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Groyper Wars

The "Groyper Wars" (also "Groyper War" or "the Groypening") were a coordinated questioning-and-heckling campaign by followers of Nick Fuentes — self-described Groypers or the "Groyper Army" — against Charlie Kirk, TPUSA, and other mainstream conservative speakers during fall 2019, with organizational spillover into 2020. The name comes from Groyper, a rotund green-frog meme (a Pepe the Frog variant, often drawn with chin on interlocked fingers). Fuentes's fans were earlier called "Nickers." The term is often mis-transcribed as "Graper Wars."

Peak in-person disruption ran October–December 2019 on TPUSA's "Culture War" campus tour and related events. A separate online "Groyper War 2" in 2024 targeted Trump campaign personnel and positions and is not the same as the 2019 campus campaign.

:::caution Date correction — this was 2019, not 2023 The campaign is sometimes misdated to 2023 in secondary retellings and in post-2025 social media threads. The documented in-person campus campaign against Kirk and TPUSA ran in fall 2019, with 2020 organizational aftermath. There is no evidence in contemporary sources of the main 2019 activity continuing as a major university campaign into 2023 — though online factional tension persisted continuously, and a separate digital/meme "Groyper War 2" ran in 2024 against Trump campaign elements. :::

Fuentes and allies framed the campaign as exposing "Conservative Inc.," "Israel First" loyalty, and insufficiently nationalist positions. Kirk, TPUSA, and their allies framed the participants as white nationalists, antisemites, racists, and internet trolls. Activity peaked October–December 2019 across multiple campuses, with Fuentes livestreaming reactions, declaring sequential "victories," and directing followers via social media. Written guides circulated — including on 4chan and in Daily Stormer-adjacent contexts — advising participants to dress well, stay polite and calm, and stick to a defined list of question topics; some versions explicitly warned against overt "Jewish question" phrasing in the room, in favor of coded or search-bait framings.

:::note Why this page is here This is pre-event background, not evidence about September 10, 2025. The campaign is the origin of a durable right-wing factional dispute over Charlie Kirk's positions on Israel, immigration, and LGBT inclusion — fault lines that reappear in Israel friction and motive analysis years later. Nothing here asserts that any person or group from 2019–2020 had any connection to Charlie Kirk's death. After September 10, 2025, online speculation sometimes re-linked Groypers to the case; investigators have not publicly reported a connection between Tyler Robinson and the Groyper movement, and Fuentes publicly disavowed armed action by followers. :::

Who the Groypers were (as reported)​

Contemporaneous reporting and later encyclopedic summaries describe Groypers as a loosely defined online/offline network around Fuentes's America First show — not a formal membership organization with a roster. Mainstream and watchdog sources (ADL, Vox, NBC, Wikipedia synthesis) have characterized the movement as far-right, white nationalist, antisemitic, and homophobic. Fuentes and participants often self-described as "America First," traditionalist, Christian, and nationalist, and rejected "alt-right" or "white nationalist" labels as left-wing smears. Both framings are claims of the parties that made them.

Operational pattern (2019):

  • Attend TPUSA and allied campus events, usually during Q&A.
  • Present as ordinary MAGA/Trump students (red hats, TPUSA-friendly pins) so organizers would not filter them out.
  • Ask leading questions on Israel aid and loyalty, legal immigration and demographics, and LGBT conservatives in the movement.
  • Extract short clips for Twitter memes, hashtags (e.g. #dancingisraelis), and Fuentes livestreams.
  • If denied the mic, heckle, boo, and chant ("America First," "Q&A").

Guidance circulated on message boards and extreme sites (including posts Vox attributed to Daily Stormer) told attendees to stay calm and polite in line, and if ejected to shout phrases such as "GOOGLE THE USS LIBERTY," "GOOGLE DANCING ISRAELIS," "AMERICA FIRST NOT ISRAEL FIRST," or "NICK FUENTES."

The circulated guides (as reported)​

Copies and paraphrases of the coordination material appeared on 4chan boards, in Telegram channels, and in Daily Stormer-style write-ups. Recurring instructions:

  • Dress the part — collared shirt, sport coat, or plain MAGA merchandise; look like an ordinary campus Republican, not a protester.
  • Be polite and calm — no shouting while holding the mic; the optics of a well-dressed, soft-spoken questioner versus an agitated speaker were treated as the whole point.
  • Stick to the approved question set — foreign aid to Israel, dual loyalty, legal immigration volume, demographic change, LGBT inclusion in the movement, the Ashley St. Clair severance.
  • Avoid overt "Jewish question" phrasing in some versions — use policy framing or search bait ("Google X") instead of explicit statements that would let hosts label the questioner instantly.
  • Use memes and hashtags afterward — the clip mattered more than the answer.
  • Saturate the line — send enough people that the Q&A becomes majority-Groyper rather than a single hostile question.
  • If removed by security, shout the standing phrases above so the ejection itself becomes content.

Note on sourcing: these guides are known primarily through journalistic quotation and participant description, not from an authenticated single master document. Treat the list as reported practice, consistent across multiple accounts of what happened in the rooms.

Hybrid media: how Twitter and livestreams amplified campus nights​

The campaign was designed as much for online remediation as for the room. Diggit Magazine's contemporaneous analysis (Ico Maly, Oct. 31, 2019) described Groyper Q&A as a digital practice performed offline:

  • TPUSA livestreamed events; Groyper questions therefore reached Kirk's own audience.
  • Fuentes dual-screened the official stream on DLive, adding live commentary. At Ohio State, Diggit reported roughly ~4,000 watching Fuentes's stream versus ~400 on the official TPUSA stream.
  • Clips were cut within minutes and circulated on Twitter by Groyper accounts, many of which used anodyne bios ("Christian conservative") while coordinating harassment and talking points.
  • Questions that sounded absurd offline (e.g. "dancing Israelis") pointed online viewers into search data voids full of conspiracy content.

NBC News (Ben Collins, Nov. 12, 2019) reported Fuentes building anticipation on stream when "his guys" reached the mic: "Here we go. Here we go… Groyper time." Harvard Shorenstein Center researchers Joan Donovan and Brian Friedberg, quoted by NBC, framed the goal as putting "shocking language around race… back on the table" after post-Charlottesville platform crackdowns left some far-right voices looking for new entry points into pro-Trump spaces.

Immediate triggers (September–October 2019)​

Ashley St. Clair photo and TPUSA severance​

In September 2019, TPUSA "brand ambassador" Ashley St. Clair was photographed at an event with Fuentes and others described in reporting as alt-right figures, including Jacob Wohl and Anthime Gionet ("Baked Alaska"). After Right Wing Watch publicized the images, TPUSA severed ties (reports cluster around September 30, 2019) and stated that white nationalism is "abhorrent and un-American."

