The Assassination of Charlie Kirk
Kirk's murder, Gen-Z gender divides, the Phillies Karen and more in this week's digest.
Welcome to this week’s roundup. I know a lot of you are new as I got many people signing up this week as my piece about the end of the middle class Magic Kingdom went viral. It’s now the most read article in the history of my newsletter. It’s at around 300,000 reads and still going.
The big news this week is the assassination Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Points USA. I don’t think most people realize how big TPUSA has grown. Its budget is now comparable to AEI or Heritage. It is very influential among young people. It ran a very effective get out the vote campaign in the last election. This was the assassination of the head of one of the most important conservative organizations in the country, and as well as one of the nation’s handful of most important GOP political operators. So there are political consequences to what has happened.
As of this writing, the alleged killer has been arrested but nothing has been released as to motive. But a significant number of people on the left have been celebrating his death, or at least suggesting he deserved it.
Conservatives are understandably upset, but it’s important not to let emotion cause you to say or do something you’ll later regret. Believe me, I know how difficult this can be. The Bible says that, “If you do not do well, beware, sin is crouching at the door. But you must master it.” When things like this happen, that’s when we’re vulnerable to losing control of ourselves.
I’ve said on the record for years that I categorically reject political and social violence, and encourage others to do the same. I stand by that.
I again see people on the right posting things to the effect that, “We can’t live with these people.” Well, you do live with them. And they live with you. And that’s not likely to change. So we have to find a way to live together.
That’s not to say that nothing should be done. As they did with George Floyd’s killing, there should be an expectation that the institutions of society collectively act to shut down behaviors that create a fertile climate for this sort of thing.
One of them is the frequent labeling of Trump supporters and Republicans as “Nazis” or “fascists,” which only serves to imply that it’s legitimate to stop them by any means necessary, including violence. You may call the popular “Punch a Nazi” meme as an example of this, one that explicitly approved of violence.
Another is open celebrations of murder, which we see in this case, but also to some extent in the killing of United Healthcare’s president by Luigi Mangione and in the recent killing of the head of Blackstone’s REIT.
I would certainly suggest conservatives watch their language as well. And I’ll try to keep an eye out on my own.
Other actions may be warranted, but these are examples of where to start. Depending on what we learn about the killer, President Trump may be more than justified in taking forceful government action.
Brief Follow-Ups
Readers sent me a couple of interesting emails that didn’t make it into the comments section of this week’s popular posts.
On the rise of shared custody in divorce, a woman wrote in to say:
Given my age, I'm interacting a lot more with divorced people than I used to and it is fascinating - albeit awful. One thing I've noticed is that every single divorced/separated woman I meet says the worst part is when their children are staying with the dad. I've had that conversation many times and it's always the same. They tear up involuntarily when they talk about it. So I have no doubt that the specter of being away from their kids 50 percent of the time could make some women rethink divorce.
And on the trend towards premiumization of formerly middle class activities, someone wrote in to say:
I'm an indie computer game dev and this is also a major dynamic in the industry. Loads of games try to cater to the rich or otherwise compulsive spenders by selling them packages that provide cosmetic or gameplay advantages generally inaccessible to less wealthy players. Even many traditionally "middle class" games, like World of Warcraft, now sell early access to titles at a premium, which is particularly egregious in rules-based MMORPGs that pretend everyone operates on a level playing field. For an extreme version of the broader trend, check out Star Citizen. By targeting wealthy tech nerds with large disposable incomes, it has raised more money than the GDP of some small nations.
Gen Z Gender Divide
A new NBC News poll provides further confirmation of the gender divide in Generation Z.
Among Gen Z overall, 64% disapprove of Trump’s job performance versus 36% who approve. But young men are more evenly split (53% disapprove, 47% approve) than young women (74% disapprove, 26% approve). The 21-point difference in Trump’s approval rating is unchanged from April.
…
Despite their differences, Gen Z men and women both ranked the same three things as the most important to them in defining success: having a fulfilling job, having money to do the things they want to do and achieving financial independence. The results fit with broad concerns about the cost of living: 4 in 10 young adults said inflation and the rising cost of living is the economic matter most important to them.
But there were also important differences. Gen Z women ranked having emotional stability as the fourth-most important thing in their personal definition of success, while men ranked it 10th. Gen Z men ranked making their family or community proud fifth, while Gen Z women ranked it ninth.
One of the most interesting findings to me was the difference in where Gen Z men and women ranked having children as important to them:
Gen Z men who voted for Trump rate having children as the most important thing in their personal definition of success. Gen Z women who voted for Harris ranked having children as the second-least important thing in their personal definition of success.
I think everyone’s previous view would have been that women placed a higher priority on children than men. But for Gen Z, it might be the reverse. Having children would have traditionally been seen as core to female identity, but at least a segment of Gen Z women seems to be rejecting that completey.
