The stars of the Maga conservatism converged for the four-day AmericaFest conference in Phoenix this weekend amid reports that the cohesion of the political-religious right, a year into Donald Trump\u2019s second presidential term, is showing signs of stress.<\/p>\n
The sold-out Turning Point USA event brought together figures from the right including Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump Jr<\/a>, Vivek Ramaswamy, Ben Shapiro and Glenn Beck, to kick around the dominant themes of conservatism.<\/p>\n It marked Turning Point USA\u2019s first annual gathering since its leader Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on a college campus in Utah in September. The event was billed as \u201ca powerful celebration of faith, freedom, and the legacy of our founder, Charlie Kirk\u201d.<\/p>\n However, the gathering made headlines<\/a> for the infighting<\/a> on display among its high-profile participants.<\/p>\n \u201cSay what you want about AmFest, but it\u2019s definitely not boring,\u201d said Kirk\u2019s widow Erika. \u201cFeels like a Thanksgiving dinner where your family\u2019s hashing out the family business.\u201d<\/p>\n Erika Kirk, left, and Nicki Minaj react during AmericaFest, the first Turning Point USA summit since the death of Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday. Photograph: Caitlin O\u2019Hara\/Reuters<\/p>\n According to reports from the festival, the unification seen in previous years has been challenged by interpersonal gripes and disagreement over how big the big tent of conservatism should be and what brands of conservative thinking it can be expected to hold.<\/p>\n Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, co-founder of The Daily Wire, set the tone on Thursday when he condemned Carlson for hosting the white nationalist Nick Fuentes<\/a> on his streaming show, as well as others he depicted as charlatans and grifters.<\/p>\n Shapiro said hosts are \u201cindeed responsible for the guests they choose and the questions they ask\u201d, adding that Fuentes \u201cis an evil troll and that building him up is an act of moral imbecility. And that is precisely what Tucker Carlson did.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlson later took the stage and dismissed Shapiro\u2019s attempt to \u201cdeplatform and denounce\u201d people, according to reports, and said he laughed at Shapiro\u2019s address \u2013 \u201cthat kind of bitter sardonic laugh that emerges from you and, like, upside-down world arrives. When your dog starts doing your taxes, and you\u2019re like, \u2018Wait, it\u2019s not supposed to work this way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The pre-eminent split among young conservatives, reported the Arizona<\/a> Republic, is over distrust of Israel over its war with Hamas and the embrace of figures like Fuentes, a Holocaust denier. Without Kirk to hold the movement together, the fractures have only become more apparent.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I think that\u2019s when everything split into groypers, the conservative right, constitutional right,\u201d Jack Nichols, 19, told the Arizona Republic<\/a>. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s bad. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what Charlie would have wanted. I think Charlie would have wanted us to come together instead of dividing.\u201d<\/p>\n Former presidential candidate Ramaswamy, who is currently running for Ohio governor, said pockets of the \u201conline right\u201d had become fixated on the idea of a \u201cheritage\u201d right rather than one based on conservative ideals.<\/p>\n Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the fTurning Point USA summit in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday. Photograph: Caitlin O\u2019Hara\/Reuters<\/p>\n \u201cI think the idea of a heritage American is about as loony as anything the woke left has actually put up,\u201d Ramaswamy said. \u201cThere is no American who is more American than somebody else \u2026 It is binary. Either you\u2019re an American or you\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n In a penultimate speech, House speaker Mike Johnson encouraged attendees to \u201clive as he [Charlie Kirk] lived\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I mean by that is, I think there\u2019s two very important things that all of us can and should do. I think we should advance his principles, and I think we should adopt (that) approach.\u201d<\/p>\n The festival is set to conclude on Sunday with an address by Kirk\u2019s widow Erika, who now runs the organization. Speaking at the event on Thursday, she endorsed JD Vance<\/a> as the next Republican presidential nominee.<\/p>\n Vance \u2013 who spoke on Sunday \u2013 said of Kirk\u2019s assassination, \u201cwe got kicked in the teeth, my friends, and there\u2019s no sugar-coating it\u201d. He depicted Kirk\u2019s alleged assassin Tyler Robinson as a crucible of values and behaviors that the left seeks to promote and said it was better for conservatives to have disagreements and to discuss them, than to be \u201cdrones for George Soros.\u201d<\/p>\n The conservative festival was not short in surprises: rapper Nicki Minaj took to the stage with Kirk on Sunday. Minaj expressed admiration for Donald Trump and Vance, and explained her switch from supporting Democrat candidates like Obama and Clinton. \u201cI just got tired of being pushed around,\u201d she said.<\/a> \u201cI\u2019m not gonna back down anymore. I\u2019m not gonna back down ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stars of the Maga conservatism converged for the four-day AmericaFest conference in Phoenix this weekend amid reports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-363361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}