Turning
Point founder, Charlie Kirk. Photo:
Reuters
The
organization was founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk
and
Bill Montgomery. TPUSA's sister
organizations include Turning Point Endowment,
Turning Point Action, Students for Trump, and
Turning Point Faith. The group also works
closely with PragerU. According to The Chronicle
of Higher Education, TPUSA "is now the dominant
force in campus conservatism." The organization
is known for its Professor Watchlist, a site
that claims to expose professors that TPUSA says
"discriminate against conservative students and
advance leftist propaganda in the classroom".
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education,
TPUSA has attempted to influence student
government elections in an effort to "combat
liberalism on college and university campuses."
In 2021, TPUSA started the School Board
Watchlist website. It publishes the names and
photos of school board members who have adopted
mask mandates or anti-racist curricula. TPUSA
has been called an alt-lite organization by the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and has been
criticized by both the ADL and the Southern
Poverty Law Center for affiliating with
activists from the alt-right and the
far-right. The Anti-Defamation League has
also reported that the group's leadership and
activists "have made multiple racist or bigoted
comments" and have links to extremism. In 2018,
the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch
documented TPUSA's links to white supremacists.
In 2021, TPUSA and Turning Point Action made
misleading claims about planned vaccination
policies and the dangers of catching COVID-19.
"Tapping into what
Politico reported as widespread
dissatisfaction with the Republican National
Committee, Kirk’s shadow summit
joined conservative activists and media
figures with local GOP chairs and Republican
committee members for pro-Trump
organizing. This included efforts to
“secure” elections amid widespread
suggestions that Trump’s second term was
stolen from him, making the summit yet
another display of the everlasting influence
of 2020 election lies."
"Turning Point USA’s
Tyler Bowyer is asking the Republican
National Committee to formally acknowledge
that the fake elector plan was schemed up by
Republican leadership with Donald Trump’s
approval, and to “immediately indemnify” all
those who participated in what he calls the
“contingent elector plan.” “With all of the
problems ahead, we need to send a clear
signal that the RNC will defend those who
serve as electors against Democrat radicals
trying to criminalize civic engagement and
process,” Bowyer said, in a social media
post. “Civic engagement?” That’s what we’re
calling it now, when people sign legal
documents and send them to Congress, avowing
that they were “duly elected” to cast
Arizona’s electoral votes for the guy who
didn’t win?"
Feb. 2, 2024
Arizona State University
Police Dept.
security video of end of
TPUSA
crew (in black)
confrontation with LGBTQ
ASU
instructor (in white).
"ASUPD told the
Arizona Republic that security footage
shows two people following and filming
David Boyles, a writing instructor at
the university’s English department, on
ASU’s campus. Turning Point USA
posted a video to X, formerly known as
Twitter, of members confronting and
following Boyles—who attempts to ignore
them and walk away—repeatedly asking him
questions and accusing him of “being
attracted to minors,” having “fantasized
about minors” and wanting “to push
sodomy on young people.” [ . . . ]"ASUPD
reportedly said video footage shows one
of the two people eventually shoved
Boyles to the ground."
"Charlie Kirk’s $4.75
million Spanish-style estate is tucked away in a
gated Arizona country club that boasts a guest
casita, “resort-style” pool and striking views of
the Sonoran Desert. The Make America Great Again
political movement has been lucrative for Kirk, the
29-year-old CEO and co-founder of the conservative
youth organization Turning Point. The
nonprofit rocketed to prominence by latching on to
Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and has raised roughly
a quarter-billion dollars since. The organization
has also enriched Kirk and his allies, according to
an Associated Press review of public records, which
found top Turning Point officials collected pricey
salaries, enjoyed lavish perks and steered at least
$15.2 million to companies that they, their friends
and associates are affiliated with."
"Conservative podcaster
Charlie Kirk dedicated his Monday program to
opposing Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the
freeing of slaves in the United States. "So it's
Juneteenth," Kirk announced at the opening of his
show. "Very few people are willing to actually call
this out."
"It's about a certain skin color now gets their own
summertime celebration," he complained. "It is now
become a racial complaining day. Now we have a full
day to be able to smear and slander white America.""
The Turning Point family of
organizations, helmed by conservative personality
Charlie Kirk, invested heavily in the 2022 election
cycle in Arizona, aided by close to a half-million
in cash. But the effort was futile. Not one of their
statewide Arizona picks managed to pass the ultimate
hurdle and get elected to office. [...] Turning
Point blessings turned out to be a curse for
statewide Republican candidates.
"Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point
network worked to purge officials who affirmed the
2020 election results" [ . . . ] "The two men
huddled at a barbecue joint in January as the
activist —
Tyler Bowyer, the chief operating officer of the
pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA —
unspooled his demands: Republican legislators, he
insisted, should carve up booming and
fast-diversifying Maricopa County, diluting the
power of Democrats in a state that had helped
deliver Joe Biden the presidency."
"The Arizona Secretary of
State’s Office has started an initial inquiry into
whether get-out-the-vote rallies organized by
Turning Point Action, a tax-exempt organization
led by conservative personality Charlie Kirk,
violated campaign finance laws. Though the head of
Turning Point Action described the two rallies, held
on Saturdays in July at parks in Goodyear and Mesa,
as community events designed to educate, the
complaint suggests they were designed to promote
specific Republican candidates in the August primary
election. The complaint, released to The Republic on
Monday, was filed by Tyler Montague, a Republican
political consultant who heads a group called Public
Integrity Alliance. His initial complaint, filed on
June 23, mentioned a July 9 Goodyear rally whose
online promotion featured
Austin Smith, a Turning Point Action employee
who was also seeking a state House seat. “This
appears to be a possible illegal collaboration
between (Turning Point) and Smith,” the complaint
said."