Vox later quoted a source saying the St. Clair firing — not only ideology in the abstract — helped drive Fuentes's campaign, and that some chapter officers more aligned with Fuentes's views resigned. Kansas State University's TPUSA officers were reported to have quit en masse, saying the national group no longer reflected their conservative values. TPUSA's response, per that source, amounted to "don't let the door hit you" and insistence on a "big tent" message that excluded Fuentes's project.

Politicon​

At 2019 Politicon, Fuentes tried to reach Kirk at TPUSA-linked events: waiting in photo lines and attempting to attend Kirk's debate with Kyle Kulinski (The Young Turks). Security repeatedly blocked him. Fuentes publicly claimed Kirk was avoiding confrontation because Kirk's positions could not survive open challenge. Kirk's side treated Fuentes as an extremist to be kept away from stages and students.

Culture War tour map (fall 2019)​

Kirk's TPUSA "Culture War" college tour began in early October 2019. Diggit's contemporaneous itinerary notes include:

Approx. dateLocationNotes in period reporting
Oct 7, 2019University of Nevada, RenoTour open
Oct 21, 2019Grand Canyon University (Phoenix)Early Q&A clips; viral content target
Oct 23–24, 2019Colorado State (Fort Collins); University of IowaEscalating "dissident right" Q&A
~Oct 25, 2019University of New HampshireContinued stops
Oct 29, 2019Ohio State UniversityFirst major national climax
Nov 8–9, 2019Arizona State (Crenshaw)Israel-heavy questions
Nov 10, 2019UCLA (Trump Jr.)Q&A canceled; national coverage
Nov 12, 2019University of FloridaSeparate lines; chapter statement
~Nov 13, 2019North Carolina State UniversityScored as stalemate, victory, and loss by allied sources
~Nov 14, 2019University of Houston"Booed off campus" videos; Fuentes-clip monitor stunt
Nov 14, 2019UCLA (YAF, Malkin speech)"America First: the Torch Is Being Passed"
Nov 17–18, 2019—YAF removes Malkin from speakers bureau
Dec 2019West Palm Beach, FLGroyper Leadership Summit vs SAS; Shapiro street confrontation

Tour guests across stops included Rob Smith, Rand Paul, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lara Trump, Dan Crenshaw, and Graham Allen.

Fuentes framed the Colorado-era Q&A interventions (per Diggit quote of Fuentes) as starting "a great crusade by the nickers, the Groypers, by all kinds of right wing people to expose Charlie Kirk (as) a fake conservative, civic nationalist, Conservative Inc."

Event-by-event: early/mid-October 2019 — the first infiltrations (Reno, GCU, Colorado State, Iowa, New Hampshire)​

The tour's opening weeks are where the pattern was invented and then scaled. These stops get little mainstream coverage because nothing was shut down — but Fuentes's own retrospectives treat them as the ignition point.

University of Nevada, Reno (~Oct 7, 2019)​

Tour opener. No documented Groyper saturation. Establishes the format: Kirk keynote plus open-mic Q&A, livestreamed by TPUSA — the livestream being the vulnerability the campaign later exploited.

Grand Canyon University / Phoenix (~Oct 21, 2019)​

Early Q&A clips began circulating as viral-content targets. Phoenix is Fuentes-adjacent territory (TPUSA is headquartered in the Phoenix area), and period accounts treat this as one of the first stops where hostile-from-the-right questions were deliberately farmed for clips.

Colorado State University, Fort Collins (~Oct 23, 2019) — the credited origin​

Fuentes later credited two early Groypers at Colorado with kicking the campaign off — described in stream and follower shorthand by their online personas (a "Rosary"/"Han"-style account and a "Patrick Bateman"-type account; these are pseudonymous handles, not verified identities). Their questions set the two durable themes:

  1. Foreign aid to Israel — why American money and diplomatic priority go abroad.
  2. Legal immigration — not illegal immigration, which mainstream conservatives already opposed, but the volume and composition of legal immigration, including Kirk's support for stapling green cards to diplomas.

The choice to attack legal immigration was strategically deliberate: it put Kirk on ground where his answers would sound pro-immigration to a nationalist audience while sounding reasonable to a mainstream one.

University of Iowa (~Oct 23–24, 2019)​

Period accounts describe four or more Groyper questions at this stop — the first evidence the tactic could be repeated by strangers who had only seen it online. Fuentes's stream treated Iowa as proof of replicability.

University of New Hampshire (~Oct 25, 2019)​

Again 4+ Groyper questions reported. By this point the escalation curve was explicit in Fuentes's own framing: a handful of questions at Colorado, several at Iowa and New Hampshire, then the claimed near-total Q&A saturation at Ohio State a few days later. Diggit documented Google Trends spikes for Groyper-related search terms across the Oct 25 – Nov 2 window, matching this ramp.

Why the ramp matters: it shows the campaign was not a single viral night. It was an iterated tactic with a feedback loop — stream the result, recruit more questioners, saturate a bigger room.

Event-by-event: October 29, 2019 — Ohio State University​

Format: Culture War event with co-host Rob Smith (Black, gay Iraq War veteran and TPUSA-aligned influencer).

Numbers: Reporting counted 11 of 14 audience questions as coming from Groypers/nickers — the first night widely treated as proof the campaign could dominate a TPUSA Q&A.

Questions documented in period sources​

  1. Demographic / "white European ideals"
    "Can you prove that our white European ideals will be maintained if the country is no longer made up of white European descendants?"
    Kirk and allies treated this as a white-nationalist demographic frame; Groyper-aligned accounts treated it as exposing "civic nationalism."

    The question was built on a specific chain of premises the questioner did not state aloud: Census projections of a non-white-majority United States around 2045; the observed Democratic voting margins among non-white voters; and therefore the claim that immigration levels determine political outcomes permanently. Kirk called it a racist question, rejected the premise outright, and pivoted to Trump's improved performance with Black and Latino voters relative to prior Republicans — the standard civic-nationalist answer that demographics are not destiny because persuasion works. Groyper-aligned accounts described him as squirming and changing the subject; Kirk-aligned accounts described him as correctly refusing a racist frame. Both readings come from the same clip.

  2. Homophobic question aimed at Rob Smith
    "How does anal sex help us win the culture war?"
    Hosts and much of the room rejected it; the clip still circulated as Groyper content. The point of the question, in Groyper framing, was TPUSA's inclusion of gay speakers.

    Variants of the question reported from this and nearby stops framed sexual liberation as a mechanism of political control, or challenged the movement for treating homosexuality as normative — sometimes referencing prior on-stage advocacy for LGBT inclusion.

    Rob Smith's response: he called the question BS, irrelevant, and bad faith, and invoked his military service — a Black, gay Iraq War veteran being asked about anal sex at a conservative event was, in his framing, the entire tell about the questioners' motives.

