Turning Point USA’s cynical exploitation of CJ Pearson

Pro-Trump teenage commentator CJ Pearson is known for three things: His youth, his status as a black Republican, and his tendency to say “controversial and provocative” things. Now, the pro-Trump group Turning Point USA, led by Charlie Kirk, seeks to cash in and exploit all three.

Pearson took to his Twitter account this week to announce his new partnership with TPUSA. He’s joining the organization as a “brand ambassador.” It’s unclear exactly what this position entails but no doubt it still involves elevating Pearson as a face of the organization. And this is where TPUSA errs.

The Left sees value in anointing teenagers, such as Greta Thunberg or David Hogg, as leaders of their political movement because they can then use their youth as a shield to deflect criticism of their ideas. (You can’t attack a kid!) But that doesn’t make it right for TPUSA to do the exact same thing. Pearson’s acolytes already use his youth as a shield. When I criticized his defense of white nationalism, countless Twitter trolls blasted me for “attacking a child.” This defense ignores that they demanded we take him seriously as a public figure in the first place.

It’s telling to follow Pearson’s intellectual journey before he ended up at TPUSA. Pearson was an Obama-hating critic, then a Bernie Sanders supporter and #NeverTrumper, and now an ardent support of the president. And it’s fine and normal for a teenager to wander ideologically. But that’s my point.

Any minor is going to be too intellectually undeveloped to be a meaningful spokesman for any movement. That makes the attempt to use him as a spokesman exploitative.

Signing Pearson is another example of Turning Point USA engaging in the same identity politics they’re so quick to decry. The organization (often rightly) blasts the Left for its shameful attempts to divide Americans by identity but then props up their own “black leadership summits” and employed activists such as Candace Owens who peddle in cheap, race-baiting rhetoric like “leaving the Democratic plantation.”

Pearson is just a teenager, and I expect he’ll wise up as he grows up. The blame lies with the adults like Charlie Kirk so willing to exploit a youthful voice who they think they can use to push their pro-Trump agenda. It’s hard to believe that anyone at Turning Point USA has Pearson’s best interests in mind, or is even thinking about his future at all.