MAGA infighting erupts at Turning Point USA Conference
By: Andrew Howard (POLITICO)
TPUSA provides the forum for Gen Z to begin preparing for a post-Trump movement. Gen Z does not care about strengthening the Republican Party. Unlike other post-WWII generations, Gen Z is not interested in incremental change. Gen Z is not interested in TEA Party chaos. Gen Z does not accept that government is a problem or that the national debt is source of American decline. Gen Z wants to replace the post-WWII neoliberal globalized political and economic status quo with a social, economic, and institutional ecosystem that is unified around common moral progressive traditions and ideals.
What is happening at the TPUSA conference it the beginning of a fight for survival. The survival of the two political parties is not a priority. Gen Z is willing to fight for their future if they must. The era of grifter moral relativism is coming to an end.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
PHOENIX — Members of the MAGA faithful gathered here Thursday to kick off Turning Point USA’s America Fest, the largest meeting for the organization since its founder, Charlie Kirk, was shot to death on a Utah college campus in September.
Despite that somber backdrop, the event quickly devolved into a spectacle of MAGA infighting.
Ben Shapiro, the first speaker after widow Erika Kirk, ripped into those who would take the same stage in the coming hours and days. He called out conservative commentators, blasting Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Steve Bannon as “frauds and grifters.”
“The conservative movement is in serious danger,” Shapiro said, arguing the danger is not just on the left, but “from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.”
He called Bannon “a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein” ahead of the imminent release of files related to the late convicted sex offender, while praising President Donald Trump and his administration’s handling of the issue. Trump pushed to stop Republicans in Congress from voting to release the files, though he signed the legislation once it was passed. Both Bannon and Trump appear in photos with Epstein that were released by House Democrats.
Shapiro particularly focused on Carlson — both for elevating Owens’ conspiracy theories about Kirk’s murder and for his recent interview with far-right influencer Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier who has repeatedly pushed antisemitic tropes. Carlson, a former Fox News host, now hosts his show on X and routinely garners millions of views.
“The people who refused to condemn Candace’s truly vicious attacks — and some of them are speaking here tonight — are guilty of cowardice,” Shapiro said, adding later: “If you host a Hitler apologist, Nazi-loving, anti-American piece of refuse like Nick Fuentes … you ought to own it.”
Both the Fuentes interview and Owens’ conspiracies have embroiled the party in recent weeks. On Wednesday, Shapiro called on the Heritage Foundation, the powerful conservative think tank whose president defended the interview, to change its tune about Carlson’s elevation of Fuentes.
Carlson responded with heat of his own from the stage Thursday.
“That guy is pompous,” Carlson said, saying he “laughed” while watching clips of Shapiro’s speech backstage. “Calls to deplatform at a Charlie Kirk event? That’s hilarious.”
Carlson went on to rail against cancel culture, and promised the crowd that he was not antisemitic. “Antisemitism is not just naughty, it’s immoral,” he said.
Erika Kirk addressed the MAGA movement’s fractures, while casting her late husband as a rare unifier and pleading with the crowd to embrace disagreement. “You won’t agree with everyone on this stage this weekend,” she said. “And that’s okay. Welcome to America.”
The event wasn’t entirely heated. Actor Russell Brand — who spoke between Shapiro and Carlson — focused on Christianity, while sprinkling attacks on vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry into his remarks. And earlier in the day, attendees danced to upbeat music, repeatedly chanted “USA” and celebrated Trump’s return to the White House at the Phoenix Convention Center, which is plastered with imagery of Charlie Kirk. More than 30,000 people gathered for the event.
Kirk’s influence on young people was particularly evident, with thousands of high school and college attendees, some of whom posed for photos in front of a tent that resembled the one Kirk was speaking in front of when he was shot during “The American Comeback Tour.”
Erika Kirk — who now serves as Turning Point’s CEO — said 80 percent of attendees had never been to America Fest before, and one-third of them were students. More than 140,000 people have submitted requests to join the organization since Kirk’s death, bringing the membership to over 1 million people across 4,000 chapters at high schools and colleges, she added.
While the group has welcomed speakers from across the conservative movement, it made clear choices about which politicians to welcome to the stage, providing a glimpse into how the organization hopes to shape the future of the GOP. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and GOP Rep. Mike Collins, both candidates for Senate, and gubernatorial hopefuls Andy Biggs of Arizona and Byron Donalds of Florida, were given slots on the main stage.
