Media Matters for AmericaCharlie Kirk and TPUSA are fueled by far-right extremismRight-wing radio host and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has spent years attempting to establish himself and his organization as pillars of the conservative movement while maintaining extensive ties to far-right extremists, including election deniers, white nationalists, and antisemitic conspiracy theorists. Kirk now appears to be engaged in a broader right-wing media revolt against Fox News, which remains the dominant media property among conservatives even after the network has faced a string of recent setbacks. Fox News didn’t air any of last weekend’s Turning Point Action Conference, or ActCon, unlike in previous years when the network has extensively covered TPUSA’s events. Fox Nation, the network’s fledgling streaming platform, posted only two ActCon speeches — those of former President Donald Trump and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, both Republican presidential candidates. Earlier TPUSA conferences frequently boasted Fox’s on-air talent as headliners, but ActCon’s 2023 speaker list was notably absent of any of the network’s stars. This fracturing comes as Kirk and Turning Point Action, an affiliate of TPUSA, are set to spend as much as $108 million on early voting initiatives that the group referred to in promotional materials as a “BALLOT CHASING OPERATION,” according to The Washington Post. “The group is raising money to hire 500 full-time organizers in Arizona, 800 in Georgia and 350 in Wisconsin, at a cost of $99 million to compensate each staffer at a $60,000 salary, according to the fundraising materials,” the Post reports. TPUSA under Kirk’s leadership has a long history of employing racists, and there’s no reason to believe that dynamic will change with this new hiring surge. In 2017, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer revealed that TPUSA National Field Director Crystal Clanton sent a text message to a colleague that read: “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.” Kirk had previously praised Clanton, but apparently fired her after the incident, replacing her with Shialee Grooman and Troy Meeker. As HuffPost reported shortly after the announcement, Grooman had posted numerous anti-LGBTQ and anti-Black tweets, and Meeker had posted at least one as well. Just last year, leaked texts from the TPUSA Towson University chapter showed members minimizing slavery and embracing an anti-LGBTQ slur. Researcher Ben Lorber has documented the many points of overlap between TPUSA and Nick Fuentes’ white nationalist “groyper” movement, despite the two groups’ history of conflict with one another. Kirk not only associates with extremists, but he frequently espouses far-right views himself. He regularly and inaccurately claims the 2020 election was stolen, as well as some races in the 2022 midterms, including Kari Lake’s failed gubernatorial run in Arizona. He also uses unambiguously racist, anti-LGBTQ, and sexist rhetoric on The Charlie Kirk Show, a product of Salem Media Group, and at his conferences. This bigotry unsurprisingly carries over to TPUSA, which has become increasingly oriented toward Christian nationalism. Kirk and TPUSA epitomize the larger trajectory of the conservative activist base, which has become increasingly radicalized over the last decade — from the Tea Party movement to the Trump campaign and administration, to the rise of QAnon, and now to Trump’s second presidential run. In that spirit, here are some of the extreme figures and organizations Kirk has surrounded himself with. (This post has been updated with additional examples. More will be added as they arise.)
ProPublica
