It Could Happen Here - Charlie Kirk vs College Students

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Garrison dissociates at a Charlie Kirk x Vivek Ramaswamy rally and wonders if it's even worth it anymore. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/us/politics/elon-musk-donald-trump-pennsylvania.html  https://www.9news.com/article/news/verify/immigration/new-york-city-free-one-way-plane-tickets-migrants-fact-check/536-c6e7168f-7f16-4bf9-97cd-33389729869c https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/nyregion/nyc-hotels-homeless-shelters.html https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/09/kamala-harris-afghanistan-withdrawal-report https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/undocumented-immigrant-offending-rate-lower-us-born-citizen-rate https://www.npr.org/2024/03/08/1237103158/immigrants-are-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-us-born-americans-studies-find https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/oct/15/byron-donalds/fact-checking-misleading-claims-about-black-wage-g/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/2024/07/02/how-did-black-americans-do-economically-under-trump-biden/ https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-trump-administration-embraces-the-saudi-led-war-yemen https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/saudi-arabia-arms-deal-trump-what-to-know/ https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/01/20/trump-the-anti-war-president-was-always-a-myth/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/ https://www.wabe.org/charlie-kirk-vivek-ramaswamy-tangle-with-georgia-state-students-at-tour-stop-in-support-of-trump/ https://newslit.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/NLP-Teen-Survey-Report-2024.pdf See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was,

should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners,

for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pertenti. And I'm Jamee Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. If you're early in your career, you probably have a lot of money questions. So we're talking to finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it down. Looking at the numbers is one of the most honest reflections of what your financial picture actually is. The numbers won't lie to you. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is It Could Happen Here. Today, I'm your host, Garrison Davis. And there sure has been a lot happening this past year. I am kind of feeling emotionally

exhausted and just numb in general. It's a different feeling from the political desensitization that my job usually provides me. I'm frankly still recovering from attending the DNC, even more so than the RNC. At the RNC, I knew I was going to be walking through the pits of hell. And despite the immense evil on display, the sideshow conspiracy theory freak nature of the event made it almost absurdly amusing. But the DNC kind of broke me. Between the infighting among Palestine protesters and the insistence from the official organizers, TM, to oppose any course of action that would actually disrupt the event or apply pressure to attendees, and instead just use the

Palestine protests to promote their little socialist newspapers and political orgs. Meanwhile, inside the actual event, I was surrounded by some of the richest, most powerful people I had ever been around. And just watching them maintain their like Kamala is brat party atmosphere at all costs and purposely blind themselves to the atrocities happening around the world, especially Gaza, was a deeply unsettling experience. Like these are supposed to be the, if not the good guys, at least the better guys or the less openly fascist guys. And like among the American right-wing's unprecedented focus and organized attack on trans rights, this was the first DNC since 2012 to not feature a trans speaker,

and trans people were never directly mentioned during the convention's primetime speaking slots. were never directly mentioned during the convention's primetime speaking slots. And now with the election ramping up and the Southeast still recovering from two devastating hurricanes, Israel escalating tensions with Iran, and with the backing of the United States, continuing strikes in Lebanon and Palestine, I am just feeling more lost and discombobulated than I have been in years. So to cheer myself up, I decided to go to a Charlie Kirk and Vivek Ramaswamy rally at Georgia State University. Now, to some, that may sound just completely batshit, or perhaps some form of bizarre self-harm. But look, I've been covering far-right rallies and writing about these weird conservative influencers for years now. It's almost second nature to me. Going to these events can feel paradoxically relaxing. Even though it may trigger some stress,

my body just kind of subconsciously knows what to do in environments like this. subconsciously knows what to do in environments like this. The RNC was so easy. It's like an autopilot just takes over. And so I thought going to this Turning Point USA event might help reset my brain by giving myself a simple task that I know I can excel at. But before we get into all that, first, for those more fortunate than I, here's some background on Charlie Kirk, also known as the far-right podcaster with the smallest face. As a teenager, back in 2012, Charles J. Kirk co-founded an organization for campus conservatives called Turning Point USA. And then in 2019, he founded a sister organization called Turning Point Action, which focuses on elections and conservative political advocacy. Though initially more aligned with the so-called alt-right rather than the alt-right, Kirk has slowly moved farther and farther to the right during the past 10 years.

And by 2020, he embraced election fraud, COVID-19, and vaccine conspiracy theories. And by 2020, he embraced election fraud, COVID-19, and vaccine conspiracy theories. Also during 2020, he started his own podcast, The Charlie Kirk Show, which is now somehow ranked as the number seven podcast for news in Apple Podcasts. So that's not good. At this point, Charlie has kind of taken the place of, if not surpassed, the role that was previously occupied by Stephen Crowder before his fall from grace stemming from his breakup with Ben Shapiro and the allegations of abusing his ex-wife. Through the Turning Point Action organization, Kirk is more tied in with the actual mechanisms of the Republican Party than even the Daily Wire is.

