I stepped into LIB 317 for a weekly Turning Point USA meeting and immediately felt like I’d entered a fishbowl. Seven students sat around a table, trying to look casual. Outside, people passed by, slowing just enough to glance in. 

I had been warned this might happen. The club’s president, told me that most of their 18 listed members don’t attend meetings in person. 

“They’re scared of being seen,” she said.

The meeting began with an icebreaker: “If you were arrested for being so patriotic, what would it be for?”

One member, gave their answer and later added, “I would send ICE and round up all the illegals.” The others let out a few strained laughs and we all moved on to the next question.

Some students kept glancing at me throughout the meeting, trying to gauge where I stood. At the beginning of the meeting, I asked the others if they had any questions for me and only one person answered. 

Liam Russell, an attendee that day asked,” So what do you think about Turning Point USA?” 

I asked,” As a whole?”

“Yeah,” Russell said.

“I have absolutely no thoughts about it,” I said. 

Russell made it clear that he attends the meetings sometimes but is not a member because he doesn’t agree with many of the Turning Point club views. This club seems to be the only conservative collective he’s found so far.

Later, in a one-on-one conversation, Russell told me he doesn’t believe in immigration. “People should stay within their own areas and cultures,” he said.

He shared that he comes from a family of immigrants and republican ideals in Texas.

The president the other hand, doesn’t fit the image most people have of a Turning Point USA chapter leader. She’s 20, soft-spoken, with a nose piercing and traditional style tattoos. She doesn’t raise her voice, rarely interrupts and listens carefully before answering.

“I went very, very left for a while,” she told me while we sat on a lunch bench in the SAC Quad. She talked about her semester at Columbia College in Chicago, where she joined Students for a Democratic Society. She lived with five liberal roommates and spent much of that time pretending to nod along, editing her opinions, shrinking into the safest version of herself.

She transferred to Humboldt to get closer to nature. 

“I just wanted quiet,” she said. But instead of peace, she found more conflict. Her first semester here, she dropped all her in-person classes because she felt isolated, not being able to find other conservative students.

Even now, she says walking across campus can feel like walking with a target on her back.

Her and the now vice president met on Instagram. The two connected during an online protest thread last Spring when the Pro-Palestine conflict erupted on various campuses.

“I can tell the way she was commenting,” said the vice president. “I was like I want to be friends with her.”

That shared moment eventually turned into a club. With support from the regional TPUSA coordinator, they restarted the Humboldt chapter in February and now do most of the work themselves, planning meetings and trying to keep their handful of active members engaged.

For them the club is just a space to find people with like-minded ideals and create friendships. 

They are both very against sex education in K-12, pushing the transgender ideology on children and people who immigrate to the United States illegally. 

The president is more cautious. She says she supports personal freedom, but with limits. 

“Live how you want,” she said, “as long as it’s not infringing on me, my country’s values or our children.”

She is against book banning but doesn’t think LGBTQ+ curriculum belongs in schools. She supports the Constitution but isn’t sure if abortion should be legal in cases of rape or incest. Instead of criminalizing abortion, she believes bringing back family values and lowering the cost of living will make it easier for people to want to have kids. She wants more power in given to states instead of federal government deciding on how people should live.

“I’ll just move to a state that better aligns with my values, that’s the beauty of America,” she said. 

The vice president nodded along, but in a later interview Russell made the line very clear abortion is murder. 

As a Catholic, Russell said he believes life begins at conception and that bodily autonomy doesn’t justify ending what he calls “an autonomous being.” He didn’t hesitate when I pressed him on exceptions such as rape of incest.

“It’s rare. And most women don’t regret it when they do have the child,” Russell said.

His views on LGBTQ+ topics were even more rigid.
“LGBTQ ideology, in my opinion, strictly in my opinion is a cancer to society because it preys on the already preexisting weaknesses of the individual,” Russell said. 

He compared being transgender to having an eating disorder. 

“It should be treated, not affirmed,” he said. “It’s not compassionate to let people live that way.”

He believes this deeply. To him, saying it out loud was part of his duty as a man of faith, as someone chasing what he calls the “objective truth.”

I just wrote the quotes down, trying to understand what compassion looked like from his side of the table.

