Charlie Kirk’s Murder: Who Normalized Political Violence?

Podcast audio:

In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Onkar Ghate and Nikos Sotirakopoulos discuss the causes of America’s growing wave of political violence, which recently claimed Charlie Kirk as its latest victim.

Among the topics covered:

• The current state of political violence in America;
• How 9/11 and the BLM protests accelerated political violence;
• How Western intellectuals pushed the speech-as-violence equation into the mainstream;
• How tribal fear-mongering fuels political violence;
• Whether unqualified “civility” is the right standard for engaging someone rationally;
• Why we must have zero tolerance for any recourse to force.

The podcast was recorded and posted on September 12, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.