"Never believe that anti‐Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they
seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
The thing about Charlie Kirk is that he's not running for Congress, or any other office, so it's not like he needs to win over 50%. He's an influencer, a YouTube personality, and if he could just win over 1% of YouTube viewers he'd be rich beyond his wildest imagining. And to get that 1% he needs to be outrageous, and stand out from all the other influencers who are also trying to out-outrageous their competition.
Fool that I am, I actually draw from small amount of hope from this, that the incentives for YouTube personality are misaligned with the needs of Major Political Party (one of only two in a two-party system!) Repelling large segments of the population doesn't matter, it's better to do that if it wins you the intense interest and support of that 1%. A Major Party that allows its program and message to be hijacked by such people will lose, A LOT.
"Never believe that anti‐Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they
seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
(Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, pg. 13)
https://abahlali.org/files/Jean-Paul_Sartre_Anti-Semite_and_Jew_An_Exploration_of_the_Etiology_of_Hate__1995.pdf
The thing about Charlie Kirk is that he's not running for Congress, or any other office, so it's not like he needs to win over 50%. He's an influencer, a YouTube personality, and if he could just win over 1% of YouTube viewers he'd be rich beyond his wildest imagining. And to get that 1% he needs to be outrageous, and stand out from all the other influencers who are also trying to out-outrageous their competition.
Fool that I am, I actually draw from small amount of hope from this, that the incentives for YouTube personality are misaligned with the needs of Major Political Party (one of only two in a two-party system!) Repelling large segments of the population doesn't matter, it's better to do that if it wins you the intense interest and support of that 1%. A Major Party that allows its program and message to be hijacked by such people will lose, A LOT.