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intrepidity

(8,475 posts) Sat Sep 20, 2025, 04:42 PM Sep 20

The students who debated with Charlie Kirk: 'His goal was to verbally defeat us'

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/20/charlie-kirk-debate-style

Perhaps no forum fit Kirk’s shtick better than the platform given to him by Jubilee Media, a YouTube channel that produces Surrounded, a thunderdome of debate where one person is encircled by a ring of ideological opponents who attempt to undercut his stances in lightning-fast rounds of verbal sparring, governed by literal red flags.

“Can 25 Liberal College Students Outsmart 1 Conservative?” asked the series’ first episode, an hour and a half of nonstop ragebait released last September. In the show, Kirk debated with his opponents such statements as: “Abortion is murder and should be illegal” (wherein Kirk said yes, he would hypothetically make his 10-year-old daughter carry a child to term if she were to get pregnant from rape); “college is a scam”; and “Kamala Harris is a DEI candidate.” (Consider these Kirk’s greatest hits; he often debated these topics on campuses.)

I watched this debate the night of Kirk's murder. I knew of Kirk, but had never spent much time listening/watching him. I was unfamiliar with this YouTube channel, and think I found the link somewhere here on DU (thanks to who ever had posted it).

I love debate; I mean the real kind, not what we call "debate" in the political realm. This format ("Surrounded" on the Jubilee channel) approached that closely enough that I watched 3 full episodes that night (Kirk, Mehdi Hasan, Jordan Peterson; of those three, Hasan was easily the most formidible debater). The Kirk episode was fascinating to me, but not because of Kirk, whom I found to be a bit too fake-friendly and just a typical fundamentalist apologist who used Biblical references as much of his foundation--a losing strategy in a debate where opponants don't have to accept that premise of authority. Unfortunately, many of the students engaged with him on those terms; and a few were at least equally--if not moreso--fully prepared. I particularly was impressed with Parker and really wanted to see much more debate between them.

One of Kirk's apparently frequent debate questions is "What is a woman?". Kirk begins by defining terms, one of which is genotype, ie, that a man is XY while a woman is XX. Some of the students, of course, brought up intersex and some other genetic/developmental anomolies, but I was really surprised when Parker, who had gotten Kirk into a discussion about the gender/sex of "God", did not bring up the, to me, obvious issue of the genotype of Jesus! Such a perfect opportunity, missed! I mean, if you're a fundamentalist-literalist who believes in a virgin birth, what chromosomes must Jesus have? I still don't know how Kirk would have answered that one, do you?

Anyway, I was pleased to see the Guardian article today discussing that debate. Apparently, there was going to be a rematch or reunion or something between Kirk and this gang, and I am truly disappointed that it can never happen now.

The most relevent quote from the article is:

"At its core, debate is supposed to be an academic exercise, with the goal being to be forthright and genuine in the information you present,” said Trent Webb, a professor of writing studies and rhetoric and director of the speech and debate team at Hofstra University. “In a good faith debate, the final goal is to reach consensus. If that doesn’t happen, then a lot of academics would consider it to be an exercise in futility.”

And by that definition, it was clear to me that Kirk had no such intention. His "debates" were anything but.