RealClear Foundation President David DesRosiers discussed his newest article, “Prove Charlie Right,” and the future of the First Amendment after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, on “Blaze TV.” “I think we’re going through a re-examination of who he was,” DesRosiers said about Charlie Kirk.”People are seeing what was truly there: a very special person who modeled the First Amendment at its best. I’ve been very proud of the movement he built, and also of the calm of the American people.” “The good news is they can follow Charlie’s example. I do think a lot of young people really looked at Charlie like he was a spectator sport, and the assassin took that away from a lot of people. What those folks have to do is stop being spectators and stand up.” “Charlie already lives in the clouds. I believe he’s in heaven, but I know he’s in the cloud,” he also said. “One of the things that would be a great kind of 2.0 expression of Charlie is if you could take that spirit, that discipline, that habit of mind, and give it an AI expression. People could find old things, but also summon his spirit-allow people to try to prove him wrong, but also to get inspiration to go out there and try to prove him right.” “You look at this assassin’s creed versus Charlie’s creed. The assassin’s creed is not at the margins of our society. The people who act on it are at the margins, but many think it’s okay to suspend morality, the rule of law, human decency, the First Amendment, and the pursuit of a moral good,” DesRosiers said.

JILL SAVAGE, HOST: We see Charlie was martyred for free speech itself. Do you think this assassination will be remembered as an actual turning point in how America is going to treat dissenting voices, or are we still going to need more for a wake-up call? DAVID DESROSIERS: Well, I hope we don’t. I have been very pleasantly surprised at the reaction since his assassination. First of all, Charlie did die, but I do believe that the First Amendment, the rule of law-the glue that keeps us together-has been wounded, and we have to be very attentive to it. But I do think that this assassin killed one of the conservative movement’s best. And I do see that when people are looking at who Charlie was, a lot of people started having opinions about him, but they weren’t self-generated. They heard a friend talk about him, heard him talked up, heard him talked down. I think we’re going through a re-examination of who he is. People are seeing what was truly there: a very special person who modeled the First Amendment at its best. I’ve been very proud of the movement he built, and also of the calm of the American people. There is calm. There’s no burning of cities, no looting, no retaliatory violence everywhere you look. There are completely peaceful protests-and they’re not even protests. They’re vigils. MATT PETERSON, HOST: Yeah, I love that point. You make this point in your piece, Prove Charlie Right, David. And this point about peaceful vigils instead of violent protests is just well said. In this moment people are looking for a cultural way to signal that they stand against this madness in some way. I’m curious what else you’ve seen that you find interesting. Because we really want to highlight that the right doesn’t go out and do violent protest things. Instead, they have prayer vigils. But there’s a lot more people want to do to signal that they’re not part of this madness and this evil. DAVID DESROSIERS: Well, the good news is they can follow Charlie’s example. I do think a lot of young people really looked at Charlie like he was a spectator sport, and the assassin took that away from a lot of people. What those folks have to do is stop being spectators and stand up. I was so happy to see the number of chapters that were established. If that isn’t a sign that the opposite has come from this assassin’s bullet, I think people are going to stand up these chapters and follow Charlie’s example. But one of the things I’m concerned about is that we’ve lost the plotline of what our country is. We can all say life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but we have to realize that there are guardrails for those pursuits. The First Amendment is first for a reason because it is that guardrail. I think there are two different types of creeds displayed. There’s Charlie’s creed, which is the First Amendment and the law of toleration, and there’s the assassin’s creed. We’ve lost an appreciation of what the First Amendment is. Jefferson said you can believe in one God, twenty gods, or no gods. There was openness to ends, but not to every means in the pursuit of those ends. You can’t coerce people. You can’t pick their pocket to pay for things they don’t believe in. You can’t break their bone or force them to do things. We need to relearn that. Polling on the First Amendment is in the doghouse and keeps going down with every graduating class. It’s because we’re not teaching it anymore. If we’re going to save this country, we have to relearn it. JILL SAVAGE: Yeah. Charlie was all about teaching young people in this country what this country actually was. And we’re all so excited that TPUSA is more popular than ever. Charlie’s critics say he was extreme. But he was not extreme. And now you see the numbers-he went from about 3 million to 11 million followers on Instagram. More people now are going to see Charlie’s message. I think it was our friend Peachy Keenan who wrote, Everything that Charlie has said should be categorized so that people can go through and learn from Charlie step by step. So what kind of an impact is he still going to have, not only through Turning Point USA, but also through everything he did on camera? It’s going to last for eternity that people will still be able to learn from what he already did here on this earth. DAVID DESROSIERS: One of the points I ended with is that Charlie already lives in the clouds. I believe he’s in heaven, but I know he’s in the cloud. One of the things that would be a great kind of 2.0 expression of Charlie is if you could take that spirit, that discipline, that habit of mind, and give it an AI expression. People could find old things, but also summon his spirit-allow people to try to prove him wrong, but also to get inspiration to go out there and try to prove him right. MATT PETERSON: David, you live the First Amendment. This isn’t just pontificating. This is what you do with your work at RealClear Politics-both the site people know and the foundation. You established a few years ago the Samizdat Prize for journalism in this country. That’s an incredible event. Talk to us about that and the importance of implementing what we’re talking about in the media ecosystem. DAVID DESROSIERS: Yes. I apologize for the name-it’s not an American name. It’s Russian. Samizdat means underground. That’s where great books like The Gulag Archipelago came out. It was where the Soviet Union was shown to be the lie that it was. Three years ago, when we established it, it looked like the Overton window was closing on the First Amendment and on this country’s free speech. My own company found itself on a global disinformation list whose purpose was to deprive us of income because they wanted to shut us up. Our sin was that we showed two sides. Every year we honor those people who are brave and who have stood up for the First Amendment. And there’s no braver person, no one who has paid the price of the cause more than Charlie. On February 11th, when we get together, we’re going to do our best to remember him. We’re not going to forget him. I think he is the 21st century’s free speech martyr. His legacy is going to be enduring. But I worry about the fact that half our country has a problem with toleration and with the First Amendment. You kind of see what happens to Charlies, and you look at this assassin’s creed versus Charlie’s creed. The assassin’s creed is not at the margins of our society. The people who act on it are at the margins, but many think it’s okay to suspend morality, the rule of law, human decency, the First Amendment, and the pursuit of a moral good. It’s the old idea that the ends justify the means. Until we shut that off-academically, culturally, economically-we can’t accept it. It is a complete violation of toleration and political toleration. If we take this path and let it grow, we can’t have a country. We have to get back to a political sense of self-limitations if we’re going to get to our 250th birthday with any semblance of our origin story.

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