By Ryan “Dickie” Thompson | Disruptarian Radio
There’s a debate floating around right now that says more about our political climate than most people want to admit. Dave Rubin, a gay conservative and host of the Rubin Report, sat across from Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks and held up a mirror to the radical left. The subject? Words. Not just any words, but the loaded rhetoric the left has been using for years. Words they claim are harmless “commentary” but which in practice whip people into hate, division, and sometimes outright violence.
And in this case, the violence wasn’t hypothetical. It was deadly.
A Debate That Exposed the Game
In their exchange (video linked here), Rubin played for Uygur a clip of him mocking Charlie Kirk in cartoon form—depicting Kirk as if he were seeking martyrdom. The problem? Charlie Kirk had just been murdered in cold blood. His wife lost a husband. His children lost a father. And here was Cenk Uygur, caught on tape trivializing the possibility of his death.
When Rubin pressed him—“Do you think Charlie wanted to be martyred? Do you think he wanted to be killed?”—Uygur tried to wriggle out, claiming it was “out of context.” But the words were there, plain as day.
The radical left’s defense always goes the same way:
- “It’s just words.”
- “We’re just making commentary.”
- “You’re taking it out of context.”
But words matter. Words have consequences.
And when you keep labeling political opponents as Nazis, white supremacists, or existential threats to society, eventually someone decides the only solution is violence.
Mainstream Media: An Echo Chamber of Smears
This is not just about The Young Turks. What Rubin exposed with Uygur is the same thing we’ve seen from the broader mainstream media for years. Turn on CNN, MSNBC, or scroll through Twitter (X) and you’ll find a steady stream of the same poison:
- Trump “emboldens Nazis.”
- Conservatives “hate women.”
- MAGA Republicans are “a threat to democracy.” (Biden said this directly in a 2022 speech in Philadelphia.)
- Skeptics of COVID lockdowns were “grandma killers.”
- Anyone questioning gender ideology was “erasing trans lives.”
It’s relentless. And repetition matters. Say something enough times, and the fringes of your audience start to believe it as literal truth.
It reminds me of the old saying: “If you call your neighbor a Nazi every day, don’t be surprised when someone finally treats him like one.”
What happened to Charlie Kirk isn’t disconnected from the words pumped out by corporate media. It’s the natural byproduct. When you create a culture where dissent is equated with evil, people are conditioned to believe that destroying the “evil” is not just acceptable—it’s righteous.
Words as Weapons
Here’s the real danger: the radical left understands the power of language, and they wield it deliberately. Words aren’t used to persuade. They’re used to stigmatize, to isolate, and to paint a target on whoever disagrees.
Call someone a “fascist” enough times, and you don’t have to debate them. You just silence them. Call someone a “bigot” enough times, and you don’t have to answer their points. You just dismiss them. Call “misinformation” the same as terrorism—as the Biden administration and DHS have done—and suddenly free speech itself is treated as a national security threat.
Silencing speech is like putting duct tape over a smoke alarm. The fire still burns, but now no one hears the warning.
The radicals in media and politics know this. And they play this game daily.
The Asymmetry Rubin Pointed Out
Rubin’s most important point during the debate wasn’t just about Cenk’s hypocrisy. It was about the asymmetry in our political discourse.
Sure, there’s ugly rhetoric on both sides of the aisle. But the radical left has the monopoly of institutional power. They have:
- Corporate media repeating their narratives.
- Universities enforcing their language codes.
- Big Tech platforms censoring dissent.
- Hollywood glamorizing their causes.
- Politicians framing opponents as existential threats.
When the left calls someone a Nazi, it doesn’t stay on a fringe blog. It gets amplified by CNN, plastered across social media, and endorsed by blue-check elites. The result? Regular people—people who might otherwise be decent—get convinced they’re fighting monsters.
And once you’ve convinced someone they’re in a war against monsters, almost anything becomes justifiable.
Manufacturing Extremism
The irony is thick. The left constantly warns of “radicalization” online, but they never look in the mirror. They blame right-wing commentators, Fox News, or “misinformation,” but they never question their own role in creating extremists.
