CHARLIE KIRK'S ASSASINATION MAY HAVE SHIFTED THE OVERTON WINDOW

"They seek him here,

They seek him there,

Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

Is he in heaven?

Is he in hell?

That demned, elusive Pimpernel!"

Only the evil rejoice in the death of someone. Charlie Kirk's death show us the worse of humanity coming from the progressive Left, Democrats and followers of a certain faith. They labelled him "fascist, nazi, bigot, racist, trans-hater, polarising figure, divisive person, MAGA, white supremacist, Christian Nationalist, mysogynist". Straits Times Dy Editor Bhravan Jaipragas calls his activism "dark messages". What worries me for Singapore is I see a bandwagon of local liberals piled on the condemnation. Even brilliant online commentators like Chris Kuan and Michael Han skewed to the sentiments of the Left. My knee jerk feeling is all these detractors have never actually tuned in to any of Charlie's Q&A sessions. I asked several, such as Mr Han, who indeed admitted so. They have simply judged the man on the basis of biased leftist media and ten second tiktoks devoid of context, pushed by those with an agenda. My challenge to all these Singaporean detractors is to show me any quote of Charlie that justifies any of those labels and we can have a discussion. And my suggestion to these detractors is do justice to the man, spare an hour to listen to any of his talks at universities.

Haters will be surprised to discover in reality how civil and respectful the debates go and how intellectual Charlie was for one so young. It is bound to change minds unless one supports wokeism, DEI affirmative actions, defund police, protection for criminals and aliens over citizens, cancel culture, nihilistic adult lifestyle, suppression of minorities by promoting mendicancy via policies promoting dependency, victimhood and entitlement mentalities, no-rights of unborn, etc because all these are issues that Charlie spoke out against.

In the past, the divide between the Liberal Left and Conservative Right was basically economics. Democrats and Republicans both value freedom and the desire to achieve a good standard of living for Americans. They just differ on the path to get there. Over the decades, progressivism has driven Liberals to the extreme Left on the back of identity politics.

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Paul Alinsky's Rule #13 from his book Rules for Radicals

Obama adopted this approach that got him into power. Marxism created two classes of people - the proletariat and the bourgeoise. The Marxist owned and led proletariat against the bourgeoise which is made out to be the cause of the problems why you are in poverty. Obama mainstreamed progressive ideas that created several classes of people - minorities and oppressed. They are as varied as you can name them - blacks, Latinos, LGBTQ++, non-Christians, pro-abortionists, trans-genders. Once you have created the classes, you must sell them a common enemy. You are in poverty because of, or oppressed by, the privileged Christian White Conservatives. That's how Democrats gained raw power.

For decades, Liberals have slowly gone down the slippery slope of progressivism. Liberalism emphasises individual freedom, especially in lifestyle, morality and identity. This can easily slide into hedonism - a priority of pleasure, self-expression and non-judgement over restraint or duty. Unanchored liberalism erodes virtue and tradition, leading to a culture of indulgence. George Orwell warned unmoored liberalism could collapse into moral relativism, where no principle is defended except the individual's whim. Pope Benedict warned us of the "dictatorship of Relativism". Several US Founding Fathers such as George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson made similar warnings. John Adams famously said :"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

Liberty without virtue and moral anchors degenerates into license, and license ends in tyranny. In the Obama and Biden era, anyone with some sense of moral capacity could see the attempt to normalise the deep end of hedonistic lifestyle -- pedophilia.  Pornography sneaked into school libraries. Bearded "women" in lingerie and fake bosoms perform for kids. We saw the weaponisation of the FBI and DOJ and lawfare against political opponents, often on flimsy and fabricated evidence. General Michael Flynn went to prison on trumped up charges. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce imprisoned for making a silent prayer near a Planned Parenthood office aka abortion clinic. The list can fill a book.

For decades, Liberals controlled culture -- Hollywood, music industry, media, public schools and universities. 70-80% of the university faculties and admin are Liberal. The cohorts are majority liberals. Christian, Jewish and Conservative students and faculty members are coerced and intimidated into submission. I have long watched visiting conservative speakers such as Dinesh D'Souza, had their campus speaking engagements cancelled, or harassed and heckled by liberal student activists. The space for Conservative ideas and voices have been shut down for decades. These universities churn out freshly minted liberals who go on to executive, managerial and professional positions in bureaucracy and industry, turning American cities and every government agency liberal. I recall years ago advising friends sending their kids off to US universities to beware of liberal indoctrination. Recently I came across a mother who spoke about her 7th grade child who came home from school one day and said she hates Charlie Kirk. The little girl does not even know who Charlie was.

