The Greenfield Report with Henry R. Greenfield

Episode 30- The Charlie Kirk Legacy: Understanding Today's Youth Uprising

• Henry R. Greenfield • Season 1 • Episode 30

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A seismic shift is occurring in youth movements worldwide, with profound implications for global stability. Charlie Kirk's Turning Point Action represents one pole of this phenomenon—a rightward movement claiming to speak for young Americans frustrated with immigration and societal change. Kirk's assassination by a young Mormon man underscores the dangerous polarization permeating our society.

Across the globe, we're witnessing the opposite reaction in Nepal, where Gen Z youth are rioting for reform, opportunity, and ironically, greater migration possibilities. France experiences regular student protests demanding more benefits and open borders. These competing visions represent the great divide of our time—both sides claiming the mantle of the future, yet pulling in opposite directions.

Against this backdrop, geopolitical tensions escalate as Russia tests NATO's resolve with drone incursions over Poland and Romania. European leaders respond with rhetoric but little action, while figures like Hungary's Orbán and Turkey's Erdogan maintain close ties with Russia. Trump's rhetoric about "revolution" raises troubling questions about America's future and China's ascendant position.

The solution isn't returning to an idealized past or embracing radical change. We need to rebuild our institutions, manage migration responsibly, and recreate development opportunities worldwide. JFK's vision of service and solidarity offers a better template than today's divisive leadership. As Kennedy said: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

We stand at a crossroads. Will we allow anger and blame to drive us toward chaos, or can we channel youth energy toward positive change? The time for thoughtful leadership is now—to heal divides, stop corruption, and inspire our youth to rebuild rather than destroy. Join us in this critical conversation about our collective future.

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Music, music, music. This is Henry R Greenfield for the Greenfield Report, with a look back and a look forward on Charlie Kirk, what he built, his legacy and why he is meaningful for certain youth around the world, and how this fits or not with the global youth movement, where the young are clearly getting restless. Charlie Kirk's movement, turning Point Action, represents one side of the global movement by youth who are tired of what has been happening in their societies and are moving clearly to the right. You can see this also among older people, in the anti-immigration marches in London this week and other places in Europe and also in Australia. The opposite side is represented by the self-proclaimed Gen Z riots in Nepal, where hundreds of thousands of youths around the country took to the streets to protest against corruption and demanding a seat at the table. Ostensibly, this started, however, and is still focused on the same subjects that Kirk's movement had, but the other side of the coin, which is more migration, not less. This is a key for us to understand. There are two complete opposite sides of exactly what Kirk was talking about.

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France has demonstrations all week, by the way, at the major university campuses, again this time by the left wing, focusing on their demand for more benefits, pro-palestine, anti-israel, more immigration and, in general, the usual French left being angry and wanting more. This is a time-honored activity by the French, as the previous week, in the exact same spot here in Montpellier, the students were drinking beer and wine on the first Friday night of the new school year, all looking to score one way or the other. By the following week for one night only, mind you they had Don Masks shouting for the downfall of the government, which they got by the way in a new prime minister emerged I think this is about a half dozen now under President Macron, who cannot seem to hold the government together with his ever-diminishing center-right coalition, even though this represents, in total, a majority of the people in France who want nothing to do with the socialist left or the marine Le Pen right. All around the world, the left is demanding more, while the right is now doing the same and everyone is claiming they represent the majority. And, of course, the future. To make it an even more chaotic week, at the same time, russia flew drones over Poland, which forced NATO to scramble planes and shoot them down, and, by the end of the week, romania, yet another member of the increasingly toothless NATO which, until Trump arrived, was touted as the most powerful alliance in the history of the world, said the same had happened to them.

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President Trump's response he blamed Europe for not cutting off Russian oil 100%, the greatest offenders of which are his best friend Trump's term, not mine describing Viktor Orban in Hungary and his other great autocrat friend, erdogan of Turkey, both of whom have kept a hold on power by offering lower gas and energy prices courtesy of their benefactor, putin and Russia, all the while criticizing, especially Orban, criticizing Europe. In fact. Orban, like Trump, blamed the drone attack on poland, uh, nato, no less, which is the most reluctant member of erdogan, chose caution and silent complicity, deciding, I guess, that not poking the russian bear or the united states and trump was the best approach. Sometimes, doing nothing may be better than something bad. Orban, on the other hand, thumbed his nose at the EU and Brussels, daring them, like Putin and Trump, to do something about it. And of course, they did nothing. But you got it, as the Europeans always do they talked, they planned, they got on the phone, they shook their fists mightily and went back to being the ineffective bureaucrats afraid of their own shadows, which they seem to have transferred on to NATO to make Europe and the Europeans totally inept at solving anything.

