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The Destruction of Democracy to Christianize America / Matthew Boedy

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If you think about what Charlie Kirk did on these campus events, he prepared for weeks and months. Like he would do white board sessions and do mock debate sessions and would anticipate questions. And he had all this staff and research to do this. And then you bring the unprepared college student who happens to see it at lunch and wants to walk down and ask a question. And he just traps them in their own questions or interrupts them and frames his answer so he can get to the next question. It is not a debate because he never loses. He was one of the originators of this ‘Prove Me Wrong’. He was never ‘proven wrong’, right? He might cede a point here and there to get to his larger thing that he wants to say. But it is a debate style about victory and winning. And about showing that you win. While he personally was perhaps civil talking to someone on a microphone, Turning Point was recording all this and then putting it up on their YouTube page with the headline ‘Charlie Kirk burns another student’ or ‘Charlie Kirk embarrasses another lib’. One of the things he says at these rallies, especially the one in Utah in which he was killed, ‘bring the best libs that this place has to offer’. Because he wants them to come up front and he’ll invite them to the microphone first just to in some manners embarrass them. I don’t think that is healthy democracy, I think that is a younger version of Donald Trump.

Matthew Boedy, author of “Speaking of Evil”, comes to This Is Hell!! to talk about his new book "The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy" published by Westminster John Knox Press. Matthew was targeted by Turning Point USA in 2016 and listed on its “professor watchlist” after speaking up against allowing concealed guns on college campuses. As one of the foremost experts on Turning Point USA and its founder and CEO Charlie Kirk, Boedy exposes their role in perpetuating Christian nationalism in the United States and the threat to democracy they pose. He currently teaches rhetoric and composition courses at the University of North Georgia.

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Matthew boedy
Guest

Matthew Boedy

Matthew Boedy is a leading expert on the right-wing political activities of Turning Point USA and its founder Charlie Kirk. Boedy’s first book, Speaking of Evil, explored the evolving rhetoric surrounding evil. Boedy currently teaches rhetoric and composition courses at the University of North Georgia. His latest book, The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy comes out in September 2025 from Westminster John Knox Press.