Courtesy of Sean Elliot
Out of the countless organizations that made their pitch to students at the Club Fair this month, it’s easy to get the sense that one particular group left its mark more than any other. Draped in matching shirts and hats evoking the memory of its deceased founder, Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA Club (TPUSA) at Connecticut College took a more direct approach to meeting students, turning into members of the crowd as they swarmed around those who opted to strike up a conversation.
I will concede, I did not feel compelled to take time out of my day to listen to them, but the reaction of students made it clear that what they said was hardly popular. Cynical dismissal was the most common reaction on social media in the days following, while an article penned by its founder last year received incessant mockery and anger from many students. With how much of a joke the Kirks have become in the year since Charlie’s murder occurred, it’s easy to dismiss a club centered around him as either idol worship or harmless grandstanding. Doing so, however, would ignore the very real damage TPUSA still causes in America by weaponizing the killing of Kirk and how these actions feed into the inherent hypocrisy of the group as a whole.
In the aforementioned article “Why I Started a Turning Point USA Chapter,” Emmitt Wilson ‘29 outlines the three tenets of the group he has pledged allegiance to—free market, limited government, and free speech. While much can be said about the nature of the free market and whether it is truly as “ultra-successful” as TPUSA claims, that goes far beyond the scope of an isolated college campus with a few thousand students.
The latter two beliefs, however, are far more salient to TPUSA’s effect on the campus and beyond. The idea of limited government by returning authority to states and organizations beyond the federal government is at the core of many conservative movements, TPUSA included. Yet, the second term of Donald Trump’s presidency and its wide-reaching attempts to cancel out liberal policies at the state level have both been supported by TPUSA.
Just this month, for instance, a bill in the House was passed with largely Republican support that would strip all funding from colleges that institutionally oppose Israel, a country that Turning Point has gone to bat for numerous times. This is blatant meddling in the idea that colleges do not have to be in ideological agreement with the federal government in order to be legitimate. Under this law, the federal government has full authority to penalize groups making a business decision and impose its legal will on private entities to make the federal government’s position universal—a nightmare scenario for conservatives if the shoe were on the other foot.
One would think that a group so focused on keeping the government out of civilian affairs would not want that government interfering in the kinds of business it is under Donald Trump, but the reality is that these groups only care if they are the ones being silenced. The free speech they claim to advocate for is merely a facade, one which fully slipped in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Once the shock from the graphic assassination video had worn off for much of the general public, tributes from across the political spectrum began to pour in. Still, many Americans did not shed a tear for the fallen pundit and made their thoughts known on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many others. Despite the fact that Kirk himself defended political violence in the aftermath of a hammer attack on Paul Pelosi by a far-right assailant, many followers of TPUSA began a widespread witch hunt against anyone who dared speak ill of their beloved leader. These efforts were bolstered by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who encouraged followers to report any person badmouthing Kirk to their employers in an attempt to get them fired. The Department of State similarly promised to monitor any foreigners who made light of Kirk’s death.
This is perhaps the clearest instance of a First Amendment rights violation since the suspension of habeas corpus during WWI, with the federal government literally monitoring and demanding that people who speak their opinion suffer consequences for it. According to Reuters, nearly 5,000 Americans and 600 who were employed by the government lost their jobs for acts as simple as posting quotes from Charlie Kirk about his beliefs on the Second Amendment or saying that they did not believe he was a “wonderful person.” Fortunately, many of these people were able to get their jobs back along with sizable cash payouts in lawsuits, but the fact still stands that anyone who wants to speak their mind risks harm to their livelihood if it goes against something TPUSA believes in.
It is simply unquestionable at this point that Turning Point USA at Conn College upholds utter lies and misinformation meant to cast themselves as the victims of an unforgiving leftist ‘cancel culture’ when, in reality, they do the canceling more often than not. Taking an unpopular stand against a general consensus and thinking for yourself, the very sort of thing TPUSA claims to be in firm support of, was directly punished by Turning Point’s own acolytes. As the government has morphed into an agency of terror against its citizens using both violence and censorship, TPUSA has remained deafeningly silent as the freedom they hold so dear is snatched from immigrants, LGBT+ people, racial minorities, and those who stand in opposition to the Trump administration.
Turning Point’s hate-filled rhetoric simply cannot coexist alongside a campus of diverse faces and voices that make up Connecticut College. Ultimately, I hope that those in the club can take a look around them, see the kind, open-minded, and intelligent student body for what it is, and come to realize that their fellow man is far from the person Turning Point USA tells them they are.
