Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk’s organization for right-wing youth, understands something important about reaching young people: “that politics is always downstream from culture, and if we can reach people where they’re at culturally—that’s how we influence our nation.” One of their big ways to do that is through the creation of their own organizational influencer, Alex Clark, and her “cuteservatives” project. Hoo boy. The good news for progressives is that while organizing by reaching people where they’re at culturally is a powerful strategy and therefore a potentially scary one when the right adopts it, I don’t think this particular effort is going to win over a lot of young women who were on the fence politically speaking.
You may remember Clark from coverage of her calling hormonal birth control “poison,” or telling the crowd at TPUSA’s Young Women's Leadership Summit that “The Top 4 Lies of Modern Feminism” are birth control, abortion, fertility care, and day care. But she’s so much more than that! Interspersed with her coverage of abortion bans and miracle adoptions, she writes listicles like “the cutest swimsuits for cuteservatives this summer” and “the ultimate cuteservative Christmas gift guide.” (I am not linking, but you can find them if you want.) She is really determined to make “cuteservative” happen.