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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   41930 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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It can take a lot of courage when there are real stakes.

Sure, I don't disagree with this. And the policy debate I did was fake. But the debates Kirk did were also fake. And almost all political debates of this sort are fake. It's a performative skill you can build like any other. There were no stakes. If Kirk has a bad performance, he could just cut that from the TikTok highlight real. At worst, he might run some risk of someone else filming him mess up and counter-dunking on him, but social media algorithms would be unlikely to serve that to Kirk's audience in any case.

  • -13

I don't think you understand. Maybe our ages are different? Or just our environments. I assume you were doing your debate-club stuff in a small room filled with only debate people who accepted that one person was going to have to take the opposing side of the argument.

In contrast the debates Kirk was doing were real debates - public, exposing himself, with serious consequences. Even eight/ten years ago we kept reading stories about people being fired and teenagers getting refused from university for saying the most anodyne things. It was very, very clear then that putting your face out there as a conservative meant exposing yourself to pain - giving up any hope of a good career in the usual areas, being SWATed. Remember all those people who rang Scott's work trying to get him fired? We've just found out how not-fake Kirk's debates were but even before that he knew he was taking the hard road compared to going-along-to-get-along.

I assume you were doing your debate-club stuff in a small room filled with only debate people who accepted that one person was going to have to take the opposing side of the argument.

Mostly correct. Sometimes I could be in rooms with dozens or even low-hundreds if I made it to finals, but there was always the understanding that my arguments would take a certain shape just based on the rules of debate. It wouldn't be much of a debate if both sides agreed with each other!

In contrast the debates Kirk was doing were real debates

I do not see his dunk-farming as "real debates" in any meaningful sense. The danger he faced was similar to what any other public figure faces when they go out into the open, that there might be a low probability, high magnitude event where a crazy person tries to attack them, like what happened to John Lennon, Tupac, Dave Chappelle, or Steve Buscemi. Cancel culture was a threat too, but being on the conservative side makes you less likely to have serious ramifications, not more likely.

  • -11

Sometimes I could be in rooms with dozens or even low-hundreds if I made it to finals

On a side note, congratulations, that sounds really impressive. You must have been good.

Cancel culture was a threat too, but being on the conservative side makes you less likely to have serious ramifications, not more likely.

This I think is where our intuitions aren’t matching up.

I think we can agree on this: There has grown up in the last few years a certain creature called the “Right-wing grifter” who make lots of money serving the right-wing need for influencers and talking heads, and are somewhat well-protected by having a right-wing funding stream that is loyal to them.

My dissents are as follows:

  1. These grifters are a recent phenomenon, largely post 2020. The right-wing funding and broadcasting ecosystem necessary to make these people independent from left-wing funding and infrastructure, and to cushion them against left-wing cancellation attempts, grew up during and post Covid as a response to the blatant censorship going on at that time.
  2. Before that time, becoming known as right-wing and especially becoming an active mouthpiece for right-wing ideas in public was very risky, because you were exposing yourself to the constant risk of cancellation and you were giving up any future within Blue-controlled institutions. This is why it was mostly done by a motley assortment of people who had accidentally survived cancellation attempts (Jordan Peterson, Bari Weiss, Toby Young, maybe Joe Rogan?) and those who were thick and/or already Blue figures of hate and had nothing to lose (Katie Hopkins, …?).
  3. As such, becoming a public right-wing spokesman was not a sensible move for a bright person good with words. Especially before 2020, 2022. (I believe Kirk started 10 years ago?) It would have been much safer, more sensible and more long-term profitable to be a good boy, keep his mouth shut and go into a lucrative Blue industry like PR or Consulting or what have you.
  4. Therefore Kirk’s debates may have appeared pretty safe and rote by the end, but choosing to put himself into that position instead of taking the other options available to him likely required considerable courage and self-sacrifice, as did continuing with it until perhaps 2023 after which it probably became easier.

Hopefully that lays out my thoughts clearly.

I think we can agree on this: There has grown up in the last few years a certain creature called the “Right-wing grifter” who make lots of money serving the right-wing need for influencers and talking heads, and are somewhat well-protected by having a right-wing funding stream that is loyal to them.

Yep, we can agree on this.

These grifters are a recent phenomenon, largely post 2020.

Disagree here, somewhat. I'll readily concede that the grifter-industrial complex has grown in size over time, but it was always kicking around, just in somewhat different forms. Milo Yiannopoulus was before 2020. People like Bannon had been kicking around way before 2020. Young Earth Creationists predate Bannon and largely followed the same gist, scratching out a living with their seminars, roadside museums, and homeschooling education material.

The internet supercharged the grifters through 1) realigning the cranks from being on both sides to mostly being a Republican-only phenomenon, thereby creating returns-to-scale through whole ecosystems. And 2) the internet facilitated easier dissemination of material through stuff like Substack, TikTok, YouTube, etc.

Before that time, becoming known as right-wing and especially becoming an active mouthpiece for right-wing ideas in public was very risky, because you were exposing yourself to the constant risk of cancellation and you were giving up any future within Blue-controlled institutions.

I agree that being right-wing gets you more likely to get kicked out of Blue-controlled institutions, but with 2 big caveats:

  1. The fear was much less pronounced pre-Woke, and really was only an omnipresent concern during peak Woke, roughly 2017-2019. Kirk started TPUSA in 2012.

  2. The fear is less of a concern for mainstream conservative views than it is for someone like a Groyper. Kirk has always been aggressively mainstream from what I've seen.

And of course I'd say that being right-wing has little bearing on getting you kicked out of Red-controlled institutions, which was what Kirk quickly wrapped himself in.

As such, becoming a public right-wing spokesman was not a sensible move for a bright person good with words.

You could say this about any of the grifters. Maybe it's true in a vague sense, but I'm not sure how much "good with words" translates from pandering to right-wing kooks to pandering to lefties. Some might say "it's just words", but the audiences expect something very different, and I'm not sure one could easily cross apply such skills. Maybe you can, maybe you can't.

Therefore Kirk’s debates may have appeared pretty safe and rote by the end

They were always safe and rote because of what I've said above: Once Kirk had made a name for himself on the Right, threats of a Left wing cancellation dropped considerably.

The biggest disagreement I have with your points overall is that you could plausibly apply it to any of the grifters/influencers. Do you also think Milo, Bannon, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, etc. are also worthy of the silly deification that Kirk is receiving right now?

Also, the phenomena of the right-wing grifter, who is trying to patch together a living from begging for subscriptions and doing ad reads for supplements, is entirely because the right does not have the patronage ecosystem that the establishment left has. IIRC, journalists at Pro-Publica are making salaries well into the six figures thanks to support from foundations. So they don't have to sound like grifters when they speak to the public, because they have that support behind the scenes. And then there is the entire university system, which is what left-wing patronage really looks like.

Turning point USA was founded in 2012, so 13 years ago. He was 18 then so he pretty much went all in.

From Wikipedia:

In May 2012, 18-year-old Charlie Kirk gave a speech at Benedictine University's Youth Government Day. Impressed, retired marketing entrepreneur and Tea Party activist Bill Montgomery encouraged Kirk to postpone college and engage full-time in political activism. A month later, the day after Kirk graduated from high school, they launched Turning Point USA, a section 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.Montgomery became Kirk's mentor, and worked behind the scenes handling the paperwork for the organization. Montgomery often described himself as the group's co-founder, although it was not an official recognition by the group or Kirk.

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