Turning Point USA really likes America. No, they love America, goddammit, they love the people and the land and President Trump, but above all else — well, perhaps above all else but Trump — they love freedom, because being free is just so great and we wouldn’t have it without freedom, ya know? Turning Point's Ricky-Bobbian-f*ck-yeah-'Murica-style love for the ol’ US of A is present at any event they put on, but was at truly supercharged levels at their AMERICAFEST party at CPAC¹ this year. They had Rep. Dan Crenshaw. They had Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk. THEY HAD DONALD TRUMP JR. My god! What more could you want from a party!
AMERICAFEST took place at the Cadillac Ranch, a restaurant with a name that’s already so American the tagline “The Great All-American Bar & Grill” seems almost superfluous. But “All-American” wasn’t American enough for Turning Point apparently; the event organizers found it necessary to punch up the décor, to really up the whole Americanness of the place. The door was attended by a giant red, white and blue inflatable tube man, and upon walking in, attendees were greeted by a television screen showing an endless cycle of uber-American scenes. The clips ranged from an astronaut stabbing the American flag into the surface of the moon and then punching an alien to strangely-color-corrected videos of Trump with the words “ORANGE MAN GOOD” overlaid on the now-blue president.
Inside, red, white and blue banners hung from every available surface, TV screens across the restaurant displayed the AMERICAFEST logo — an astronaut dabbing on the moon with the American flag planted behind him — and the floor was filled with cutouts of famous Americans. Clint Eastwood, Tim Tebow and Ben Franklin were there, alongside other Americans deemed worthy of veneration, as were, one assumes ironically, a number of Democratic politicians. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was put next to a “Socialism Bread Line” where attendees could, and did, grab loaves of bread; Bill Clinton was placed suggestively behind Taylor Swift — one wonders if the organizers didn’t know she was a victim of sexual assault or if they thought that merely added to the joke — and Hillary Clinton was put in a window next to Monica Lewinsky. A mechanical bull filled one corner of the room, and the occasional MAGA hat-wearer would try his luck at conquering the beast. With each guest receiving three free drink tickets — which could be used on drinks like “Russian Collusion” (vodka soda), “KAVANAUGH ‘I like beer’” (beer) and “AOC” (juice box) — and with most people using those fairly quickly, the odds were stacked in the bull’s favor for the night.
Charlie Kirk and his famous guests spent most of the party in the upstairs balcony, which was reserved for VIPs and LIPs² with $80. After a little while, Charlie and Don Jr. decided to make their way downstairs to address to the gathered masses on a stage in the front of the room. But first, the crowd heard from Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Fox News personality and current girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. She heaped praise on Turning Point for the work it did and warmed the crowd up for her boy toy.
“I see a lot of diversity out there,” she said at one point.
The predominantly white audience cheered.
“The most diversity I’ve ever seen,” she continued.
The predominantly white audience cheered some more.
After Guilfoyle finished her bit, the man with half of Donald Trump’s DNA and thus all of the audience’s love, came forward and gave the people what they wanted: talk about his father and how great they all were. He spoke about how he got to know Charlie Kirk and how much respect he has for Kirk, a man who thinks he is making a deep, insightful point by arguing that socialist professors are hypocrites if they don’t work for free. He reiterated how diverse the audience was (the predominately white audience clapped for that again), spoke about how radical Democrats had become, exalted Turning Point — which maintains a watchlist for outspoken liberal professors — for fighting the good fight for free speech and spoke at length about how brave the young right-wingers in the audience were, calling them “the actual real rebels out here in the country” for “standing up for what this country was founded on.”
