RadixJournal - September 11, 2026


We Are Charlie Kirk


Episode Stats


Length

23 minutes

Words per minute

143.09

Word count

3,395

Sentence count

124


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 let me jump in here so as i said earlier i i never really had a great respect for charlie kirk
00:00:08.380 as an intellectual now as a person uh yeah he he seemed to me like he was a boring dork
00:00:16.360 i'm just going to to say it i i i don't know he deserves some basic respect of course he's a nice
00:00:23.040 guy uh he was a sort of genius and i don't think 2024 would have happened without charlie kirk but
00:00:35.800 it's not because of the reasons that most people say they say that oh he's this amazing leader he's
00:00:42.240 going to be president one day everyone loves him and i'm sure there's a little bit of that going on
00:00:47.320 But what he really was good at, genius at, was being a ringmaster, putting up this big tent and maybe leading the circus to extend this metaphor.
00:01:02.880 So, and we can watch videos of this a little bit later, but there was a time when if you criticized Israel, he would have just shut you down.
00:01:14.620 If you started talking about how, you know, how does anal sex, for instance, help us win the culture war, which was a actual question asked by an actual person whom I follow on Twitter named Dave Riley.
00:01:27.640 But anyway, if he responded to it as well, like, hey, this is America, it's about freedom, baby, this sort of neo-conny libertarian type response.
00:01:39.200 um whatever it was whether this decision came uh internally or maybe it was even externally
00:01:47.720 imposed he decided to go against that and to navigate a big tent where you could allow some
00:01:57.340 crazies in there uh deny the 2020 election like yeah charlie kirk did as well uh be a vaccine
00:02:05.800 skeptic to the point of contemplating shooting federal officers, nurses that are instituting
00:02:14.880 a vaccine. He tolerated that. It's just a fact. I can show the video. Doing a little race realism
00:02:23.500 on weekends. He was into it as a hobby. He basically was able to hold onto this coalition
00:02:34.780 by going there and I don't think that's where he wanted to go when he started his career
00:02:40.040 Charlie Kirk has no education that I that I can see I'm sure he's read some political
00:02:47.880 books by Newt Gingrich and Laura Ingram or something but he has no education he never
00:02:53.140 went to college not that college is a guarantee of a education in the truest sense but you
00:02:57.780 get my point while at high school he was listening to Rush Limbaugh while the other kids were
00:03:02.700 having fun um these this is his story he is that guy he is that kid that goes to washington dc when
00:03:14.300 he's 22 and works at the leadership institute and is handing out flowers and organizing pro-life
00:03:20.360 caucuses at the university of missouri uh every month i mean he is that guy and he made it and
00:03:28.340 he became something much bigger than himself but he was able to do that by basically tolerating
00:03:36.700 those people and i remember hearing this is sort of a funny anecdote from my past this this is this
00:03:42.400 anecdote dates like i don't maybe even 10 or 15 years ago uh but there was some uh i knew people
00:03:50.840 at the leadership institute in the conservative movement and they were bringing in like far right
00:03:56.440 white nationalist
00:03:58.620 kids that they met on the internet
00:04:00.420 and trying to get them into the Leadership Institute
00:04:02.760 and at one point
00:04:04.640 one of these kids was in a room
00:04:06.120 and they were like, please tell us about
00:04:08.480 some of the conservative books
00:04:10.280 that changed you as a person
00:04:12.340 and everyone was like
00:04:14.260 well for me it was
00:04:16.120 Russell Kirk's The Conservative
00:04:18.380 Mind and then like another one was like
00:04:20.220 when I read Atlas Shrugged
00:04:22.000 it was all the typical things
00:04:24.360 and then someone else said
00:04:26.440 my awakening by david duke there's this silence and then they like notate they're like thank you
00:04:36.140 thank you sap and then they like notated that and he was kicked out but anyway um in a way
