David Shore
Appearances
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Signal Storm Grows Larger
So I do find this part of this chart shocking. I sometimes talk about narrative violations. And I think if we knew anything about Donald Trump eight years ago, it's that young people did not like him. But if you look at this chart among white men who were 75 years old, supported Kamala Harris at a significantly higher rate than white men who are 20 years old. That's exactly right.
The Charlie Kirk Show
What's Driving the Democrat Death Spiral?
You know, what you see here is if you look at the top issues that voters care the most about, cost of living, the economy, taxes and government spending, you know, the deficit, foreign policy, you know, health care. Other than health care, where Democrats have a narrow lead, Republicans have massive trust advantages, you know, 15 points on all of the issues that voters care the most about.
The Charlie Kirk Show
What's Driving the Democrat Death Spiral?
And so the story that I would tell in response to your question is that in this election, voters... trusted Republicans way more than Democrats on all of the most important issues.
The Charlie Kirk Show
What's Driving the Democrat Death Spiral?
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
The Charlie Kirk Show
What's Driving the Democrat Death Spiral?
You know, I have to admit, I was one of those liberals four years ago, and it seems like I was wrong.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Democrat Extinction Event
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The Charlie Kirk Show
The Democrat Extinction Event
So I do find this part of this chart shocking. I sometimes talk about narrative violations. And I think if we knew anything about Donald Trump eight years ago, it's that young people did not like him. But if you look at this chart among white men who were 75 years old, supported Kamala Harris at a significantly higher rate than white men who are 20 years old. That's exactly right.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Democrat Extinction Event
Democrats are getting destroyed now among young voters. That's right. I do think there was, even as the idea of the rising demographic, Democratic majority had become a little discredited in 2016 and 2020, I do think Democrats believed that these young voters were eventually going to save them. Right. That this was a last gasp of something.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Democrat Extinction Event
That if Donald Trump couldn't run these numbers up among seniors and you had millennials really coming into the voting power, Gen Z coming in, that was going to be the end of this Republican Party. Right. And that just completely false.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Democrat Extinction Event
I mean, I'd be the beginning of this Republican Party.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Democrat Extinction Event
And voters over 75, it's even lower. That's right. You know, fairly low gender gap among older voters.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
I'd say two things. One is I think the Democratic Party is unwilling, incapable to moderate itself, to tack to the center. Part of me wants to say they're beholden to extremists, but the part of it is that would imply that there's a fringe minority of extremists, whereas the party is run by fanatics. So I don't expect any tack to the center anytime soon. And I think that's great.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
You should never interrupt your enemy while he's making a mistake. Let them triple down on BLM, on the trans stuff. Let's encourage them. Let them discredit themselves and keep on being crazy. Eventually one day, I think one sign of winning for us will be to force them to move to the right. But for the time being, I want to continue to push a Trumpist agenda and have them discredit themselves.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
The second thing they're already doing is they're going to deploy the standard playbook they have to interfere and interrupt the president's agenda, which means nationwide injunctions, bog everything down in the courts, have the bureaucracy, the deep state, drag its feet and slow things down, mobilize the mobs. We haven't seen much of that yet.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
But remember, you know, they have Antifa on speed dial. They can start to do the rioting. And then we need to remember that, you know, they still control the universities, the elite sectors of America.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
Some people there who were not fundamentally woke are moving to the center, and some universities are starting to respond to the threats that the Trump administration is putting on them, namely deporting students and cutting off funds. But Trump won an impressive victory a few months ago, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the left is still deeply entrenched
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
in almost all of the elite sectors in America, and that they're not going to go down quietly.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
I mean, the current left worships victimhood. You know, you refer to them as Marxist. I think there's influences of Marx, but there has been a fundamental transformation. I mean, Marx doesn't worship victimized identity groups. It's all about class conflict. I mean, there is an influence there via the Frankfurt School, but we're dealing with a different and new, at least since the 1960s.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
And there is a hierarchy of victims. There is a hierarchy of oppression. What defines these identity groups is how oppressed they claim to be and the extent to which their oppression is recognized by society. So at the top of the totem pole, obviously, are our fellow Black citizens. That is the ultimate piety. You see, I mean, to the extent that it has penetrated the right to a large extent.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
I mean, the example I always like to give is, you know, if a conservative foundation is handing out grants to high school students on a purely meritocratic basis, And if they end up with no black kids, not because they discriminate it, because it so happened that we judge people by the content of their character, almost always they feel bad. It weighs on the conscience.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
The right has partially bought into the framework that you need to have black people present to lend more legitimacy to an institution. Now, obviously, the right doesn't go as far as the left and saying, It should be at least 13%. There can never be too many. But that is the central piety. I think the second one is women. I think the third one is, you know, the so-called LGBTQ community.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
And then it gets a little bit hazy. I think Muslims... come and go. But I think the central party in order are our fellow black citizens, women, and then, you know, the LGBTQ rainbow coalition, which means you defer to them. You don't contradict them. You don't criticize them. You know, you know, Ibram X. Kendi is right. America's leading charlatan.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
Yes, by his real name, exactly. In his interminable, tedious book, Stamped from the Beginning, The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which I would not suggest you read. It's way too long. He does have a great line in there. He says repeatedly, there's nothing wrong with Black people. And to which you might add, there's nothing wrong with women. There's nothing wrong with LGBTQ.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