Just this past Wednesday, Turning Point Action hosted a rally for Trump in Duluth, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. Trump spoke at this event, and Tucker Carlson made a very fascist speech advocating to refuse the results of the election if Trump loses, and likening Trump to a quote-unquote daddy figure needing to punish the country for being a quote-unquote bad girl the past four years. It's a huge indictment against Americans' deeply Freudian politics. Now, the event that I attended on October 21st was a part of Charlie Kirk's You're Being Brainwashed tour, where Kirk and friends travel from swing state to swing state to debate college students on camera about why Trump is the better candidate. Charlie's focus on debating unprepared college students shows how he

has kind of picked up the baton from Steven Crowder and his old Change My Mind videos. But this year specifically, Charlie's version of this college debate content creation strategy is more in line with this overall strategy to inflate Kirk's political influence leading up to the election so that he can get more directly involved in the GOP's get out the vote campaign in key swing states. As a part of this strategy, Kirk has been on a bit of a media blitz the past few months to promote himself. Some listeners may have seen the viral video featuring Charlie Kirk debating 25 quote unquote woke college students for over 90 minutes. This video from the YouTube channel Jubilee has over 20 million views. And like,

just as an aside, Jubilee is just so deeply evil. This company claims to advocate for like empathy and human connection while turning life and death political issues into fucking game show segments for YouTube ad revenue, often pitting media-trained conservative activists against just random clueless liberals. I hate this company. They are so bad. But I digress. Now, I actually attended a Turning Point USA event on the GSU campus last year. It was a smaller event that was ostensibly about defending the Cop City training facility in Atlanta. Though, halfway through the event, it just stopped being about Cop City, and it just turned into an ad for Turning Point USA and this other political organization started

by Candace Owens called BLEGZIT, which stands for the, quote, black exit from the victimhood mentality, unquote. This was one of the most racist events I've ever been to. The main speaker, in his best metrosexual attire, blamed black people for creating situations that result in police murders, said that the real problem is that black kids are never taught accountability, and that in the MLK days, people only ever advocated for more police training. He also claimed that rap music is causing a spike in violent crime, and ranted against Jay-Z and Beyonce, and closed by saying that we need to support more conservative rappers and singers. It was really bad. But on the plus side, I went undercover to this event, and when talking with the Turning Point USA officials, I convinced them that I

was actually a student at a different, nearby university, and I reserved the right to start a fake TPUSA chapter in that school. So hopefully that will never happen since I'm the one who's supposed to be doing it. For the brainwashed tour event this past Monday, I dressed like an unfashionable campus conservative and donned my Reagan movie baseball cap acquired at the RNC welcome party and arrived at campus an hour early to scope out the terrain. They didn't announce the exact location for the event ahead of time, so for about half an hour, I just walked around GSU with the fucking Ronald Reagan hat, looking for like a TPUSA booth.

Now luckily, I spotted some people with red mega hats that I tailed to the nearby Hurt Park, where it was immediately evident that this would be a much bigger event than the Cop City one I attended a year prior. In the middle of the park was a big table with microphones to set up for questions and debate, and on either side there were booths with turning point stickers, buttons, flyers, a pocket constitution, and sign-up sheets to get involved in their political advocacy programs. I took home a big button that read, Republicans are hotter, and I got another, what I would call a brat-style button, but brown instead of green, that reads, reads, hi, period. Stop being a socialist, period. Thanks, period. Not good. Not good. But I watched the crowd grow from like 20 people to I would say around 200. You know,

it got kind of fluid, but yeah, around 200, 250 maybe, a small majority were students, or at least young, and appeared to be equally made up of liberals and conservatives, with the rest of the crowd mostly made up of conservatives from all ages who came to campus just to see Charlie Kirk. As the event was about to begin, TPUSA staff moved all of the older quote-unquote non-college students out of frame of the cameras to make the video seem more focused on liberal college students. And after waiting in the surprisingly warm October sun for over an hour, Charles J. Kirk finally arrived 30 minutes late from the official start time, tossing free mega hats wildly into the crowd, one of which I am now in possession of. For this leg of the tour, Kirk has been accompanied by the 2024 Republican presidential candidate with the tallest hair, Vivek Ramaswamy, who, by the way, has also won the Cool Zone Media Award for Presidential Candidate with the most Nick Fuentes-Groiper energy. So there you go. I can't believe I've seen

Vivek Ramaswamy like four different times this year. That doesn't feel good. But do you know what does feel good? That's right. These products and services that support this podcast. into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone

from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry

and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh.

