Kyle Spencer - Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of Americas Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power

To Seth, of course.

Contents

T he roots of this book first took hold on a November evening, two days after the 2018 midterm elections, in a glass-paneled auditorium at Cleveland State University. There, a couple hundred hippies, hipsters, gym rats, and nerds networked near an oversized sign that read BIG GOVERNMENT SUCKS, as Aaron Tippins defiantly patriotic country anthem, Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly, blasted from the sound system. From tables in the lobby, attendees snapped up posters, buttons, and laptop stickers with slogans like: Political correctness has ruined football, academia, comedy, the media, Hollywood, and patriotism and I support helping the needy; I oppose funding the lazy.

The event was part of a national speaking series touring the country, titled Campus Clash, a barn-storming mix of comedy, Christian values, and right-wing politics. Anyone whod ever watched a Trump rally or a few minutes of Tucker Carlson railing against his many enemies on Fox News would recognize the targets that would be mercilessly lampooned on the auditorium stage over the next few hours: the PC Police, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and transgender bathrooms, to name a few. The mood was simmering fear and outrage, not yet at the embittered stage, but spoiling for a fight.

If we dont speak up for ourselves against the libtards, said a sandy-haired attendee with a dab of a mustache that wouldnt look out of place in the trendier parts of Brooklyn, whos going to? Our professors? I dont think so.

As the music came to a stop, the evenings headliner, Charlie Kirk, a then-twenty-five-year-old true believer who skipped college to get a head start on becoming the future of the Republican Party, catapulted onto the stage, wearing trendy dress pants, white Adidas, and a slick-looking navy blue blazer. The young man President Donald Trump once referred to as a great warrior settled his six-foot-four frame into a cushioned chair, slid a well-manicured hand through his crown of short, chestnut-brown hair, and flashed a cocky frat-boy grin. His look: pop-star preacher.

Charlie, who toured the country so frequently he had yet to move out of his childhood bedroom, was the founder of Turning Point USA, the organization that was sponsoring the event. Turning Point USA was the fastest-growing youth activist group in GOP history. And its sister organization Turning Point Action was planning on raising $15 million for a Get-Out-the-GOP-Vote campaign, with its eye on 2020. Though I was a frequent New York Times contributor and a registered Democrat (I voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary and Hillary Clinton in the November general), Charlie had parted the curtain for me on a world that had largely shut out journalists, allowing me rare access for my research into young conservative activists. At that point in his career, Charlie was not yet a household name in the Fox Newswatching world, and he apparently welcomed any opportunity to expand his profile, even via coverage from the so-called liberal media. Wed spoken several times at various student events and I was struck by his outsized drive and energy, though I still hadnt grasped how he and his group fit into the bigger conservative picture.

A white kid from suburban Chicago, Charlie was the son of a successful architect who was the project architect for Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan. He had confidence in spades and seemed to have no problem sharing the stage with an equally charismatic co-host, his thermodynamic Turning Point USA colleague Candace Owens, a twenty-nine-year-old Black conservative and Fox News regular whom he introduced to booming applause. Candace, too, had been attracting my attention in recent months, with her ability to fire up college-aged audiences. The month before, Id witnessed her electrify a room at the Turning Point USAsponsored Young Black Leadership Summit, where shed implored a new generation of African American voters to abandon the emotionally-abusive Democratic Party and vote Republican.

Hey guys, cooed Owens, slinking onstage in a charcoal gray pantsuit and high-heeled boots. Settling next to Charlie, she crossed her legs smartly and let her almond-shaped eyes rest lightly on the man she would later describe to me as her political twin.

Thank you so much for having us.

Candace grew up poor, in Stamford, Connecticut. Until recently shed considered herself a liberal. Now, she had close to a million Twitter followers (the count will balloon to over 3 million by the time this book heads to press) and Kanye West had recently told his 20 million Twitter followers that he loved the way Candace Owens thinks.

And what did Candace think? She told the room that she was sick of the lefts obsession with victimization and its delight in sorting Americans into collectives, pitting men against women, Blacks against illegals, and Bible-fearing Christians against nearly everyone else. She called LGBTQ activists The Trans Army. Referring to Floridas first African American gubernatorial nominee, Andrew Gillum, who earlier that week had lost to the hard-right Republican Ron DeSantis, Candace raised her voice and scoffed that he had just had his Black card declined on a national level!

You are allowed to say that, Charlie said, inferring that as a white male, he could not in fact say that. Then he grinned mischievously, as if to say: Can you believe I found her?

The mostly white audience roared with glee.

That night onstage, Charlies trademark confidence never flagged. Even though Democrats had made big gains in that weeks elections, taking the House back from the GOP, handing two seats to Muslim women, and electing the first openly gay governor in nearby Colorado, youd never know it from Charlies upbeat manner.

... It was a good week in Ohio, right? said the self-proclaimed optimist.... The governors race, a lot of statewide offices, a supermajority in the state legislature.

Candaces eyes glistened. It was a red wave!

The lights piercing down on him, Charlie furrowed his brow and called the new Democratic-led House the clown parade and AOC the Communist from the Bronx. The crowd howled. The teachers unions, he continued, we call them the cartel.

This act went on for hours, the hard-edged ribbing at times giving way to starkly moralistic pronouncements, as when Owens attacked Democrats unsuccessful efforts to thwart the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Of the citizens and politicians who sought to hold the nominee accountable for a credible, decades-old accusation of sexual assault, Owens intoned: These people are evil, resting a hand on her chest. In my estimation, they are absolutely evil. And if we dont band together and fight them, were going to lose this country.

The two claimed Turning Point USA was giving voice to a new silent majority of young people who were fed up with the left-leaning agenda pushed by Hollywood, the mainstream media, and the Democratic Party. Watching them together, I noted that, like Trump, they shared a gift for harnessing cultural signifiers and celebritydom, and clearly understood that it was not so much issues that grabbed voters and connected them to candidates, it was emotions. They also had youth on their side, exuding a kinetic, camera-ready energy rare for two people who hadnt taken a slew of college acting classes, and even rarer in young politicos who purported to care more about budget deficits than Beyonc. Perhaps most advantageously, they were storming college campuses at an opportune cultural moment, when left-wing college activists who had done so much good workmainstreaming feminism, empowering the LGBTQ community, and emboldening minority voiceswere becoming just as well known for fostering a cancel culture that banned controversial speakers, censored students, ousted outspoken professors, and incessantly demanded apologies from those with differing opinions. Having long reported on student politics, Id seen firsthand that students of all political stripes were starting to get fed up with all the wokeness.