Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was the opening speaker Saturday at America Fest 2022. He opened his speech by talking about TP USA, noting it goes into places where there are “not a lot of conservatives.”
“At Turning Point USA, we play offense with a sense of urgency to go to places that we are in the ideological and philosophical minority,” he said. “We’re not always welcome at these college campuses, but we are going to win when we go to places that we are not welcome and go there anyway.”
This happened just days ago when Kirk attended the University of New Mexico for a presentation. He called it a “mostly peaceful” visit before showing videos of leftist “terrorists” who tried to shut down the event because they were bothered about an event featuring free speech, the constitution and conservative ideas.
After showing the video of the ugly insults hurled by the leftists, Kirk said he is confident our side will win, but warned it will require courage and boldness to go to places even when the opposition deploys its paid activists.
He credited TP USA activists who go to class every day and are spit on and called names, but keep showing up.
The “totalitarian Left” is set to destroy distinctions, Kirk said. Those distinctions include distinctions between God and man, man and woman and good and evil.
“They want to blur the lines that allow us to live in a free and stable society,” he said.
Meanwhile, conservatives want a country where kids love America again and are taught about Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Jay, the constitution, the Federalist Papers and Abraham Lincoln.
“Our vision for America – it’s hard to believe I even have to say this – we want a country where kids can be kids again,” Kirk said. “We want a country where kids are safe from groomer teachers and predators who are trying to put prescriptive pharmaceuticals into their bodies that will do irreversible damage. We want kids to be kids again in America.”
Conservatives want a country where puberty isn’t treated like an “illness,” he said, that needs irreversible medical surgery. He said the innocence of children should be preserved and protected.
“There is no debate about pedophilia, period, end of story,” Kirk said. “We want to live in a country where that’s a non-negotiable. Our vision is that we want to value wisdom, eternal principles, prudence and common sense more than someone who has a Ph. D in North African Lesbian Poetry. I believe there is more wisdom in the American plumbing community than at Harvard or Yale.”
A major desire among the Turning Point USA movement, Kirk said, is to build a country and rebuild a country where it is easy to get married and have children.
“If we as conservatives stand for anything, it should be to tell our young people that one of the most beautiful things you can do is to get married and have kids,” Kirk said. “And right now that is increasingly difficult in this confusing, chaotic time.”
Young people often say it is too expensive or too difficult to have kids. Or they don’t want to participate in the patriarchy.
“What a robbery of joy,” Kirk said. “To think that children, young people, are growing up and being told that there’s something oppressive or tyrannical about the covenant between a man and a woman and having children.
“If you look at what the Left wants to do – less children – because humans are a stain on the environment.”
People can be happy with video games and a promotion at their corporate job.
“Maybe that is for you, but one of the reasons why our generation is the most depressed, suicidal, alcohol-addicted, drug-addicted generation is the stuff that gives you meaning they have been told is evil,” Kirk said. “You should get married and have children.”
When Turning Point USA was getting started in 2017, Kirk said 47 percent of the young people in America identified as having a liberal worldview. Five years later that number is down to 34 percent. And, while it is still higher than conservatives, Kirk said it offers hope and shows we’re headed in the right direction.
Turning Point USA has hit 1,000 high school chapters and expanded to a TP USA Faith branch.
“We hosted an amazing pastor’s summit with over 400 pastors and their wives,” he said. “If you ask me, one of the most important things that can happen in American Christianity is we need to excommunicate the demonic, anti-biblical idea of wokeism out of the American church immediately.”
While young conservatives have to deal with backlash, slander, smears and opposition, Kirk said that is actually another reason he believes we will win.
“Our young people are tougher than the liberals,” he said. “Our opposition is fragile. Our opposition can’t hear a speaker without trying to deploy the shock troops. Our opposition has not had to contend or fight for their beliefs. Go talk to students at Turning Point USA and what they have to go through.
“The only way you beat the Left is you never give up and you never give them an inch. Period.”
Turning Point Academy was recently launched to help parents and grandparents homeschool. Kirk said parents should get their children out of government schools “yesterday.” He called it a “rescue mission.” Among the principles TP Academy?
There is a God, and you are not him. They believe in natural law. They will not teach CRT, wokeism, queer theory, “LGBTQ nonsense,” post-modernism, etc. Instead, they are pro-liberty, pro-American and will unapologetically educate the next generation on truth.
“The challenge of our generation is which direction do we want to go,” Kirk said.
A free society that never against mandates vaccination, he said. A direction that reasserts the principles of the independent judiciary and the consent of the governed and the separation of powers and the Constitution.
The opponent, he said, is playing for keeps and counting on conservatives giving up.
“The test of this generation, the test of all of us, the test of our country that is unfolding in front of us, I truly believe, is are we going to give up against an opposition that is so entrenched and doing so much damage,” Kirk said.
But not at America Fest, where 10,800 people have purchased tickets to attend the four-day conference.
“This room can change America by deciding to change America,” he said. “My charge to you these next couple days is to be willing to be challenged. Do not have the attitude to say, ‘Charlie, I’m doing a lot. I’m doing too much.’ Maybe you are, but we can all do more. In fact, it requires us to do more.”
He said the Left is terrified that the 10,800 people in the room will step their game up in the next calendar year. All 50 states are represented, he said.
“Go back and say, ‘I’m going to focus on school boards, focus on getting rid of the groomers in our public education system,’” he said.
If you run a business, he challenged those in attendance to double it to compete with larger liberal companies.
“Whatever it is, whatever it is that you’re called to do, do more of it,” he said. “The temptation that I believe the enemy is putting towards us is to say my actions do not matter and we will not see victory.”
But that cannot happen. He said he tires of hearing how nations rise and fall throughout history.
“There’s never been a country like America,” he added. “And guess what? Look around in this room. Don’t give me this nonsense that Americans are giving up. In fact, after the developments of the last couple of months, I’m actually more convicted than ever to fight.”
While the “bad guys” would love a four-day pity party, Kirk said it is important to remember we are the masters of our own destiny.
“We are the recipients of a nation that we did not build but we inherited it,” he said. “And in the next four days, commit to a plan of action to take back our country and to create something bold and beautiful for the next generation.”
