I forgot to mention that part. In fact, it seemed as if one of the main reasons for holding these college “events” was to gather material for his YouTube channel. Kirk claimed the videos “weren’t edited”, but they clearly were, since they quickly jumped from one questioner to another. And, strangely, all of the questioners appeared to be dumbasses that he easily dismissed.
The debate mentioned by the OP, with 12 college students in one room, appeared to be a kind of cross between his reasonable one-on-one persona and the raging maniac in front of large crowds.
Just wanted to say I just finished reading Thornley’s book, and it was surprisingly readable. Definitely felt like a first book, but not bad. Mostly a string of chapters on various Marines and essentially what they did on leave. Interesting for that window in time, if nothing else.
Preparing gotchas like “What is a woman?” that often had nothing to do with the topic but were aimed at getting the person onto the defensive
Having his assistants interview potential interlocutors first, to prepare things that charlie could pretend to “guess” about his opponent, and use for gotchas like in (1)
Gave the world the right wing “Intellectual Dark web” idiot grifter brigade? Bari Weiss is the definition of failing up. Be a right wing idiot and you’ll just fail into money and more money.
To most Israelis who’d heard of him, Kirk was just “That guy on YouTube who stood up for Israel”. Very few people here knew of any of his other beliefs, or ever saw him speak of anything else. In the Israeli mind, that makes him a Friend, and you stick by your friends, even if it turns out that they’re jerks.
Netanyahu, of course, knows exactly who Kirk actually was. He’s just doing this to suck up to Trump and American Conservatives.
Among Israelis, is there any serious worry about the long term consequences of the alliance with the far right in America, and the dismantling of the alliance with the Democratic party?