Debate or Seeking Truth?

“Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way.” New York Times columnist Ezra Klein wrote this article immediately after Kirk’s assassination. Klein wrote, “You can dislike much of what Kirk believed, and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him.”

Klein correctly pointed out that Kirk’s debates were better than the violent attacks on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the murder of former Minnesota Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and many other recent acts of political violence. Including Kirk’s assassination.

But was Kirk actually practicing politics the right way? What was the purpose of his campus “debates”? How were they conducted?

Debating is really a sport like football or tennis. The goal is to “win.” Kirk was a 31-year-old man, skilled at this sport and going up against random college students. Not much different than you trying to beat Rafael Nadal.

A skilled debater has years of practice and an arsenal of memorized factual claims. Kirk was known to throw in questionable or false claims in rapid succession with no way to fact check them in real time.

He made videos of these debates and released highly edited versions of them. Who do you think the edits favored?

I watched some of Kirk’s debates on climate and was impressed with his ability to deflect attention away from facts and toward politics. He said the climate issue might really be about “private property confiscation” and “Marxism.” He used the tobacco industry technique of raising doubts rather than providing evidence.

One challenger noted the 97% consensus of climate scientists on the Climate Crisis. Kirk stunningly said that he would rather listen to the 3% who disagree.

Kirk tried to force his opponents to claim that carbon emissions are the only cause of climate changes. The opponents resisted. Kirk noted that the climate has changed in the past, so how can we know that current climate changes are “human caused”?

One commentator made an analogy. You show up at work and blood is splattered everywhere. Your boss is dead. A knife is in his back. People die naturally every day, so he probably died of natural causes.

We have the metaphorical ‘knife’ and ‘blood’. Evidence is solid that this climate change is caused by human carbon emissions. At one point Kirk demanded his opponent define “carbon.” The opponent, mystified, said, “It’s an element.” Kirk stayed on script saying, “Yes, carbon is life.” Utterly irrelevant.

Watching these debates, it was clear that the opponents were well informed and made a good case. But Kirk could keep them off balance with tricks of his trade. Like saying that Scotland once had a Mediterranean climate. Kind of like when Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe brought a snowball to the Capitol to “prove” global warming was a hoax.

Does anyone think that Kirk was actually interested in learning anything from these debates? Other than how to “own” his next opponent for a juicy video clip?

When challenged, Ezra Klein agreed that Kirk was not interested in finding the truth. But he said Kirk deserved credit for going into “enemy territory” on college campuses.

I agree that we should talk to people whose views are different than our own. We can learn what matters to them and how they see the world. At times we all feel we are in “enemy territory.”

In the case of the Climate Crisis, the fossil fuel side has a lot of money to spread their disinformation. And Kirk actively sought and received their money.

A functioning democracy requires that we talk to each other. But do we understand the difference between debate and dialogue? Is our goal to get to the truth? Or is it just to win points for our tribe? In the case of the Climate Crisis, the stakes are high. The evidence is clear. The only dialogue should be about how to solve it. When you are on the Titanic headed for the iceberg, do you need to debate whether you should change course?