The turnaround for the head of Turning Point USA tells the story of how the Republican Party has united around former President Donald Trump.
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Charlie Kirk speaks at the Turning Point Action conference at Huntington Place in Detroit in June.
Less than a year ago, Charlie Kirk, the founder and chief of the pro-Trump, youth-focused Turning Point USA, was nearly jettisoned from the Republican fold amid accusations of flagrant antisemitism.
On Monday, Mr. Kirk is scheduled to be a prime-time speaker on opening night at the Republican National Convention.
Mr. Kirk’s journey from pariah to headliner tells the story of how the Republican Party has united around former President Donald J. Trump and his Make America Great cohort — and of how the war in Gaza has rallied some initially reluctant Jewish conservatives behind Mr. Trump.
It started shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack on, when a user on Elon Musk’s social media site posted an antisemitic screed that claimed that Jewish people were “coming to the disturbing realization” that immigrants to the United States “don’t exactly like them too much.” The post was an apparent reference to the unsubstantiated “white replacement” theory that Jews were orchestrating the dilution of white power by allegedly encouraging mass immigration.
Mr. Musk responded, “you have said the actual truth.” Mr. Musk drew outrage for that comment, and Mr. Kirk defended him on his radio show and podcast last November.
“Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them,” he said, among a lot of other things.
Around that time, conservatives had seemed ready to jettison Mr. Kirk and his organization. Erick Erickson, a commentator who has been in the mainstream of American conservatism, wrote in a post that Turning Point USA was “looking like not just a grifting operation, but an anti-Semitic grifting operation.”
Ben Domenech, a co-founder of The Federalist, wrote, “If Charlie Kirk remains the head of TPUSA, the right has an anti-Semite problem that will follow them into the coming elections.”
Those elections are here, but the political landscape has changed. Last October, around 1,200 people in Israel were massacred by Hamas, prompting Israel to launch a brutal war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands. That, in turn, brought out protests that have sometimes veered into antisemitism from the political left. The right’s steadfast support for Israel’s government and its condemnation of pro-Palestinian protesters have brought many Jewish conservatives around.
Not that Mr. Kirk has stopped his antisemitic comments. In April, he went on a rant on his show saying that Jews deny they are white and foment anti-white prejudice.
“White means you, too,” he said, addressing Jewish Americans. “Welcome to the most hated class in America today.”
Jonathan Weisman is a politics writer, covering campaigns with an emphasis on economic and labor policy. He is based in Chicago. More about Jonathan Weisman
See more on: 2024 Elections, Donald Trump
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Source: nytimes.com