    Kirk's response: he deferred to Smith initially, then said he does not care what consenting adults do privately, that hyperfocus on gay sex is "weird," and that America's Western values allow gays and lesbians to contribute to society. He separately maintained that marriage is between one man and one woman while refusing to expel people from the coalition over personal values.

    Groyper-aligned commentary on the clip claimed the responses were evasive, and some posts insinuated the asker was closeted — an argument that circulated on both sides of the clip.

  3. "Dancing Israelis" question (full exchange as transcribed by Diggit)
    The questioner dressed as a TPUSA/MAGA supporter: red MAGA hat, "I love ISR" pin, "socialism sucks" pin. He opened by seeming to agree that a prior question was racist ("What a racist question that was"), then:

    "I have a quick and fun, lighthearted question for you, Charlie. So, you gave a speech in Jerusalem earlier this year? Were there any awesome fun dancing parties that you guys hit afterwards? Cause I heard that Israelis are some of the best dancers in the world. I mean, if you don't believe me, Google 'Dancing Israelis,' – it is insane how good their dancing is. Would you agree or disagree with that?"

    Kirk: "Israel is a beautiful country, a great country too."
    Questioner: "It is our greatest ally."
    Kirk: "Correct."

    Online, "Google Dancing Israelis" pointed to long-running antisemitic 9/11 conspiracy material. Groyper Twitter pushed #dancingisraelis the next day. Diggit documented Google Trends spikes for Groyper-related searches in the Oct 25–Nov 2 window.

    Why the "lighthearted" framing mattered: the question was engineered so that any answer worked. Agreement produced a clip of Kirk endorsing a phrase tied to 9/11 conspiracy material; refusal produced a clip of Kirk refusing a "fun" question about dancing. The real payload was the search instruction delivered to the livestream audience.

  4. Ashley St. Clair severance / "blackballing" question
    Questioners pressed Kirk on the September 2019 St. Clair firing over a photograph taken in proximity to Fuentes:

    • Do you support blackballing people for controversial opinions, or for appearing in a photo in the same room as someone?
    • If you are the pro-debate, free-speech side, will you debate on immigration, identity, and demographics?

    TPUSA's position: internal personnel matters were resolved privately, and the organization's line was that white nationalism is abhorrent and un-American — association with figures promoting it was disqualifying for a brand ambassador. Groyper framing: this proved TPUSA operated a guilt-by-photograph purge system while advertising itself as the free-speech faction.

  5. Israel policy priority
    A direct-choice question: would Kirk support a policy that benefits America to the detriment of Israel? Kirk treated this as a false choice, holding that American and Israeli interests are broadly aligned and that the framing itself was the trap. Groypers treated the refusal to answer the hypothetical as an admission of dual loyalty — which was the purpose of constructing it as a forced binary.

Framing goals at OSU (Groyper side, as summarized by Diggit)​

Interventions aimed to paint Kirk as "pro-Israel, anti-white, anti-American, loyal to a different country, anti-Christian, pro-drag queen and an anal sex supporting fake conservative." All of those phrases are participant/advocate characterizations, not findings of this site.

Response at OSU​

Kirk, Smith, and TPUSA figures including Benny Johnson labeled the questioners white supremacists and antisemites. Reports described Kirk as rattled; TPUSA distanced itself from members who spoke sympathetically about Fuentes. Fuentes celebrated the night on stream as validation of the tactic.

Fuentes's OSU stream claims​

Fuentes streamed a celebration episode framed around "Charlie Kirk DECISIVELY ROUTED" and described the night as "white-pilled," claiming:

  • Nearly 100% saturation of the Q&A by America First questioners at some stops.
  • A standing offer of accountability: answer the questions, or the next event gets disrupted instead.
  • A historic tipping point — young nationalists rejecting mainstream conservatism in favor of European-heritage preservation and America First against globalism.
  • "Total victory" language that would be reused, stop by stop, for the rest of the tour.

Claimed TPUSA reaction after OSU (Groyper-side allegations)​

Follower accounts and sympathetic posts claimed that in the days after Ohio State, TPUSA:

  • Reached out to influencers to coordinate messaging against the movement.
  • Purged members who had spoken about Fuentes politely or neutrally.
  • Began building photo databases of known questioners for door screening at later events.

These are unverified participant claims. TPUSA's public posture was that it was excluding extremists and non-students, not policing curiosity.

Twitter aftermath: "the Battle of OSU"​

Period X posts show the vocabulary of the campaign being minted in real time:

  • Posts noting the word "Groyper" spreading rapidly after Ohio State, and that "the Groyper Wars started" here.
  • "Battle of OSU" framed as "based kings vs. Charlie Kirk."
  • Claims of humiliation and of TPUSA purging members afterward.
  • Repeated citation of Kirk's green-card-to-diploma position as irreconcilable with America First.
  • Kirk-side and neutral posts comparing the tactic to Antifa-style disruption applied from the right.

Event-by-event: November 8–9, 2019 — Arizona State / Dan Crenshaw​

Event title: "Prove Me Wrong ft. Congressman Dan Crenshaw" (Tempe).

Crenshaw's own characterization (email to Vox, Jane Coaston): questions were "almost exclusively about Israel." He wrote that questions often began as "a legitimate policy difference, perfectly debatable," then revealed "deeper and darker" motives with "hints along the way."

USS Liberty: Questioners repeatedly raised the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty (34 Americans killed). Israel and the U.S. governments treated it as mistaken identity and paid reparations; far-right forums use it as a standing claim that Israel is not an ally. Period reporting (Vox citing Ellie Hall / BuzzFeed) treated Liberty and "dancing Israelis" questions as antisemitic dog whistles when used in this pattern.

NBC (Collins): After an antisemitic 9/11 reference, Crenshaw asked, "What do you guys call yourselves? There's a name for your group, right?" He got sarcastic answers, then chants of "America First! America First!"

Crenshaw later stated publicly that conservatives are "100% different" from "vehement racists, anti-semites & ethnic-nationalists." GQ's contemporaneous essay said Crenshaw had been heckled by Fuentes-aligned attendees multiple times in that period.

Context — the ASU stop as escalation: the Arizona State event sat in the same series as Donald Trump Jr. appearances, and the Groyper questions there were described as "almost exclusively about Israel" — a narrowing from the earlier three-theme mix (Israel / immigration / LGBT) to the single theme that produced the most usable clips. This is also the point at which targeting expanded beyond Kirk to YAF and Daily Wire figures, turning a Kirk-specific campaign into a "Conservative Inc." campaign.

Event-by-event: November 10, 2019 — UCLA (Trump Jr. Triggered)​

Bill: Promotional appearance for Donald Trump Jr.'s book Triggered, with Charlie Kirk and Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Planned format (Vox source): brief interview by Kirk, then book signing; originally scheduled about two hours.

Countermeasure: Organizers canceled the Q&A in advance specifically to block Groyper questions.