And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well.

Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know

that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it.

Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works

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It's time to finally talk about this fucking rally. So I'm not going to go over like the whole event play by play because there was over two hours of quote unquote debating that I have neither the time nor the desire to recap. But I will mention some of the overarching topics and common lines of questioning. Even as the first student took the mic, I knew that this was going to be a rough day. The first person to quote unquote debate, Charlie and Vivek, stated that their quote, primary opposition to Trump is that he's anti-American and anti-patriotic, unquote. They said that they believed that Trump fundamentally undermines American values.

And they specifically invoked Trump's rhetoric online about suspending the Constitution and the whole January 6th incident. Look, I don't think this is a very compelling line of attack, especially in a debate setting. And I just don't believe that patriotism is like an inherently good thing. And I think grifters and con men are pretty darn American. think grifters and con men are pretty darn American. But Vivek and Kirk responded by talking about how social media censorship in 2020 was a much greater act of anti-Americanism. Although later on in the day, they defended Elon Musk and his running of Twitter, since he's a private citizen and should be allowed to do whatever he wants with his own platform. This is, of course, ironic amidst reporting from

the New York Times that Musk and the Trump team colluded to suppress information damaging to Trump on the platform. Basically, exactly what the right was accusing the old Twitter of doing in the last election. But none of that really matters. There's no such thing as hypocrisy. You can never hold anyone account to this sort of thing on the right. Charlie Kirk then just went on to deny that Trump called to suspend the Constitution. Here's a clip. He never has. You're misquoting him. But let's just look at what he did, not just rhetoric.

Nice little quick pivot there from Charles. But yes, technically, Trump didn't say suspend. He actually said terminate, which is like worse. I don't know. He actually said, terminate, which is like worse. I don't know. In 2022, Trump posted on Truth Social calling for the quote unquote, termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the constitution, unquote, in response to the 2020 election. I don't know how Kirk thinks that saying terminate is better than suspend. Of course, he doesn't. He's just playing this game. It doesn't matter. Kirk went on to lie about the

nature of January 6th and whether Trump literally personally committed the legal act of insurrection, eventually saying that even if Trump did, it would be thrown out under the new presidential immunity ruling by the Supreme Court, and stating that though Trump didn't actually do a coup, the Democrats did actually do a coup to get Kamala Harris on the ticket. Okay, sure, buddy. Now, part of Kirk's just flagrant January 6th revisionist history was claiming that Ashley Babbitt was suddenly killed with no warning as she was retreating from the Capitol. And just none of that is true. That just isn't what happened. The only person to die on January 6th is a Trump supporter

killed by one of Nancy Pelosi's bodyguards. Okay, even that part isn't true. Two other Trump supporters died of heart attacks and another died holding a don't tread on me flag after being trampled by fellow rioters. Now, a student countered Kirk's claim of Babbitt's innocence by confirming that he believes in stand your ground laws, that if you're breaking into property, you can be shot. Hold on, but Ashley Babbitt was unarmed. Isn't the whole kind of shtick of the American left, like don't shoot unarmed people? If I break into your house and I was unarmed, but I was breaking into your house. Was George Floyd, was that a rightful death?

Okay, first of all, incredible deflection. But oh yes, as if these two situations are in any way comparable. A black man being pinned down and choked to death for over nine minutes, and a woman leading a mob intent on killing U.S. politicians right up to the last line of defense protecting said politicians as they try to evacuate the Capitol. Kirk tried to make this same gross George Floyd comparison like an hour later, again to booze from the audience. Later in the day, a second student hit the Charlie Kirk debate chair debating on whether Trump is anti-American and mentioned Trump's recent comments talking about a quote unquote enemy within some enemy inside the United States that poses a far bigger threat than foreign enemies vivek claimed that trump was referring to people who shot at trump and kirk claimed that it was a reference to drug cartels so donald trump is talking with enemies in he's talking about the

cartels that are here that are poisoning our streets with drugs that are bringing illegal guns into the country that is the enemy within yet Yet we say Russia is an enemy. Russia has never attacked the United States of America. Curious Russia comment there, certainly. But like for this enemy within thing, we know that's just not true. Trump has specifically named multiple Democrats as the enemy within. It's not about cartels. It's not about people shooting him. There's just nonstop lying coming from Kirk and Vivek. And none of the students are like equipped or researched enough to call him out on it. Another common topic of debate was war and the insistence that Trump didn't start any new wars, unlike Biden and Harris, who have personally started wars, I guess.

