Stranded in the Present: Debating Charlie: Absolutism, Rhetoric, and the Problem of Asymmetry

I had never heard of Charlie Kirk until his assassination. My curiosity was piqued when I saw that many people credited him with encouraging dialogue between opposing ideas. To better understand his role, I turned to ChatGPT for help in crafting this essay—though I admit its academic tone goes well beyond my own style. Still, the process confirmed my initial concern about the challenges of debating the right wing.

Public debate is not merely the exchange of logical propositions; it is a performance shaped by rhetoric, framing, and audience psychology. The case of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, provided a salient example of how rhetorical style and moral absolutism could reshape the dynamics of public discourse. His debating style illustrated the tension between logical reasoning and persuasive performance, raising the question of whether meaningful dialogue across ideological divides was ever possible in such contexts.

Moral and Religious Absolutism as a Debate Framework

Kirk grounded many of his arguments in non-negotiable absolutes: life begins at conception, gender is binary by divine ordinance, and the moral superiority of Western tradition is self-evident. In debate theory, this constituted what Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) describe as foundational premises, which resist negotiation or empirical contestation. Such premises functioned rhetorically to project certainty and conviction, qualities that general audiences often interpreted as strength.

However, these same premises created a barrier to deliberative engagement. Habermasian communicative action presumes the possibility of rational consensus if interlocutors share standards of justification. When one side grounded its arguments in divine authority or moral absolutes, such consensus was structurally foreclosed. The result was what communication theorists call parallel monologues: interlocutors argued coherently within their own frameworks but failed to establish coherence across frameworks.

Logical Weaknesses and Rhetorical Substitutes

Despite the impression of strength, Kirk’s arguments were not devoid of logical vulnerabilities. Analyses of his debates revealed frequent use of:

False dilemmas, presenting complex policy questions in binary terms (e.g., unrestricted abortion versus absolute prohibition).
Straw man arguments, whereby opponents’ positions were simplified or distorted for easier refutation.
Emotional analogies, such as comparing abortion to genocide, which provoked moral outrage but lacked proportionality.
Selective evidence, where supportive statistics were highlighted while countervailing data were omitted.
Whataboutism and diversion, shifting focus when pressed on specific points.

These patterns exemplified what Aristotle termed sophistic rhetoric: persuasion through apparent rather than demonstrative reasoning. While logically deficient, such strategies were rhetorically potent, particularly when directed at audiences untrained in critical reasoning.

The Role and Capacity of Opponents

The effectiveness of Kirk’s debating style must also be understood relative to his opponents. Empirically, most of his encounters were with college students during Q&A sessions, activists, or occasionally academics. These categories of interlocutors generally lacked advanced training in rhetorical strategy or adversarial debate.

Students often posed spontaneous questions, leaving them vulnerable to rehearsed counterarguments.
Activists sometimes prioritized moral assertion over argumentative rigor, which Kirk could easily deflect.
Academics, though capable of nuanced reasoning, often employed discursive styles ill-suited to the rapid, performative environment of live debate.

Thus, what communication theorists call asymmetrical preparation tilted the contest in Kirk’s favor. The widespread circulation of selectively edited clips further amplified this asymmetry by showcasing Kirk’s strongest rhetorical moments against his interlocutors’ weakest.

The Possibility of Coherent Opposition

While challenging, it was not impossible to engage Kirk coherently. However, doing so required what might be termed a philosophical-rhetorical hybrid competence. An effective opponent needed to:

Interrogate foundational premises, compelling Kirk to defend why religious or traditional commitments should govern pluralist societies.
Expose internal inconsistencies, such as selective applications of the sanctity-of-life principle.
Reframe the debate, shifting the locus from emotional rhetoric to normative principles that could be interrogated rationally.

This strategy aligned with Toulmin’s model of argumentation, which emphasizes warranting claims and exposing unexamined assumptions. Yet executing such a strategy in real time before a general audience required unusual skill: philosophical acuity combined with rhetorical agility. Without this dual capacity, opponents of merely equal or slightly greater intelligence often appeared weaker, even when advancing stronger arguments.

Audience Effects and the Performance of Debate

Perhaps the most decisive factor was not the interlocutors themselves but the audience. Research in communication studies indicates that untrained audiences tend to reward clarity, confidence, and conviction over subtlety or logical rigor. Kirk’s absolutist style exploited this tendency, projecting moral certainty in contrast to opponents’ hesitations and qualifications.

Consequently, even when opposing ideologies presented more logically grounded positions, their persuasive force was diminished. The debate thus became less an exercise in rational adjudication than a contest in rhetorical impression management.

Conclusion

Debating Charlie Kirk illustrated the structural asymmetry between absolutist rhetoric and logical nuance. His reliance on moral and religious axioms rendered genuine deliberation nearly impossible, while his skillful use of sophistic tactics amplified his persuasive appeal. Most of his opponents were “regular” individuals—students, activists, academics—rather than philosopher-debaters capable of reframing the exchange at the level of premises.

The result was a recurring pattern: Kirk’s debates appeared rhetorically decisive even when logically vulnerable. To effectively challenge him required a rare synthesis of philosophical clarity and rhetorical mastery, capable of both exposing hidden assumptions and resonating with general audiences. Absent such interlocutors, these debates remained less exercises in dialectical reasoning than demonstrations of rhetorical asymmetry.