TPUSA’s Sold-out AmFest Gathers 31,000 to Remember Charlie Kirk & Save America

PHOENIX — More than 31,000 students, activists, and freedom fighters — supercharged by the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk in September — gathered at Turning Point USA’s annual AmFest, proving that Kirk’s charge for the next generation to “Get married. Have children. Build a legacy. Pass down your values. Pursue the eternal. Seek true joy” is stronger than ever before. 

Erika Kirk, the new CEO of the organization and Charlie’s widow, shared in her opening remarks at the event that over 80 percent of attendees are first-time TPUSA supporters. Since Kirk’s September assassination, Turning Point has received more than 140,000 student requests to get engaged, and more than one million students are now actively involved with the organization. The group’s high school outfit, Club America, now boasts 3,082 chapters, and there are 1,432 TPUSA college chapters. Erika revealed that they are establishing an impressive 50 chapters per day. The point was clear: Charlie’s legacy is not fading, and TPUSA is here to stay. 

JBS Makes a Splash

The John Birch Society and The New American were on the ground at AmFest — which ran from December 18 to 21 — distributing educational materials to youth about key JBS action projects, including getting the U.S. out of the UN, exposing the globalist conspiracy, restoring sound currency, protecting the Second Amendment, electing constitutional representatives to Congress, and more. Thousands of curious youth came to the JBS booth, where staff handed out over 1,000 books, thousands of pamphlets, and hundreds of copies of The New American magazine. 

“I overwhelmingly agree with the vast majority of The John Birch Society’s platform,” Philip Young, a Gen Z AmFest attendee and JBS member, told The New American. Young discovered the JBS by reading a hit piece from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League’s website. “I knew enough about those organizations at that point to know if they are attacking these people [JBS], they are the right kind of guys.” 

When asked what made the JBS appealing, Young explained that the Society is the original anti-communist organization that exposed the globalist United Nations, NATO, the European Union, the Federal Reserve, the World Economic Forum, and the Council on Foreign Relations before anyone else did. “[The JBS] also pushed back against communists that are disguising themselves as civil rights activists,” Young said. “Whether it was the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s, whether it was Black Lives Matter in the last few years, or Antifa … what all of them are is communist agitators. They’re communist agitators that are trying to undermine the traditional values of this country, in particular traditional family and traditional faith, because they want to destroy our ability to form successful families and maintain a healthy and robust society that can resist tyranny. So that’s what [the JBS is] trying to do.”

The Birch Society’s presence was overwhelmingly embraced by youth at AmFest, Young continued, explaining that without The John Birch Society, the modern MAGA movement would not exist. “I would even venture to say that without the John Birch Society, there wouldn’t be a MAGA movement, there wouldn’t be a Donald Trump, and there probably also wouldn’t be a Turning Point USA,” he said. “We are the OGs; we’re where it’s at, and that’s why I would say millennials and Gen Z should join, because they’ll hear it straight from the horse’s mouth; they’ll get it straight from the source.”

Uniting to End Globalism and Save Children

As the JBS delegation to AmFest educated thousands about the nature of the globalist conspiracy and equipped them with educational tools to successfully engage in the fight, The New American interviewed key leaders in TPUSA, cutting-edge activists, and elected officials. The Birch Society’s lasting influence in the freedom fight across the U.S. and internationally was on full display. 

We can unite around the shared values of anti-globalism and the Christian faith, Japanese Senator Sen Yamanaka told The New American. “[Globalism] really is destroying the Japanese family core value and lots of tradition and history that many Japanese people don’t understand. But that is what President Trump, Charlie Kirk, and The John Birch Society are teaching us,” said Yamanaka, the chairman of the international affairs committee and a friend of Kirk’s. To defeat the new world order and globalism, he said, the United Nations must be defeated. “I am very against them [the United Nations]. We should pull the funding, too.” Undoubtedly, the JBS campaign to Get US Out! of the UN is gaining traction both at home and abroad.

In line with JBS’s “Save Our Children” campaign, Dr. Hutz Hertzberg, TPUSA’s education chief, told The New American that the government has no role in education, and that Americans must consider home education and private schooling as an alternative. “We believe that God has given parents the responsibility for the education of their children,” Hertzberg said. “There is an agenda,” he noted, adding that government-run public schools have infused communist ideology into the minds of youth. “The government school system is not a friend of families,” he added, imploring parents to “take back the ownership of the education of their children.” 

Conclusion

Youth are emboldened to fight for faith, family, and freedom, but they desperately need the resources to effectively participate in the battle for their future. The JBS and The New American successfully met that need at TPUSA’s AmFest, but there is still much work to be done. Watch and share The New American’s coverage at AmFest with youth, and join The John Birch Society today.