I recently sat down with Turning Point USA CEO and Founder Charlie Kirk who has inspired thousands of young Americans to get engaged in their communities, and we discussed how the conservative movement might be pushing away women by a lack of emotionality in our messaging.
Until recently, the way conservatives have reached young women has been an utter failure. We’ve all heard the saying by now: “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” and for years, “conservatism” was focused on little more than taxes, the size and scope of the federal government, and the one social issue that has defined the right for decades, abortion.
But in recent years, there has been a seismic shift in how conservatives approach the world. We have watched the radical feminist and sexual revolution experiment play out for the past 50 years. As a result, more young men and women are medicating away emotional and spiritual pain that stems from the liberal ideology our culture so readily embraced.
To put it simply: we were lied to. Women were told to prioritize education and a career before a family, to take damaging hormonal birth control, and to wait to have children. When women finally did have children, they were told to place them in daycare and get back to their 9-5. We were promised fulfillment; we were promised freedom from the “patriarchy,” but what we got was an epidemic of loneliness, anxiety, and depression.
“You’ve been sold a lie that you can have it all.”
Suddenly, conservatism seems to be the solution so many searched for.
During our conversation, I emphasized the importance of telling the truth, but taking the “longer” way to get there. Express your sympathy for people in difficult situations, validate the individual’s concerns, and then tell them why you hold your specific viewpoint. This, of course, will likely feel unnatural for most conservatives, and especially very matter-of-fact men, including Charlie himself. “Do we really have to sanitize our language to pander to peoples hyper-emotionality so much?” he asked me, and my answer? Unfortunately, yes.
Engaging women is a necessary aspect of winning the culture war that is raging in American politics, and learning how to do just that is imperative to our mission as conservatives. Listen to the rest of our conversation by tuning into the Charlie Kirk Show, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Rumble!
Don’t forget to also check out my podcast, The Spillover — new episodes air weekly and can be found on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more!