The quote often attributed to Lenin, for which all Democrats know : "Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the whole world." Well, two generations of Americans have been transformed. My long held view has been America is headed for the socialist cliff unless their educational system (Dept of Education, school boards, public schools, universities) are drastically restructured. Then along came Trump and Charlie Kirk.

For decades, American learning institutions have taught marriage is a patriarchal institution, capitalism is oppressive, and every other situation is viewed through the lens of oppressor vs oppressed. 

To drill down to the primeval reason why the people are so divided, it is this: The Left obsesses over the comfort of the so-called ‘oppressed.’  (Such obsession is often just virtue-signaling and hypocritic). The Right asks a deeper question: is it right or wrong, is it just or unjust, is it moral or immoral? The Left coddles feelings, the Right defends truth.


Charlie Kirk's Beginning:

Charlie was well known as a fiery, and quick-tongued debater in high school. When he was 17 he wrote an essay for Brietbart media criticising liberal bias in textbooks. That got him his first 15 minutes of fame on Fox News. As a student, he often said he felt outnumbered and silenced in classrooms where progressive views dominated. He has seen the biased curriculum and textbooks and students standing up for conservative ideas face disciplinary actions, even have grades impacted. Charlie saw high schools and universities as “liberal indoctrination factories” where conservative students were marginalized. This sense of imbalance — that the Left owned the cultural and educational space — was what motivated him into activism to push back and “give young conservatives a voice.”  He once put it bluntly: “I didn’t go to college because I saw what the Left had done to campuses — I wanted to fight back instead of be another victim of it.”

Like most critics, without knowledge of the man, Michael Han said Charlie's activism was "more passion than conviction." His activism wasn’t abstract — it was born from his lived experience of being a conservative teenager surrounded by progressive dominance in schools.

Charlie's story began in 2012 when he was barely out of high school. He crossed path with Bill Montgomery, a retired marketing executive and Tea Party activist old enough to be his grandfather. While most people would have dismissed Charlie as another loud-mouth high school debater, Montgomery saw something in the 18 year old kid. The old man advised him not to waste years chasing a traditional degree. He could make an impact now by building a youth-focused conservative organization. Thus TPUSA (Turning Point USA) was born. Charlie brought the youthful energy, the willingness to spar on campuses and online. Montgomery brought the structure, the donor connections, the wisdom of experience. It was an unlikely partnership — one man at the beginning of life, the other in its twilight — but together they launched a movement that would ripple far beyond either of them. Montgomery passed away in 2022.

His lack of a degree was sometimes derided, but Charlie was very widely-read and displayed deep knowledge of the arts, sciences, philosophy and scripture. To improve himself, he took 30 courses of online programs offered by Hillsdale College.


Charlie Kirk's engagement in universities

Kirk saw universities as ideological frontlines -- spaces long shaped by liberal orthodoxy. If his activism was to cultivate a new generation of students receptive of conservative ideas and committed to defending them, he had to go into the lion's den. He presented conservative principles with clarity, he challenged entrenched liberal narratives and provoked students into questioning assumptions instilled by faculty. His approach was deliberate, blending intellectual rigor with persuasive outreach. More than speeches, these appearances were recruitment missions -- carefully designed to cultivate a new generation of students receptive to conservative ideas and committed to defending them.

Charlie encouraged and entertained questions from anyone, both the Left and the Right. He has been seen to often ask his rousing supporters to quieten down to hear out the arguments of a liberal questioner. His Q&A has always been robust and on controversial topics, but it had always been peaceful and respectful. Sometimes someone brought out something he was not aware, Charlie had the humility to admit that and promised he will check that out.

Here's the thing that liberal Singaporean detractors who never watch his debates do not understand. Charlie had enemies from both the Left and the Right. Amongst the crowd will be non-campus entities. The Left turns up to try to destroy him with all sorts of accusations and innuendos. Antifa thugs and lunatic lefties gather outside campuses where he spoke, under great threats of violence and death against his team.

