Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, will speak at the September 20 Star Republican Women’s Meeting at Quail Point Lodge. The meeting will begin at 12:30 p.m., starting with a light, complimentary lunch, and the program will begin at 1 p.m.
Founded four years ago when Kirk was just 18, Turning Point USA is today a group of young, conservative political activists stretching over 1,200 high school and college campuses, all committed to spreading Turning Point’s ideals of liberty, smaller government and individual opportunity.
In July, Kirk was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention. He also has appeared on the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) stage and been a guest numerous times on Fox News, CNBC and Fox Business as well as numerous internet-based conservative blogs and websites.
“I founded Turning Point USA to tell young people in America that there’s a better way than big government and old school corruption,” Kirk said. “We essentially argue for free markets and free people on college campuses across the country in the most treacherous terrain imaginable.”
Another reason why the youth leader decided to start the conservative movement was to counter the “Left’s” powerful youth outreaches that have greatly influenced undergrads since the years preceding President Barak Obama’s first term. “We’re up against unparalleled opposition – a well-oiled machine that George Soros and the Left have pumped in hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 10 years,” Kirk said.
In a short time frame, Turning Point has gone from an idea to a reality with an annual budget of $5 million, funded by 5,000 donors and 75 people on its field staff.
In order to effectively reach America’s youth, Kirk says his staff and volunteers dialogue with students through hundreds of thousands of conversations every day that introduce them to the wisdom at the core of the conservative principles they champion. This insight is imparted by his team from behind the tables that they set up in university student centers – which are most likely the only places many students will come into contact with conservative ideals. Kirk and his team focus primarily on liberty and limited government.
“We’re involved in the hand-to-hand combat of the grassroots ideological war that is on college campuses. We’re fighting for free markets and free speech,” said Kirk. Make no mistake it is a war, he added, with liberal college administrators actively trying to suppress different perspectives and ideas.
Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union (the sponsor of CPAC), calls Kirk “a great general in the battle of ideas,” adding, “He’s an excellent organizer, and he’s a solid conservative thought leader.”
When Kirk began his three-minute speech at the Republican National Convention this summer he began: “Our slogan is ‘Big Government Sucks,’ and I apologize if that sounds a little caustic, but here at the 2016 Convention – I know you know that’s true!”
Kirk continued by challenging stereotypes blindly attributed to Republicans by Democrat rivals: “We’re told frequently that the Republican Party is the party of old, rich white men. And I always respond, I say, did you know that here at this convention, and the 2016 field – it was the most diverse and youngest presidential field in presidential history.”
He continued by dissecting the incredibly diverse demographics represented by today’s Republican politicians, and pointed out that some of the youngest governors and leaders in office are Republican. Meanwhile, he pointed out, the Democrat primaries featured just the stereotype it had attempted to deflect: old white folk such as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
“Who is the party of youth and diversity?” Kirk asked as the audience fervently applauded. “We are the party of youth and diversity! Not the Democrats!”
When asked why he thinks Millennials trend more liberal according to polling, Kirk replied, “Broadly, young people think if there is a problem, there must be a government solution,” which sounds very much like the Democrat idealism of the 1960s, which spawned the Great Society’s big government programs.
He continued, “So we have a lot of problems right now and unfortunately, the way that young people have been programmed and conditioned in mostly our public schools is to believe the only solution to a problem is a government ‘solution’, when in fact the exact opposite is true. And even worse, a lot of our problems were created by the government.”
The September 20 Star Republican Women meeting is open to the public, and SRW encourages the attendance of high school and college students in the area.
Charlie will give you special insight on how to effectively communicate with our youth about the conservative principles of the Republican Party. Reaching the millennials will be important in our quest to win back the White House in November! DON'T MISS THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY!