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Into this mix was the murder of Charlie Kirk, leader of millions of followers or 800 TPA branches at US university campuses, of $100 million in revenues, of the man who put Trump, as he said, back into the presidency by cutting into the youth vote away from Kamala Harris. Enough to swing the swingiest states like Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Arizona, all of which went for Trump after going for Biden just four years before. So who was this Charlie Curt? Dunn in by A radical leftist, as Trump said, or transgender? No, it was by a young, straight, white male Mormon from what would be termed in the US as a very good, solid family, where he'd been taught to use guns, especially high-powered rifles, from a very early age. In short, he was, in effect, trained and ready to take someone out. In this case, he chose Kirk, who he didn't like for some reason, as he was too extreme even for some conservatives.

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What to make of all this? Is this just the usual chaos that we see happening all the time among youth, going one way or the other, or both? Is it the start of a revolution, as the right in the United States and Trump are constantly proclaiming which I'm not sure why, as surely they get it that if there was really blood in the streets of the United States, then it would be the end of the US as the globally dominant country, a status that it has endured for almost a century. Sometimes you have to wonder is that what Trump really wants? Because if he gets it, it only means that China will become the dominant global country and, trust me, if it goes that way, you can expect a couple of thousand years of Chinese dominance, as they have every tool at their disposal, ranging from an absolute total control on the population a massive population, by the way, a well-educated population, now better educated than the United States at this point millions of scientists and engineers and untold wealth pouring in from around the globe, as they still sell everything to everyone all at once as the world's global manufacturing base. Is that what Trump really wants? As if he pushes it much further and once it starts with riots in the streets, there's no telling where it will end and history shows it cannot be controlled. Just look at Nepal in the past week Prime Minister's leaving Parliament, burning, scores dead, and the military is apparently going to be partnering with the Gen Z rioters.

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While this report is not about China, do you not think it is bizarre that every time we have a Republican president, since Bush Sr, the US cedes more and more to China? Under the two Bushes, millions and millions of jobs were outsourced to China, trillions invested by the USA, europe, australia, japan, korea, canada, the UK and others into China, new technology now being developed by the Chinese, by Apple and countless others, engineers coming from there. And now, under Trump 2.0, we are seeing China proclaim itself the leader of the world and, trust me, trump is doing less than zero to stop that. Why is the question? Why is Trump so impotent and why are his minions still proclaiming him the greatest American president and one of the greatest leaders in the history of the world? Can they not see the obvious?

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And what if Trump gets his revolt so that he can crush the Democrats and progressive? Does he think he can really win? Is that what Trump wants? To be run out of town on a rail by Raisin Cane, who might have to then cooperate with Gen Z on the left or Gen Z on the right in order to maintain and not have chaos in the United States so long before somebody actually throws in a match and it all starts to burn, which then you will not be able to stop. Mr Trump, once started, you will be one of the first to grow Trust me, that's what history says and you will not be spared.

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Youth will have showed again and again their complete idiocy, I'm sorry to say, of not knowing when to stop. Certainly they will not be listening to you, mr Trump, as some old guy who really means nothing to them, and they're more passionate and wild, uncontrollable members Once they get going. Well, let's just say there are a lot of angry people out there and the young have the least, in their view, to lose. Well, what are these youth movements all around the world? What are they about and what do they mean? And which one is on the ascendancy, or are they both going up, or are they both going down? And what about the average person who simply wants to get up and go to work and tries to feed their family, educate their children and, if possible, improve their lives?

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You could break this into a complex set of issues, ranging from traditional values versus DEI or woke, or racism or religious extremes, be they Christian nationalism or Islamic jihad, or even the current view that we see in Israel, of the extreme Zionism, or you could look at the way the young look at it, and it all revolves around a single massive issue that Trump has been talking about for 50 years, that's right immigration. The left and youth on the left want more, and the youth on the right, and their parents in particular, want way, way less, as in zero or below zero, which is Trump's goal, and remove them back to their countries by the hundreds of thousands and the millions. Before you disparage the thought of the left-wing use versus the right-wing use, then possibly joining together to get us all, there is a model that was working quite nicely 50 years ago, that was gradually eroded, then abandoned, and now someone needs to find a solution that actually works, as going back to the 60s and the 70s isn't going to happen. Folks, you cannot put that genie back in the bottle unless you want wholesale violence and destruction, as, again, the youth have, in their view, nothing to lose except everything that they don't have, and they are not going to give in or give up, as, by definition, youths are unstable and you never know which way they are going to go. So what is the solution to this potential madness? There is a way, a brilliant way, in fact, and it was working until the forces of greed took over and empathy and development fell apart. Sorry, elon Musk, you are completely wrong on having too much empathy in the West, but you are right in the fact that empathy is not enough.

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The 1950s and 60s and through the 70s were, in fact, actually a golden age, not because things were so great. It was because they were getting better across the globe. Step by step, countries were being introduced to freedom and democracies. The United Nations was working. The global institutions were working. People were being lifted out of poverty in the hundreds of millions. People were being lifted out of poverty in the hundreds of millions, and then they left the genie out of the bottle.

