming more aggressive, determined and seeks to demonizing the other, what is lacking from the efforts of Charlie Kirk? The missing component seems to be reconciliation.
As we consider the near collapse of the effectiveness of political and social discourse in our country, reconciliation seems as elusive as the Cheshire Cat. Charlie Kirk has taught us that debates are not a method for the much-needed healing of the nation’s political divide. Debates result in winners and losers. They are a boost for the winners but they do not provide the opportunity for reconciliation with others. That is the missing component in Kirk’s movement!
I know that reconciliation was not Kirk’s goal, but watching his presentations and debates has reminded me that building a rapport like he had done with students, could not only facilitate debate, but could also have abandoned arguments and replaced them with listening and understanding sessions. Understanding is a motivation to reach out to discover new goals that may free people to move creatively into the future.
Perhaps his unintended legacy will be the demonstration of his neglect to teach the discipline of listening for understanding. Noticing that vacuum may be the motivation to add understanding as an instrument for reconciliation. He has prepared the way. We may give life to his legacy by following reconciliation into a more effective government and society.
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds
Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com.