The conservative kids are not okay. That’s the assessment of Turning Point USA offered by Kimberly Begg, vice president and general counsel of Young America’s Foundation, according to an internal memo obtained by the Washington Examiner.
“In order to provide guidance to students, our team needs to understand that TPUSA is unlike any of the many conservative movement organizations we have worked with in the past,” the memo states before warning that the national group and its 24-year-old founder, Charlie Kirk, could inflict “long-term damage” on both “conservative students and the conservative movement.”
Spencer Brown, national spokesman for YAF, confirmed the veracity of the memo but declined to comment further. Still, that assessment is damning coming from an organization long considered the collegiate old guard.
The Young America’s Foundation drew up its charter, the influential Sharon Statement, at the home of William F. Buckley in 1960, and it has been planting chapters on college campuses ever since. They organize events, bring in outside speakers, and fly students to the Reagan Ranch out in Santa Barbara, Calif.
TPUSA does the same thing, only with memes. It has its own collegiate network, its own style, and its own multimillion-dollar endowment. But like its leader Kirk, the organization is more aggressive and certainly more controversial. When the rest of the conservative movement watched Kanye West’s ideological conversion from afar, for instance, Kirk and TPUSA spokesperson, Candace Owens, rushed to Los Angeles to counsel the superstar in person.
Decisions like that have led to accusations that Kirk cares more about his cult of personality than conservatism. According to the YAF memo “his focus has always been on building his own brand, not strengthening the conservative movement.”
Citing multiple news stories, the memo accuses Kirk of “making blatantly false claims about TPUSA’s reach,” of boosting membership “with racist and Nazi sympathizers,” and of sponsoring “humiliating” events on college campuses.
A spokesman for TPUSA expressed shock when shown segments of the memo and accused YAF of abandoning “the Reagan Rule,” a reference to that president’s prohibition against speaking ill of fellow conservatives.
“This statement is particularly bizarre,” said the spokesman, “since Turning Point USA has always supported YAFers and looks forward to finding additional ways to collaborate in the future.”
Such a collaboration may never come to fruition, now that YAF has apparently blacklisted TPUSA.