00:04:44.200 charlie kirk like hired the kid that said he read my awakening by david duke now that doesn't mean
00:04:52.700 that he wasn't functionally speaking a republican hack and a trump sycophant he was but in terms of
00:05:01.040 his organizing sort of politicking on a low level hand shaking etc he was like that and so that was
00:05:12.760 sort of his genius but maybe his death was truly symbolic in the sense that that whole
00:05:22.220 being all things to all people will break down at some point you know like you could be
00:05:30.240 you could be a podcaster and be like well you know i'm as i'm i'm a big israel supporter and
00:05:36.680 a zionist but you know these anti-zionists they've making some good points so we should
00:05:40.720 have a dialogue. You can have that dialogue, but at some point, it's just going to break down and
00:05:45.680 it's going to come to fisticuffs because it's about life or death and blood and soil. At the
00:05:51.180 end of the day, there's no more arguing you can do. And I think we might have actually reached
00:05:57.680 that tipping point with Israel. So I don't buy the theory that the Jews killed Charlie Kirk
00:06:05.360 because he was about to prevent the war in Iran.
00:06:08.980 I don't buy it. I'm sorry.
00:06:11.340 There's at least no strong evidence for it.
00:06:14.140 It's a good story without evidence.
00:06:16.780 But in a way, it's metaphorically true that Israel killed Charlie Kirk.
00:06:23.700 It's metaphorically true in the sense that this reached a breaking point
00:06:28.940 where it wasn't just some intellectual discourse about Zionism.
00:06:33.780 It was, we are giving billions of dollars to this country that is committing a genocide. We have been for decades. And we're just not like, this is a real issue that we just have to, we're going to have to come down on one side. And this is all in the context of radical shifts.
00:06:55.540 I mean, if you think the Republican Party is more anti-Zietist than they were in years past, they of course are. I mean, the left has changed dramatically. Every leftist is anti-Israel, and that might be her main issue, her litmus test.
00:07:13.380 In fact, mainline Protestants, squishy liberals are now anti-Israel, and their representatives are talking in an anti-Israel way with some caveats and escape clauses here and there, but they're talking the talk at the very least.
00:07:31.180 And I think in a way, this thing that Charlie Kirk built, this big circus tent with a bunch of freaks in cages, which is a good metaphor as well for conservatives, the tent fell down and it just doesn't work anymore.
00:07:52.240 And, you know, it's like, what would Charlie do in 2026 with this or that?
00:07:57.740 Or how would he talk about the Iran war?
00:08:00.120 Well, we'll never know.
00:08:01.260 But in some ways, like he couldn't like it's that period is over.
00:08:06.740 And I think his entire strategy, which was so successful, would have broken down at some point.
00:08:14.180 And he wouldn't be Charlie Kirk.
00:08:16.020 And thus, we're left with Charlie Kirk as Jesus.
00:08:19.700 you know this this thing this song that was embraced by both sides i guess like ironically
00:08:26.260 and unironically like we're charlie kirk we honor his name we fight for the gospel
00:08:34.900 we carry the flame it's this like horrible ai slop music video evangelical christian christmas party
00:08:45.460 where J.D. Vance is singing in this high tenor voice.
00:08:48.720 I mean, it's just totally ridiculous.
00:08:51.520 But in some ways, you have to deify Charlie Kirk,
00:08:54.920 and I think it's somewhat like the deification of Jesus.
00:08:58.300 Charlie Kirk is a lot like Jesus in the sense that,
00:09:01.800 now look, Ren theory and so on,
00:09:05.080 we have our interpretation of Jesus, of course,
00:09:09.880 but it's a complicated one.
00:09:12.260 It's an ambivalent one.
00:09:13.520 It's an ambiguous one.
00:09:14.800 Jesus sort of is an anti-Semite, so to speak. The Jews choose Barabbas, not Jesus. He's calling out
00:09:23.600 the Jews. His disciples are afraid of the Jews. That's how it's actually written explicitly
00:09:28.640 in John. The Jews kill him on some, you know, you get my point here. There's these conflicting
