in the last 24 hours and I believe I know why I received seven or eight emails asking
me to debate Charlie Kirk.
Okay.
If you don't know who Charlie Kirk is, I admire you and I envy you.
Charlie Kirk is a right wing bomb thrower associated with the right wing group turning
point USA.
The whole premise of turning point USA as I understand it, is that the left has taken
over our colleges.
The left taken over our universities.
And so what TP USA or toilet paper USA as some note does is they go to colleges and
university and they S universities and they spout their bogus talking points and they'll
argue with people in the crowd and you know, sort of Ben Shapiro like, but not as rhetorically
skilled as Ben Shapiro.
Candace Owens is another person associated with the group.
If her name doesn't ring a bell, I double NVU not even being involved in these toxic
cesspools.
Congratulations.
So here's one example email that I received, um, yesterday.
In fact, dear David, Charlie Kirk, it needs to be brought down every year.
Someone from the progressive media challenges him and every year I know it's not going to
go well.
Hassan piker looked like a rebellious teenage punk saying F you to his conservative father,
Sam's theater evaded questions and looked easily fumbled and ill prepared.
And now Kyle Kalinsky, as much as I love Kyle and think he does great work, I knew as soon
as I saw the announcement, this was going to be bad for reasons you yourself, I'm sure
surmise.
So I won't go into them and sure enough, while goofy and funny and throwing a few good punches,
I do not think Kyle did well in his, in this debate.
He was visibly nervous, kept pacing around his podium of aiding questions and letting
Kirk ramble on his sales pitch with no interruptions.
It's like none of these people did their homework to find out what Charlie's talking points
would be and just thought Charlie Kirk that more on that liar.
Yeah, I can take them on.
I know my stuff.
That's why I know you would be different.
I know it would take a lot of work, but you understand what it's going to take to take
down Charlie Kirk and I think you're the only one with the disposition to be able to do
it.
You know his debate tactics throw out a ton of misleading facts and half truths in a quick
amount of time.
Knowing a few of them are bound to stick.
He's got at least a dozen shotgun shells of information ready to go at a moment's notice.
He is not to be underestimated.
He is really smart and has an obvious good memory and you're the only progressive I can
think of that can match him.
So I'm begging you, David, for the sake of the progressive movement that I see getting
damaged every year by this a-hole.
Take this effort down.
You're our only hope, says John.
So let's go through this in pieces.
Charlie Kirk has debated at Politiken Hassan piker last year.
Sam Cedar last year I believe, and Kyle Kalinsky.
Uh, this year, just a few days ago, I've not seen any of these debates other than five
minutes of Hassan versus Charlie in Los Angeles during last year's Politik con, I saw the
part where Jenn Ugur Hassan's uncle was yelling at Charlie from the audience and otherwise
it was just Charlie and yelling at each other.
I have no idea how the debate went with Kyle over the weekend.
But what I'm hearing is that people are saying, Sam Hassan and Kyle didn't debate well and
didn't look good.
And David, you would do better.
I don't know that I would do any better.
I don't really have any reason to think that I would do any better than Sam Hassan or Kyle
in the debate format.
I'm flattered that John and a few other people who emailed me think, so.
I actually think that the problem is the debate format.
The political debate format is either no moderator or you know, like a showpiece moderator who
doesn't really moderate with, and this is important a crowd that reacts to the basis
lowest common denominator talking points and starts to interfere in the debate.
So I believe the problem is the debate because when one side cares about facts has [inaudible]
and Sam and Kyle generally speaking care about facts at least as they see them, right?
And the other side cares about gotchas and optics and kill shot moments and repeating
the same tire talking points that are meaningless, but they are effective in front of a live
audience.
You are at a fundamental disadvantage.
And so I don't know that I would do any better.
In fact, I may do worse because I am more suited to a different type of debate.
So to really debate these people, you need to be able to go in depth without interruption
from the audience and without the next talking point.
Derailing everything.
You need a formal controlled format that bores a lot of audiences.
Sadly, it's not going to create an event that will get Politiken to shell out the checks
of, you know, ten thousand fifteen thousand twenty five thousand dollars per invited speaker
or debater as they do now.
I don't know if people know, but w you know, we get paid to go to Politiken.
So would I debate Charlie Kirk?
I mean, I guess maybe would I do better than Kyle salmon has son, if the format is the
same.
I don't know that I do any better, but my focus and you know I, I've said I have a story
to tell about me not being at political on this year and a big piece of it was I had
this emergency appendectomy, but there is more to the story.
I'm really trying to focus on the important stuff and productive conversation.
I want to be talking to people who have read philosophy and political theory, not people
who repeat the talking points that Candace Owens feeds them.
Right.
I think if I'm making myself clear, I think that's the best way to sort of elucidate it.
Let me know what you think.
Why engage in debates with bad faith participants when the format will not allow you to actually
expose them for the intellectual frauds that they are.
Uh, let me know what you think.