Why did I not know that a guy named Charlie Kirk was drawing crowds of thousands....

[LAS14]

....on college campuses?

We subscribe to the NYT. We watch The Newshour and Rachel and Chris Hayes.

I spend lots of time on DU.

I was flabbergasted to find out about him.

[elleng]

1. ditto!

[womanofthehills]

32. NYT's is very pro Israel and Charlie Kirk began attacking Israel

In the last few months. Lots of clips on X of Kirk finally talking about the genocide and questioning Israeli’s reaction on Oct 7. Lots of clips are up now on X so just put in his name and you can watch them. He began siding with the lone anti genocide Republicans - like his best friend Candice Owens, Tucker, MTG, Massie and even the gross Megan Kelly was coming around. Kirk was going on podcasts and Trump, Netanyu and Turning Points donors did not like what they were hearing. His big Turning Pounts event in July in Tampa was the turning point as he invited anti genocide Tucker & Libertarian Dave Smith to speak and dead Palestinian babies were brought up. He went from I LOVE Israel to - slandering babies is not good.

Remember when the NYT’s did a whole big article on an Israeli women being raped on Oct 7 and named the dead woman. .
The woman’s family was furious as they had been talking by phone when the girl and her boyfriend’s car was blown up.

Although I subscribe to NYC’s for the crosswords & games - because it’s a thing my boyfriend and I do every evening- I’m kind of grossed out to be supporting them.

[HighFired49]

36. Same here

Never heard of him before he was shot.

[miyazaki]

2. And they say the left are indoctrinating impressionable minds at colleges. nt

[LonePirate]

7. There is an important distinction here.

It's indoctrination if someone I don't like is speaking. It's education if someone I like is speaking.

[miyazaki]

9. They argue it pertains to your first point.

[GreenWave]

26. They accuse us of what they are doing/thinking.

That way time for good old bothsiderism.

[Scrivener7]

3. Imagine if we sent a dynamic speaker around college campuses.

That would be good messaging.

[LAS14]

5. Would love to see the coverage of him debating Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom or..... nt

[Wifes husband]

12. It is hard to debate a guy like kirk

They use the gish gallop, half truths, downright lies. They usually won't engage in a real debate

[Scrivener7]

24. There's no rule that says it needs to be a debate.

[Ursus Rex]

37. Most if not all of those appearances are rage-baits

.. where he collects the video of him saying a canned line and then smirking, "LIBS DESTROYED"

[MichMan]

20. Newsom did back in March

There was discussion about it here at the time with some quite critical of Newsom at the time

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20109574

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220116865

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220107742

[womanofthehills]

31. Galvin interviewed Charlie Kirk

Interviews are in X.

🔥 Gavin Newsom sits down with Charlie Kirk in one-on-one interview on the Democrat's newly-launched podcast.

Kirk: "We had a goal, could we move the youth vote 10 points in 10 years....we did it in 4 years, in large part thanks to you guys."

Link to tweet

?s=46

[Prairie Gates]

18. There are a number of young Democrats who debate Kirk and others

and who are known widely to college students.

I suppose some of y'all have also never heard of Dean Withers and Parkergetajob?

We're fast approaching "Onion on our belts" territory on this board.

[RockRaven]

4. Says a lot about how politics is reported in this country by establishment media, doesn't it?

I've been hearing about him for years, but I guess I never noticed that DU didn't talk about him or TP USA much.

[LAS14]

6. Where did you hear about him? nt

[RockRaven]

11. Honestly I couldn't even pinpoint the first or primary source, it has long been one

of those things that is just background knowledge. There would be articles mentioning him fairly regularly on Reddit (in r/news and r/politics specifically), especially around conservative and right wing convention and event times (like CPAC). And I listen to a number of podcasts about politics and right wing nuttery. The internecine feuding between right wing grifters is a constant thing, and he was often mentioned in that context.

[womanofthehills]

27. If you get your news from podcasts - you would know about him

Breaking Points with Crystal Ball & Saagar ( Left & right talking points although Saagar is not into Trump)

They cover what’s happening on both sides.