Erika Kirk also made a point of promising to elevate Vice President JD Vance — who will close the event on Sunday — to the White House in 2028. Vance leads early polls of the likely GOP field.
“We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible,” she said.
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Huge ego’s colliding ….
TPUSA is primarily a Gen Z movement. TPUSA is designed by young Americans for young Americans.
Trump's shift toward TEA Party chaos has eroded support from Gen Z. Gen Z really is beginning to write the obituary for the TEA Party. Gne Z does not want small government; they want a government that works for them.
A cage match of mud wrestling between Candace Owens and Erika Kirk is being added to the White House UFC event.
Watching maga argue with each other is like watching this scene in Dumb and Dumber:
When is the last time you were in Texas? I raised a Gen Z, and most of his friends are young Republicans. His college buddies are from all over the country, BTW. The people they follow on social media, many of whom are mentioned in this article, are all Republicans.
Look at the voting data on young men, and how it's so bad the Democrats have started a think tank to figure it out.
The young guys see things differently than my generation, but that's to be expected. It would be unnatural if they didn't.
If you are remembering the Baby Boomer protesters of the 1970s as "interested in incremental change", you and I have very different recollections of those days.
I think that's fair. They see other issues as more pressing.
Not sure I'm following what you mean here. What are some examples of "common moral progressive traditions and ideals"?
I don't need to travel anywhere. Gen Z is on social media. If you pay close attention, I did not say Gen Z are going to become Democrats. That is a disingenuous argument (a red herring). The younger generation views the Republican Party has being corrupt, caring more about today's profits than people or the future of America.
Marjorie Taylor Greene walked away from the Republican Party. Other Republicans are going to follow her out the door. Right now Gen Z is not fighting for control of the Republican Party or MAGA. Gen Z is fighting to control of TPUSA and the future of America. As you must have observed, Gen Z will fight and doesn't car about the rules.
Really? And what was the Hippie morality? Do what feels good? And expect the institutions to give them what they wanted? I question your memories of the 1970s as some sort of righteous crusade to reestablish moral traditions.
Look to Abraham Lincoln and his Protestant nationalism. Look to the Abolition movement, Temperance movement, Suffrage movement. Republicans were the party of labor, protectionism, isolationism, national traditions, and moral surety before the neoliberals corrupted the nation, our currency, and any moral justification for America. Here's a common speech by Abraham Lincoln. Note the undertones of morality, national identity, and obedience to the will of God. This is an example of Protestant nationalism that appeals to Gen Z.
Sure, but I think there are pretty wide gulfs by geographic region, as well as gender.
I never thought or said you did. Close attention not required. I understand what you think is happening, and I'm telling you that I'm not so sure it is.
Conservative kids are flocking to traditional things. There is this whole "tradwife" thing going on. Church attendance is up, and the fastest growing protestant denomination in America is the oldest... the Anglicans.
When surveyed, Gen Z "kids" tend to say they are looking for older mentors, want to connect with older generations (other than Millennials), and they place greater value on tradition. They are three times less likely to want to work remotely because they want to learn from older people.
All of that comes together to demonstrate a pattern where they want to understand these institutions and assume their places in them, rather than abolish them.
She's hardly Gen Z, buddy. And it seems like she has walked away from Trump more than she's walked away from the Party.
They already control TPUSA, don't they? It's sort of their thing, isn't it?
I don't know about the rules part, at least for conservative kids. That's not been my experience at all.
I think they'll stand up for what they think is right without backing down. But I can't see them "not caring about the rules".
You are scaring everyone.
I've noticed that here, too. But I'm not aware of any Anglican churches in the area.
Don't know about that since I'm out of the labor force. I have noticed younger people in trade jobs: mechanics, HVAC, plumbing, building trades. They're pretty sharp, too.
MTG is not Gen Z but she is MAGA (or was). MTG is one of those older people Gen Z look to for mentoring, as you mentioned.
Not so sure. Trump, Bannon, Carlson want to influence (and exert control) over TPUSA. That's the close association between MAGA and TPUSA. The infighting within TPUSA now is over that MAGA connection.
There's no denying that Trump has been shifting toward TEA Party politics and priorities. It's beginning to look like Gen Z doesn't want to go down that path.