With Kirk crediting Biden for starting the Russia-Ukraine war by financing the Ukrainian defensive, as well as roping in Harris by saying that she was, quote, in charge of the Russia-Ukrainian war before it happened, unquote, which really doesn't make much sense as a sentence. Vivek later added that Kamala Harris was personally in charge of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which again, just isn't true. Vivek is parroting a failed attempt by Republican lawmakers from last September to invent some way to blame Harris for the Afghanistan withdrawal now that she is the presidential nominee. Harris is only mentioned three times in the 3,288 pages of interview transcripts from the Foreign Affairs Committee's investigation of the withdrawal.

But by far, Charlie Invevek's main focus on the topic of war is just defending Russia. Donald Trump's going to negotiate an end to that war that's reasonable. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have created that war and escalated that over the last three years. Trump did not really end any wars in his first term. In fact, he increased U.S. troop levels in 2017 and raised the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan from drone strikes by 330 percent, according to Brown University. Still, Vivek tried to frame Trump as the much more principled anti-war candidate. Which candidate was there a major war in the Middle East? Was there a major war in the Middle East under Donald Trump? There were multiple arms deal packages to Saudi Arabia

for the war in Yemen, and the U.S. increased its involvement in the Syrian civil war under Trump. But to Vivek's earlier point, I really don't see a way Trump would end the war in Ukraine that isn't just giving more territory over to Russia. But to Charlie Kirk, that might not be such a bad thing, since he seems to be kind of fond of Russia. You know who is the enemy? China is the enemy. And Russia. Well, Russia's not the enemy, exactly. How many of your friends have died because of Russians? Here's another soundbite from Vivek. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, along with some Republican help, I'm going to admit, is sending more money to escalate that war that otherwise would have resolved itself if we had just negotiated

peace back in 2022. Resolve itself? Sounds a lot like Vivek just means that Russia would have just seized territory. And like later on, Vive argued that ukraine just shouldn't be getting any nato protection at all so the u.s actually made a commitment back in 1990 to say that nato would expand not one inch past east germany hmm i wonder what may have been different geopolitically in 1990 in relation to russia the vec I wonder if anything has happened since 1990 that might affect certain Slavic territories, Vivek. I wonder. Oh my god. Now, the topic discussed probably the most during this event was immigration. Even the liberal college students seem to believe that an influx of immigration was the biggest problem currently facing the United States.

Kirk claimed that Kamala Harris let 10 million new quote-unquote illegal immigrants into the country, and like, no, the total population of undocumented immigrants in this country has fluctuated between 10 to 12 million over the course of the past 20 years. Though, like J.D. Vance, Kirk considers most immigrants illegal regardless of their actual status. Kirk claimed that the quote-unquote 9 million immigrants seeking asylum that have come into this country under Biden are all illegal because they are, quote, cartel-sponsored fraudulent asylum claims, unquote. Kirk said that these false asylum seekers pay cartels $10,000 to be smuggled into the United States. They're all illegal because they're, we know, it's actually, we know it to be true. It's not the question. They're defrauding the American immigration system is what they're doing. When pressed for proof on this, Kirk just stumbled and Vivek took over and later just plugged his new movie about illegal immigration. Yes. I mean, so, for example, what is the asylum claim if you're coming from from North Korea?

Yeah. Wow. Wow. Very, very convincing stuff happening. Wow, wow, very, very convincing stuff happening. Vivek argued that most immigrants lie about seeking asylum in order to enter the country in. And that's why it's no surprise that the people whose first act of entering the country breaks the law often continue to break the law while they're already here. I don't think that's racist or xenophobic. I think it's a fact based on who we're actually selecting to come into the country. In actuality, immigrants and especially undocumented or quote-unquote illegal immigrants, are far less likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens. Most research puts it between 40 to 60 percent less likely, at least according to Stanford, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Cato Institute, all famously liberal organizations. One thing that Kirk kept trying to do is pander his nationalism towards the racially diverse audience of Atlanta students.

The people in this audience, which is a very diverse audience, specifically Black Americans, should be incensed that they're being replaced by foreigners. Black Americans are now being put aside so that a bunch of foreigners can come undercut wages and fill your city. The Black community, which you obviously both care a lot about, is actually not being prioritized. Instead, people from the third world are coming in and black America is getting put last, which seems to be a common theme over the last 60 years when Democrats are in control.