What happened: A largely pro-Trump crowd — some accounts estimated roughly one-third Groypers — booed, heckled, and chanted "Q&A" and "America First." Some reports described attendees imitating Joker-style laughter as a mocking heckle. The event ended after roughly 20–30 minutes — cut down from the planned ~2 hours; Trump Jr. left the stage early. National print and cable coverage followed; this night is the standard citation for when the "Groyper War" became a mainstream story.

Guilfoyle's reported reaction: Kimberly Guilfoyle is reported to have shouted from the stage that the disruptors needed to try online dating — a line that became one of the most-clipped moments of the night and was reused by Groyper accounts as evidence that the panel had no substantive answer.

Fuentes's stream: an episode framed as "UCLA Nationalist REVOLT Shuts Down TPUSA Don Jr. Event," treated as the campaign's largest scalp to that date.

Groyper-side allegations about security: follower accounts claimed TPUSA security waved through suspicious left-wing attendees while threatening or screening America First attendees — cited as proof that the organization feared questions from its right more than protest from its left. Unverified.

Mainstream and Kirk-side X reaction: posts asked directly whether Fuentes had shut down a Trump Jr. event, and characterized the group as racists hijacking young conservative events — the framing that carried into national coverage.

Free books: period posts claimed copies of Triggered were handed out free after the program collapsed.

Spectator USA (Chadwick Moore): argued the night exposed a generational split on the American right. Groypers saw Kirk and similar figures as having "snatch[ed] the baton and appoint[ed] themselves the guardians of 2016's spoils" while holding positions (on immigration, Israel, LGBT inclusion) that Fuentes's cohort treated as betrayal of MAGA. Another Spectator writer, Ben Sixsmith, argued TPUSA had sold itself as the "debate guys" yet used insults and Q&A cancellation instead of answering.

Twitter discussion: Moore posted (Nov 11, 2019) that a friend thought Kim and Jr. may not have been warned — "as if TPUSA thought the groypers wouldn't dare show up" — and that Guilfoyle could have "legitimately thought it was leftists in the crowd." Period posts also claimed free copies of Triggered were distributed after the shutdown.

Event-by-event: November 12, 2019 — University of Florida​

Bill: Culture War with Graham Allen, University Auditorium, evening program.

Tactics: Organizers reportedly ran separate question lines for left-wing and right-wing questioners — described in some accounts as one line for the left and one for the "alt-right." Kirk still took many questions and was booed at points, including when he condemned white nationalism.

Groyper-side account of Kirk's answers: sympathetic accounts claimed Kirk answered extensively and backtracked toward immigration restriction under pressure, while holding firm against white identitarianism — and described him as "humbled" by the exchange. Kirk-side accounts describe the same night as Kirk taking hostile questions at length and being booed for calling white nationalism evil, i.e. holding the line.

Fuentes's stream: episode titled around "Groyper Wars: DECISIVE VICTORY AT THE BATTLE OF FLORIDA."

X reaction: posts framed it as a massive America First showing, "hard questions" for Kirk, and rising #GroyperWars momentum — e.g. "Groyper War: Charlie Kirk Hammered With Hard Questions by America First Youth At UF" and "The Groypening gathered even more momentum… massive showing."

TPUSA at UF chapter public statement (Nov 12–13, 2019)​

Local coverage (WCJB and chapter social posts) preserved the chapter's message:

  • The near-full house had been intended for "sincere discourse."
  • The event was "hijacked by non-students with an agenda."
  • Infiltrators allegedly disguised themselves with MAGA hats and even Bernie Sanders memorabilia.
  • They booed Kirk for calling white nationalism evil.
  • They rejected the Christian premise that God can love and use all people regardless of sexual orientation.
  • The chapter reaffirmed socially conservative values, natural rights, limited government, capitalism, and national sovereignty, and said the non-students had "espoused evil."

This statement is one of the clearest primary-source chapter reactions from the campaign: it concedes social conservatism while drawing a hard line against racial ideology and non-student disruption.

Event-by-event: ~November 14, 2019 — University of Houston​

Format: Kirk "Prove Me Wrong" table event (capitalism vs. socialism billing). GQ described a small table with a poster reading roughly "I'm pro-choice. You can pick your gun."

Kirk counter-tactic: He tried to confront Groypers by unveiling a concealed monitor to play a clip of Fuentes criticizing Trump — initially hampered by technical problems.

Outcome: The crowd chanted "America First," booed, and followed and heckled Kirk as he left campus. Groyper-aligned accounts and sympathetic blogs posted "booed off campus" victory videos (widely shared on Twitter Nov 14–16, 2019). GQ (Talia Lavin, Nov 25) described a "hostile throng" that "chased him bodily from the area."

Date note: Some later timelines list Houston as November 25; contemporaneous "booed off campus at UH" posts and GQ's "last week" framing (published Nov 25) point to mid-November (~Nov 14). Both dates appear in secondary compilations; treat mid-November Houston as the well-attested disruption and flag the variance.

Twitter: "WATCH: #CharlieKirk 'Booed Off Campus' at UH to Chants of 'America First'…" circulated widely, with Groyper accounts claiming they had successfully run him off campus.

On the monitor stunt: the concealed-screen reveal is worth noting as a tactical inversion — Kirk attempting to use the Groypers' own weapon (a damning clip of the opponent) in the room rather than online. Fuentes's criticism of Trump was the chosen wedge, on the theory that Groypers claimed Trump loyalty while following someone who attacked him. The technical failure of the reveal is the detail every Groyper retelling foregrounds.

Event-by-event: ~November 13, 2019 — North Carolina State University​

NCSU is the stop that complicates the victory narrative, because even Groyper-aligned scorekeeping split on it.

  • Fuentes's stream ran an episode titled around "Unhinged Charlie Kirk CHEATS His Way to Stalemate at NCSU" — a stalemate, not a win, with the "cheating" charge referring to question screening and format control.
  • A follow-up episode then reframed the same stop as "Total Victory" / "BATTLE OF NORTH CAROLINA."
  • Meanwhile the far-right blog Occidental Dissent published "Groypers Take a Loss In North Carolina" (Nov 13, 2019).

Why this matters analytically: the same night was published by allied sources as a stalemate, a total victory, and a loss within days. That is direct evidence that the "battle" scoreboard was rhetorical production, not measurement — and it is the strongest single reason to treat every "decisive victory" claim on this page as a claim rather than a finding.

Mid-to-late November 2019 — the reaction phase​

By mid-November the campaign's center of gravity moved from campus rooms to argument about the campaign itself.

Fuentes stream themes in this window​

  • "Gatekeepers EXPOSED" — an episode on the Michelle Malkin firing by YAF, treated as the establishment proving the thesis by punishing its own most respected immigration hawk.
  • Kirk calling for "good faith dialogue" — framed by Fuentes as a concession: the man who had called them trolls now wanted talks.
  • Demographics — continued episodes on Census projections, voting patterns, and "replacement" framing.

