World

How a right-wing provocateur is using the run to achieve Gen-Z

MANKATO, MINNESOTA – Charlie Kirk stood 80 miles from where George Floyd was murdered, facing an overwhelming white audience, and announced that he would say things “nobody dares say out loud”.

What followed was an avalanche and debunked claims about Floyd, the Black man whose death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer set off a global reckoning of racial injustice. and widespread calls for change.

But the white conservative agitator took the opposite view: Floyd was a “scumbag,” he said, who didn’t deserve attention.

The insult to Floyd – a 46-year-old father suspected of counterfeiting a US$20 bill – is intended to shock.

But anyone familiar with Kirk shouldn’t be surprised.

Over the years, the conservative provocateur and his group, Turning Point USA, have created the following racial divide and caused outrage.

Kirk has thrived during President Donald Trump’s term – speaking at the Republican National Convention in 2016 and 2020 and occasionally advising Trump on campaign messages and tactics.

Now, the 28-year-old is expanding his reach, trying to rally the next generation of nasty white conservatives.

On a tour of university towns, he blasted schools and local governments for teaching about racism, with a confrontational style that some called dangerous. . However, Kirk is attracting a large following of millennials and Gen-Zers, millions of online followers and cash donors, often with little media attention.

Nekima Levy Armstrong, a lawyer and civil rights activist in Minneapolis, said Kirk is causing fear among an aging group in times of social unrest.

“He is taking the discontent that some may be experiencing and combining it with racial hatred, which is a dangerous recipe in a country that is still in turbulent times,” she said. racial disorder.

Like many leading Republicans, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Trump, Kirk opposes critical race theory.

The once obscure academic framework has been turned by conservatives into a term for education about inclusion, diversity, and systemic racism in the United States.

Kirk’s Answer is a free alternative curriculum for K-12 described as key to “credible, honest, and quality America’s priority education” and is primarily aimed at Parents teach their children at home.

It’s just one offer in Kirk’s noisy conservative content portal designed to meet young people where they live online.

There is also a series of podcasts hosted by Kirk and other conservative figures, and a “Professor’s Watchlist” to label instructors “discriminatory against conservative students and leftist propaganda.”

“Turning Point Live” is a three-hour online talk show aimed at Gen-Z and starring 20-year-old host John Root.

Recent guests include Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, both Republicans.

And there are many ads: “Buy goods. Save America”, the site suggests.

Turning Point USA’s online audience is large and growing. It has averaged 83,000 monthly visitors for the past three years, but it has grown to a monthly average of 111,000 in the past year, according to digital intelligence firm Similarweb. That’s tripled the amount of traffic to conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s website in the past year.

That traffic is driven in part by at least a dozen social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram that, combined, have more than 10 million followers online.

Money into Kirk’s nonprofit network followed the traffic.

Turning Point USA is a 501c3 nonprofit, which means donations are tax deductible and its donors are not disclosed. But in 2019, the most recent year that tax returns were made public,

Turning Point US has raised more than $28 million, according to Internal Revenue Service filings. This is almost double the amount it raised in 2014, the first year it operated as a tax-exempt charity.

Although Turning Point USA does not have to disclose its donors, some are foundations founded by wealthy conservatives who report their contributions to the IRS on annual tax returns.

A piecemeal list resembles a list of conservative mega-rich, including organizations affiliated with the late super-rich Foster Friess and the Uihlein and Bradley families, who also help fund policy groups leading conservatives such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Cato Institute, and the Federalist Association.

Kirk also leads a fundraising group specifically aimed at political advocacy. That group, the Turning Point Action, has endorsed a number of congressional candidates for 2022.

The list includes Joe Kent of Washington, Catalina Lauf of Illinois, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Max Miller of Ohio, all candidates who ran to oppose GOP House members who voted for impeachment for the first time. Trump’s second.

Kirk has demonstrated the ability to anticipate the fury of the moment.

He quickly implemented the shutdown orders at the dawn of the pandemic, and then falsely claimed that Trump had won the 2020 election.