There's nothing wrong with anyone who has the privilege of having their oppression be recognized. That's the key thing. And I should add that, you know, who gets to have their oppression recognized can change. So the Jews used to be part of, you know, the roster of the aggrieved because of the Holocaust.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
But now because of Israel and the fact that Israel is viewed as a white Western colonial nation that is oppressing noble brown Muslims, Jews have lost the oppressed status and are being pushed in the evil white category. So these things have some flexibility, but ultimately the left decides.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
I think if it happens is because we force them against their will to moderate, meaning we need to break the hard left, to allow the timid, more moderate voices on the left and in the Democratic Party to assert themselves. Because they defer to their left. The left flank of moderate liberals is weak. They're afraid of being called racist by people to their left.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
So it'll only come about if we succeed. You know, one way to think about it is look at what Reagan did with the economy in the 80s and how he forced the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton to somewhat move to the right on economic questions, right? The new way, the Democratic Leadership Council that got Bill Clinton elected. You only do that after you really triumph.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
So I think it won't come about by themselves. It will come about if we win in such a decisive way that we marginalize their radicals, therefore creating room for their moderates to speak out. And I don't see a way to do that outside of breaking the universities.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
You had some very kind words about Hillsdale College that I share entirely, but we both know that Hillsdale is in no way representative of a university in America. The universities are the nerve center of the regime. They are the madrasas of the left.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
If you look at the common denominator to the people running the media, Hollywood, the deep state, the judiciary, the nonprofit, the foundations, the arts, Hollywood... people who went to college. This is where you learn the creed. This is where you are made into a fanatic. This is where you learn the pieties. We need to break the universities. And there is a way to do that.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
We send them the money, either directly or we send the Pell Grants that fund the students that go to these universities. And finally, God bless them, President Trump is starting to attach strings to the funds. But you got to ask yourself, like, why have we not done this before? But so I would say there's going to be no more moderation until we moderate the universities.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
I'd say it's a combination of factors. One is, you know, Americans have a lot of emotional ties to their universities in a way that people in other countries don't. Like I grew up in Canada. We don't speak of an alma mater. We don't donate. I don't wear T-shirts with the universities I went to. For Americans, it's a rite of passage.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
You know, I always tell my students in America, we make more college movies than any other country that I've ever heard of. It's it's, you know, so true. It finds part of who you are. And so the state legislators. Right. They went there. They have the University of Oklahoma sweatshirts. They go to the games. If they're in Alabama and Alabama, it's roll tide.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
I mean, that's the other dimension is that it's tied up with football and basketball.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
So I teach in the DC campus, which is a little outpost in the swamp that we set up a few years ago. And we have undergrads who come from the main campus to do a semester with us. And then the main feature is we have a master's program where we teach the great books. We teach political theory, American political thought.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
But I basically describe it as saying we've got one foot in the academy and one foot in the real world. So we're going to read Aristotle or read Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche, but not just with the view to understanding the book, but to thinking about what light they shed on the current American predicament, because at the end of the day, the mission is to revitalize the republic.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
So we talked about the one problem is the emotional, excessive emotional attachment to these universities, the nostalgia for college. I mean, think of the movie Old School, right? Guys in their 40s who go back to college and it's like life is wonderful. So there's that. It's exacerbated, as we mentioned, by the football and the basketball programs.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
Second, you have the fact, look, who's serving in a state legislature? Good people, but it's going to be a dentist, a small business owner. They are intimidated by the professors. They are intimidated by the academics because they're like, well, they've got big diplomas. I don't. They use fancy words. They've read more books.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
I mean, part of it is we should embolden state legislators to see that most academics are charlatans. I don't wanna say all of them, and it's not evenly distributed. Usually the hard sciences are pretty good, but in the social sciences, in the humanities, it's a farce at this point.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
And whatever credentials or publications they have, you shouldn't be intimidated because you've got common sense on your side. And third, I would say, I mean, this is partially a failure of the conservative movement because the job of the institutional right should be to equip state legislators with the strategies, the policies they need to deal serious blows to the universities.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
And the right has been complaining about universities ever since Bill Buckley wrote his first book, God and Man at Yale, I think in 1950. And since then, what have we mostly done? Lecture series, you said you guys are going to speak. That's good, but that doesn't fundamentally alter things. We set up little centers. We tinker with the curriculum. We need bolder moves.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
And I think the think tanks, the red state think tanks, the conservative think tanks and the national ones, need to develop a more aggressive higher ed reform agenda to help these state legislators do the right thing. Because the moment right now is different. The appetite is there. One of my favorite lines is from Pat Buchanan's memoirs. It's that courage is contagious.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
What Trump is doing is spreading, but people need to know how to go about it, how to navigate it. higher red reform, but it is absolutely doable. I think the state that has probably done the most is Florida under Governor DeSantis. But even there, you know, they still haven't shuttered. For example, why is any red state having a sociology department at a public university?
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
Tell me what good reason there could be to taxpayers to fund kids studying sociology today. If you want to study sociology, go to a private college. The taxpayers of red state, we're not funding that. No one has yet done that. Close down every sociology department, every black studies department, every women's studies department, every... Thank you.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The DOGE Super-Geniuses Speak Out
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back.