Look at the shooter who killed Charlie Kirk. Early reports described him as coming from a stable household, going to college, seemingly normal. Something radicalized him. Something pushed him from everyday student to political killer.
We don’t know every detail of his path, but we know what kind of climate he was swimming in: a climate where his target was constantly smeared as racist, misogynist, dangerous.
Radicalization doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in a culture where “the other side” is dehumanized. And dehumanization is exactly what the radical left has been peddling through its language.
The Double Standard Game
Here’s the part that drives people nuts: the double standard.
When a conservative commentator says something heated, it’s immediately labeled as “incitement.” When a Republican politician uses harsh language, the media calls it “dangerous.”
But when someone on the left fantasizes about punching, silencing, or erasing their opponents, suddenly it’s “just commentary” or “satire.”
You know what? If words don’t matter, then why ban conservatives from Twitter? If words don’t matter, why do we have entire university bureaucracies policing “hate speech”?
The truth is, words do matter. The left just doesn’t like accountability for how their words are weaponized.
History Already Told Us This
There’s nothing new about weaponized language. History is littered with examples of how demonizing rhetoric leads to real-world consequences.
- In the French Revolution, political enemies were smeared as “enemies of the people”—and then they lost their heads.
- In Rwanda, radio hosts referred to the Tutsis as “cockroaches”—and the machetes soon followed.
- In Soviet Russia, dissenters were branded as “enemies of the state”—and sent to the gulags.
When you strip opponents of their humanity with words, violence is just a step away.
That’s why this debate matters. Because we’re seeing the same playbook unfold in America today.
Breaking the Cycle
So what do we do? It’s not enough to point out hypocrisy. We have to change the culture of language itself.
That doesn’t mean censoring the left in retaliation. Censorship is never the solution. It means calling out the manipulation when we see it and refusing to play their game.
- Don’t let them redefine disagreement as “hate.”
- Don’t let them get away with false smears.
- Don’t let them set the language of the debate.
Liberty thrives on open, honest debate. Tyranny thrives on controlling the dictionary.
If you let one side dictate which words are acceptable, you’ve already lost.
Why This Matters Now
The Rubin–Uygur clash wasn’t just a spat between two talking heads. It was a glimpse into the broader battle over speech and truth. On one side, you have those who believe words should be tools for open debate. On the other, you have those who weaponize words to destroy their opponents.
The cost is no longer theoretical. A man is dead. A family is broken. And yet the radical left still shrugs, pretending their hands are clean.
But you and I both know the truth. Words build culture. And when the culture you build is based on demonization, division, and hate, eventually someone pulls a trigger.
That’s why we need to expose this. That’s why we need to challenge it. Because if we don’t, the next tragedy won’t surprise anyone.
Closing Thought
Electing new politicians won’t fix this. Swapping Cenk for some other loudmouth won’t fix this. The only real fix is cultural: stop letting elites weaponize language, stop letting corporate media control the narrative, and start reclaiming speech as a tool for truth instead of a weapon for division.
Until then, remember this: words are not harmless. In the wrong hands, they’re ammunition. And the radical left has been firing that ammunition for far too long.
Sources
- Dave Rubin vs. Cenk Uygur debate clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxn5_-J_HBA
- Biden: “MAGA Republicans are a threat to democracy” (Sept 2022 speech): https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/01/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-continued-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-nation/
- CNN on Trump and Charlottesville “very fine people” hoax: https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/15/politics/trump-charlottesville-comments/index.html
- Cenk Uygur inflammatory headlines (Young Turks): https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks
- NPR coverage of “disinformation as terrorism” framing: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/19/969208495/biden-administration-turns-attention-to-domestic-extremism
- DHS memo treating “misinformation” as domestic terror threat: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/02/07/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin
- NBC News on COVID skeptics labeled “grandma killers”: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-lockdown-protests-called-grandma-killer-events-n1190931
- CNN op-ed smearing parental rights activists as “extremists”: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/23/opinions/parents-rights-extremism-education-brown/index.html
- Historical reference: RTLM radio and Rwanda genocide: https://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/historical-background.shtml
- French Revolution “enemies of the people” rhetoric: https://www.history.com/topics/france/reign-of-terror
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