He attacked Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, blaming increased violent crime on attempts to sabotage police departments, and months before Youngkin was arrested over parental outrage in Virginia, Kirk turned to critical racial theory.

“He works within the framework of the Trump movement. He’s a good barometer of what the Republican right wing feels they can get away with,” said Michael Hayden, a spokesman for the Law Center Poverty Southern, a nonprofit group dedicated to right-wing monitoring. data and organization.

The American Turning Point was listed among 11 groups that participated in the “March to Save America” ​​rally before the deadly uprising at the US Capitol on January 6. The day before the rally, Kirk bragged on Twitter about sending buses “full of patriots to DC to fight for this president.” He later deleted the tweet.

Online donations to Turning Point’s website spiked shortly after the riot, which, according to Similarweb, was able to track the frequency of online payments but not the amount.

Kirk was not among more than a dozen protest organizers summoned by the House selection committee over the siege of the Capitol. A spokesman for the committee would not comment on whether Kirk has been interviewed or approached by the committee.

Recently Kirk, who did not respond to interview requests, did not appear in the headlines. However, an event in Idaho gained attention last month when a man shouted from a crowd: “How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?”

Kirk responded by denying comment, but blaming the left: “They’re trying to get you to do something violent, that would justify taking over your liberties and liberties. “

Raised in the high-income Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Kirk entered politics at a young age, volunteering in middle and high school in political campaigns.

His rapid ascent began shortly after high school when he dropped out of Harper College, a community college in the Chicago area, to pursue political activism and co-founded Turning Point USA with Chicago-area tea party activist and mentor Bill Montgomery.

Kirk’s “Expose Serious Racist Theory” tour prompted recent stops in Alabama, Idaho, Michigan, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, and Vermont. Last month, he packed a ballroom at the convention center in Mankato, Minnesota, with about 600 people — mostly teenagers and college students — on Tuesday night.

Once a center of prairie farming south of Minneapolis, Mankato has become a diversified mini-subway. Minnesota State University, the Mayo Clinic’s food factories and satellite campus all attract African and Latino immigrants, while the Black population has steadily increased.)

For 90 minutes, Kirk spoke directly to the mostly white crowd and told them the radical leftists wanted them to feel ashamed.

“Just because you’re white doesn’t mean you have to start apologizing simply for how God made you,” he said.

He repeated debunked claims about Floyd’s criminal record and attributed Floyd’s death to a drug overdose, not murder, as the medical examiner found. .

Representative Jim Hagedorn, a local Republican, was present at an audience and later said in a Facebook post that he “would love to attend” and hear Kirk “discuss the need to attend.” stand up for America and our founding principles.”

Riley Carlson, coordinator of the Turning Point USA campus in Minnesota, said she didn’t know much about the critical race theory prior to the event.

“We’re glad Charlie is here to explain it,” the senior from St. Michael, a Minneapolis suburb. “There are so many different ways you can look at it. And I’m looking for my place on it.”

Kirk’s message is hard to sell for most young people.

About 60% of voters under the age of 30 said they think racism is a very serious problem in the United States, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 110,000 voters in the 2020 election. the largest percentage of any age group surveyed.

Meanwhile, Trump lost 30 percentage points younger voters last year, VoteCast showed.

“It’s an important issue to rekindle a shrinking platform,” said John Della Volpe, polling director at the Harvard Kennedy School of Politics and an expert on young voters.

It shows Kirk’s finger is bubbling with conservative fury, said Peter Montgomery, a senior member of Liberals for the American Way.

“Fear about the important race theory has really come to the fore in the messaging of the groups I follow,” he said. “There’s a trend around that, and Kirk has been wise with the fundraising power it promises.”

——-

Hannah Fingerhut, Mary Clare Jalonick and Amanda Seitz contributed from Washington. Michelle Smith contributed from Providence, Rhode Island.

.

Source link

news7h

News7h: Update the world's latest breaking news online of the day, breaking news, politics, society today, international mainstream news .Updated news 24/7: Entertainment, Sports...at the World everyday world. Hot news, images, video clips that are updated quickly and reliably

Related Articles

Back to top button
Immediate Peak