00:00:17.040The assassination of Charlie Kirk was a devastating blow to conservatives, but almost as shocking
00:00:22.660was the response from parts of the left. Some major figures issued the expected denunciations,
00:00:28.500but other people, including plenty of ordinary progressives, celebrated the violent death of
00:00:34.260a father and husband or mocked his memory online. Conservatives learned that some of their neighbors
00:00:40.200were perfectly willing to cheer the murder of a political opponent. Since then, trade wars,
00:00:46.600foreign wars, and the usual daily controversies have offered a convenient distraction from a
00:00:52.020much darker realization. Something about American politics has changed. The old assumption that
00:00:58.160nearly everyone still accepts the same basic rules can just no longer be taken for granted.
00:01:04.760Denial is a common response when a problem is too large to contemplate. The possibility that
00:01:10.280a substantial number of Americans now see political violence as acceptable has implications that the
00:01:16.020conservative movement would rather avoid, yet reminders keep appearing. Recently, a set of new
00:01:22.640videos has showed leftists once again mocking Charlie Kirk's death, including a drag performance
00:01:28.660and comments from streamer and democratic socialist Hassan Piker. It's much easier to
00:01:34.520argue about tactics, personalities, or the latest outrage than to ask what kind of political order
00:01:40.360produces people willing to celebrate an assassination. Piker's case is especially
00:01:45.720egregious because he met Charlie Kirk and debated him in person. He has built a career around
00:01:51.460revolutionary rhetoric and violent political fantasies, including lurid comments about
00:01:56.700landlords and capitalists and soaking in the blood of his capitalist enemies.
00:02:02.260The fact that Hassan Piker maintains access to so many online platforms and frankly isn't in jail
00:02:09.180while he spews the rhetoric of a terrorist really shows you the level of asymmetry that exists
00:02:16.020between the left and the right. At the very least, these comments would have been career-ending for
00:02:20.360any conservative, but for Piker, it makes him more and more popular. America has received an
00:02:25.900almost embarrassing number of blessings from God Almighty, which makes it easy to forget that our
00:02:31.000political experience is historically unusual. The United States occupies a vast, resource-rich
00:02:37.820territory protected by oceans and has fought remarkably few wars on its own soil. We haven't
00:02:43.680faced sustained internal damage in generations. That security has encouraged a historical view
00:02:50.880of politics as a permanently orderly process. Modern Americans expect Mr. Smith goes to
00:02:57.900Washington. He makes a speech, he wins an argument, and then he shakes the hands of his opposition.
00:03:03.480Every election is called the most important election of our lives, but the ritual remains
00:03:07.640the same because the underlying disputes are assumed to be manageable. When the arguments
00:03:12.220were over marginal tax rates, retirement ages, or entitlement reforms, that expectation made sense.
00:03:19.100Those are technocratic disagreements inside a shared political order. But some disputes are
00:03:24.180not like that. Consider the fight over the euphemistic gender-affirming care for minors.
00:03:29.880One side believes the state must protect children from genital mutilation. The other side believes
00:03:35.400the state has a right to seize the child if parents refuse to go along. There is no clever
00:03:40.780tax credit compromise that resolves the underlying question. One side's victory necessarily means
00:03:46.620the other side's destruction. That's what real existential politics looks like. The end of your
00:03:53.240way of life when you lose. This is why Carl Schmitt has re-entered the conversation on the
00:03:59.940right. Certain conservatives often reduce his friend-enemy distinction to a license for treating
00:04:05.060anyone who disagrees with you as a mortal foe. That's really not what Schmitt said at all. His
00:04:11.260point is that politics becomes political in its fullest sense when groups understand that a
00:04:16.240conflict touches the survival of their way of life. His framing is gaining salience because
00:04:22.000Americans increasingly encounter disputes that feel exactly like that. The left openly supports
00:04:28.360policies that many conservatives correctly believe would permanently transform the country.
00:04:33.280Open borders, abortion on demand, racial preference in hiring and admissions, aggressive secularization, and aggressive state intervention in disputes between parents and children over gender.
00:04:44.700Some activists openly discussed prosecuting former Trump officials, restructuring the Supreme Court, and changing the composition of the Senate through statehood.
00:04:53.780Democrats attempted to rig the election by getting Trump thrown in jail on false charges.
00:04:59.480they tried to strip him from the ballot and when all of that didn't work they tried to kill him
00:05:04.780multiple times they killed charlie kirk antifa militants have attacked federal facilities and
00:05:11.360officers none of this requires you to believe that every democrat is a revolutionary but it
00:05:16.200requires you to notice that the revolutionary faction has real power and is growing it's the
00:05:22.680family and friends event at shoppers drug mart get 20 off almost all regular priced merchandise
00:05:28.260Two days only, Tuesday, September 1st, and Wednesday, September 2nd.
00:05:32.600Open your PC Optimal Map to get your coupon.
00:05:38.720Progressives understand something that conservatives still resist.
00:05:42.240America is basically at least two different countries sharing the same geographical space.
00:05:48.620Mass immigration, ideological sorting, institutional polarization, and radicalization of political
00:05:54.660factions have eroded the common assumptions that once made bipartisan compromise possible.
00:06:00.920Our deepest disagreements are no longer simply about the size of government or the proper
00:06:05.500application of tariffs. They concern rival definitions of family, justice, citizenship,
00:06:12.080equality, religion, and even human nature. As blessed as America has been, this is not
00:06:17.520without precedent in our history. Shays' Rebellion was put down by force after a number of former
00:06:23.260revolutionary war soldiers thought they were paying taxes that were far too high the very
00:06:27.780thing they had just rebelled against the civil war settled the questions of secession and states
00:06:33.540rights through force on a catastrophic scale when schools in the south decided that they didn't want
00:06:39.700to integrate the federal government didn't say oh well i guess that's just your decision you can
00:06:44.480continue on with your way of life we'll make some kind of compromise no they sent the 101st
00:06:50.440airborne to march kids into the school at Bayonet Point. These cases are radically different in
00:06:57.040scale and moral content, but they share one uncomfortable fact. Political orders eventually
00:07:02.540enforce some answers and reject others. Two incompatible legal regimes cannot govern the
00:07:09.080same question in the same place forever. We're probably far closer to Little Rock than we are
00:07:15.180Gettysburg, and conservatives shouldn't be wishing for civil war. It's a terrible thing that we should
00:07:20.120avoid at all costs if possible, but they should also stop pretending every conflict can be reduced
00:07:26.280to a policy seminar. About a decade ago, people on the right began asking whether conservatives
00:07:31.740know what time it is. Most obviously still don't. People like Piker serve as a reminder that the
00:07:38.240other side may understand the stakes more clearly. The left, in its current radical form, can't be
00:07:45.000treated as just another coalition with which conservatives alternate power while everything
00:07:50.620important remains intact. Elections will decide who controls institutions capable of reshaping
00:07:57.080the country for generations. Someone will win these fights and someone will lose. The victor
00:08:02.860will alter the political order for a very long time. Conservatives didn't choose existential
00:08:10.360politics by themselves, and they can't end it simply by wishing for a return to normal.
00:08:16.320Ignoring that reality only guarantees that their children inherit a country they no longer
00:08:21.120recognize. Conservatives are not required to become nihilists, but they are required
00:08:26.320to understand the stakes before deciding how to fight. The hour is already late.
00:08:32.360thanks for watching guys if you enjoyed this video go ahead and click like and if you haven't
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00:09:15.940thanks for watching and as always i'll talk to you next time