00:09:36.940 energies going on. And Jesus, who is he? Is he just some, is he God himself, a God man walking
00:09:46.700 among us? Is he just a nice, caring guy that's offering love on an individual basis? Is he a
00:09:54.540 communist? All of those perspectives on Jesus, in my opinion, are equally valid. You can find
00:10:03.700 You can find evidence for each of those perspectives and more within the Gospels. That's why the Gospels are so fascinating. And I feel like the only thing you can do in this situation where it's so ambivalent, it's so ambiguous, it's so conflicted, you have to just deify the figure, turn him into an icon and worship him because you can't ever really say who he was.
00:10:28.040 and i think that's what conservatives have done to charlie kirk he was contradictory
00:10:34.660 and he was sort of bringing in energies that were going to eventually going to clash
00:10:41.500 and so all they can do is like make him a martyr make him a god and be like you know we're charlie
00:10:48.980 kirk we're charlie kirk we sing it in the baritone version that's more comfortable for me charlie
00:10:53.860 kirk we honor his name fight for the gospel we carry the flame you know that that is the only
00:11:04.580 way you can deal with this figure of great ambivalence and conflict there it is very
00:11:10.880 interesting jesus was at the interface of forces of society and charlie kirk was at the interface
00:11:17.820 too. And a sacrifice in both cases was needed.
00:11:23.540 Amazingly, the sacrifice of Jesus
00:11:25.780 was through order, was through the law, and the sacrifice
00:11:29.940 of Charlie Kirk was through the bottom, was through the revolution, the
00:11:33.880 leftism. That's an interesting contrast.
00:11:37.840 I also like your idea of a metaphorical killing
00:11:41.620 of Israel through simply what they are and what Charlie
00:11:45.940 Kirk was in relation to them in an indirect way, in a metaphorical way, being the ultimate
00:11:51.740 reason why he got shot.
00:11:53.420 Because when you think even about just a per-trans-terrorist theory of Tyler Robinson or a trans-lover
00:12:03.180 theory, it remains the case that the Israeli shoe in the left is a motivator.
00:12:11.520 It's always underlying a lot of the other things.
00:12:14.960 it's always intermingled with homosexual rights and oh yeah why wouldn't we defend Israel they
00:12:22.540 are the best place for gays in the Middle East that kind of stuff mixes feminism homosexual rights
00:12:30.420 with Israel so Israel has a way to kind of cordon at things even without wanting it
00:12:36.780 inside the left. Now, as far as the situation we're in then, yes, the tent has fallen. Yes,
00:12:45.220 things have contracted. Everything has contracted. People have withdrawn. The center of the
00:12:50.780 Republican Party has withdrawn. They have acquired just their best sycophants, and they
00:12:56.620 would just try to run through the campaign with them. The radicals have retracted and are kind of
00:13:03.980 not at these Q&As trying to push TPUSA in any direction.
00:13:08.780 TPUSA itself is probably an institution
00:13:12.100 where they have accumulated so much wealth.
00:13:15.560 If you remove Charlie Kirk,
00:13:17.060 Charlie Kirk was holding this wealth together with a purpose.
00:13:20.420 If you remove Charlie Kirk, then it's just wealth.
00:13:23.360 It's just a pile of cash held by the Joker.
00:13:27.260 And that leads to extreme parasitism.
00:13:30.240 So we're a little bit in that Joker scene
00:13:32.480 where the Joker says,
00:13:34.480 I'm just going to burn this pile of money
00:13:36.440 and there's criminals all around.
00:13:38.280 All of the criminals,
00:13:39.260 they want their share of the pie.
00:13:41.240 And I'm not saying that there are
00:13:43.100 like massive amounts of criminals in TPUSA,
00:13:45.920 but they're kind of like the criminals
00:13:47.800 in the Joker universe
00:13:49.140 in that they're just there
00:13:50.620 to get their piece of the pie.
00:13:52.260 They just want a piece of it.
00:13:53.560 They're all parasites.
00:13:55.140 They're all inherently parasites
00:13:56.620 because they couldn't have done this on their own.
00:13:59.520 There's still, I mean,