Michelle Malkin's "bigger than Fuentes" argument​

Malkin's public position was that the substance had been buried by the personality. Her posts in this window argued that immigration restrictionists asked "brilliant questions" at CSU, OSU, Florida, Texas, UT and other stops, and were then shut down and smeared — and that making the whole affair about Fuentes personally was a deliberate "Conservative Inc." strategy to avoid the immigration argument:

"Immigration restrictionists asked brilliant q's at CSU, OSU, Florida, Texas, UT, etc. Then they got shut down & smeared. This is way bigger than Fuentes…"

She later described herself as a mentor and mother figure to Groypers, and months afterward (Mar 18, 2020, in an EB-5 visa thread) still framed the campaign as vindicated: "God bless TRUE #AmericaFirst-ers who initially exposed Kirk LAST FALL during Groyper Wars."

Groyper-side allegations against TPUSA in this window​

  • TPUSA ended open Q&A, i.e. ended free speech at its own free-speech events.
  • TPUSA ejected people over vague or secondhand Fuentes association.
  • TPUSA adopted "leftist thuggish tactics" — screening, labeling, security removal.
  • TPUSA maintained photo databases of hecklers for door screening.
  • TPUSA invited loud leftist protesters more readily than Trump supporters asking questions from the right.

All unverified participant claims; TPUSA's counter-position was that these were ordinary protections against pre-planned entryism by non-students.

The counter-anecdote (Kirk/TPUSA side)​

A widely shared post from the Student Action Summit period described infiltrators wearing Turning Point gear:

"Fun story today: some of Fuentes' infiltrators introduced themselves to me at the #SAS event while wearing Turning Point gear. When one snidely remarked 'hey way to put Israel First,' I asked him for his name and they all straight-up BOLTED…"

Used by Kirk allies as evidence of bad faith and cowardice: willing to accuse in a crowd, unwilling to be named.

The "just keep heckling" line​

One of the most-quoted posts of the period, half joke and half strategy:

"We just need to heckle Charlie Kirk 200–300 more times and we'll finally win the Culture War."

It captures the campaign's actual theory of victory — attrition through repetition, not persuasion in any single room.

Expansion beyond Kirk: YAF, Shapiro, Malkin (November–December 2019)​

"Conservative Inc." target list​

After OSU and UCLA, the same Q&A/heckling model hit speakers and groups Groypers lumped as "Conservative Inc.":

  • Young America's Foundation (YAF) / Young Americans for Freedom
  • Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh (The Daily Wire)
  • Jonah Goldberg (The Dispatch)
  • Continued pressure on TPUSA summits and campus chapters

Michelle Malkin and YAF (November 14–18, 2019)​

  • Malkin published criticism of Kirk's immigration stance (notably support for green cards for foreign graduates of U.S. universities) in American Greatness.
  • On November 14, at a YAF-sponsored UCLA speech titled "America First: the Torch Is Being Passed," she praised Fuentes as a New Right leader and defended Groyper-aligned young nationalists.
  • On November 17–18, YAF removed Malkin from its speakers bureau after 17 years. YAF stated there is "no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists."
  • Malkin replied that "the Keepers of the Gate have spoken" and that her defense of Proud Boys, "patriotic young nationalists/groypers," and "demographic truth-tellers" would not be tolerated. She later described herself as a mentor / mother figure to Groypers.

Ben Shapiro street confrontation (December 2019)​

Outside a venue hosting a TPUSA-linked event, Fuentes confronted Shapiro while Shapiro was with his wife and children. Shapiro refused to engage. Condemnation came from figures across media and politics, including Nikki Haley, Meghan McCain, Sebastian Gorka, Megyn Kelly, and Michael Avenatti. Shapiro separately delivered a Stanford/YAF speech attacking the movement (without always naming Fuentes) as a rebranded alt-right trying to claim inheritance of conservatism.

December 2019 — Groyper Leadership Summit vs TPUSA Student Action Summit​

Place/time: West Palm Beach, Florida, same city and window as TPUSA's Student Action Summit (SAS) (speakers included Shapiro).

Groyper Leadership Summit:

  • Limited, vetted in-person attendance; partial livestream. Fuentes claimed hundreds of emails requesting spots against a deliberately limited invite list; Patrick Casey noted tight security and vetting — a defensive posture attributed to fears of infiltration and doxing.
  • Speakers included Fuentes, Patrick Casey, and former InfoWars contributor Jake Lloyd (Jacob Lloyd), discussing strategy and ideology.
  • Outside SAS, Groypers argued with attendees; Fuentes, Casey, and others were removed after attempting to enter the TPUSA venue.
  • Fuentes encouraged disruption and recruitment around the mainstream summit, explicitly urging "groyper mayhem."
  • A later Fuentes episode covered confronting Ben Shapiro at SAS (see the street-confrontation section above).
  • Period X posts from the window pushed three themes: continued heckling is still needed, Con Inc. smears are the establishment's only answer, and defend Malkin.

Structural note: the vetted-summit model is the inverse of the campus model. On campus the movement won attention by being unfiltered and everywhere; in its own house it went invitation-only and screened — the same gatekeeping it attacked TPUSA for, justified by informant fear rather than ideology.

This dual-track weekend crystallized the split: institutional youth conservatism (TPUSA SAS) versus parallel America First infrastructure.

Claims inventory (both sides)​

Groyper / Fuentes-aligned assertions (not this site's findings)​

  • Kirk was a "fake conservative," "fake patriot," "fake Christian," and a "gatekeeper" of establishment conservatism who diluted 2016's energy.
  • Kirk was too pro-Israel; U.S. policy should put America ahead of Israel; USS Liberty and "dancing Israelis" framed as damning.
  • Kirk was too open on immigration, including green cards for foreign university graduates.
  • Kirk was too accommodating on LGBT issues by platforming gay co-hosts and speakers.
  • Kirk was part of "Conservative Inc." — a paid class that suppressed nationalists — and a grifter/coward for refusing to debate Fuentes.
  • Victory claims whenever Q&A was canceled, speakers looked rattled, or chants drowned events.

Fuentes messaging (Telegram language reported by Vox) included lines such as: America is not a "propositional nation," "NO ALLEGIANCE to Israel," Christians who do not promote "degeneracy," and "Demographic replacement is REAL."

Fuller list of Groyper-side charges against Kirk and TPUSA, drawn from streams, posts, and the questions themselves (all participant characterizations, reproduced to document the campaign's rhetoric, not endorsed here):

  • Fake conservatives, grifters, "cucks", and anti-white.
  • Dual loyalty / "Israel First" — prioritizing foreign aid and Israeli interests over American ones.
  • Too open to legal immigration — specifically "staple a green card to college diplomas."
  • Welcoming of LGBT people and homosexuality in the movement — framed as undermining traditional values, and in the crudest version as "promoting anal sex" as normative.
  • Gatekeepers who blackball genuine America First voices — the Ashley St. Clair photo being the standing example.
  • Cowards who cancel Q&A, use security to suppress questions, and smear questioners as racists to avoid debating them.
  • Part of an establishment that co-opted the energy of 2016 while holding positions incompatible with it.