And I am betting Singaporean detractors know nothing about the Groyper War of 2019. Groyper is a term that originated from a meme featuring a toad-like character often associated with alternate-right and white nationalist movements. Nick Fuentes is a far-right American political commentator and activist known for promoting white nationalist, antisemitic, and mysogynistic views.  Fuentes has no organisation but has a significant following. He has been banned from most major social media sites but he continues to influence far right discourse through online platforms. Many view him as a leader of the white nationalist movement. Fuentes feels all the Conservative movements such as TPUSA are not Conservative enough. Besides Charlie Kirk, Fuentes have had harsh words against other Conservative speakers like Ben Shapiro, Dan Crenshaw, Matt Walsh, Dennis Prager, Michael Knowles and Candice Owens.

Between 2019-2022 Fuentes launched verbal attacks against a host of Conservative voices, including Fox News and staff of Daily Wires. All chose not to engage him thus denying him the attention and legitimacy. No ideologies come in a plain shade. They are all in spectrums. Both the Left and the Right have their extreme fringes. The extreme Left fringe is both lunatic and violent. All violent hate crimes and shooters since Obama have come from the Left, not a single one from the Right. Fuentes represent the extreme Right. Although not as lunatic nor violent as the extreme Left, Fuentes' positions on many Conservative ideas are dangerous. He is mysogynistic, anti-semitic, and a white supremacist. It would be perfectly correct had both Chris Kuan and Michael Han pinned their negativities on Fuentes. But I'm betting they have not heard of Fuentes.

Of all the Conservative pundits, only Candice Owens seems to have shifted somewhat to align with Fuentes, especially on the issue of Israel.

What has this Groyper War got to do with my story of Charlie Kirk here. Well I'm sure Chris and Michael Han and all Singaporean detractors have no idea that not only Leftist outsiders, but Fuentes' followers, gatecrash the universities where Charlie held his debates. Their sole purpose was to engage him to ridicule and discredit, bringing with them lies and allegations of all sorts. So the tone of the Q&A sessions ranged from well mannered, polite, earnest discourse to heated outbursts, depending on who fielded the questions - students searching answers or challenging viewpoints, or extremists of the Left and Right seeking to agitate and disrupt. Charlie haters slice videos to present the juicy moments on their 10 sec tiktoks intentionally leaving out the contexts, and useful idiots too lazy to check the reality, suck up the hateful imagery


Charlie is anti-gay, a racist, a mysogynist

Some examples serve to explain what I am trying to say here - that Singaporeans know nothing of Charlie and jumped on the Liberal-hate bandwagon:

Charlie was anti-gay - do Singaporean detractors know there are established gay staffers in TPUSA. Charlie is against gay lifestyle as a Christian, but he accepts gay Conservatives who shares other similar Conservative values. It is secular shared values that matter.

Charlie was a racist - Charlie hosted the largest black leadership program in the country. TPUSA has a Turning Point Black brand that promotes a Black Leadership Summit. It fully funds black youth in programs that emphasise rejecting victimhood culture, entrepreneurship, and black conservative values. There is a similar program for Latinos.

Charlie is a mysogynist - TPUSA Women is a branch whose Young Women's Leadership Summit focuses on empowering Conservative women.

Detractors have no idea of the number of Black, Latino, and gay youths that Charlie has empowered and lifted. Nobody tells them that and they are too lazy to check.


The Overton Window

Zeitgeist is a German term that refers to the broad cultural spirit, mood, or dominant ideas in a given era. It is like the cultural climate of opinions.  It encompasses what is the mainstream cultural ethos of the land at a given time. Culture shifts over time. What was once mainstream can become taboo and vice versa. Trans-genderism, anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-police, etc were some of the cultural traits mainstreamed in Obama and Biden's era.

The Overton Window refers to what is politically discussible at a given time, that is, it reflects only on a subset of the zeitgeist. 

Let's see how the Overton Window has shifted in the last few administrations:

Bush era - The Window leaned centre-right . Traditional social conservationism with progressive issues mostly at the margins. Racial discussions mostly framed around colour blindness and civil rights achievements. Universal Healthcare/socialised medicine seen as extremes.

Obama era - The Window made a major shift to the Left on social issues. Same-sex marriage became mainstream, marijuana legalised, Black Lives Matter made systemic racism mainstream topic. Obamacare (government-managed healthcare) legislated. DACA 2012 gave protection to undocumented (illegal aliens). Political correctness impeded free speech.

Trump era (first term) - A rightward shift on nationalism and free speech. Border walls, tariffs, MAGA. Pushback against political correctness and woke politics. Skepticism of endless wars.

