Growing up in Evanston, Illinois, a city that tends to vote around 90-95% democrat, conservative ideas were, to put it gently, non-existent. The narrative that your parents and teachers pushed was the reality; it was the truth. We were the good guys and those who disagreed with us were motivated by pure evil, or at the very least, completely uninformed.
Years later, moments still stand out, my parents waking me up early in the morning in 2016 with fear in their eyes. I had been up with them the night before, listening to them discuss the incoming results of the 2016 presidential election, gripping to their every word as state by state was called, Clinton for Illinois, Trump for Texas. Eventually I was ushered to bed, unknowing the outcome of what to 9-year-old me could be the end of the world. I rub my eyes to find my parents sitting next to each other on my bed, an unusual sight, they rest their hand on my chest in comfort as they tell me what had happened: Trump had won. I was on the verge of tears. I was scared, terrified for what was to happen, kids at school saying it would be the end of the world.
This was my reality growing up: we are the good guys, they are the bad, and why would I have any reason to doubt that? My teachers gave indications and interjections in class that tell me they agree, the people on the TV shows and videos my mom would watch also seemed to agree, this must be the truth then. Entering high school, things began to change, I began to get curious. Why is overturning Roe V. Wade bad? Why would you never vote for Trump? How do Republicans just seem to have it all so wrong?
These questions led to suspicion of the narrative I was being fed, which in turn, led to many more questions. I was so curious about the world around me, and I truly felt like I was only being told half of the story.
And then it happened, on Sep. 8th 2024, Jubilee, the online entertainment channel, released a new video: “1 Conservative vs 25 Liberal College Students.” Curiosity got the best of me, and I began to delve into the over 90-minute video. I quickly became addicted. Not only was the format of constant action and drama captivating, but I was being introduced to a side of the political spectrum that had only previously been demonstrated as a construct of what is wrong and what is evil. From cultural issues to political candidates, Kirk seemingly defended his conservative ideals against the vicious attacks of 25 heated liberal college students in a way that was intellectual and academic, using means far from the racist and biblically based tactics I was told to believe was the basis for conservatism.
Ok cool, that’s my story of how I became a conservative, and while I find it important to share to shed light on an experience I know many of my fellow peers can relate with, why am I starting this club at Connecticut College? Turning Point USA? Charlie Kirk? Didn’t he say that radical line about abortion that one time? Or didn’t he say that gun deaths were the unfortunate cost of the 2nd amendment only to be shot in the neck (by a fully legally purchased rifle)? While these are true, I would like to take this opportunity to explain the aspirations for our club, and their far reach beyond the clips you may have seen on TikTok of its founder. Turning Point is built on 3 pillars: free speech, free market, and limited government, with recent shifts in the organization promoting faith in Christ as the foundation behind the institution.
Two of these pillars remain relatively self-explanatory: free markets endorse the capitalist system which our ultra-successful economy is based on, and limited government advocates for reducing the existing government bureaucracy back down to a controlled and intentional level. While both are still massive ideas, filled with claims that require intellectual and academic substantiation, our chapter’s focus will revolve around the first pillar, the free speech that Charlie Kirk fought tooth and nail to uphold every day of his career.
Free speech sounds like a simple concept, creating an environment where the unrestricted marketplace of ideas can be discussed, absent government intervention, and even while certain administrations attempt to attack this constitutional right, our club’s main purpose will serve to encourage such polarizing conversations to occur in the first place. Political polarization is very much real, and very much happening. The less we talk to each other, the more it flourishes. Our club exists to combat this, and to fight back in a time when the Overton Window of modern academia, the range of socially acceptable ideas at any given moment, has been displaced so thoroughly that entire categories of overwhelmingly conservative argument, pertaining to the sovereignty of borders, the costs of administrative expansion, the relationship between economic freedom and political liberty, have been rendered not merely contestable but embarrassing within the institutions that confer intellectual respectability, the articulation of those arguments passes to whoever is willing to bear the social cost of articulating them without the blessing of those institutions.
Kirk was willing. That his manner of articulation does not satisfy the aesthetic requirements of academic discourse is a consequence of the same displacement that made his articulation necessary; one does not produce a Frankfurt School by excluding from legitimate intellectual life the tradition that would have generated one. Turning Point USA exists at Conn, at this institution and at institutions like it, as the organizational form of a refusal: a refusal to accept that the positions it advances are unsayable, and an insistence that the Overton Window, having been moved by institutional means, may by institutional means be moved again. Whether one finds the organization’s program adequate to the depth of the problem it has diagnosed is a separate question, and a serious one. That the problem is real, and that the institution housing this publication has declined to engage it, is not.
