If you need some hope for America’s future, keep reading.
After standing in a chilly rain for hours, about 10,000 young people found a seat in the Ole Miss basketball arena Wednesday to be part of the "This is the Turning Point" tour.
For an American Family News story, three young people, ages 18, 19, and 25, were asked three questions by AFN: Why are you here tonight, how did Charlie Kirk’s murder effect you, and what issue concerns you most? Here are their answers.
Kirk helped young people get involved
The first interviewee was Shane Wingate, 25, a political science major and Class of ’24 graduate, who was involved with the Turning Point chapter while a student at Ole Miss.
Back when Donald Trump ran for the White House, in 2016, Shane recalled, Trump needed a younger person to reach other young Americans to urge them to get involved. That person was Charlie Kirk.
“He was introducing the younger generation into politics to help them understand this isn’t an old man’s game. This is something that’s going to affect your life as you move forward, and you might as well get involved now,” Shane said.
Asked to name his biggest concern, he named legal immigration – not border crossers but H-1B visa holders. Why? Because those individuals are legally stealing jobs from Americans.
Somehow the young Ole Miss graduate knew an infamous story from Walt Disney World, back in 2014. That is when that mega-corporation laid off approximately 250 IT workers with plans to replace them with foreign workers who had H-1B visas.
“And made the staff they fired train their replacements,” Shane, who would have been a teenager at the time, correctly remembered.
The issue of visa-holding foreign workers was raised on stage by Vice President J.D. Vance, too. He said the federal government allows 1 million foreigners to enter the U.S. annually to take jobs that should be going to American citizens.
Imagine that 25-year-old, who said legal immigration was his biggest concern, hearing his vice president address that very issue later that evening.
Vance tells students: God has a plan for your life
The night’s second interviewee was Brady Eubanks, 18, a marketing major at Ole Miss. With plans to see Charlie Kirk in person, Brady said he was hurt deep down when the young man, who was a role model, was killed. Brady said he also hurts thinking how Kirk left behind a wife and children.
“It really saddened my heart,” he shared.
Compare that heart-felt statement to the other political side, some who have been openly and crazily celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death.
Brady said one issue that concerns him most is people living with good morals and values. He shared he believes Vice President Vance is an example of a political leader who expresses morals and values.
During the evening’s Q&A session with Vance, the first question to him was about his religious faith. “I believe I have been placed in this position, for a brief amount of time, to do the most amount of good, for God and for the country I love so much," he said.
At one point the Vice President shared with the sea of college students he was something between an agnostic and atheist while a law school student. The students also heard Vance, now 41, tell them he believes God has a plan for all of us, even after the death of his friend Charlie Kirk.
Kirk's death 'opened up a lot of conversations'
The third interviewee was Ole Miss student Becky Hand, 19. Describing herself as a nonpolitical person, she said she attended to see a U.S. vice president in person and, also, because she was impacted by Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
“I felt like it was a really big change on how we view freedom of speech in the United States,” she said, referring to Kirk’s death. “I felt like it opened up a lot of conversations about what we prioritize as a society.”
Even though she is nonpolitical, Becky said the issue that concerns her most is people who can’t discuss issues without yelling and being angry at each other.
“No matter your political views, or your religion, or your cultural views,” she observed, “I feel like everyone should be respectful to each other.”
That young woman, just 19 and nonpolitical, was expressing that view at the same time a leftist Ole Miss professor, James Thomas, was also discussing free speech across campus at a counter-demonstration called “Rise Up."
“You came here,” Thomas lectured, “because you want to participate in the free exchange and vetting of ideas, and that free exchange and vetting of ideas is the bedrock of our university and every institution of higher education.”
Professor Thomas also whined because Turning Point put him on a “Professor Watchlist,” leaving out a couple reasons why. One reason is he compared the youth MAGA movement to Hitler Youth and, later, said "I meant it."
The same professor, who said in his speech he believes in freedom, has also said Republicans "don't deserve civility" because of their political beliefs.
So the professor seems pretty heavy on the vetting, pretty light on the freedom. That sounds more like a Maoist struggle session from a group, the UM Democrats, that advertised "civic engagement" and "open expression."
Meanwhile, back across campus, Democrats and liberals in the arena were invited to jump line to challenge the vice president of the United States.
Don't waste much time thinking about Professor Thomas, who is a fraud. Think about those three students and the thousands more who attended. They give a spark of hope for what President Reagan called a “shining city on a hill.”
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