SPLC Adds Turning Point USA To List Of Hate Groups

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports:

Turning Point USA’s primary strategy is sowing and exploiting fear that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists.

TPUSA and its spokespeople often warn their audience that their children, wives, religion, way of life and they themselves are under attack by various constructed enemies. TPUSA exploits complicated feelings of insecurity and anxiety to manufacture rage and mobilize support to revive and maintain a white-dominated, male supremacist, Christian social order.

TPUSA is at the forefront of the movement to promote Christian nationalism, the theocratic worldview that the U.S. is a fundamentally Christian country and that Christian values and beliefs should inform the government and wider culture.

In a clip Kirk shared on X, he blamed shifts in the religious makeup of America for causing “a constitutional crisis” and asserted, “You cannot have liberty if you don’t have a Christian population.”

TPUSA simultaneously positions Christianity as superior and dominant, while also orchestrating myths of religious persecution. This framing is used to justify its extreme, authoritarian vision for the country that threatens the foundation of our democracy.

While speaking about the need to support Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign to an audience full of pastors, Kirk warned, “If we don’t get this right, though, and if we continue theological disputes and don’t focus on liberty, then we’re going to be having those theological disputes from prison.”

Read the full article.