Ep. 38 - Charlie Kirk has been killed. Where do we go from here?

Jeff Charles talks about the horrific assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and asks the question "Where do we go from here?"

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now this is the FCB Podcast Network. This is a

(00:25):
fresh perspective with Jeff Charles.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Okay, y'all, welcome on back. I'm just gonna get into it. Yesterday,
September tenth, twenty twenty five, conservative podcaster and influencer and
the founder of Turning Point USA was assassinated during an
event at Utah Valley University in orm Utah. Now chances are,

(00:53):
if you're watching this, you already know exactly what happened.
I'll just go through some of the details, but you
already have probably seen the foot which is gruesome and
honestly horrifying. He was shot once in the neck by
a sniper attack from about two hundred yards away, and
obviously if you saw the footage, you know that chaos

(01:15):
ensued after that. There was a lot of There were
a lot of witnesses. Two people were briefly detained, but
they were released and as of this recording, the individual
who carried out the shooting is still at large, although
it seems like they're on his track. They found some evidence,
and I believe at this point they're probably going to

(01:38):
catch him. I mean, they released some they released some
images of him, and they found the rifle that he
used to carry out the attack, and they're on his
trail basically. But I'm going to talk about the assassination itself,
but I'm also going to talk about the broad meaning

(02:01):
of this. You know, there's a lot going into this.
There's a lot going on here, and I kind of
just want to share some thoughts about it. So I
apologize if at times it seems like I'm rambling some
of this might be a little bit of stream of consciousness.
I've had a lot of time to think about it,
or maybe not that much since it just happened yesterday,
but I've been thinking about it. I've been talking to

(02:21):
people about it. I talked to my good friend darbyo
Mario from the Outlaws podcast on the FCB network, which
is also what my podcast is on as well. We
had a really good conversation and it was it was
good to kind of bounce some ideas off of each other.
But basically, you know, I'll just go into it. I mean,
when I saw the when I first saw the news,

(02:44):
I can't say I was all that shocked. The video
itself was shocking because it's not every day that you
see somebody get gunned down but when I saw it,
my overwhelming feeling was dread. You know, I felt dread
for his wife and children who were there who witnessed it,

(03:04):
which is something that nobody should ever have to go through.
And unfortunately, a lot of the dread was based on,
I mean, the very real truth that this is really
just the beginning. Now for those who followed me, you know,
I disagreed with with Charlie Kirk and a lot of
other people on a lot of different things. I disagree

(03:27):
with a lot of people on a lot of different things,
right or whether they're on the left or the right,
there are some disagreements. But I can't wrap my mind
around the notion that somebody who says some things that
I might disagree with should be dead. It just it
doesn't compute to me, and I don't think that really

(03:48):
computes to most people, to most Americans. But here we are, right,
This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Obviously,
we've had political and violence in this country since its inception.
It was started. Our country was started on political violence.
But this was different because this attack was against an individual.

(04:11):
And here's the thing. When I first saw this, I
viewed it, and I still do. I viewed what happened
to Charlie Kirk as even worse than the two assassination
attempts on President Trump. Even if Charlie Kirk had survived,
I would still see his as worse. Now that might
not make sense, but let me explain. Here's the thing.

(04:34):
President Trump was a former president who was running to
become president again, and he was a controversial politician. He
is a controversial politician still still, so in that vein,
it kind of makes sense. The only thing that I
was surprised about with Trump was that it didn't happen
sooner because of the political environment that we are in

(04:56):
right now, with the vitriol and the rhetoric coming from
the left against Trump. It was only a matter of time, right,
And We've had other presidents who have either been assassinated
or people have tried to assassinate them, So we understand this.
There's a history of this. So it doesn't make it right.
It doesn't make it right. I'm not downplaying it. I'm

(05:16):
just saying it's different from what happened to Charlie Kirk
because Charlie Kirk was not a government official. He didn't
set policy, he didn't command any troops. He was not
a government official. Now he certainly had tremendous influence and
tremendous influence over policy in a sense, but he wasn't

(05:38):
in charge of that, and yet he was gunned down.
What he did was he was a professional commentator like me,
with a much bigger pat platform. Obviously, he would go
around to college events, and he would hold events talking
to college students. He would engage in debates with other pundits,
just the normal stuff, not something that you would normally

