2,422 videos 1,389,747,653 views US Joined Aug 30, 2018
Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, the largest and fastest growing conservative youth activist organization in the country with over 250,000 student members, over 150 full-time staff, and a presence on over 2,000 high school and college campuses nationwide. Charlie is also the Chairman of Students for Trump, which aims to activate one million new college voters on campuses in battleground states in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. His social media reaches over 100 million people per month and according to Axios, he is one of the "top 10 most engaged" Twitter handles in the world. He is also the host of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” which regularly ranks among the top news shows on Apple podcast charts.
Charlie Kirk Debates College Student on Socialism, Race, and the Failure of Democrat-Run Cities
Charlie Kirk engages in a heated debate with a college student who advocates for economic and social equality through socialism. The conversation quickly turns to the failures of socialist countries like Venezuela and Cuba, the success of Asian Americans despite historical discrimination, and why Democrat-controlled cities consistently rank among the poorest and most dangerous in America. When the student runs out of counterarguments, the discussion ends with accusations of white male privilege.
The debate begins when a student expresses support for economic and social equality, suggesting that all people should get the same opportunity. Charlie Kirk immediately challenges this notion by asking if the student means systems like Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea. The student attempts to deny that these are examples of socialism, even claiming the Soviet Union was a capitalist system.
Charlie Kirk corrects this fundamental misunderstanding: Venezuela nationalized their oil and gas reserves, has nationalized healthcare and schooling, and the government owns the means of production. These are textbook definitions of socialism. When pressed to show any socialist country that works, the student points to Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
The Nordic Countries Are Not Socialist
Charlie Kirk dismantles this common misconception by explaining that Nordic countries are actually more economically free than America. On the world economic freedom index, they rank higher than the United States due to lower taxes and less regulation. These countries also have homogeneous populations of 5 to 6 million people, strict immigration policies, don't pay for a national military, and have 70 to 80% tax rates for the highest earners.
Sweden has full school choice, a policy the student surprisingly opposes despite claiming to support equal opportunity in education. The student argues that schools in richer areas have better funding, giving wealthy students advantages. Charlie Kirk counters by asking why America has spent more on education over the last 60 years federally, yet test scores have gotten worse. The student dismisses testing as a measure, so Charlie Kirk broadens the criteria to graduation rates and any metric, noting that schools have objectively gotten worse over the last 50 years.
Is America More Racist Today Than in the 1960s?
The conversation shifts to race when Charlie Kirk brings up Baltimore, where seven schools in the inner city can't find one kid proficient in eighth grade. The student attempts to blame this on racism, claiming America is more racist today than it was in the 1960s. Charlie Kirk finds this claim absurd and provides concrete examples of progress:
In the 1960s, blacks weren't allowed in the National Basketball Association
The Civil Rights Act hadn't been passed until 1965
In the 1960s, blacks were not allowed to go to the same schools as whites
America elected a black president twice in 2008 and 2012
Charlie Kirk argues that America is significantly less racist today than in the 1960s. Therefore, the talking point that inequities in black and minority communities exist because of systemic racism doesn't hold water. For that argument to be true, America would need to have maintained the same level of racism or gotten more racist over the last 60 years, which is demonstrably false.
The Asian American Success Story
The student brings up housing discrimination, noting that until the mid-1970s, neighborhoods could choose not to sell homes to black people, resulting in black communities in underfunded areas. Charlie Kirk responds with a powerful counterexample: the Asian community went through the exact same type of discrimination, yet Asian Americans are now the richest community per race in America.
What's the difference? Charlie Kirk explains that the Asian community did not have a series of social welfare programs designed for them, such as federal welfare systems and broken public schools. Asian Americans were one of the poorest communities in the 1940s and are now the richest per race in America. Meanwhile, black Americans have been harmed by the Democrat Party, which got them addicted to government benefits, stuck them in clustered urban areas, and trapped them in broken schools.
Democrat-Run Cities Are America's Worst
Charlie Kirk challenges the student to show one urban city with a Republican mayor or one urban area with more Republican congressmen than Democrat congressmen, either currently or in the last 50 years. The student cannot. Democrats run the urban cities: Oakland, Portland, Chicago, and Philadelphia. These are the worst parts of America—the most murderous, the most bankrupt, the most hopeless—and they're all run by Democrats.
When the student tries to argue there's no way to make a causal connection without a control, Charlie Kirk presents the data: Republicans run cities, municipalities, and counties that have much lower levels of poverty over 30 years, better-run schools, are more likely to balance their budgets, and are much more business competitive. Nine out of ten of the most business competitive states in America all have Republican governors and Republican legislatures, including Utah, Nevada, and Arizona.
The student asks why broken inner cities all have Democrat mayors. Charlie Kirk responds that people see Democratic mayors and officials as able to fix broken systems, but asks: have Democrats fixed anything in the last 60 years? The student admits they have not, then tries to blame Republican-controlled Congress. Charlie Kirk notes that Obama controlled both the House and Senate from 2008 to 2010, passed a healthcare bill that destroyed one-sixth of the economy, borrowed trillions of dollars, raised taxes, grew government, and then Republicans took back the House of Representatives.
The Accusation of White Male Privilege
Unable to counter the facts and data presented, the student resorts to personal attacks, accusing Charlie Kirk of being afraid of losing his economic and white male privilege. When asked what privilege he has as a white person, the student cannot articulate an answer beyond saying his entire setup is ignorant. The student then lectures Charlie Kirk to think about how his actions affect other people, not just white males in the country, and asks what being a white person has to do with anything—contradicting their own accusation moments earlier.