NBC’s Steve Kornacki posted this interesting chart. Keep in mind, this isn’t all men, and women, but conservative men and liberal women. But still.
Phillies Karen
A home run at a Phillies game turned into an international viral incident. A man got the ball and gave it to his son. Shortly thereafter, a middle aged white woman who became known as the “Phillies Karen” came over and started loudly and rudely demanding the ball be given to her. She was in the father’s face and even made contact with him at some point. The man gave her the ball and she walked away.
This prompted a lot of debate about the dad’s actions. Some argue the he should have stood up to the woman and refused to let her take his son’s ball. Others say he did the right thing.
I tend to go with the latter. In today’s world, there’s essentially no percentage in getting into a public dispute with a woman. Even the slightest perceived misbehavior on his part would have potentially led to his life being destroyed.
By deescalating the conflict - which was, after all, merely about a baseball - the father appropriately modeled to his son that some things just aren’t worth fighting over.
Patrick Butler posted:
There’s a moment when the father and son block out the pestering noise and look each other in the eyes.
The sons face shows a state of disbelief and confusion about the pharmaceutically charged monster before them
The father has a split second to decide which way this will go.
He transcends the physical material world and decides a ball is a ball, a small trinket is not worth an emotional investment.
After all, there is a lower-dimensional Karen seemingly obsessed with such baubles, ready to risk her reputation and physical safety in front of a stadium of onlookers to achieve her goal.
“Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it”
A beautiful lesson that obsession with petty material items rarely results in satisfaction and by his son sacrificing a ball, he was bestowed with many more gifts.
Indeed, the boy got to meet the person who hit the home run and got a signed bat from him.
There are definitely times to stand your ground. I wouldn’t necessarily knock the father if he had. But I think he handled this well, all things considered.
It’s a good example of the kinds of situation we can get confronted with at any time.
Best of the Web
Rob Henderson: A Prize To Be Won By Fierce Struggle - A look a David Gilmore’s Manhood in the Making.
NYT: Nick Fuentes: A White Nationalist Problem for the Right - Fuentes is an extremely charismatic Gen Z influencer. Interestingly, Fuentes was a thorn in the flesh to Charlie Kirk, with his followers - known as the “Groypers” - showing up to TPUSA events to ask trollish questions. I think it’s likely that pressure from Fuentes helped push Kirk to the right somewhat.
John Burn-Murdoch/Financial Times: The end of the gatekeepers - In the age of social media, the establishment no longer controls the narrative - “Whereas traditional media catered to a range of views, with moderate positions well-represented, extreme views — of both left and right — are heavily over-represented on social media.”
Kelsey Piper: The Honesty Tax
New Content and Media Mentions
I got a mention this week in Real Clear Investigations.
New this week:
The End of the Middle-Class Magic Kingdom - Once a haven for all, Disney World now caters to the affluent, leaving the middle class behind in an increasingly stratified America
Shared Custody Laws Are Changing Divorce Forever - Moving from favoring mothers to promoting gender equality, new custody laws are transforming divorce
My podcast this week is with Joel Carini on why evangelicals are afraid of hard questions.
Subscribe to my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Youtube, or Spotify.
Cover image: Charlie Kirk with Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 2.0
As a Landlord I've seen dozens of credit reports from young single women who want to rent one of my units.
The scores are terrible--usually the low 600s or worse. Mostly it's due to student loan debt. I've seen women who are in occupations with a hard cap on what they can earn--i.e. healthcare or public education--with $60k to $100k of student loan debt, not to mention car loans (always small new Korean or Japanese cars--presumably because they're afraid of having an older car that might break down on a dark road). Apparently, they're getting terrible advice, but they're also being set up and fleeced by the system. To get the jobs they want they have to be certified and certification often requires a college degree they can't afford.
Their happiness and emotional security are at odds with their priorities listed in chart above.
Good post about Charlie Kirk. As Christians, we need to remember that our battle is not against flesh and blood. Ephesians 2 reminds us that we were objects of wrath like the rest of humanity, but God is rich in mercy toward us. Likewise, 2 Tim 2:24-25 reminds us that we ought to remember that we once walked in the same folly of thinking. This is not an occasion of arrogance toward the world but of care and pity for the way the world thinks.
I didn't follow Charlie a lot, but I would see some of his videos on Facebook. One thing I really appreciated about him was how uncompromising he was about the evil underlying worldly assumptions about humanity, but how his genuine respect toward those lost in such beliefs was. Very often, people think they need to choose between the two.
Love the story about "Philies Karen". I feel bad for people named Karen. Apparently, in Europe, being called a Kevin has a similarly derisive connotation.