Charlie Kirk's Propaganda Tour Coming to UC Berkeley

The name of the tour is called "Educate Don't Mandate". Turning Point USA and associates are going to various campuses in the country to speak out against lock-downs, masks mandates and Covid vaccines. UC Berkeley is no longer under any lock-down. In-person classes resumed at the start this Spring semester. UC Berkeley does not have a mask mandate. The campus recommends wearing masks while indoors, but does not require it. The UC has no recommendation about wearing masks outdoors. The campus does have a Covid vaccine requirement for students, professors and staff, but it also requires vaccines for chickenpox, measles, mumps, rubella, meningitis, tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis. The Covid vaccine requirement allows for religious and medical exemptions. Those with a valid exemption will not be restricted in their participation on campus. People not affiliated with the UC can access much of campus, regardless of vaccine status.

Charlie Kirk and associates have made Covid misinformation part of their brand. This is despite the fact that Charlie Kirk's mentor and TPUSA founder Bill Montgomery died of Covid in July of 2020. After his death, TPUSA briefly abstained from questioning masks and even deleted old Tweets mocking people who wore masks. However, TPUSA returned to spreading misinformation about masks after a few months had passed, and coverage of Montgomery's death faded into the background. In December of 2021, Kelly Ernby (Conservative deputy district attorney of Orange County) contracted Covid after speaking out against vaccines at a TPUSA rally. Ernby died January of this year at the age 46.

Charlie Kirk has repeatedly compared vaccine mandates to Apartheid. Kirk has also compared vaccine mandates to hostage situations. Kirk makes claims about vaccine related deaths, which are purely fictional. In his own show on June 20th of 2021, Kirk made the baseless claim that 1.2million people in the US died due to complications of the Covid vaccine. He said this was "more than double the amount of people who have died from COVID". He did disclaim: "I'm not saying that's true", but followed that up by saying: "this could be true".

The following month on July 18th, Kirk stated that 6000 people had died due to the vaccine. In the very next sentence, he expanded that number by saying the number of vaccine deaths "could be 10 or 20 times beyond that". He makes up numbers, misrepresents data, and confuses his audience with ever shifting calculations. He covers himself legally, by occasionally interjecting that what he's saying isn't proven or true. These legal disclaimers get lost between the jumble of numbers he presents.

TPUSA's campus tour is also against what they perceive to be 'woke' or 'progressive' cultural mandates. Anti-transgender rhetoric is a big part of tour. In her tour speech, Blaze TV personality Allie Stuckey says that accepting the identity of transgender people is like something out of George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984". On the April 12th tour stop, Stuckey said that "scientifically there is no such thing as transgender", and that the concept of transgender was made up by "sexologists" in the 1970s and 1980s. She said that gender dysphoria is a "mental disorder". Stuckey told her audience that people shouldn't accept transgender people entering whatever gendered spaces they want, such as restrooms.

Stuckey is incorrect. There has been a growing body of scientific research and peer-reviewed papers exploring and explaining the biological origins of transgenderism. Scientists are studying the links between certain gene expressions and hormonal signals during fetal development that lead to a gender mismatch between body and mind. As for gender dysphoria, it is accepted within the current DSM that the issue not be treated as a mental illness, but rather be treated by physically transitioning as medically appropriate. The concept of transgender identity has a deep history through cultures all over the world; it was not an invention of "sexologists" in the 70s and 80s.

On the March 30th tour date, Charlie Kirk said that being expected to respect transgender people's chosen names is like "living under tyranny". Kirk talked about how he lost his Twitter account after mocking and directing harassment towards US assistant secretary for health Rachel Levine, who is a transgender woman. Speaking to the crowd, he insisted that Dr. Levine is a man. Paradoxically, towards the end of his presentation, he told the crowd that empathy is not a masculine trait. But what are doctors supposed to be if not empathetic, regardless of gender? He said that men don't have patience. But what are doctors supposed to be if not patient, regardless of gender ? He also said that men do things like hunt and fish, which are activities that fundamentally require patience. Kirk said that the issue of transgender rights is a White Liberal issue, not a Black issue, as if there aren't Black transgender people. Charlie Kirk's ideas are easy to debate.

The tour is also being used as a platform for Charlie Kirk to spread conspiracies about the 2020 presidential election. Kirk talks about men in white latex gloves and masks "moving ballots illegally", ballots being "placed into the trash", and calls the election a "highway robbery". He is careful though, to make a legal disclaimer that none of this is anything "can prove".

Conservative writer/commentator Drew Hernandez has said that he will be at UC Berkeley tomorrow. Hernandez works for TPUSA and is a guest commenter on Blaze TV. He said on Twitter he will be in Berkeley to "expose the losers".

TPUSA claims to be a grassroots organization, organized by and for young conservatives, and supported by conservative student donations. In reality, the organization was founded in 2012 by Bill Montgomery, who was 70 years old upon TPUSA's start. Montgomery was also the treasurer for TPUSA unbtil his death. Billionaire Darwin Deason, who was also in his 70s at the time, injected a lot of money into TPUSA. Dick Uihlein was in his late 60s when he began pouring money into the organization. TPUSA's success is heavily dependent on Kimberly Guilfoyle's influence, who is now age 53. Charlie Kirk was just a young personality that was being used and mentored by older politically and financially influential conservative elites. Nothing about TPUSA's organizational and financial structure is grassroots, or youth-led.

A Twitter account heavily involved in organizing this event at UC Berkeley is @realamber_k96. This is someone who is directly associated with TPUSA Bay Area. The event is free and is scheduled to occur on UC Berkeley from 7:00PM to 8:30PM. UC Berkeley and TPUSA only disclose the location to ticket holders.

As expected, the UC Berkeley administration is organizing campus police and has called for law-enforcement mutual-aid from outside agencies to establish a space for Charlie Kirk to speak. Those who attempt to protest will not be given equal courtesy. Suppression of protest and arrests should be expected. It should also be expected that more extremist conservative events will happen on campus this year, as have occurred in the past. UC Berkeley has been appeasing conservative activists since 2016 when Richard Spencer spoke at Sproul Plaza, and continuing with subsequent events organized by Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shaprio, and others. Charlie Kirk spoke at UC Berkeley in 2019.