The last place I expected to see a bobbing red sea of MAGA hats was on a college campus. But these are strange times. And a red tide is exactly what I witnessed this week at the University of Georgia.
If Donald Trump wins the presidency again, a big part of the coalition and the story will likely be the support he attracted, or failed to attract, among Gen Z voters, especially young men.
It’s conventional wisdom, and one firmly rooted in historical precedent, that college campuses tend to be hotbeds of liberalism. In the past few months, however, I have been encountering more and more evidence that something new is afoot within the cohort of young men, something that runs counter to the narrative. So I decided to go to a key swing state and check it out for myself. (I am currently producing a documentary about the impact of Gen Z on the 2024 election.)
On Tuesday, I attended a campus rally at the University of Georgia in Athens, sponsored by Turning Point USA and featuring its charismatic and controversial leader, Charlie Kirk, who, since he founded the organization in 2012, has been the tip of the spear when it comes to mobilizing young voters to the conservative cause.
On this occasion, his “You’re Being Brainwashed Tour” invited students to a plaza where he simply sat at a table and answered questions.
Notably, Kirk not only gladly answered hostile questions, but encouraged them, often asking Trump supporters to get out of the line so that unfriendlies could grill him. And he went nonstop for two hours. The plaza was so crowded, I had trouble moving through it. And he signed and tossed out red MAGA hats until he quickly ran out of the 2,500 that his team had brought along to distribute.
Kirk was, for the most part, firm but cordial. He expressed his points of view with a rapid-fire intensity, conviction, and clarity. And while he’s a partisan Trump advocate, he doesn’t succumb to hyperbole or convey false confidence. He also yields to obvious truths that might otherwise ruffle Trump surrogates. He acknowledges, for instance, that Trump is not going to win the Gen Z vote.
“It’s going to be hard for Trump to win on these campuses and get a majority,” Kirk concedes. “But I can say, confidently, we’re going to lose by less.”
