Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest is very much like a circus, and I mean that in the best possible way. A circus can travel anywhere, put up its tents and put on a show.
The scale of last weekend’s event in Phoenix was nothing short of monumental, with 31,000 in attendance. That isn’t so far off of the estimated 50,000 souls who went to the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
To put it bluntly, TPUSA, along with other organizations, are capable of producing a much-needed midterm convention and a city like Phoenix, which hosted the conservative confab admirably, is exactly where it should be held.
As I’ve written in this column before, a midterm GOP conventionmidterm GOP convention, though a tad unconventional as a concept, is exactly what Republicans need to put Trump and his policy wins front and center before the electorate.
John and Lucy, a couple in their 40s who I met at the event, told me it was their first AmFest.
‘The energy is amazing,’ Lucy said. ‘I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect this.’
John concurred, saying, ‘This is like a rock concert, fireworks and loud music, I think it gets everyone pumped up.’
The atmosphere at AmFest was a whizzing and whirring technicolor explosion of light and sound, all resounding toward the goal of forwarding the conservative movement.
There is little doubt that 10 minutes at a pulsating and intense live event like Amfest – or a Trump rally – is worth 10 days of on-screen ads. It hits attendees in each of their five senses, and 50,000 may not sound like much, but that’s a veritable army to send back home in an off-year election.
One eager young conservative I met, Matt, who is studying finance in grad school and sports what might now be called the TPUSA mustache, told me, ‘I’d totally go to a midterm convention. Hell, I’d just go for the parties.’
That may sound a bit shallow to some, but it also sounds like exactly the kind of positive energy that a winning political movement needs.
When it comes to the question of where to hold a midterm convention, Phoenix can teach would-be convention planners a lot about the key question of location, location, location.