The Silence Around Them

The strange thing about being around Turning Point members is that, for all the talk of free speech and open debate, almost no one is actually talking to them.

They sit at their table on the quad like an exhibit behind glass. Students glance, whisper, and walk past. Protesters linger nearby, holding signs or quietly intercepting prospective students.

During the 2025 Spring Preview, the air on campus buzzed with tension. The club set up its usual table, handing out flyers and pins. Close to their table a group of students unfurled flags and posters. Others circulated, whispering in the ears of visitors: “You know they’re anti-trans, right?” or “Pro-Trump.”

The vice president wasn’t surprised. “I just wish someone would ask what I actually believe before deciding they hate me,” she told me.

Much of the backlash centers on issues like gender, immigration and especially the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

The president and Russell all share one common outlook: they think the United States should focus on the internal issues, like nation debt, the Native American opioid crisis and homeless veterans.

The vice president had a slightly different take. 

“I feel for the Palestinian people,” she said. “But Hamas is a terrorist organization. That needs to be said.” The vice president doesn’t trust most mainstream media, she added, and gets her news from podcasts that feel less manipulated.

“It’s hard to find what’s true and what’s perception,” she said. 

Russell, as usual, broke from both.

“Both of those countries are full of terrorists attacking each other,” he said. “I want nothing to do with either side.”

He sees the U.S.–Israel alliance as imperialist and believes the U.S. should stop sending money overseas.

They don’t always agree, but they don’t flinch when they speak. They’re willing to say what others won’t even if it costs them. 

I started to feel it too, just from being in the room. At one meeting, I noticed a student walk by, pause, and scan the group through the glass. Their eyes landed on me. I recognized them from a CPH Palestine event, an organization that doesn’t tolerate Turning Point USA on campus. 

She says most of the club’s feedback isn’t direct. It’s usually anonymous texts, emails or a public protest. 

The vice president admitted that posting event flyers gives her anxiety and the university doesn’t promote any of their events.

“We’re always asking ourselves— ‘Is this post going to bring protestors?’”

Still, they post. Still, they show up.

When I asked why, she didn’t sound defiant. She sounded exhausted.

“I want to see it continue. I want to keep this space for conservatives on campus,” she said. “If I don’t do it, no one else will.”

The club needs three officers to stay official. No one is volunteering to take her place.

The vice president said she’s staying too.

“For the things I would risk my sanity for this is a priority,” she said. 

Not Charlie Kirk

Ask the president what Turning Point USA stands for, and her answer won’t sound like Charlie Kirk, and they have made it clear they can’t speak on behalf of the whole organization. 

The CPH chapter is more about free speech and personal freedom; they don’t agree with everything the national org does.

But that’s a hard sell on a left-leaning campus. The TPUSA brand is loud, associated with anti-mask rallies, anti-trans legislation and Fox News soundbites. That national baggage lands squarely on their shoulders, whether they carry it or not.

They’ve talked about changing the name. “Conservatives of Humboldt” was one idea. But recognition is tricky. Funding is tied to the national organization, and the campus already sees them as outliers.

The president once asked protestors if they changed the name would it help and the answer was maybe, for her that wasn’t good enough. 

Even Russell, the group’s most outspoken member, thinks the name is a problem. 

Russell thinks the name is stifling the conservative students and liberal students from interacting and having genuine conversations. He believes changing the name would allow for more discourse and growth. 

“I genuinely do not think they will get the results they want by staying under the Turning Point name,” said Russell. “The Turning Point name has actually done damage to this club as a whole, especially with Chole Cole coming around.”

There’s something almost tragic about it. A group of young people trying to distance themselves from the louder, angrier version of the thing they’re part of, but clinging to the label anyway, because it’s the only one they have.

They’re not fully comfortable with the image. But they’re not ready to give it up either.

I left their meeting more confused than when I arrived because the space they’ve carved out felt more fragile than I expected.

It’s easy to protest the idea of Turning Point USA. It’s harder to sit across the table from it and remember: it’s not just an idea.

It’s people. Messy, flawed, occasionally infuriating but still human.

I still don’t know exactly what to think about Turning Point. But now, at least, I know how it feels to sit in the room with some of them.

*Editors note 9/17/25: Some names have been removed due to the sources safety concerns.