"Tucker Carlson, Matt Gaetz,
Candace Owens, Donald Trump Jr., Sarah Palin. This
is only a small selection of the dozens of
right-wing pundits and provocateurs who converged
upon Phoenix this weekend for Turning Point USA’s
“AmericaFest” conference. Turning Point, which is
headquartered in Phoenix, is a national organization
that agitates conservative youth, particularly on
college campuses. Its four-day event kicked off
Saturday at the Phoenix Convention Center and will
continue through Tuesday, as a laundry list of
far-right figureheads takes the stage in turn."
"The powerful
conservative youth
group Turning Point
USA, which has
forged strong ties
to Donald Trump and
his son Don Trump Jr,
has raised tens of
millions of dollars
from super rich
donors and secret
backers while
pushing
disinformation about
Joe Biden’s win in
2020, Covid-19
vaccines and other
extremist and
rightwing issues."
Emerson students
erupted with
justified anger
after the recent
Turning Point U.S.A
Emerson tabling
event in the 2
Boylston Place
alleyway, when the
organization passed
out stickers reading
“China kinda sus” on
Sept. 30.
"Both the
Anti-Defamation
League and Southern
Poverty Law Center,
two national
organizations that
monitor hate groups
and extremism
nationally, have
documented numerous
cases of racism,
bigotry, and white
nationalism that
have infected TPUSA
for years. For
example, former
TPUSA Florida field
director and America
First Policy Advisor
Juan-Pablo Andrade
posted a video of
himself while
attending the
group's 2017 Student
Action Summit,
saying, “The only
thing the Nazis
didn’t get right is
they didn’t
keep...going!”"
"Facebook said
Thursday that it has
taken down hundreds
of fake accounts
created by a
marketing company
that worked with the
young conservative
group Turning Point
USA to invade the
comments sections of
mainstream
publishers and
denigrate Democratic
politicians.
Nathaniel Gleicher,
Facebook’s head of
cybersecurity
policy, said that
Rally Forge’s
“action on behalf of
[Turning Point USA]
was largely
politically focused,
directly around the
election.”
"When a young man walked
onto Kent State University’s
campus wearing a diaper on
Oct. 18 last year, some
might have imagined he lost
a bet and was paying the
price.
In
reality, it was a stunt
promoted by TPUSA — Turning
Point USA, a nonprofit
college conservative
organization. Members of the
organization wearing diapers
set up a “safe space” with
toys and even a baby gate at
Kent State to mock
progressive students’
demands for safe spaces.
It
backfired. The public mocked
TPUSA instead of the
“liberal snowflakes” they
had aimed to satirize.
This event sums up what
TPUSA and its founder,
Charlie Kirk, stand for:
attempting to trigger the
left, no matter the cost.
Kirk started TPUSA in 2012
with the mission to “educate
students about true free
market values.” The group
advertised itself as similar
to other notable college
conservative organizations
such as the Leadership
Institute and YAF, Young
America’s Foundation. TPUSA
was going to groom the next
generation of great
conservative leaders.
Yet over time it became
clear that TPUSA was more
interested in “owning the
libs” than persuading
college students to support
free markets and individual
rights. A leaked memo from
YAF’s vice president and
general counsel Kimberly
Begg aired Kirk’s dirty
laundry. It accuses Kirk of
focusing primarily “on
building his own brand, not
strengthening the
conservative movement.”
It’s easy to see why YAF
would accuse Kirk of only
being interested in
celebrity status. After all,
both Kirk and TPUSA
spokesperson Candace Owens
canceled a speaking event
for students at Virginia
Tech and Liberty University
at the last minute to hang
out with Kanye West.
After the diaper stunt
backfired, higher-ups in
TPUSA allegedly threw
Kaitlin Bennett, the former
president of Kent State’s
chapter, under the bus to
protect Kirk’s image.
Bennett resigned, but not
before penning a scathing
resignation letter claiming
TPUSA leadership lied about
not endorsing the event.
Other accusations include
Kirk overstating his
organization’s impact and
boosting TPUSA’s numbers
with white supremacists.
Several TPUSA members have
been caught making racist or
homophobic comments, as
documented by The Huffington
Post.
“I
HATE BLACK PEOPLE,” former
TPUSA national field
director Crystal Canton once
texted a fellow employee.
She was replaced with
Shialee Grooman, who also
posted racist and homophobic
tweets before quitting
Twitter."
In a May 25
memo released publicly by YAF on
June 14, Young
America Foundation attacks TPUSA and its founder, 24-year-old Charlie Kirk, on multiple
fronts, not least of all accusing TPUSA of “Boosting Numbers With Racists & Nazi Sympathizers.”
[...] TPUSA’s
flirtation with
racists and racism
is well documented.
In a December 2017
expose in The New
Yorker, reporter
Jane Mayer was
provided screenshots
of a text message
from TPUSA’s (now
former) national
field director,
Crystal Clanton,
that read, “i
hate black people.
Like f--- them all…
I hate blacks. End
of story.” [...]
In a hotel room that
Mediaite reports was
paid for by TPUSA,
Juan Pablo Andrade
was filmed
exclaiming, “The
only thing the Nazis
didn’t get right is
they didn’t keep
f------ going!”
"In its six years of
existence, Turning Point USA has repeatedly been
accused of engaging in half-truths and unethical
behavior — whether secretly funneling money to
student-government candidates or placing college
faculty members on a poorly researched (and arguably
McCarthyesque) Professor Watchlist."
"College
campuses have long
served as unique
places for the free
exchange of ideas --
but increasingly
they’ve also become
playgrounds for
ideologically
driven, right-wing
billionaires and the
dark-money groups
they fund."
