November 19, 2020

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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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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