(06:00):
have to face assassination for. And the thing is, I
posted this on X last night. This nation has been
a powder keg for years. It was only a matter
of time before somebody actually lit the fuse. If you're
like me, if you've been paying attention to politics at
least over the past eight, nine, ten years, you knew

(06:23):
something like this was coming. Because things have gotten progressively worse,
more heated, more vitriolic. You've got people using all kinds
of hyperbole about their political opponents, and people are more
divided into the silos. A lot of that is because
of digital media, alternative media, which in and of itself

(06:45):
isn't bad, but that has contributed to a lot of it.
And the thing is, I think that the seal has
been broken, guys, I really do. And I knew that
it was going to happen. I didn't expect it to
happen to Charlie Kirk, but I did expect it to
happen to somebody like him, or maybe even regular people
attending a rally, you know, a political rally or an

(07:08):
event or a conference or what have you. This was
coming and I'm not sure how we get out of
this because we don't go back. We can't come back
from this, at least not right away. Maybe somewhere down
the road we can. But this is the state of
being for right now. I'm not saying this to fear monger.

(07:29):
I'm just saying this as an observation. I've said this before,
but it's even more real now because I believe that
this is what's going to kick off a lot of
what we're going to see in coming years. I hope
I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. Charlie Kirk.
It was the first and I'm not saying everybody's going

(07:51):
to run around targeting commentators or media personalities, although that
that might happen, but we've already seen an increase in
violence against government officials. I'm actually working on an article.
I've been working on it for a little over a
month now, and I've interviewed a bunch of different experts
on political violence, and all of them, all of them

(08:13):
expect more of this, and they expect it to spill
over into private life, not just against government officials, not
just against politicians, but against regular people. We've already been
seeing some of it. I think it's going to get worse.
I mean, we saw what happened in Boulder, Colorado. You know,
a bunch of Jewish pro Israel rallygoers we're raising awareness

(08:35):
for Israeli and American hostages being held in Gaza as
the war's going on, and some lunatic threw Molotov cocktails
at them and killed at least one. We've been seeing
more mass shootings. We've been seeing more school shootings, and
they're not all politically based, but a lot of them
do have politics behind it, right. We had the one

(08:56):
at an Annunciation Catholic High School was very political as well.
And even there's a lot of evidence, which we don't
really need a lot of evidence to see that what
happened to Kirk was political, but there's evidence that have
come out the shooter allegedly engraved pro transgender and anti

(09:17):
fascist messages on the cartridges he used, and he used
while he was carrying out the attack. And I think
that when even just one person thinks that it's acceptable
to take a life over political disagreements and actually follows
through with it, it shows just how polarized that we've become.

(09:38):
But it's even worse because it wasn't just this one
person who thought it was okay, assuming he acted alone,
because I'm thinking there may have been more to this,
but I'll maybe I'll talk about that in a different thing.
You also had a lot of people approving of it.
Now we've seen this before, you know, we've seen this before.
When a high profile individual gets killed, there's there there

(10:00):
always going to be people on social media who cheer
for it. We saw with Luigi Mangioni, who killed the
United Healthcare CEO. We saw the outpouring of support for
him ten years ago. I think that's still would have happened,
but not to the same extent. You wouldn't have had
as many people saying, yeah, that was a good thing
to do, Just like in this situation with Charlie Kirk,
you have a lot of scumbags out there who are

(10:22):
celebrating it. And again, you don't have to agree with
somebody to not want them to die, right, I mean,
it just it doesn't make sense to me. But the
fact is, there has been a disturbing increase in the
percentage of Americans, especially young Americans, who believe that at

(10:42):
least some level of political violence is acceptable. Now still
most people on both sides don't agree with political violence,
but more and more people are starting to accept this.
A lot of it is coming from the left, but
there's some of the right too. In Minnesota, you had
two Democratic politicians who were assassinated by somebody on the right.