Tactics claimed as successful by the Groyper side:

  • Saturating Q&As — claimed near-100% of questions at some stops.
  • Forcing cancellations or early endings (UCLA the flagship).
  • Eliciting weak or evasive answers on camera.
  • Generating national media attention the movement could not otherwise buy.
  • Causing chapter resignations and internal purges inside TPUSA.
  • Pressuring rhetoric shifts — claimed movement in Kirk's immigration language.

Fuentes's summary claims: "decisive routing," "total victory," and a historic tipping point at which young nationalists abandoned mainstream conservatism for European-heritage preservation and America First against globalism.

Ejection script (Daily Stormer-style advice): if removed by security, yell "GOOGLE THE USS LIBERTY," "GOOGLE DANCING ISRAELIS," "AMERICA FIRST NOT ISRAEL FIRST," or "NICK FUENTES" — converting removal into content.

Charlie Kirk, TPUSA, and ally assertions​

  • Questioners were white supremacists, white nationalists, antisemites, racists, and homophobes.
  • Kirk publicly dismissed Fuentes as an "internet troll" who "believes in white ethnonationalism."
  • TPUSA: white nationalism is "abhorrent and un-American."
  • Disruptions were pre-planned, driven substantially by non-students and outside infiltrators using left-style disruption tactics from the right.
  • Kirk's stated social position: marriage is one man and one woman, while gay people are welcome in the conservative movement and Christians are called to love everyone; personal values should not be a purity test to expel people from the coalition.
  • Benny Johnson and Rob Smith amplified white-nationalist/antisemitism characterizations; Johnson posted documentation threads on Fuentes's record.
  • Crenshaw, YAF, Shapiro publicly drew hard lines against the Groyper project.

Fuller list of Kirk/TPUSA/ally characterizations of the questioners (again, claims of the parties that made them):

  • White supremacists, white nationalists, antisemites, extremists, racists, homophobes, internet trolls, and bad-faith actors — not serious conservatives.
  • "New Westboro Baptist" types — obsessive, publicity-seeking, and repellent to ordinary people.
  • Kirk: he rejects "racist questions", does not debate trolls, does not care what consenting adults do privately, considers hyperfocus on gay sex "weird", holds that gays and lesbians contribute to society under Western values, affirms marriage as one man and one woman while welcoming gay people in the movement, and stands against kicking people out over personal values.
  • TPUSA: white nationalism is "abhorrent and un-American"; events were hijacked by non-students — some in MAGA gear, some in Bernie Sanders memorabilia — whose agenda became obvious the moment they booed a condemnation of white nationalism or rejected Christian universalism.
  • TPUSA's countermeasures (student-ID rules, separate lines, security) were a response to pre-planned disruption, not censorship.
  • Internal personnel matters (e.g. St. Clair) were resolved privately.
  • Allies Rob Smith and Benny Johnson called specific questions homophobic, disgusting, and BS.
  • Later infiltration was alleged at follow-on events, including questioners in TPUSA gear who bolted when asked for their names after an "Israel First" remark.
  • Kirk in some accounts later called for "good faith dialogue" — read by his side as magnanimity, by Fuentes's as capitulation.
  • YAF fired Michelle Malkin after her defense of the movement.

Countermeasures TPUSA and allies adopted​

  1. Sever brand ambassadors photographed with Fuentes (St. Clair).
  2. Security exclusion of Fuentes from Politicon and later summits.
  3. Cancel Q&A when Groyper packing was expected (UCLA).
  4. Separate ideological question lines (UF).
  5. Student-ID checks and banning known Groypers from later events.
  6. Public labeling (white supremacist / antisemite) to deny legitimacy.
  7. Distance from chapter members or ambassadors who spoke sympathetically about Fuentes.
  8. On-stage gotcha media (Houston Fuentes-clip monitor attempt).
  9. Chapter dissolution / cold shoulder where local officers quit toward America First (KSU trajectory).
  10. Adjacent org YAF expulsion of Malkin as a signal to the broader campus-right ecosystem.

Groyper accounts claimed these measures proved TPUSA could not win on substance and only "gatekept." TPUSA claimed they were protecting students from extremist entryism.

What happened in 2020 (after the campus peak)​

In-person Culture War Q&A domination largely wound down by late 2019–early 2020 as bans and security tightened. The movement shifted into parallel institutions.

January 2020 — America First Students​

Jaden McNeil, former leader of Kansas State University's TPUSA chapter, founded America First Students at KSU. The group was conceived at the December 2019 Groyper Leadership Summit and promoted by Groyper figures. It shared branding with Fuentes's America First podcast and stated it stood "in defense of Christian values, strong families, closed borders, and the American worker." Kansas City-area reporting in February 2020 treated the chapter as a campus trial run for white-nationalist youth organizing after the Groyper War.

February 2020 — CPAC rivals and first AFPAC​

Fuentes spoke at rival events opposite CPAC. One National File-hosted gathering featured Fuentes alongside Alex Jones and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes. Fuentes also launched the first America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) with speakers including Patrick Casey, former Daily Caller writer Scott Greer, and Michelle Malkin. AFPAC was marketed as a counterweight to mainstream CPAC (Fuentes was later barred from CPAC venues).

America First Foundation​

In 2020, Fuentes established the nonprofit America First Foundation (AFF) as a financial and organizing umbrella (ADL and later reference works). Mission language emphasized God in society, nationalism, Christianity, and traditionalism, supporting AFPAC, rallies, and related projects.

Platform migration​

In April 2020, The Daily Dot reported Fuentes and Groypers moving activity to TikTok (livestreams and "duet" harassment of Trump supporters and left-leaning teens). Platform bans followed publicity.

Longer arc (context only)​

  • January 6, 2021: Groypers were present among Capitol riot participants; ADL later identified a small number of Groyper-linked individuals among those involved. Fuentes and Casey were reported on the Capitol steps and later subpoenaed by the House Select Committee; they were not charged in the same way as many riot arrestees. This is later movement history, not part of the 2019 Kirk campus Q&A series.
  • February 2021: Fuentes–Casey split over fears of federal informants and doxing around AFPAC; McNeil sided with Fuentes then later broke with him.
  • August 2024 — "Groyper War 2": An online pressure campaign against the Trump campaign (memes, advisor-firing demands), not a repeat of the 2019 TPUSA Culture War tour.