Well, OK. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thank you guys. The worst part is that this seemed to work. The audience seemed to resonate with this grossly fascistic framing. Seemingly unable to

recognize what Kirk was doing. At this point, I was just fucking losing it. Vivek said that if you don't know English, you shouldn't be allowed in the United States, and like, no one cared, no one pushed back on that. A pro-Kamala person repeated false migrant crime wave rhetoric in her question about the Venezuelan refugee crisis. That student said that 300,000 Venezuelan refugees came to the United States in 2023, and Kirk then claimed that 3 million more would arrive if Kamala is elected,

along with 20 million more immigrants. Kirk promised that if Trump's elected, any immigrant, whether legal, undocumented, or a refugee, just any immigrant who commits a crime like a DUI will be immediately deported. And unfortunately, when pressed to defend or even just openly express their own personal views on whatever the topic of debate was, multiple students just completely backed down, saying that they would rather, quote unquote, stay out of the political realm.

Or in another instance, I'm not really here to make political charges. Oh, sure enough. What are you doing? You're trying to debate about access to abortion or if all immigrants should be rounded up and deported, but you don't want to get, quote unquote, too political? What are you talking about?

I'm sorry you couldn't get a fast dunk on Charlie Kirk, but come on. But perhaps the most disheartening moment was when Charlie Kirk was challenged on his opposition to the Civil Rights Act. Someone asked why Charlie thinks that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. Kirk started by saying that even if some of the original intent was good, it's now being used for bad things, like allowing men in women's locker rooms to the complete shock of the questionnaire. Kirk and Vivek then went on to explain why we should repeal the Civil Rights Act.

The fanfare that the Civil Rights Act is met with, it's almost like the new constitution. We talk about the Civil Rights Act more than the constitution. It is cited more than the constitution. We almost had a new American founding in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Act more than the Constitution. It is cited more than the Constitution. We almost had a new American founding in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Act. So let me share a couple of hard facts with you, which is that it turns out that you're much more likely to end up in prison. You're much more likely to end up in poverty. You're much more likely not to graduate from high school if you grow up in a single-parent household versus a dual-parent household. from high school if you grow up in a single-parent household versus a dual-parent household.

Today, you're talking about upwards of 60% of black kids born into single-parent households rather than dual-parent. What number do you think that was in the 1950s before the Great Society? Probably like 40. It was even less, 20%. 20% back then. So then we look at what the results have been of this entire agenda. Put the Civil Rights Act put the lbj great society black americans are worse off today even economic economically in terms of mobility than they were back then in the name of laws that were passed to supposedly advance black interest oh god do you know what that can actually be attributed to it's the massive increase in policing and the carceral justice system that was specifically intensified as a conservative reaction to black people gaining more civil rights in society. The Civil Rights Act has nine different titles in it. And you have this leviathan that was created

and something that most black Americans don't support is men and female sports. Would you agree? Say that again? Men playing in female sports. Would you agree? Can you say that again? Men playing in female sports. I have not. Yeah, I know. No, no, for sure, right? Believe it or not, the Civil Rights Act is now being used to keep men playing in women's sports. So the Civil Rights Act was used to help black America originally. Totally get that. But now the way it was written is that any claim of identification, so someone says, I'm a woman, therefore I can compete in your volleyball team, they come in with a civil rights claim.

And so what we're saying is, no, no, no, it should be specified to racial, not gender, all that other stuff. And there were all these other provisions as well. How sad is it that this kid was convinced that the fucking Civil Rights Act is bad through transphobia. It's so fucking predatory what Kirk is doing here. This was so fucking gross to watch in person. As the day went on, things just started to get more and more kooky. A whole batch of libertarian, Austrian-trained economists went back and forth with Charles and Vivek on tariffs, free markets, and the validity of the economic philosophy of Frederick Hayek. This fucking dude with a little mustache who ostensibly got up to debate Kirk on abortion

said that, quote, I think my generation has started to abuse the option of abortion, unquote. Like, why the fuck are you up there debating him then? Jesus Christ. And then what I would call generously a himbo in a white dudes for Harris shirt said that Kamala's greatest accomplishment is being an idol after debating Kirk about FEMA money being spent on illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, Kirk just continued to spew COVID-19 conspiracy theories to very little pushback. They were wrong about everything. They were wrong about six feet to solar spread. They were wrong about the vaccine, safe and effective. They were wrong about whether the earth revolves around the sun. What are you talking about? Oh my God.