“that his manner of articulation does not satisfy the aesthetic requirements of academic discourse is a consequence of the same displacement that made his articulation necessary” is a bold statement for an article about becoming a conservative because of a *jubilee video* in which kirk is not winning arguments, not even to mention that jubilee is some of the most low-brow political slop content on the internet. we don’t hate you because we hate free speech, we think you’re ridiculous because this apparent pinnacle of your college career is forming an organization solely out of a reactionary need to ‘stick it to us liberals’ by creating a chapter of one of the most anti-intellectual, anti-college organizations in this country. if you wanted to feel ‘in control of the narrative,’ you should’ve gone to liberty. we don’t care about you.
Congratulations to Emmit Wilson for doing this. If I was still at Conn I would happily sign on to be the advisor. I’m not at all surprised that Andrew Pessin agreed, knowing him as I do. The above comment by a person (“an editor”) who does not even have the courage to use their own name, is typical: ad hominem attacks on the author. I, myself, while at Conn had the audacity to engage in a running, and respectful debate on climate with a student within the pages of the Voice. As I was taking a position opposite that of liberal dogma, there were soon calls from students, faculty, and even alums, to the president to have me fired for voicing an opinion they did not want to hear. As Prof Pessin would agree, thank goodness for tenure. Conn is an echo chamber where contrary views are not be confronted and debated, but viciously suppressed.
Michael Monce, prof. emeritus, physics
DSM-5 301.81 (F60.81)
The grammar of this article hurts my head
*hurts my neck
That’s… that’s it? That’s your emotionally scarring backstory? That’s your great tragedy? The privilege you must have as a white male to not feel triggered by the damage Turning Point USA causes is staggering. “Why is overturning Roe v. Wade bad?” Seriously, do you not see how harmful it is to frame that as just another intellectual curiosity? Spaces like this, that actively normalize extreme, harmful ideologies under the guise of “free speech” or “debate,” should have no place at Connecticut College. This is a campus that is supposed to encourage critical thinking, empathy, and accountability, not provide a platform for cherry-picked narratives that ignore the real consequences of policies that harm marginalized people.
It’s sad that you can still believe all this stuff after seeing the world beyond your bubble. It’s sad that the very real suffering caused by these policies, from restricting reproductive rights to promoting economic inequality, is reduced to abstract talking points or “polarizing conversations” for your entertainment and intellectual curiosity. It’s disappointing that instead of acknowledging the harm, your post romanticizes a movement that often silences, erases, and invalidates the experiences of those who are not white, male, or privileged. Connecticut College should be a place where ideas are challenged, yes, but not a place where harmful ideologies are uncritically celebrated as intellectual bravery. Reading this, it’s hard not to feel frustrated that you still see Turning Point USA as a vehicle for genuine discourse rather than a platform that actively damages communities.
Quite frankly I find it disgusting that this is the way you went about bringing your political differences to a liberal arts school. Trying to be a polarizing person by doing this because your insecurities in yourself have led you to idolize a man you have only watched “jubilee videos” of is extremely telling. Even if you disagree with the general consensus of the far left view of the school, why not start a republican club? Why does it need to be surrounded by a man who was given the priviledge to receive an education and chose to deny it and argue with college students for fun? The basis of anyone’s political ideologies should not be reliant on one person’s opinions – be intellectual enough to form your own.
TRANSLATION: WAHHHHHHH WAHHHHHHH WAAHHHHHHHHH WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH IM A LITTLE CRY BABY WAHHHHHHHHH WAHHHHHH WAHHHHHHH I HATE MINORITIES BECAUSE OF A JUBILEE VIDEO WAHHHHH
The critics of this article are fascinating. All insults and rhetoric. The platitudes of the left are frivolous. One young man wrote an article exercising his inalienable right to free speech and the self righteous and easily offended and outraged. Good article.
If you look up the definition of ostentatious they just show you this comment
There was another article published that holds the same view as you. only article on this topic that wasn’t promoted…
“ From cultural issues to political candidates, Kirk seemingly defended his conservative ideals against the vicious attacks of 25 heated liberal college students in a way that was intellectual and academic, using means far from the racist and biblically based tactics I was told to believe was the basis for conservatism.”
He said he wouldn’t go on a plane if it was a black pilot.
Also “vicious attacks” from college kids? Please, please grow up.
The problem with the two party system is that americans don’t form the political imagination to think beyond liberal and conservative, let alone capitalism, unless they actively seek it out. Liberal arts institutions like conn are supposed to help students build that political imagination. Try a gender studies class if you really want an alternative perspective.
pedophile protector
this isint something to be proud of. the video that conservative-ized you is the same one where kirk said he would force his daughter to birth her rapists baby. TPUSA and kirk are utterly disgusting and violent and no honor should be given to them. your club should be removed from campus for the hate and racism its legacy carries behind it. it has no place at conn