(11:04):
And yes, he was on the right. Don't come back
at me with that nonsense pretending, oh, Tim Wallas appointed him,
so he was a Democrat. Now read the news reports.
The dude was on the right, and it's okay to
admit that he doesn't represent you any more than the
guy who chilled Charlie Kirk represents most people on the left.
It shouldn't even be controversial for me to say that.
But I'm sure I'll get some flat for saying that,
because I've already gotten flat for saying that on X

(11:27):
But still, I think most people understand this. There is
a massive disconnect between how Americans interact in real life
and how we act online. And this is a good thing.
That's the state of things right now. In the real world.
When you step outside, when you touch some grass, when
you walk on pavement, you see that people who have

(11:50):
different political beliefs generally get along. People generally get along. Yes,
you hear stories about people cutting off family members and
friends on social media and elsewhere because of political differences,
but in general, people get along in the real world.
I mean, I live in a rural area. Everybody on
my street is black, but there's still a lot of
white people in the town that I live in. When

(12:11):
I go into other and when I go into the city,
which around here there are small cities but whatever. But
when we go into town, there's a lot of black people,
there's a lot of white people. They're not at each
other's throats like they are online, Which is why I
constantly tell you guys to stop falling for the PSIO.
This isn't what happens online, is not real life. Yet

(12:32):
because in a lot of these situations, in most of them,
maybe even all of them, it's an example of what's
happening online seeping into real life. You know, mass shooters, terrorists,
domestic terrorists, all of these people are not being radicalized
in their own communities. They're being radicalized on the Internet.

(12:54):
So on the Internet, the rules are different. You know,
the social media platforms, they reward or fringe extremism. They
don't encourage discussion the way they probably should. They reward outrage.
When I was talking to Darvy O, he basically he
put it perfectly. You know a lot of these influencers, politicians,

(13:14):
media figures, they're basically outrage peddlers, Like people are have
become addicted to outrage, and these people are are pushers.
They're push them in, like if you heard the Curtis
Mayfield song, push them in. They're pushing this drug on
everybody because it gives them a sense of it gives
them dopamine. When they own the libs or when they

(13:36):
own the cons or if they say something or outrageous
and they get tons of engagement and they get even
paid on x to be more divisive nuance doesn't sell
something that I know well, because I know that if
I really want to make a lot more money doing
what I do, all I have to do is choose
one side or the other, go to the extreme and

(13:59):
push them. Those narratives only demonize the other side, make
it sound like everybody on my side never does anything wrong.
That's how you that's how you win. If your goal
is to make more money, to get more famous, YadA, YadA, YadA.
The more you insult your opponent, the more dopamine hits
you get, especially if you have a lot of people

(14:20):
agreeing with you about it. It's addictive. It is addictive.
This is this is scientifically proven, and what we're watching
is a form of political outrage addiction. We're always chasing
the next fix, and the next fix is whatever the
next outrage is. Like Coach have have Jesus. You'll see
him go on X and he'll say, you know, what

(14:42):
are y'all mad about today? What are y'all fighting? What
strangers is about today? Because he understands this. He understands
that people are hooked on this stuff, and they package
up fear, anger, and division into little packets of content
and they sell it to audiences who keep coming back
for their next hit, just like they're they're they're they're

(15:02):
hooked on the rug. They're dependent on the drug dealers
to give them their next supply. And the assassination of
Charlie Kirk is the result or the culmination of years
and years and years of people having this addiction and
not letting it get treated. Basically, So now we are

(15:30):
in a situation where we have crossed the rubicon. This
is going to be the state of play. This is
going to be the new normal for a while. I'm
not saying that people are going to be getting gunned
down every week or every day or whatever, but we
are going to be seeing more of this, and I'm
not sure when we will ever get out of it.
It's dangerous for a lot of different reasons. Obviously, there's

(15:54):
the loss of life, people getting hurt. But here's the thing.
Political violence is never just about the victim. It's about
the message. The person who killed Charlie Kirk probably had
some personal animis against him at political and personal animis, obviously,
but the message is that you're not allowed to say
the things that Charlie Kirk said. If you don't want

(16:17):
to risk getting killed. And it's not just Charlie Kirk.
A lot of people in my line of business get
threatened or get death threats. I've gotten a few death threats.
I haven't gotten as many as others have, but I
have gotten them just because people don't like what I say.
I didn't take them very seriously, and they never manifested,
thank god. But this is not the world that we
want to live in, is it. It shouldn't be. He

(16:39):
was assassinated because Kirk was assassinated because people didn't like
the things that he said and the things that he
stood for. That's what makes this so dangerous. That's why
this has such a chilling effect. The point of terrorism
is to terrify, right. The point of political violence is
to punish and silence people who have views that you

(17:02):
don't agree with, and that, ironically is why continuing to
speak out is more important than ever. I mean, Charlie
Kirk never incited violence, he never called for violence, he never,
if anything. What he modeled was civil discourse. And again
I disagree with him probably on most things, just like