One student just got so fed up with Kirk's endless rambling about topics unrelated to their question and decided to walk away, which then of course, Kirk claimed as a rhetorical victory. Hunter Biden laptop misinformation. Where did the virus come from? Bio labs in Ukraine. No, it's exactly. Yeah, fine. That's okay. Go to your ethics class. Go to your ethics class. I was losing it and frankly just shocked at how little pushback Charles and Vivek were receiving for what I saw as very clear lies and manipulative debate tactics. The majority of people clearly did not think too hard about the question they were going to ask, or let alone research the topic of debate beforehand. I saw people in line to ask a question using chat GPT to generate questions to ask using a prompt

about how to debate Charlie Kirk at a Turning Point USA event. Like, what the fuck is going on? Now, I fundamentally refuse to participate in quote-unquote debates like this for reasons that I will soon get into. So I just started taking notes of all the things Charlie was lying about. And I was right at the very front of the crowd. So whenever TPUSA publishes the video, Charlie Kirk destroying silly liberal college students, USA publishes the video, Charlie Kirk destroying silly liberal college students, you should be able to see me pretty clearly in the background in my fucking Ronald Reagan hat, just furiously scribbling down notes. Though I would recommend watching with an ad blocker not to give Kirk

extra money. The whole event was a pretty pathetic affair. By my count, there were only eight liberal-leaning challengers who questioned Kirk, compared to 13 conservative-leaning questionnaires who entered a friendly discussion with Kirk. Out of all the liberal debaters, two backed down because they didn't want to get too political, and three others appeared to be at least somewhat swayed by Kirk and Vivek. Now, like, I can't entirely blame these students, right? Like, this setting is not a real debate. Kirk holds all of the power. He does this for a living, and he fucking brought a friend with him to help. It's two of them versus what? It's Kirk and Vivek. There's a reason he prefers debating college students rather than working professionals. Most students are not prepared to effectively

counter Kirk's claims and don't have enough general knowledge on current events to call him out on every one of his many lies. And even if they do catch him on something, Kirk will try to project authority to sway the uneducated audience into believing that he is correct. Just because teens are chronically online doesn't mean that they have better media literacy, critical thinking, or know how to determine the validity of information. A 2024 survey by News Literacy America found that only 50% of teens could identify that an article labeled as branded content on a news site was in fact an advertisement. Barely over half of teens could accurately identify an op-ed with the word commentary in the headline as an opinion piece.

44% claimed that a company's own press release was more credible than an independent news report on the same subject. And 34% of teens incorrectly labeled a random picture of damaged traffic lights as strong evidence supporting a viral false claim that hot July temperatures had melted traffic lights. These teens surveyed said that local TV news and TikTok were the most trustworthy sources of information. And 35% of teens said that professional journalists are more biased than social media content creators. Meanwhile, 45% said that journalists are just as biased as these TikTok influencers. Let's do a test right now. Try to see if you can determine that these following clips are in fact advertisements. off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google

Search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge

and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba.

He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez.

At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzales wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still

this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating.

I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's

toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture.

Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities,

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Okay, we are back. Now, this was technically my first time seeing this format of conservative YouTube debate in person. The videos that get published online later get heavily edited down. And while I was going at it in my notepad, I started to recognize the repeating patterns that Kirk and Vivek employed to gain dominance in almost every single debate matchup. So now I'm going to talk about some of these common tactics used by Kirk. When Kirk or Vivek wants to end a particular line of questioning or move on to the next person, they'll just restate their own opinions as fact and then end that debate,

leaving the impression that they won. They can just stop whenever they feel like they have made the final point that gives them victory. Here's Vivek. The number one human attribute that our legal immigration system selects for isn't who's smart, isn't who's going to work hard, isn't who loves the country. It's are you willing to lie to the U.S. government or not?

If you are, you get in. If not, you don't. That's the way it works. Thank you so much. Thank you. And here's another example from Kirk. Black Americans are treated far worse than illegals in this country. And we have we have violated our social contract to our own citizens. And I just want you to think about that. OK. Is that if you break into America, you get a flight to the city of your choosing.

You get taxpayer funded luxury hotels. You get a taxpayer funded phone, taxpayer funded food stamps, whereas many Americans are struggling to even make ends meet. So thank you so much for coming. What a convenient way to say a bunch of bullshit without having to back any of it up. Now, of course, welfare programs like food stamps and even assistance to get access to smartphones

since they basically are now a requirement of everyday life, those programs do exist, right? Those are important programs. But those free flights to any city, that's actually a reference to New York City's reticketing program, which offers one-way bus or plane tickets out of the city.