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Let's take shortcuts. Let's outsource millions of jobs. Instead of fixing our climate and pollution issues in the West, let's export them. Let's take hundreds of millions out of poverty instantly and put hundreds of millions into poverty in our own Western democracies by taking away their livelihood. Let's open our borders to what has amounted to uncontrolled migration and just let in workers, because we no longer want to be producers, we want to be consumers. Let's have the global financialization of the world, especially the United States and tell everyone it will be all right if you just own more stocks and shares and jump on and privatize everything because you should make more and more and more money. Let's drop our values of what's call it what it really is in places like Australia a fair go or equal opportunity in the United States and let's just let in whoever they are and tell them to work for cheap or don't get integrated into our society because we want multiculturalism.

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Let's stop trying to democratize the world and just let them go at it with each other and blame us and send tens of millions to the West, because we can't figure out how to run our own countries, and it's all your fault. But now we don't give a damn because China is here. Out how to run our own countries, and it's all your fault, but now we don't give a damn because China is here and to give our elites what we want, and we will buy more and more from China and pollute the hell out of our countries instead of fixing them, until we can hardly climb over the dirt and plastic and slime that is now in our so-called foods. And that is the truth. Folks, especially in the developing world, let us not do this anymore, because the youth are confused, they are angry and, trust me, they will take you and me and everything down if we don't stop it now.

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Trump and Putin and Xi Jinping and Orban and the Saudi princes and emirs and the Ayatollahs in Iran are the exact wrong sorts of leaders to lead their countries, because they don't give a damn about their people. It is all about their power. We need thoughtful leaders, step-by-step leaders, not Greta Thunberg sailing around the world in a bizarre quest to I don't know what she's trying to do or Charlie Kirk attacking groups he doesn't like and then getting Trump to say how fabulous he is. Neither side is completely wrong, but they have no answers. They have no call to action other than going back to something that no longer exists, and rarely do they talk about helping each other. Let us state it for the record the Gen Z of Nepal rioted because they wanted out. They want to go to Australia, where Nepalese have increased from practically zero to 300,000 people in 25 years.

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That will not work. That cannot go on endlessly. The same for the millions coming up from Central and South America and anywhere else into the United States. Yes, those millions. That will not work. Charlie Kirk's anger and let's go back home, back to some kind of mythical perfect white America. That will not work. Trump's anger and blaming everyone else that definitely will not work. And, by the way, Michelle Obama, let's go high when they go low. That won't work because it is not a solution, it is a surrender. What works is let us rebuild, rebuild our institutions, let us stop migration and slow it down to a trickle, because mass migration doesn't work either. It simply takes the youngest, the best, the brightest away and leaves the old, the sick and the poor behind to be exploited. We have to change the paradigm, we have to accept the blame, we have to change and stand up and say enough is enough and begin to rebuild, including those millions of villages around the world. We have to say no more to shine and all the other cheap brands and cheap junk that comes into the US and everywhere else that we are and we feel that we use a t-shirt once and just throw it away because we can't. Well, we cannot.

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I will close by saying the obvious answer to all of the demigods the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and what he did. The best parts of JFK, not his stumbling in Vietnam or his alleged liaisons with women like Marilyn Monroe. No, two things he said, and one that was later said about the real Robert F Kennedy, and not the pretender's son who was hell-bent on destruction, going along with Trump. Jfk said ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country and, I would add, for the world, which inspired the Peace Corps which I served in, as did countless others. He also said Ich bin ein Berliner. I am a Berliner, I am with you, to the people of Berlin, surrounded by the Soviet Empire, and to all those who are surrounded, including Ukraine. We are with you, we must be with you.

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And what was said about RFK by his brother, teddy Kennedy, which should be our goal as modern human beings to bring people together, to find solutions and to end the stupidity and greed that is consuming the world. I'm not being Pollyannish, I'm being honest and truthful. Teddy Kennedy said my brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man who sung wrong and tried to write it. He saw suffering and tried to heal it. He saw war and tried to stop it. This should be our goals to heal it. He saw war and tried to stop it.

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This should be our goals to heal, to stop the blame, to stop the corruption, to inspire our youth to not be angry but to begin to use their energy to redevelop the world and, with it, save themselves, the planet and us to not spend any more time mindlessly on games or game playing or in endless amounts of sports or gambling or drinking or drugs. If we do not, and if we continue to allow the lies, the outright corruption to be lauded and the rule of the world, the greed, to proliferate without saying anything, then we will be complicit and it will not end well for anyone, including us. Our children and grandchildren and their future will be compromised and perhaps crumble without our input and guidance and their energy and their strength. Together we can do this and end the madness that we are descending into, taking responsibility, not blame, and do this now, as the longer we wait, the worse it will become. Thank you for joining us on the Greenfield Report with Henry R Greenfield © transcript Emily Beynon.