Did anyone "win a debate"? What Twitter said​

First: there was no formal debate​

A basic factual point often lost in victory rhetoric: Charlie Kirk and Nick Fuentes never held a formal, moderated debate in 2019–2020 (nor did Fuentes get a formal stage debate with Ben Shapiro). The "Groyper Wars" were Q&A packing, heckling, livestream dual-screens, meme warfare, and refusal-to-debate discourse — not Oxford Union-style contests with a declared winner. Almost every claim that someone "won a debate" is really a claim about optics, virality, institutional power, or moral legitimacy.

The "debate guys" thesis (Spectator, Ben Sixsmith, Nov. 5, 2019)​

Spectator writer Ben Sixsmith published a widely cited essay arguing Groypers had beaten mainstream campus conservatives at their own brand:

  • Kirk, Steven Crowder ("Change My Mind"), and Shapiro ("facts don't care about your feelings") had spent years branding themselves as open, rational "debate guys" against an intolerant left.
  • Groypers inserted themselves into that format with "sharp, civil and, in general, hilariously bad faith questions" from the right.
  • Sixsmith's core claim: debating leftists who reject all of your premises is easier than debating people who share some premises but go further — the latter makes establishment figures sound "weak, defensive and spineless."
  • He wrote that Kirk, especially, was "painfully easy to outflank" on basic conservative positions (citing Kirk-style capitalism cheerleading and "nation as placeholder for ideas" civic-nationalist language).
  • Excluding Fuentes from events, after years of denouncing leftist closed-mindedness, looked "limp and hypocritical."
  • Example used: Crenshaw answering a free-speech/anti-BDS law question by focusing on antisemitism without, in critics' view, meeting the constitutional free-association point (Columbia Bugle and related Twitter criticism).

Sixsmith still warned that Fuentes's distance from open Nazi branding was often strategic/optics-based, not a clean moral break — and hoped young men attracted by the vulnerability of Kirk-type figures would not "mire" themselves in racialism. That essay became a stock citation for the Groyper claim that canceling Q&A or smearing questioners = losing the debate you advertised.

Groyper-side victory claims (event scorekeeping)​

These are participant and sympathetic-media claims, not independent judgments:

Claimed "battle"Claimed resultTypical evidence cited by claimants
Ohio State (Oct 29)Groyper win11/14 questions; larger Fuentes stream; viral clips
ASU / CrenshawGroyper win / "caught again"Israel-heavy Qs; "America First" chants; free-speech/BDS exchange
UCLA / Trump Jr. (Nov 10)Decisive optics winQ&A canceled; event ends in ~20–30 minutes
UF / "Battle of Florida" (Nov 12)"Decisive victory"Fuentes America First episode language: "Groyper Wars: DECISIVE VICTORY AT THE BATTLE OF FLORIDA" (reported stream title, episode ~497)
Houston / "Battle of Houston" (~Nov 14)"Decisive Groyper victory"Twitter victory posts; "booed off campus" videos; Occidental Dissent "Gets Groyped In Houston"
North Carolina (mid-Nov)Groyper loss (even friendly scorekeeping)Occidental Dissent: "Groypers Take a Loss In North Carolina" (Nov 13, 2019) — shows not every stop was scored as a win even by insurgent blogs

Far-right blog Occidental Dissent (Hunter Wallace) used martial, maximal language throughout — e.g. "Charlie Kirk Gets Raped By Insurgent Groypers At Q&A At Ohio State," "Insurgent Groypers Catch Dan Crenshaw Again" — which circulated into Twitter quote-posts. That rhetoric is evidence of how the faction framed nights, not of courtroom or academic "wins."

The #GroyperUprising "tactics failed" list (Twitter, Nov 11, 2019)​

A widely shared Groyper-aligned post after the first wave of countermeasures claimed every TPUSA response had already failed:

  • Deflected the questions → FAIL
  • Used leftist smear tactics → FAIL
  • Made a student-ID rule → FAIL
  • Made two separate lines → FAIL
  • Tried to doxx/threaten us → FAIL
  • Tried to profile us → FAIL
  • Cancel the Q&As → FAIL
  • Punchline: "Your tactics aren't working. We can't be stopped." under #GroyperUprising

This is pure claim-as-propaganda: it treats each security or PR move as proof that Kirk could not win on substance. TPUSA's answer was the opposite scoreboard — that exclusion and labeling were the win.

"They won't debate" — the permanent Twitter argument​

Because no formal debate happened, refusal itself became the debate:

Groyper / allied claims (examples from period X):

  • Fuentes had been "challenging Shapiro and Charlie Kirk to a debate for months"; after the December SAS-area Shapiro street video, Adam Green (Know More News) posted that the debate "will never" happen because "Shapiro and Kirk are too scared."
  • Hotep Jesus (Nov 17, 2019), parallelizing other refused debates: if Shapiro/Kirk debated Fuentes, "they'll be exposed. Same reason Shapiro/Kirk won't debate Fuentes."
  • At SAS (Dec 2019), posts claimed police/security surrounded Fuentes and that "TPUSA are scared of some skinny zoomer who lives with his mom. Cowards."
  • Into February 2020 / CPAC season, posts still argued Kirk "does not have the guts to debate Nick Fuentes" while promoting rival America First programming.

Kirk / Shapiro / ally claims:

  • Fuentes was an internet troll and white ethnonationalist, not a legitimate debate partner.
  • Crenshaw: questions start as policy then reveal "deeper and darker" motives — i.e. bad-faith trolling, not debate.
  • After the Shapiro family street confrontation, critics of Fuentes argued the stunt explained why no one would debate him; one reply: "And Fuentes wonders why Shapiro won't debate him?"
  • Cernovich (Dec 22, 2019) mocked the whole market: Fuentes won't debate Vox Day but demands Kirk/Shapiro; Shapiro demands AOC but won't debate Fuentes while giving a "full speech" about him — "Everyone is clout chasing." Separately Cernovich claimed both Shapiro and Fuentes "won" from the street-confrontation video — a pure attention-economy read.

Kirk / TPUSA / ally victory claims (different scoreboard)​

Through 2020, Twitter users friendly to Kirk increasingly argued institutions decided the war, not campus clips:

  • March 27, 2020 — Users argued the object of the Groyper war was to prove Kirk was not MAGA; once Trump effectively blessed Kirk's The MAGA Doctrine as a "normie bestseller," "Kirk won the Groyper war" and even got "a big payday for winning."
  • April 20, 2020 — Claim that the Groyper project became a "chicken with its head cut off" because Groypers would not go after Trump even when Trump retweeted Kirk: "who really won… I think Charlie did."
  • December 2020 — After Trump nominated Kirk to the 1776 Commission, posts declared "charlie kirk won the groyper war" and sarcastic "GROYPER WAR STATUS TOTAL VICTORY!!"
  • Matt Walsh (Nov 6, 2019) during the heat of campus nights: Groypers "perform" and "tweet"; real victories were organizing against chemical castration of a child and defending pro-lifers in Philly — "That's a real victory… They tweet."
  • Security bans, YAF dropping Malkin, CPAC/TPUSA exclusions, and continued TPUSA scale were treated as proof the big tent held.