(17:22):
I do with a lot of other people. But one
thing I can say for him is that he modeled
civil discourse. He wasn't out there trying to incite violence
like some other folks. He was just talking to people
who disagreed with them. Nothing wrong with that. The notion
that somebody could get killed for that is scary, but

(17:43):
it shouldn't be scary to the point to where we
shut up. Now. Having said that, I don't see that happening.
What I'm saying, especially online, are people who are doubling down,
which in a sense is a good thing. Don't let
these people, you know, intimidate you into violence. If you've
got something to say, say it. If I agree with it,

(18:05):
I'll agree with it. If I disagree with it, I'll
disagree with it, and we can come and reason together.
It doesn't matter if we agree on everything but the
but what we should all be opposing is the use
of physical violence to force one's views on somebody else.
Now in that vein, I don't want to be all,

(18:27):
you know, doom and gloom and stuff like that. I
do think that we're in for some bad times, and
I've been saying it for years. I mean, people often
ask me, Jeff, do you think things are going to
get better in America? And I do. I do My
answer is always I do think things will get better,
but they're going to get worse first, because we are
on a trajectory that I don't think that we can
turn around anytime soon. I mean, we have the ability

(18:48):
to do it, but it's not likely. A lot of
us are stuck in our echo chambers. You know, we
have influencers and politicians and personalities who get rewarded for
dividing us. They have us at each other's throats so
that we don't see what they are doing. I've been
saying this for the longest time. This isn't even a
tenfoil half thing. I think most people can see this.

(19:09):
Who benefits from us being at each other's throats? Who benefits,
you know, from racial division, from from division over LGBTQ issues,
you know, the men and women or the gender wars
or whatever you call that. Who benefits from it? Do
you benefit from it? Because I don't. I haven't seen
anybody who does except the people who are running this country.

(19:34):
And I'm not just talking about the government for once.
I'm talking about the government, the elites, the powerful class.
They're the ones who benefit from this stuff. If you
and I are at each other's throats. It doesn't affect them.
It affects you, and it affects me, and that's it,
or maybe some people around us. We have to start,
we have to start reversing this trend because these people

(19:59):
are only banning their power at our expense, and we
don't notice it because we are looking at the wrong enemy.
Your enemy is not a Republican. Your enemy is not democrats.
Your enemy isn't black people. Your enemy isn't white people.
Your enemy isn't straight people. Your enemy is not LGBTQ people.
Your enemy is not men. Your enemy is not women.

(20:21):
Your enemies. You've got two enemies you don't realize. And
if you're a Christian, this first one should resonate. Your
real enemy is not a flesh and blood right, you
know where I'm going with this. Your real enemy is
not flesh and blood. These are principalities. These are spiritual
forces that have arrayed themselves against you and against God.

(20:44):
That's your first enemy. Now. I know not everybody is
a believer watching this, but still, if you're a believer,
you should know better. Like the guy across your neighbor
who voted for Kamala Harris, that ain't your enemy. It's
something else. The second enemy are the people and power
who follow those principalities. And I'll say it, those demons

(21:06):
who do their will because they get they benefit from it,
they get power. And I'm not trying to get all
wonky on here. I'm not trying to get solid spirit
spiritually deep on you guys. But I've got to take
it there. I'm going to preach a little bit right.
There are people in this world, not just in this country,
who amass great power by doing great evil. Those who

(21:29):
want to rule over us at our expense, those who
view us as livestock. And if they can pit us
against each other to the point to where a man
like Charlie Kirk can't speak his mind on a college
campus without being killed, then this system is working for them.
They have succeeded, and they have succeeded because we are

(21:54):
distracted by our outrage addiction. And to me, that that's
what's the most dangerous here. So, like I said, I
don't want to be all doom and gloom. There is
a silver lining. I did say that. I think it's
going to get better, but it's only going to get
better when we finally get sick of it, guys. I mean,

(22:14):
there has to be enough people who get tired of
it and finally say, you know what, this is enough.
We outnumber these people that these people who are who
are hell bent on dividing us, and yet they get
the loudest microphone. So we think that they reflect most
people in whatever group we're talking about, and they don't.

