Two weeks ago, social media provocateur and Turning Point USA’s CEO Charlie Kirk brought Turning Point USA’s You’re Being Brainwashed Tour to Georgia State’s Atlanta campus. Joined by former libertarian rapper, Vivek Ramaswamy, the pair sought to “promote freedom, free markets, and limited government” through the most effective of policy advocacy tools: debating 19-year-old college students.
Gathered under a series of tents at Hurt Park, Kirk and Ramaswamy were greeted by a tightly packed group of MAGA-hat-wearing supporters. A large number of less enthused students drifted in and out, many jokingly trying to snag one of the free MAGA hats handed out by event organizers.
The event followed Turning Point’s signature “debate me” format, prompting left-leaning students to come up to a mic and debate Kirk and Ramaswamy live. Debate topics were wide-ranging. At one point, the conservative commentators claimed that the Mexican Cartel had snuck a North Korean refugee into the US over the Southern border. There is no evidence for this ever occurring. At another moment, Kirk referred to US Capitol Police as Nancy Pelosi’s security guards. Other cheap conservative classics this election cycle were revisited: abortion care is racist, “wokeism” is turning the youth away from Christ, black Americans are being replaced by foreigners, etcetera.
Between the poorly amplified audio and the grumbles of a highly polarized crowd, it was difficult to keep track of the conspiracy theories and “debate-bro” maneuverings Kirk and Ramaswamy used to stay ahead of students’ challenges.
In one particularly egregious moment, Kirk reacted to a student challenging his defense of the January 6th rioters by equivocating Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by Capitol Police after breaking into the Speaker’s Lobby, with the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. The loudest boo-s of the event were in response to this comment.
Students floundered against the onslaught of cheap debate tactics the commentators employed and failed to provide sufficient follow-ups or enough fact-checking to “win” these disputes. Kirk and those like him know this, though. Their entire operation is dependent on finding the least experienced debaters, taking the worst faith understanding of their argument, and refuting it with “alternative facts.”
Instead of engaging in any genuine intellectual debate, Kirk preys on inexperienced undergraduates looking to defend their liberal stances. While there are plenty of well-thought-out, defendable critiques of academia and the American left, it’s apparent Kirk and friends don’t bother making them.
Their engagement style produces content closer to a Jubilee video than any legitimate political discourse. Platforms that might offer any real pushback are avoided at all costs. Kirk and other commentators in this vein are uninterested in being challenged or putting forth meritorious ideas — they are interested in producing semi-intellectual, pseudo-macho “owning the libs” content.