This program was actually started because the governor of Texas sent 40,000 immigrants to New York against their will. And those quote-unquote luxury hotels are actually a small part of an emergency housing program that utilizes some converted hotels, as well as airport motels, and even office buildings as temporary shelter for immigrants. But I'm sure Kirk would rather these people just be homeless living on the street. I'm sure he wouldn't find ways to complain about that, too. A very common Kirk tactic to avoid answering a question is just to simply flip it around

and ask the students a different question that might eventually be related to the student's original question, but not necessarily. Let me ask you just one more question. Can men give birth? Can men give birth? Can men give birth? Yeah. If they're transgender. Cue the audience's shocked response. These people probably don't even know if this refers to a transgender woman or a transgender man. Whatever. For another example, here's how Vivek responded to a question about voter fraud allegations. Do you think Donald

Trump committed a coup against the U.S. government? This was part of Kirk's response to a question about voter fraud allegations. Do you think Donald Trump committed a coup against the U.S. government? This was part of Kirk's response to a question about U.S. aid to Israel. What is your strong opinion about the civil war happening in the Central African Republic? For another example, a student asked Kirk what should be done about hate crimes against Venezuelan immigrants in cities like Chicago. Do you think that we should do about that? I have a question. So what part of Chicago are you from? So these are all just classic red herrings. Here's another. Also, simply not what a genocide is. Now, sometimes students can catch what Kirk is doing with red herrings and deflections.

But even when drilled down on the original line of questioning, Kirk will try hard to pivot away whenever the momentum is not going in his favor. You guys are super focused on technical things that we could talk about forever. Let me just ask a question. I asked you, what is Kamala Harris's greatest accomplishment? Can you tell me what that would be? Perhaps the most common tactic Charlie Kirk employs to maintain control over the interaction is instead of just stating his opinion, Kirk will throw a question back to his opponent with the intent of getting them to say something that's in support of Kirk's own argument.

Alternatively, Kirk will ask a question that the student probably doesn't know, like some specific stat, but something that Kirk already has a question that the student probably doesn't know, like some specific stat, but something that Kirk already has a prepared answer for, so that he can throw off his opponent, make them question their own ability to debate, and make himself seem smarter. Here's a short compilation. If there was a policy that made markets more free, but hurt your country, would you support it? Do you believe that FDR was right in partnering with Joseph Stalin to defeat Hitler? Yeah, so I guess two questions with tariffs.

How do you avoid a tariff? Let's ask another moral question then. Is it ever okay to do something evil after an evil act? Under abortion, do you carve out a new morality? Is there like a different kind of morality that we apply only to abortion? At what point does it get human rights? Let me ask you just a question. Is there like a different kind of morality that we apply only to abortion? At what point does it get human rights? Let me ask you just a question.

Do you know which nation is the biggest supplier of the U.S. military today? You could probably guess it. Is your phone paid for by U.S. taxpayers? Let me ask you, did you have a vacation this summer in a luxury hotel paid for by taxpayers? Ten people are murdered in Chicago. Out of those ten, how many of those cases will be solved on average, do you think? Okay, so you said he wanted to suspend the Constitution. Did he do that when he was president?

His argumentative style looks pretty goofy when it's all broken down into its respective parts. Now, to circle back to my stance of just never engaging with these bad faith debate spectacles, lastly, I'll show you what happens when you quote-unquote do well against someone like Charlie Kirk. I think the only time Kirk was really thrown off was during one of the very last matchups, with a student asking about Kirk's support of military aid to Israel, despite his alleged anti-war stance and his call for the U.S. to pause all foreign aid until the southern border is secured. Like usual, Kirk first tried to deflect by using red herrings and turn questions back on the student. Let me ask you just a first principle question. Do you think the Jewish people have a moral right to their ancestral land? Absolutely not. Religions do not have any sort of rights to ancestral ground.

Kirk then failed to accuse the student of anti-Semitism. Kirk then tried to trick the student into saying that Hamas is more morally good than Israel, but the student saw what Kirk was trying to do with his bizarre moralistic framing. Do you think that Israel, as it's currently constituted, is morally equivalent with Hamas? The student, quite wisely, did not answer Kirk's precariously worded yes or no question, and instead reframed the question in their own words, and only then stated their opinion that both Hamas and the IDF's actions can be constituted as evil. Still, Kirk wouldn't relent. So which one is better? Which one is good or evil? Which one is better? His nonsensical framing was once again rejected.

But then Kirk accused the student of being propagandized and then asked if they had personally been to Israel to assess the situation. And this is when everything fell apart. Let me tell you this. You know that there's Arabs serving in the Knesset? Yes, I know that there's Arabs in Israel, which is exactly why your point of saying I don't like Jews because I don't like Israel makes absolutely zero sense. I'm going to go back to this because I think it's so interesting though, which is that I believe that the Jewish people do have a right to their ancestral home. Well, first of all, you believe that they should be leveling buildings because that's their ancestral home. I'm not defending every decision they made.