(22:34):
They don't. That purple haired feminist that is yelling and
holding signs, she doesn't represent everybody on the left, even
on the far left. I've had conversations with people on
the far left. I think that stuff is crazy. I
think their political beliefs are crazy too, but at least
they're not crazy. Just like you know, the people who

(22:56):
are more white nationalists, white supremacists who get associated with
people on the right, Most people on the right don't
like them. They don't represent you. We are the people
who are not on either fringe are the ones who
are going to be responsible for pushing him back against
this so here. I mean, I think there are some
things that we can do to mitigate the damage that's

(23:18):
about to come, or maybe even reverse it and prove
me wrong. I think we need to, Like I said,
we need to keep speaking out even when it's scary,
even if we're getting threatened. They can't get all of
us right. The only way to defeat political violence is
to refuse to be silenced. The way you stop a
bully is by standing up to that bully. Also, we

(23:39):
got to look at the younger generation. I mean, one
of the things that Darvy and I talked about where
the young people who really looked up to Charlie Kirk
and were really following him. They have to be hurting
right now because their leader was gunned down for no
good reason, and we don't want those people becoming radicalized.
Right When I mentioned the studies showing that, you know,

(24:01):
political violence is becoming more acceptable to a lot of Americans,
the numbers were really disturbing among younger people on the
left and the right. More on the left according to
the studies, but still quite a bit on the right.
Among younger people, we need to be present for them
as the people who are a little bit older. I
ain't old, but people who are a little bit older
need to guide them the right way because if they don't,

(24:25):
then they could easily fall it into even more dangerous radicalization.
Another thing that we can do is look for common
ground among people who we disagree with. And you know me,
I disagree with both parties. I don't like either of them.
I want liberty right, but to me, in order to
achieve that, I have to be willing to talk to
people who may not be where I'm at, to people

(24:47):
who may think that the government's more of a solution
than it should be. I'm not going to get anywhere
by yelling at them. I'm not going to get anywhere
by insulting them. I'm not going to get anywhere by
emmonizing them, and I sure so, I'm not going to
get anywhere by inciting violence against them. That doesn't help
anybody except for the people who want to rule over us.

(25:11):
I think another thing that we can do is to
be more vigilant. You know, I've attended a lot of
political events. I've been to multiple sea packs. I've been
to you know, other conservative conservative events, and you know,
nothing happened. But in some of those cases, something could
have happened. You know, I tend to be armed most
places where I go. If you know me, you know

(25:33):
I'm a very big supporter of gun rights in the
Second Amendment, So there aren't many situations where I will
go to something and not be armed. But even then,
you got to understand your surroundings, especially going forward, because,
like I said, Charlie Kirk's death was just the beginning.
When you go into a building, know where the exits are,
know where you're going to go. If something jumps off,

(25:54):
watch for red flags, arm yourselves. I mean, I mean,
that's it. The government's not going to be there to say.
I mean, in some cases maybe they will. If you
get lucky, that's good, but chances are they're not. They're
gonna be there to clean up and to solve the
crime and find out who did it and put that
person behind bars, but you're still dead, so that doesn't
really benefit you, right, So we got to be more
aware of what we're doing. I know that the event

(26:16):
that Charlie Kirk was at didn't have much in the
way of security based on what I've seen, and I
understand why because this hadn't happened before, right. I Mean,
you might have some fistfights between like the Proud Boys
and Antifa and Trump supporters and Antifa and whatever, but
nothing that rises to this level. But that's got to change.
And I don't think I even need to say that.

(26:36):
I think that's already gonna I think that's already gonna happen.
I think there will be a lot of lessons learned.
The other thing is just we got to stop. We
got to break this addiction to outrage. You know, it
would be better if we got more of a dopamine
hit from engaging with people who don't agree with us

(26:56):
and finding some common ground and having productive conversations. That
dopamine hit. We need to get our dopamine from that,
rather than saying, oh, I own the lives, Oh I
own the cons and that's how we get our dopamine hit.
One of those is healthy, the other is very much unhealthy.
That's what we have to choose between. Do we choose healthy,

(27:19):
productive conversations or do we choose mindless outrage and demonization.
That's going to determine what happens in this country next.
When people start valuing civil discourse in the way that
we're supposed to, that's when this whole thing is going
to turn around. I think that's going to happen later

(27:40):
rather than sooner. But again, I could be wrong, and
it's going to be up to us to prove me wrong.
Thanks for watching this. Let me know what you think.
I know I kind of rambled a bit, but I
would like to hear your thoughts on this. We do
need to have these conversations, and I appreciate you guys
for listening and watching this far. But until next time,

(28:03):
stay free, stay principled, and most importantly, stay ungovernable.