Biden era - The Window shift radically Left and brought in radical leftist ideas, which polarised the country as it brought in populist response. Transgender rights and DEI became mainstream and policy. Critical Race Theory became central issue. Pronouns became touchy. LGBTQ++ rights take on a larger than life centre stage. Climate urgency moved from niche to mainstream and policy. Defund police and soft-on-crimes policies. Socialise cost in student loan forgiveness. Swollen government with trillions in spending. Anything can be framed into minority rights and systemic racialism. Open borders and rights of illegal immigrants. Anti-white racialism - the whites have inherent racialism in them. Cancel culture and lawfare against conservatives and Christians.


Charlie Kirk's death galvanises the Right and shift the Overton Window

The bigger background picture of US politics is like this:

The power structure :
Up till the 1990s, Democrats controlled Congress. It really didn't mattered whether it was a Democrat or Republican President. The two sides had adversarial debates and horse-trade in collegial manner. The Conservative temperament, by definition, is slower to push for radical change unlike Democrats. Republicans often define themselves in opposition to progressive initiatives rather than as proactive disruptors. Democrats thus generally push the envelope towards socialism. That was till Newt Gingrich came on the scene.

Gingrich knew to gain real political power the GOP needed a change in strategy. He took on a confrontational style in the 1990s. Gingrich’s innovation was to weaponize partisan warfare - treating Democrats as illegitimate, using inflammatory language, and turning every issue into a test of loyalty. At the time, Democrats still largely believed in old-school legislating and bipartisan deals, so his tactics felt radical.

Gingrich's tactics paid off as Republicans gained control of Congress after many decades. However, Gingrich bipartisanship politics involved only the political elites.

The public polity:
The way Americans shape their political culture in the public square took a drastic turn with Obama's identity politics. Obama's identity politics brought bipartisanship to the public level which polarised the the country and he regained control of Congress.

Then came Trump. He played Gingrich's cards harder. His use of Twitter allowed him to bypass and ignored the leftist-controlled media. He had access and was able to move the ground. Trump broke with bipartisan etiquette, refused to cede ground, and forced Democrats into a political climate they hadn’t dealt with before.

Biden came. He up the ante of Obama's identity politics and practiced Gingrich and Trump's confrontational style. But whilst Gingrich and Trump delegitimised Democrats by framing issues on moral and loyalty terms, Biden and Democrats brought on pure hate by normalising the labels "fascist" and "nazi" on Trump, and conservative voices. While the Left waited in vain for four years for white supremacist MAGA riots, today Democrats are instigating the Left to rise up and take pot shots at facists Trump and ICE officer.

Conservatives are generally reticent offering hardly any pushback against progressive liberals on the ground. They have seen their voices subdued by legacy media and tech platform moguls. Decades of progressive left ideology indoctrination in schools and universities, and the cancel culture, have effectively muted the voices of Conservatives, Christians and Jewish cohorts. Had it not been for Elon Musk taking over Twitter, Conservatives would have lost their freedom of speech.

Charlie Kirk and his TPUSA's activism in campuses sought to bring Left-Right dialogue into the open. In simple terms, he basically brought Conservative apologetics and progressive polemics to the youths in campuses. He brought clarity on many contentious issues and empowered Conservative youths to stand their ground in the public square of ideas. Charlie has been instrumental in bringing Conservative voices to the open again. 

On campuses he makes unapologetic conservatism a rallying cry for students, pushing what counts as mainstream debate. In media, his constant repetition of hard-right talking points (immigration, gender, race, election legitimacy, etc) makes them familiar even to critics. What was unthinkable became discussable. Through organisation, TPUSA events showcase firebrand figures, pulling the GOP youth base toward Trump-style nationalism, forcing mainstream Republicans to adopt similar rhetoric to stay relevant. (It is the reverse of mainstream Democrats forced to adopt radical progressive leftist rhetoric to stay relevant.)

Charlie drags the Overton Window rightward and, by sheer visibility, obliges the left and centre to respond, thus reshaping the boundaries of debate. He was a force multiplier - he gave organisational resources, national platforms, visibility to conservative youths. His tragic death galvanises the Conservative youth base which has vowed to carry on his work, thus ensuring amplification of his message. 


Charlie Kirk - the man:

For those who have never watched any of his debates and formed their opinion solely from what they read from legacy media and vile tiktoks, listen to CNN political commentator Van Jones, a typical progressive liberal media acerbic Trump-hater who has never had a good word for Charlie. A 70 second clip and you can see if Charlie was a divisive monster he was made out to be.

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