Explained: How right-wing provocateur is using race to reach Gen Z

Charlie Kirk stood 80 miles from where George Floyd was murdered, faced an overwhelmingly white audience, and declared he was going to say things “no one dares say out loud.”

What followed was an avalanche of aspersions and debunked claims about Floyd, the Black man whose death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer set off a global reckoning over racial injustice and broad calls for change. But the white conservative agitator had a counter view: Floyd was a “scumbag,” he said, unworthy of the attention.

The insult lodged at Floyd — a 46-year-old father suspected of passing off a counterfeit $20 bill — was intended to be shocking. But anyone familiar with Kirk shouldn’t be surprised. For years, the conservative provocateur and his group, Turning Point USA, have built a following inflaming racial divides and stoking outrage. Kirk thrived during President Donald Trump’s tenure — landing speaking spots at the Republican National Convention in 2016 and 2020 and occasionally counseling Trump on campaign messaging and tactics.

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Now, the 28-year-old is expanding his reach, trying to rally a next generation of aggrieved white conservatives. On a tour of college towns, he blasts schools and local governments for teaching about racism, with a confrontational style some call dangerous. Yet Kirk is drawing large crowds of millennials and Gen Zers, millions of online followers and donor cash, often with little media attention.

Kirk is stoking fear among a group that is coming of age in a time of social restlessness, said Nekima Levy Armstrong, a Minneapolis civil rights lawyer and activist.

“He’s taking the discontent that some people may be experiencing and combining it with racial animus, which is a dangerous recipe in a country that is still in the midst of racial turmoil,” she said.

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Like many leading Republicans, including Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin and Trump, Kirk seizes on opposition to critical race theory. The once obscure academic framework has been transformed by conservatives into a catchall term for education about inclusion, diversity and systemic racism in the U.S.

Kirk’s answer is a free K-12 alternative curriculum described as the key to a “reliable, honest and quality America-first education,” and aimed primarily at homeschooling parents.

It’s just one offering in Kirk’s buzzing conservative content portal designed to meet young people where they live online. There’s also an array of podcasts hosted by Kirk and other conservative figures, and a “Professor Watchlist” to label instructors “who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda.”

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“Turning Point Live” is a three-hour streaming talk show aimed at Gen Z and featuring 20-something host John Root. Recent guests include Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, both Republicans.

And there’s plenty of swag: “Buy merch. Save America,” the site suggests.

Turning Point USA’s online audience is large and growing. It averaged 83,000 monthly unique visitors over the past three years, but it grew to a monthly average of 111,000 in the past year, according to the digital intelligence firm Similarweb. That’s more than three times the traffic for conservative TV and radio host Laura Ingraham’s website over the past year.

That traffic is driven in part by at least a dozen social media accounts across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram that, combined, have more than 10 million followers online.