00:14:00.360 Blake Neff and that other guy,
00:14:02.480 are still hosting a podcast called the charlie kirk show i mean it's like guys i mean seriously
00:14:10.080 um this is insulting at some point you know i mean yes and and uh erica i mean look i i feel
00:14:20.640 a touch of sympathy for erica kirk due to the fact that she her husband was brutally shot and
00:14:28.560 and the kids don't have a father, and so on.
00:14:32.340 Okay, I would feel 100% sympathetic towards her
00:14:36.720 if she went away and came out on occasion
00:14:39.900 and talked to people in a very low-key manner and so on.
00:14:45.500 She didn't do that, did she?
00:14:47.780 She took over as CEO.
00:14:51.040 She made it the Erica Kirk show.
00:14:53.300 she had bizarre appearances on talk shows monologues dressed in military garb attacking
00:15:05.560 her critics I mean at some point the the sympathy runs out and so yeah they're all and and look I
00:15:14.860 as as dorky as Charlie Kirk was he was just he was good at being a hack he was good at just
00:15:21.480 republican talking points quick on his feet better than most maybe the elite of republican hackery
00:15:28.380 um i say that seriously i'm not just throwing him a bone uh none of the rest of them are they
00:15:34.220 have no charisma they're not saying anything of interest anything novel anything insightful or
00:15:40.480 challenging and with erica kirk it's just her chance at being like a mega church preacher or
00:15:47.760 I mean, it's a it's a shit show and it's they that whole organization is just a bunch of parasites leeching off Charlie Kirk's corpse.
00:15:58.620 And I it's mean to say this, but it's just simply true.
00:16:05.120 So that's yeah, go on.
00:16:07.200 What's informative for the future is to see how Nick Fuentes approaches this situation, because he recently said that maybe it would have been better to have Kamala Harris as president, because the way he sees it, the Trump victory has led to four years delay, basically, because we'll have to go through a defeat now.
00:16:29.420 will have to go through possibly a defeat even in
00:16:33.380 2028. And that will lead basically the Republican Party
00:16:37.660 reformability to only be a project aiming for
00:16:41.400 2032. That's where we're headed in terms of
00:16:45.500 getting a chance to change the Republican Party in a way that's viable.
00:16:49.640 So that's how I see it. That is the result of the Charlie Kirk legacy,
00:16:53.400 a lag, a delay in
00:16:55.380 the reformation of the Republican Party,
00:17:00.320 but I don't think the Republican Party
00:17:01.960 can repeat those victories
00:17:03.460 as their old people die
00:17:05.460 and they get replaced
00:17:06.840 by young gripers, basically.
00:17:09.260 And it's not just the direct audience
00:17:11.020 of Nick Frantes.
00:17:11.760 It's everyone that is kind of
00:17:13.520 griper-influenced in those spheres.
00:17:16.300 The young people come out
00:17:17.860 and they cannot side
00:17:19.780 with the Republican Party as it stands.
00:17:22.160 They will need a revolution.
00:17:25.380 Now that we're talking about this, I'll just mention this. I mean, I get it, but no Groyper candidate has proven that he can win. And it's in fact, only Trump and the boomers who have proven that they can do this.
00:17:43.480 i agree and you know i mean say what you will about the boomers you can bash them all day long
00:17:50.960 um i believe actually gen x um and i'm not even proud of this is the most far right generation
00:17:57.700 but anyway uh boomers are pretty far right and they voted for this man they had these big
00:18:07.180 uh unlikely victories and and actually in 2024 a pretty pretty solid defeats of the
00:18:14.420 of the liberals i mean it wasn't exactly a landslide but it was a solid you know
00:18:20.320 two touchdown victory or something like that uh so i i don't really believe that you're going to
00:18:28.220 be in a better position to promote right-wing populism in 2032 than you are in 2016 2024 or
00:18:38.680 just right now because the boomers dying is a big problem for you and the zoomers you have a bunch
00:18:46.740 of nazi you know what what was said in that movie the um knives out where daniel craig southern he