Turning Points big July debate between anti genocide Libertarian Dave Smith and pro Israel Josh Hammer was carried on many podcasts and discussed for weeks on social media. Tucker spoke too and now that Tucker is anti Israel - it was huge news all over web.

Unfortunately- kids all know who Charley Kirk is because of 3000 Turning Points chapters at high schools and college.

Here is Galvin Newsome telling Charlie Kirk that Galvon’s 13 yr old son wanted to skip school to meet Charlie.

NEW: California Governor Gavin Newsom tells Charlie Kirk that his son is a massive Charlie Kirk fan. Galvin admits Kirk is gaining with youth.

Newsom: My son really wanted to meet you.

Kirk: You let him to take off school?

Newsom: No. Of course not. He's not here for a good reason.

Kirk: Well you cancelled school for like two years, what’s one day going to do?

Link to tweet

?s=46

[LAS14]

34. So is MSM not telling us about events in the podcast world because...

...they're afraid they'll lose their audience?

They wouldn't lose me. Can't imagine getting my news that way. But...

[womanofthehills]

35. The main stream news have sponsors who limit what can be said

Many podcasts have bigger audiences than cable does - and are funded by listeners so no control of what is said. I like Breaking Points for my morning news because it covers both sides and I can listen while doing stuff.

They are not telling us stuff because they are afraid they will lose their sponsors - the rich men of the world. Also, instead of a 5 minute clip on cable news, podcasts go in depth and might give us an hour of news on that topic with educated guests on topics. You get much more in depth news.

[In It to Win It]

8. You probably would have seen him speaking in front of crowds on social media.

[markodochartaigh]

10. I think that most Democratic politicians over 35,

as well as most media in the center or on the "left" have almost no clue what is going on with people under 30, "Latin Americans", or the working class.

I do see the Democratic party stepping up their game in the Spanish language radio market in Florida and Texas, but they are still way, way behind. I hope that they can court the working class in a serious way without alienating the big money donors that almost any serious candidate has to have thanks to the supremacist court.

You can find out for yourself what the younger generation is listening to, and to some extent saying, by checking out a young maga influencer on Instagram and checking out the influencers connected to them, as well as the comments. Of course remember that many commenters are paid trolls, foreign and domestic. We haven't reached the point of ai influencers but I bet we will soon.

[ecstatic]

13. I think the only reason I'm aware of him is because I switched to

YouTube podcasts for 99% of my news coverage. The online podcasters reference the activity of other podcasters / influencers, so that's how I've learned about a variety of right-wing clowns who are never mentioned on mainstream TV.

[womanofthehills]

30. He was all over X too - this is BAD NEWS

I follow politicians on both sides to see what’s up. Galvin Newsome interviews of Charlie are online and Galvin saying his 13 yr old son likes Charlie Kirk? ???

We have a big problem- we need to reach the kids. Here is some horrible news that we need to counter act. Charlie was working on building Turning Points for 12 yrs and there are chapters in over 3000 schools and I really just heard of him a few months ago on social media because hundreds of thousands of people online were talking about the Turning Points Israel debate between pro Israel Josh Hammer and Libertarian Dave Smith where more Republican kids sided with the anti genocide Libertarian Jewish podcaster/comedian/historian. Pro war Republicans, Trump and Netanyahu not happy as Turning points has huge pro Israel donors.




BAD NEWS
From Turning Points:

🚨 HOLY CRAP! Turning Point USA has now received over 32,000 inquiries in a 48-hour time frame to open new campus chapters.

32,000.

Current numbers:
- College: 900
- High school: 1,200

A sleeping giant has awok

[ecstatic]

33. On a side note, he said he was getting threats from REPUBLICANS due to that debate

About a month ago, he went on megyn kelly's show and complained about all the threats he was getting from republicans because he moderated the debate. Megyn Kelly claimed that she was being threatened too.

However, I guess none of that is relevant anymore since the alleged shooter is trans adjacent??

