Shortly after the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, hundreds of students at the University of Arkansas gathered in the school’s amphitheater to pay their respects and support the campus chapter of Turning Point USA, the student group he co-founded.
Six months later, there was a surprising announcement. The campus chapter would no longer be affiliated with Turning Point USA, Dino Fantegrossi, the chapter president, said in a statement. The national group, he added, had “lost sight” of “conservative policy, principles and values” in the post-Kirk era.
The campus group, he said, would now be known as Young American Revival.
Turning Point has seen a surge of national interest and expansion after Mr. Kirk’s killing. The organization says it now has more than 1,400 college chapters and 3,200 high school clubs.
Though the change at Arkansas’s flagship university is a minor setback for Turning Point — and it is unclear what many of the chapter’s hundreds of members will do now — the local turmoil highlights some of the national group’s most pressing long-term challenges. Chief among them is whether it can cement its place at the center of American conservatism now that the charismatic Mr. Kirk is gone.
The challenges became visible on Tuesday, when Vice President JD Vance headlined a Turning Point event in Athens, Ga., home of the University of Georgia and a large contingent of young conservatives. In an arena that accommodates 6,500 people, roughly 1,300 attended, according to city officials. Photos of the sparse stands circulated online, along with biting criticism. Charlie Sykes, the conservative, Never-Trump commentator, referred to it as the “empty-hall embarrassment.” (A Turning Point event on Friday in Phoenix that featured President Trump was well attended, by thousands of people.)
It was Mr. Kirk who transformed Turning Point from a campus-focused group to the conservative movement’s premier big-tent organization. Its events featured establishment Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, as well as more conspiracy-minded personalities like Jack Posobiec, the influencer who helped spread the “pizzagate” falsehood that Democrats were running a satanic child abuse ring.
Mr. Kirk himself promulgated both a mainstream friendly vision of Americana, focused on patriotism and the nuclear family, and darker fare, like “replacement theory,” which posits that Jews are trying to replace white Americans with nonwhite immigrants.
Mr. Kirk’s engaging personality and rhetorical skill helped to hold it all together. But in his absence, the cracks have begun to show. In December, disagreements within the movement — over support for Israel, the showcasing of conspiracy theorists and who is rightfully American — broke out during Turning Point’s AmericaFest gathering in Phoenix.
The conservative split over the war in Iran has only amplified the question of what Mr. Kirk would want Turning Point to be in this moment. At the University of Arkansas, the question began to consume the chapter’s leadership.
In recent interviews, some chapter members sketched out some of the group’s grievances. Ava Lacey, a student from Mississippi who sits on the executive board, said the chapter wanted to be more political than its nonprofit status allowed.
Members were also bothered by Turning Point’s alliance with the Arkansas governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, which they thought hindered insurgent candidates interested in shaking up the state’s Republican establishment.
Mr. Fantegrossi, who opposes the war in Iran, said he and others also believed that the current Turning Point leadership had tried to spin Mr. Kirk’s position on war with Iran as more positive than it actually was. (Mr. Kirk had characterized a push for regime change as “pathologically insane,” but also supported the bombing last year of Iranian nuclear facilities).
“We do not recognize the way others have attempted to speak for him,” Mr. Fantegrossi wrote in a March 16 news release. The new leaders, he said, had been “manipulative” by saying things like “Charlie would have wanted” and “Charlie would have said.”
Turning Point officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Fantegrossi, who grew up in a conservative family, was drawn to Turning Point when he arrived in Fayetteville, Ark., as a freshman. “They were actually active and doing work that didn’t feel just like it was résumé building,” he said.
The chapter had been through thick and thin, but he was proud that he had helped build membership to about 120 students just before Mr. Kirk’s killing.
On Sept. 10, Mr. Fantegrossi saw the footage of Mr. Kirk’s assassination while sitting in his oceanography class. The next day, he and other chapter members led a memorial service. In the outpouring of sympathy, he said, membership rose to a record 450 people.
But early on, there was discomfort over different efforts to fill the leadership void. Two weeks after the assassination, Mr. Fontegrossi said, the chapter was blindsided by news that Brilyn Hollyhand, a fresh-faced conservative influencer from Alabama, would be speaking on campus. The chapter ended up playing host, and Mr. Hollyhand drew a couple hundred people. But the visit rubbed Mr. Fantegrossi the wrong way.
“He was getting framed by people as the next Charlie Kirk, which I found pretty disgusting,” Mr. Fantegrossi said. “There was only one Charlie Kirk.”
On March 11, a direct successor came to Arkansas: Erika Kirk, Mr. Kirk’s widow and the new chief executive of Turning Point. In Little Rock, she and Ms. Sanders promoted the governor’s proclamation encouraging students “in every Arkansas high school and college” to start a Turning Point chapter.
But the university chapter’s leaders saw the visit as a letdown, signaling that Turning Point was putting its weight behind standard-issue Republican politicians.
The chapter had been disappointed two days earlier when the governor endorsed a veteran politician, State Senator Kim Hammer, in a closely watched primary race for secretary of state. Mr. Fantegrossi and others favored Bryan Norris, a novice politician running as the outsider candidate, with endorsements from election deniers like Michael Flynn and Mike Lindell, chief executive of MyPillow.
Mr. Fantegrossi believed that Turning Point USA was throwing its lot with the status quo. “It’s implicit when an institution like Turning Point is making a deal with the state government,” he said. Five days after Ms. Kirk’s visit, Mr. Fantegrossi announced the chapter’s divorce from the national group.
A meeting of the newly rechristened group, Young American Revival, this month attracted about 20 people, which the leaders say was not all that different from before, with the same core activists.
It is too early to say how many of the 450 members will remain involved with Young American Revival. But the larger question remains: How will Turning Point and the conservative movement keep up the enthusiasm of young adults who are unsure what conservatism stands for?
Tyler Cox, 24, a member of the old Turning Point chapter, said he is not very interested in joining the new group.
But he has also found himself turned off by politics more generally.
“I used to be a big Trump fan, like in 2016, because he spoke his mind,” Mr. Cox said. “I think there’s a lot of things with this administration now that I don’t agree with.”
On a recent spring day outside the student union, the push and pull of campus life played out in familiar ways. A few fundamentalist preachers had come to preach the gospel, attracting a few goths who heckled them. A sorority held a bake sale.
Isabela Orellana, a 22-year-old senior, was sitting at a table for a L.G.B.T. support group. She knew Mr. Fantegrossi, and said she wondered if he had left Turning Point in an effort to earn national attention. (“I don’t want to be the next Charlie Kirk,” Mr. Fantegrossi said in response. “I just want to be me.”)
Ms. Orellana also noted that Mr. Kirk’s legacy would likely survive. A few days ago, she said, some other students had set up their own Turning Point table.
Luke Broadwater contributed reporting.
Richard Fausset, a Times reporter based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice.
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