00:18:54.320 he was like like like what did the nazi child here beside the staircase the nazi child yeah
00:19:01.280 it was like a reference to zoomers but like these nazi childs um they you're a you're an intense
00:19:10.420 though distinct minority within your generation and your generation is the first one to be
00:19:16.360 majority non-white so now there are a lot of non-white gripers but regardless i i don't feel
00:19:24.420 like you're going to be in a better position in 2032 than you are now is my major point
00:19:31.280 and and you don't have this televisual ridiculous figure like donald trump as your front man
00:19:40.700 unless maybe it's Fuentes himself, as I have suggested.
00:19:46.380 Absolutely possible.
00:19:48.200 You're absolutely right.
00:19:49.560 I don't think there is necessarily a hope for extremely radical ideas of today to win in 2032.
00:19:57.000 The Gruyper candidates are limited in their success.
00:20:00.320 However, here's how I see it.
00:20:02.100 First, the Gruyper mass is big enough to make the Republican Party lose.
00:20:07.340 If they are truly decided not to vote for the next replacement to Donald Trump, they're strong enough that they can matter in 2028 for a loss.
00:20:18.160 Now, what can happen from here to 2032 is precisely the alliance that Prentice is probably seeing as he's enlarging his speech and he's not being so much of a white identitarian, but increasingly is making an appeal to all the races.
00:20:34.920 What I see coming in 2032 is potentially black, Hispanic conservatives all developed in the Gruper kind of environment, but they enlarged Gruper thought that would include them.
00:20:49.600 And that would say, hey, we have to fix at least the LGBT and the marriage stuff and the social conservatism.
00:20:57.380 And around this alliance, there could be a reformulation of the Republican Party based around this, which we can't even get now.
00:21:04.200 I mean, I don't feel when I listen to official Republican Party speech, I don't feel a particular emphasis on social conservatism.
00:21:14.000 They're just barely distinguishable from centrist liberals right now.
00:21:19.040 Yeah, they're almost more overtly religious while being less conservative.
00:21:26.460 Yes.
00:21:27.340 Which is an interesting thing.
00:21:28.560 You know, they're talking about God in a way that it makes it sound like a tent revival meeting.
00:21:32.860 but then they've actually relaxed on issues very interesting which goes in parallel with
00:21:40.660 the relaxation of religion itself because i think it you you used to have a conception that religion
00:21:46.900 was associated with some sort of social conservatism but as religion got converted in
00:21:52.400 the u.s into a kind of self-help you have to feel jesus and he's there for you along the way and
00:21:58.700 you can feel him in your heart. It has converted into a completely different thing, which is super
00:22:04.880 self-centered, narcissistic, kind of psychological, over-minded stuff. And so right now in 2026,
00:22:15.240 when you say, oh, I respect God and I'm a strong Christian, it doesn't mean the same thing as it
00:22:21.080 used to that is definitely true and i would just point out here that while the group gripers are
00:22:29.300 a phenomenon and i'm using griper here as a placeholder for something bigger um they are
00:22:36.100 a phenomenon keep in mind that there are other phenomena that are in opposition to you and that
00:22:43.540 they are better organized and larger uh the dsa what what do they have um 300 000 members
00:22:51.220 dues paying members i believe it's something like that it's very large uh so just keep that
00:22:59.240 in mind like you i don't think there's any right i guess there's tp usa in a way which is
00:23:05.940 maybe larger than that but it's maybe not quite so specific and and sort of targeted you know
00:23:14.420 arrow shooting somewhere so um i would i would stick to my my point that i i think there's no
00:23:23.040 time like the present and if what you want is right-wing populism then i feel like you almost
00:23:29.280 have to work through Trump, to be honest. I don't see a viable alternative. Now,
00:23:36.360 I don't want right-wing populism, so I'm not in this game, but that is how I see it.