[malaise]

14. I had heard about him but never had an idea

about his popularity on some campuses or his access tomthem

[usonian]

15. He toured California without a scratch.

Where were all the "radicals"?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220632018

In people's imaginations. And lie machines.

[Prairie_Seagull]

16. Had heard about him offhandidly.

a couple years ago. Dug no deeper.

[Prairie Gates]

17. Naaaah

[Polybius]

19. He was all over DU when Gavin Newsom interviewed him 6 months ago

Do you remember Gavin getting heat here (not from me, of course) for interviewing him?

[DFW]

21. I had never heard of him either.

From what I have read, and the clips I have seen, he's not someone I would have paid a lot of attention to in any case.

[GreatGazoo]

22. "Drawing crowds" is easy on college campuses

and has been a thing since at least the 1960s. It's usually a form of trolling because it relies heavily on getting a few people in the crowd to disagree loudly with the speaker. Then the crowd will form to watch the back and forth. On a large college campus there are thousands of people walking from lecture halls to lunch or the dorms or wherever and if they see or hear something going on they will check it out.

A partial list of campus trollers from the last 60 years:

General Hershey Bar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Hershy_Bar

Brother Jed and Sister Cindy (he called his trolling "confrontational evangelism&quot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Jed

The Unification Church / The Moonies / Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Steven Crowder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Crowder

Milo Yiannopolous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos

Curtis Yarvin

Jordan Peterson

Legacy media like NPR and NYT tend not to cover news about social media influencers. Kids don't do TV or radio so we are all somewhat siloed by our media preferences. I had a job where I had to scan all 7 major NYC daily newspapers every day before 11AM. It taught me a lot about how the same news event got filtered for different audiences. Mostly the differences in coverage are what gets left out. No one is well informed by such filters but algos and audience retention methods have many legacy media entities becoming even more polarized.

Does the NYT or NPR ever mention Mr Beast? He has the biggest audience in the world. I just checked and a random video he put up 20 hours ago has 40 million views. Mr. Beast has 435 million subscribers -- The NYT has 12 million.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

23. I knew nothing about him either.

After learning about his hateful, divisive rhetoric, it's quite telling that Republicans are mourning his assassination. I don't recall them being so upset about the gun deaths of innocent children! So we're supposed to cry when BULLIES die, is that it?!

I'd seen the episode of South Park which mocked Charlie Kirk, a few weeks ago, but I didn't even know it was referencing an actual person! It seemed like the typical nonsense that I've heard from Republicans since at least the earliest days of Ayn Rand, so I assumed it was another general caricature of right-wingers like Eric Cartman.

Edit: I'd also never heard the phrase, until that episode of South Park, of someone trying to "make their nut" -- i.e., pay their bills.

[kentuck]

25. I never felt one way or the other about him...

I knew I did not agree with his politics so I mostly ignored him.

[LeftInTX]

28. He wasn't mentioned much on MSM. I knew about him because I follow some of these groups online.

But I didn't know that much about him. I just knew that he was part of a group of young influencers who helped get Trump elected.

He showed at the Democratic Convention last year. Someone on DU posted, "What's Charlie Kirk doing there?" I knew he was from Chicago.

He was like James O'Keefe, (the guy who went around recording Democrats during the Obama administration) Someone to be aware of, but not on everyone's radar.[b] There are so many of them!

Charlie was sorta like and up and coming Roger Stone. There were also the proud boys, Nick Fuentes, then that other guy who was Latino. (Can't remember his name)

Then there all the older groupies with Trump. It's hard to keep track!

Charlie Kirk was generally not covered in the MSM. He wasn't that influential.

[Bev54]

29. I am Canadian and I was well acquainted with Kirk and his bullshit.

Not really sure why you would not be.

[Heidi]

38. Maybe because you haven't been looking for a cult leader to validate your worst instincts?

I’d guess you have enough emotional intelligence to know to interrogate your own biases (we *all* have them) and do the work to overcome them.