A liberal media outlet founded by advisers to Sen. Bernie Sanders launched a project Monday to counter Turning Point USA’s growing conservative influence and presence on college campuses.
More Perfect University, created by the advocacy journalism nonprofit More Perfect Union, will focus on recruiting and training liberal content creators on campuses across the country, organizers said.
“We’ve seen the success of the right, and we aim to rival it by being a thought leader on campuses,” Faiz Shakir, founder and executive director of More Perfect Union, said in a statement.
The group runs one of the fastest-growing, left-wing channels on YouTube and has attracted attention across the political spectrum.
The new effort will have three main components: on-campus events, including live interviews, debates and podcast tapings; a national digital community on email and Discord; and students trained to produce a pipeline of stories for the organization’s online platforms. The organization said it plans to prioritize public and working-class campuses.
Instead of creating local chapters with members and dues, More Perfect Union said the college students will film short videos, make podcasts and report stories in their local communities.
“We can’t cover every town. We can’t be at every campus. We can’t be everywhere. We need you,” the group’s new director, Elise Joshi, told viewers in an inaugural live stream Monday evening. “That is why we are opening up our newsroom and launching More Perfect University.”
Joshi was the former executive director of Gen-Z for Change, a progressive advocacy organization.
Conservatives are having increasing influence on college campuses in part due to the rise of Turning Point USA, the group founded by Charlie Kirk, a young Republican star lauded by the party’s elites, including President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Kirk was killed last year while speaking at Utah Valley University. His widow, Erika Kirk, now serves as the group’s chief executive and leading speaker, though snippets of Charlie Kirk’s speeches still appear regularly on social media.
Turning Point has a large footprint online and has added new chapters in high schools and colleges in several states since Kirk was killed. At least eight governors have endorsedTurning Point and encouraged public schools to allow the group to expand to their campuses.
Turning Point did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
More Perfect Union, founded in 2021, says it reaches 50 million people a month on its YouTube channel and 1 in 10 of its viewers are age 25 and under. It was founded by Shakir, who managed Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign and remains Sanders’s adviser, and Josh Miller-Lewis, the editor in chief and former creative and digital communications director for the Sanders campaign. The online content includes documentary-style investigations, and top Democrats, including potential 2028 presidential candidates, have sought cameos on the channel.
More Perfect University kicked off its launch Monday with an interview with Sanders (I-Vermont). The event started off a bit rocky, with the live stream on YouTube opening with Joshi speaking midsentence.
In the interview with a reporter from More Perfect Union, Sanders touched on many of his favorite issues — including campaign finance reform, health care for all and ensuring working people earn decent wages — but he also talked about the need for more alternative media sources like More Perfect Union.
“We need to hear the voices of ordinary people,” Sanders said.
Most college campuses have long been known as liberal strongholds.
But a Pew Research Center report in 2024 found social media influencers who focus on news are more likely to lean conservative. And Trump won over many younger voters in 2024, narrowing the Democratic advantage, something that has caused some liberals to worry about the conservative edge in some areas of social media.
Sanders also had advice for younger people: “Reach out to other people, find common cause, and try to make this world a better place in which to live.”
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