How I First (Really) Learned About Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA

Parents were concerned about a chapter opening up in a local high school four years ago.

Back in March 2021 the local conservative newspaper the Bucks County Courier Times shocked me and others in Bucks when they invited me to be a regular progressive columnist (twice a month) on the editorial page. After introducing myself in the first column where I declared “Bucks County Has a Progressive Future”, parents in Pennridge School District reached out to me about this group, Turning Point USA, which was led by Charlie Kirk, opening a chapter at Pennridge High School. Now, having a conservative or Republican clubs in schools is a great idea, just like having progressive, liberal or Democratic clubs. But Turning Point USA is different, as I would learn and write about. They were on my radar and I knew a little about them, but writing about local, or even national politics was new to me at the time as my journalistic background at that point had primarily focused on Latin America.

Looking back on this column, every single word holds up. And it’s important that it does because what we are seeing now are a lot of bad, or reimagined takes about Kirk’s history after he was horribly and tragically murdered yesterday. Historian Dr. William Horne reminds us of this today in his recent dispatch republished at the Bucks County Beacon about “Why We Pretend.”

You can be horrified about and condemn the shooting without whitewashing who Charlie Kirk was. In fact, we must.

Here’s an excerpt of what I wrote:

"There is a cultural rot within this group that attracts, breeds, and promotes extremism. The threat of having Pennridge kids fall down the TPUSA rabbit hole is that these students grow up to follow in the footsteps of Bucks County’s current cadre of far-right conservative thought leaders who are transphobic, follow QAnon, call the Proud Boys 'patriotic young men,' tell newspapers that Democrats 'hate America,' and write columns that blame feminism for mass shootings."

READ THE FULL COLUMN: https://www.phillyburbs.com/story/opinion/2021/03/24/guest-opinion-turning-point-usa-right-wing-trojan-horse-pennridge/6982467002/

I also recommend following journalist Jeff Sharlet (also on Substack) and his ongoing analysis of the fallout from Kirk’s assassination and the country’s growing tide toward authoritarianism and fascism. Here’s a great interview he did about Charlie Kirk with Democracy Now!