Coming into my freshman year at the University of South Florida, I was a lot of things. I was busy. I was excited. I was energized. I was ambitious. With the election in full swing and politics blazing at every turn, I did the most logical thing I could come up with.
I started a chapter of Turning Point USA on my campus.
It was easily one of the best decisions of my year. TPUSA gave me so many things. My first political conference, Winter in West Palm Beach, was a blast where I networked and learned about another side of the political world. I made new friends from all across the United States.
Turning Point USA gave me new connections and opportunities. I got my first job ever this past spring as a Campus Coordinator, recruiting and rolling around 10-foot beach balls to promote free speech. I met Devon Mirsky, the National Director of PragerForce, where I now serve as an Editor on the Writer's Squad. Through PragerU, I even got to travel to Los Angeles for the PragerU Summit and Bootcamp. I interviewed James O' Keefe. This was all besides the local leading I was doing within my chapter, pulling all the administrative pieces together and recuiting to become a registered student organization. Turning Point helped me grow as an individual, in ways that I'd never done before.
Turning Point is a lot of things. It's a non-profit, so legally it's non-partisan. But the values behind the organization make it easy to meet people with similar ideas and political alignments. It also makes very clear that there are hundreds of shades of right-of-center. I met my first anarchist at Winter in West Palm Beach. At the same event, I also met a man who very well may be the President of the John Kasich Fan Club. I met Never Trumpers and proud MAGA wearing fanatics. The diversity of thought was almost impossible to comprehend.
I'm gonna take a second to spotlight that TPUSA gives the average, tight-budgeted college kid a million and one opportunities to travel for cheap. All of the conferences they host or sponsor people to attend cover hotel and conference access. And some even cover a few meals. So take your pick: DC, Chicago, Las Vegas, Dallas, Denver, West Palm Beach? Get yourself there and Turning Point will help with the rest.
Turning Point catches some bad press from time to time, it's true. But I won't leave it. I wouldn't trade the discussion, structure, and resources for the politics of the College Republicans. Or any other club for that matter. It's I'm stumping for TPUSA now. So, in liberty,
Good Luck America.