But that's exactly what they're doing. You're interrupting. I'm going to ask the next question because you're not arguing. Not much to debate because I believe that Israel should exist in its current form. You do not. Thank you very much. Okay, last couple. The moral confusion on the Israel topic is it's hard to clear up in a day like this. Again, like these aren't real debates. If the conversation goes any way other than how Kirk wants it to go, he has complete control of the environment and can move on to a more desirable opponent. Because beyond convincing any gullible people that might happen to be in the crowd,

the real reason Kirk does events like this is to make content. It's YouTube bait. These debate videos rack up thousands and sometimes millions of views on YouTube and TikTok. And every single person that participates, as if these are real debates, is directly helping Charlie Kirk make money and grow his brand. money and grow his brand. This TPUSA brainwash tour will continue into November, and I'm sure Charlie Kirk will keep doing events like this in the years to come, regardless of who wins the election. So what's the options to counter something like this? I'm of three minds. My default response to stuff like this is usually just to ignore. Don't give these attention hounds what they're looking for. Don't try to debate. Don't try to own a Charlie Kirk with facts and logic. There's no real benefit from engaging with him and his ilk on their own terms.

But there will always be at least a few college students who think they can get one up on Charlie Kirk. So since these events are gonna continue to happen, even if my friends and I withhold our participation, the second option is just to simply confuse. This is what I call the skibbity Biden strategy, one which I deployed against the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell, in front of the Israeli consulate as he tried to suck up as much attention as possible during the DNC. This was probably my favorite moment of the DNC. This strategy of complete confusion doesn't just deny the subject what they want, if you're the MyPillow guy, attention from reporters, or in the case of

Charlie Kirk, an unfair debate against a non-media trained college freshman. But the skibbity Biden strategy also eats up their time, prohibiting others from being able to engage on the terms decided upon by Turning Point USA. The more time you spend spewing your near-unintelligible gibberish about how Warhammer connects to US foreign policy, or explaining your made-up conspiracy theory about how the Hak'tu'a girl is a CIA asset, all of that is less time for some 19-year-old to challenge Kirk on his abortion views. And annoying Charlie Kirk is just a fun bonus. Now that I think about it, this is essentially the Patton Oswalt filibuster tactic. Now, obviously, Kirk has control of the mic and probably won't let you ramble on about gibberish for too long. So this strategy becomes more

successful if you can get a whole team lined up in front of the microphone. Now, finally, the last option is disruption through force, preferably in a way that limits the possibility of creating an on-camera spectacle that can be utilized by TPUSA. This has typically not been a common tactic used to counter turning point events on campus, but it may be time to reconsider. Forceful disruptions were often utilized when figures like Milo Yiannopoulos toured college campuses back in 2016 to 2018, and more recently against campus events featuring Daily Wire employees like Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh. Historically, this strategy has not been applied to Charlie Kirk, as he's been viewed as less radical than some of these other figures. But I just don't think that's true

anymore. Kirk is spreading and normalizing hardcore xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric across college campuses with little to no resistance, not to mention his complete embrace of conspiracy theories and use of transphobia to undermine civil rights. There's many ways to disrupt events like this through forceful means. Sound disruption, visual disruption, physical disruption, planning an alternate event to take place at the same time and place. Big banners with Charles's tiny face carefully placed in view of the debate cameras. Creative opportunities abound, but it requires people to be actively monitoring when and where these events take place and and actually plan a counter-demo ahead of time, and that just doesn't seem to be happening at the moment.

And so I thought going to this event would help reboot my brain, cheer myself up, and amuse me with Charlie's childish display of debate kid politics. But it just left me more sad watching hapless kids fall prey to Kirk's transparent scheme, just feeling like I had no way to stop the train wreck. But it doesn't have to be this way. With a few friends and a little preparation, there is an alternative. And hey, it could happen here. Well well that's my recap on this fucking charlie kirk rally oh and heads up next week there's gonna be no spooky week episodes for the first time in four years sorry the the world has just gotten too spooky this year between the election and hurricanes and the genocide in Gaza

and everything else happening. The world's just too spooky. I'm really just not feeling Halloween pilled as I usually am. Hopefully things will get better soon. But in lieu of spooky week, we actually have a special series from James on the Darien Gap.

So you have that to look forward to next week. Goodbye, everyone. See you on the Darien Gap. So you have that to look forward to next week. Goodbye, everyone. See you on the other side. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. of AI to the destruction of Google search. Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home, and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami?

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T., connecting changes everything.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pertenti. And I'm Jamee Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. If you're early in your career, you probably have a lot of money questions. So we're talking to finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it down. Looking at the numbers is one of the most honest reflections of what your financial picture actually is. The numbers won't lie to you. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.