Turning Point USA’s Club America is exactly the kind of commonsense, pro-American push our schools desperately need, and TPUSA’s Enterprise Director Nick Cocca has been out front explaining how the program grooms student leaders who aren’t afraid to stand for liberty. Conservatives have long argued that young people deserve an outlet to debate, organize, and fight back against leftist orthodoxy, and Club America gives them that structure and training. Parents who want their kids to learn how to defend free speech and free markets should celebrate this movement growing on high school campuses.
The appetite among students for conservative organization is real and growing — TPUSA reports a nationwide surge in high school chapters, with conservative outlets documenting a jump from roughly 1,200 chapters to well over double that number in a short span. This isn’t accidental; when young Americans are offered leadership, debate skills, and a clear patriotic message, they respond. The left’s monopoly on campus culture is being broken because we’re showing up where it matters: in the schools.
State leaders are finally catching up with grassroots energy and moving to protect students’ rights to form these clubs, with announcements and partnerships popping up from statehouses to education departments. Tennessee and Florida have publicly embraced Club America and pledged support to ensure chapters aren’t shut down by hostile administrators, and other states are watching closely. This is how conservative change happens — not by begging the system for permission, but by building institutions that defend free expression and civic engagement.
Make no mistake, this fight is cultural and existential: for decades the left has used classrooms to shape opinions, marginalize dissent, and silence patriotism. Club America is a direct counter to that trend because it trains students to argue, mobilize peers, and hold schools accountable when they cross the line. If conservatives don’t invest in the next generation of leaders, we shouldn’t be surprised when our values disappear from public life. This is about preserving the American experiment for our children.
TPUSA and allies are also pushing concrete incentives to grow civic engagement, like debate initiatives and scholarship programs that reward excellence in speech and debate under patriotic banners. Florida’s civics efforts that pair scholarships with the Club America mission send a loud message: speaking up for America is valuable and will be rewarded. That kind of positive reinforcement beats the left’s bitter, demoralizing rhetoric every time and builds a pipeline of confident, articulate young conservatives.
Nick Cocca’s blunt assessment — that there are “two types of high schools” now, those with Club America chapters and those that will soon have them — is the kind of bold clarity conservatives need to adopt more often. Rather than wringing hands about cultural loss, we should be rolling up our sleeves, supporting these chapters, and teaching kids how to win debates, run campaigns, and defend the Constitution. For hardworking American parents and patriots, the message is simple: get involved, back your students, and help build the next generation of Charlie Kirks who will fight for freedom and common sense in this country.
