Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : World Outlook -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (47666)	9/13/2025 7:58:18 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49053

Virulent debater and clickbait savant: how Charlie Kirk pushed a new generation to the right The far-right activist, who was fatally shot this week in Utah, galvanized young conservatives through online antics and inflammatory views Alaina Demopoulos, Guardian UK, September 12, 2025 After clinching the title of top conservative podcast in America (and second overall news podcast, according to Apple’s ranking) in March, Charlie Kirk said: “We’re not just talking. We’re activating a revolution.” In the hours after his killing at age 31 on the first stop of a buzzy college campus tour, the rightwing activist’s words echoed through young conservative circles. Social media eulogies rolled in, with users reposting clips of Kirk with his wife and children. Parents of teens wrote on X of learning about Kirk’s death through their children. “My 17 year old is bumming. Told me he plays Charlie in the background on his computer when he’s on it,” the conservative radio host Jesse Kelly wrote on X. Another X user wrote about speaking to teens at a church youth group: “Everyone I talked to is so distraught and heartbroken at his passing.” A key figure in Donald Trump’s success, Kirk galvanized college-aged conservatives who moved in a different ecosystem from traditional media. The decade or so between Kirk’s beginnings as a teen activist and the shooting saw the rise of Maga politics alongside the shake-up of the conventional media landscape, with Kirk playing a crucial role in both. Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 with a clear goal of making Obama era-style youth outreach work for the right, and even those who didn’t agree with his values could not deny his ubiquity on the political scene. For the young Americans who grew up watching Kirk on their screens, he was a savant at YouTube, Twitter and later X, TikTok and live events. He was like a gen Z and millennial version of Rush Limbaugh – the rightwing, shock-jock commentator who dominated US airwaves in the 1990s – even if his base had no clue who that was. Kirk’s ideology was caustic; he espoused openly homophobic, racist, sexist, Islamophobic and Christian nationalist views while uplifting misinformation and conspiracy theories. He also campaigned on issues that mattered to young Americans, engaging directly with them – no matter how virulently – on hot-button topics such as abortion, transgender rights, race and Palestinian solidarity. more at Guardian UK