Republicans are doubling down on the bigotry and extremism that helped bring about their historic losses in the midterm elections.
President Donald Trump’s promotion of Stephen Miller — someone who has pushed white nationalist propaganda — as his chief of staff was a clear sign. The Republican Party voting in virtual lockstep to block warmongering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from being impeached was another.
And now an amalgam of conservative activists, including affiliates of Turning Point USA, have launched a group that’s basically designed to radicalize and mobilize young people ahead of the 2028 elections.
Politico got the drop on the new group, which is called American Ascent. It basically sounds like a Turning Point knockoff that’s going to cultivate young anti-immigration hard-liners to run for Congress and potentially primary GOP incumbents.
The 501(c)(4) will be run by Ryan Neuhaus, the former Heritage Foundation chief of staff. Its partners include an array of new-right allies of Vice President JD Vance, including Turning Point Action, which has already endorsed Vance for president in 2028, as well as the conservative think tank Claremont Institute and the watchdog group Oversight Project.
A PAC that has backed challenges to other GOP incumbents led by Andy Surabian, a longtime aide to both Vance and Donald Trump Jr., will also partner closely with the effort.
The effort was in the works before last week’s GOP washout. Still, its leaders say those results show Republicans must double down rather than shrink back from an aggressive populist agenda on issues from immigration to the economy.
“For too long, the Republican Party has relied on rerunning candidates over and over again,” Neuhaus said. “The American people told us pretty clearly that they want to see younger, more energetic politicians leading in America, representing them. They want to feel closely connected to them, and American Ascent is going to accomplish that.”
Turning Point leaders are among those who have been coping with last week’s election losses by trying to convince themselves that Trump and Miller’s immigration crackdown had nothing to do with the GOP’s drubbing. In fact, some conservatives are suggesting that voters, particularly young ones, actually want more of Trump’s racist anti-immigrant crackdown. That’s why the MAGA movement is placing so much faith in younger lawmakers like Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas.
Yet numerous polls ahead of the midterms showed that large majorities of young people opposed the president’s deadly immigration crackdown for going too far — an assessment even Trump appeared to agree with in last weekend’s “60 Minutes” interview.
That much of MAGA world had a conniption over Trump’s comments suggests they were mad at him for telling the truth. These people want us to believe it was the war-torn economy, not immigration, that doomed Republicans.
But those issues are inextricably linked. Much like the war with Iran, Trump’s immigration agenda hurt the economy, underscoring a truth that many conservatives refuse to admit: Mass deportations are anathema to a thriving nation.
Turning Point and its allies just saw a bunch of their endorsed candidates get walloped in the midterms, fueling yet more criticism of the well-funded group’s awful track record. But the organization’s leaders still want to be seen as the MAGA movement’s youth whisperers.
So in American Ascent, we basically have a new venture that Turning Point and its affiliates can use to achieve many of their old goals: convincing potential donors that they have a sound plan for GOP wins in the future, shining up Vice President JD Vance’s public image and pushing young people to be conservatives.
Republicans are mistaken if they think this new venture will be compelling to most young voters. And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time Turning Point misjudged what young people want.
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