As the battle against fascism continues in U.S. cities like Minneapolis, Turning Point USA (TPUSA)—the youth wing of the MAGA movement—is setting its sights on the suburbs ahead of the midterm elections.
TPUSA kicked off its “Making Heaven Crowded” tour on Jan. 21 at Harvest Church in Los Angeles. The group is bringing its message of hate to the suburban Christian communities. They are touring churches around the country to carry on what they call the “legacy of Charlie Kirk,” the white supremacist firebrand assassinated last year.
The next night, on Jan. 22, with scant notice, Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, was the featured speaker at TPUSA’s “Making Heaven Crowded” second stop at Awaken Church in San Marcos, a suburb of San Diego. Online threads alerted activists a few hours before the 6:30 p.m. start time.
Community activist groups were blindsided, but we rushed to get organized. By 6:45 p.m., 20 to 30 defenders of democracy had gathered just outside Awaken Church’s parking lot.
The first thing to grab our attention was the tension in the air. Music playing, horns blasting, signs flying, everyone on edge. Awaken Church and TPUSA hired armed, unidentified personnel to stand guard at the church doors. They flashed bright lights and taunted the growing crowd across the parking lot.
Something didn’t feel right about these armed guards. Their professionalism was almost non-existent, and their behavior was similar to what we’ve seen from Trump’s ICE agents in Minneapolis and other cities.
As the night wore on, the church-door guards/agitators continued sending individuals to verbally accost and threaten protesters with violence. Not one took the bait. The guards deployed up to four drones at a time to monitor the crowd as we stood out in the rain. Caution was raised amongst the crowd, but the intimidation tactics didn’t scare anyone away.
As the yelling and flashing of lights continued, Turning Point called the San Marcos Sheriff’s Department in an attempt to shoo away the protesters. Multiple police cruisers showed up in what seemed like another attempt at intimidation. After a brief, peaceful exchange with Deputy Reyes of the SMSD, the officers quietly drove away and continued their night, asking the crowd to “please not shine lights back” at the agitators guarding the church doors.
The rest of the night remained peaceful.
The show of support the protest received from passersby was a sigh of relief. When fascism decided to pay San Marcos a visit, the people here said: “NO! Not in our city!” For every one person who taunted demonstrators, there were ten cars honking in support. The community heard the call and responded.
No to racism. No to fascism. No to Trump. Yes to collectivity and love. Here’s to hoping TPUSA is met with resistance in every town it visits.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views expressed here are those of the author.
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