Turning Point USA to Hold Superspreader Event in Palm Beach

The sixth annual Student Action Summit will go on, COVID-19 be damned.

Students crowd into a convention center for the 2019 TPUSA Summit.SMG/Zuma

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The pro-Trump student group Turning Point USA will hold its sixth annual Student Action Summit in West Palm Beach in December, COVID-19 be damned.

As my colleague Stephanie Mencimer reported in 2018, the group, founded by Trump acolyte Charlie Kirk, trumpets the idea that conservative students are persecuted on high school and college campuses, taunts liberals with a #BigGovernmentSucks hashtag, and maintains a watchlist of professors thought to be socialists. The December 19–22 summit—which could very well end up being a superspreader event—promises to feature Kirk, Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, septuagenarians Rudy Giuliani and Dennis Prager, and the lame duck president’s son Donald Trump Jr.

A Turning Point USA press release says that the summit “will be following all state and local Covid-19 guidelines to ensure the safety of all participants,” though it doesn’t specify whether masks will be required or whether the event will be indoors. It’s also not clear exactly how many people will attend, but the organization’s website says that “thousands” of student activists will be invited. Florida’s public health advisory discourages gatherings of more than 10 people and recommends avoiding crowds, closed spaces, and close contact. Palm Beach County has issued a mask mandate, but thanks to an executive order from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, individual violators can’t be fined.

TPUSA has not responded to a request for comment.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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