Third-party and mixed claims on X​

  • An0maly (Nov 12, 2019): explicitly not a Groyper, said he had more TPUSA friends than Groyper associates — still called campus conservatives "pathetic" for answering "horribly," shutting Q&As, smearing dissenters, and lying "even more than CNN on the topic." This "pox on both houses / debate brand is fake" line was common among non-aligned right accounts.
  • Michelle Malkin (Mar 18, 2020), months later, still framed the fall 2019 campaign as vindicated on immigration: "God bless TRUE #AmericaFirst-ers who initially exposed Kirk LAST FALL during Groyper Wars" (in a thread about EB-5 visas).
  • Retrospective (Oct 2020): some accounts claimed the war was dual-use — Kirk desperate to separate TPUSA from racist-member coverage, Fuentes using the fight to heighten his own profile.
  • Patriotic Talk and similar accounts into late 2020 still posted "We WON The Groyper Wars" with recap video — long after campus tours had cooled.

How both sides could claim victory forever​

ScoreboardWhy Groypers claimed winWhy Kirk/TPUSA claimed win
Campus night opticsEnded UCLA early; dominated OSU Q&A; Houston chase videosSmears landed; many rooms still full of TPUSA fans
"Debate" brandForced cancelations = hypocrisy exposedRefusing racists/antisemites is principle, not fear
Media attentionNational coverage of Trump Jr. hecklingNational coverage of "far-right trolls" / white nationalists
Institutions 2020Built AFS, AFPAC, AFF; forced Malkin/YAF realignment debateKept Trump proximity, book/commission prestige, banned Fuentes
TwitterNightly "decisive victory" episode titles"You tweet; we organize / we have the White House lane"

There is no single empirical winner. What is documentable is that both claim-sets were loudly made on Twitter in 2019–2020, that no formal Kirk–Fuentes debate occurred, and that the fight settled into parallel ecosystems: TPUSA inside the mainstream MAGA youth lane, Fuentes outside it building America First infrastructure.

Period X/Twitter post inventory​

A consolidated list of the post types that defined the online layer of the campaign. Content is preserved closely to the retrieved wording; all are claims by their authors, and paraphrase is used where exact wording is uncertain.

Vocabulary and scorekeeping

  • Posts noting the term "Groyper" spreading after Ohio State — "Battle of OSU (based kings vs. Charlie Kirk)", "Groyper Wars started."
  • "Battle of Florida," "Battle of Houston," "Battle of North Carolina" — martial naming applied stop by stop.
  • "The Groypening gathered even more momentum… massive showing… #GroyperWars."
  • "Groyper War: Charlie Kirk Hammered With Hard Questions by America First Youth At UF."
  • "WATCH: #CharlieKirk 'Booed Off Campus' at UH to Chants of 'America First'…"
  • "We WON The Groyper Wars" recap posts persisting into late 2020.

Allegations against TPUSA

  • Claims of purging after OSU humiliation and of handlers reaching out to conservative influencers.
  • Accusations that TPUSA ends Q&A (i.e. ends free speech), kicks out people over vague Fuentes association, and uses leftist tactics.
  • Claims TPUSA kept photo databases of hecklers.
  • Claims TPUSA security favored leftists over America First attendees at UCLA.
  • Claims TPUSA invites loud leftists more readily than Trump supporters asking questions.

Malkin-aligned

  • "Immigration restrictionists asked brilliant q's at CSU, OSU, Florida, Texas, UT, etc. Then they got shut down & smeared. This is way bigger than Fuentes…"
  • Later: "God bless TRUE #AmericaFirst-ers who initially exposed Kirk LAST FALL during Groyper Wars."

Kirk/TPUSA-aligned

  • "Fun story today: some of Fuentes' infiltrators introduced themselves to me at the #SAS event while wearing Turning Point gear. When one snidely remarked 'hey way to put Israel First,' I asked him for his name and they all straight-up BOLTED…"
  • Posts describing Fuentes as a Holocaust denialist who opposes mixed-race marriage and pushes a "Jewish question" — offered as the reason Kirk booted Fuentes and Groypers for being too far right.
  • Matt Walsh (Nov 6, 2019): Groypers "perform" and "tweet"; real victories are legislative and legal — "That's a real victory… They tweet."
  • Kirk-won-the-war posts keyed to The MAGA Doctrine (Mar 2020) and the 1776 Commission (Dec 2020).

Tactics and strategy talk

  • "We just need to heckle Charlie Kirk 200–300 more times and we'll finally win the Culture War."
  • The #GroyperUprising "every TPUSA countermeasure FAILED" checklist (reproduced in full above).
  • Reactions to the anal-sex question video — calling Kirk's and Smith's responses evasive, and insinuating the asker was closeted.
  • Comparisons of the tactic to Antifa disruption applied from the right.

"They won't debate"

  • Adam Green (Know More News): the debate "will never" happen because "Shapiro and Kirk are too scared."
  • Hotep Jesus (Nov 17, 2019): "they'll be exposed. Same reason Shapiro/Kirk won't debate Fuentes."
  • SAS-period posts: "TPUSA are scared of some skinny zoomer who lives with his mom. Cowards."
  • Into CPAC season 2020: Kirk "does not have the guts to debate Nick Fuentes."
  • Cernovich (Dec 22, 2019): "Everyone is clout chasing."

Mixed / third-party

  • An0maly (Nov 12, 2019): not a Groyper, more TPUSA friends than Groyper associates — still called campus conservatives "pathetic" for answering "horribly," shutting Q&As, smearing dissenters, and lying "even more than CNN on the topic."
  • Retrospectives (Oct 2020) claiming the war was dual-use: Kirk needed distance from racist-member coverage, Fuentes needed the fight to build his own profile.

Further context and downstream effects​

  • Chapter fallout: some TPUSA chapters reportedly dissolved or saw leaders resign, citing free-speech objections or sympathy with the questioners. Kansas State's officer exodus is the best-documented case.
  • New organizations: America First Students groups formed afterward, founded in at least one case (KSU) by a former TPUSA chapter leader (Jaden McNeil) — the campaign converting disruption into institutions.
  • Target expansion: from Kirk to Ben Shapiro (including the family street confrontation that drew condemnation from Nikki Haley, Meghan McCain, and others), YAF, Daily Wire figures, and Dispatch writers.
  • Rival events: Fuentes held competing events near CPAC and launched AFPAC — parallel infrastructure rather than continued infiltration.
  • What observers concluded: commentators on both sides and in mainstream media described the episode as exposing a generational and ideological split on the right — big-tent civic conservatism versus a harder nationalist / Christian nationalist / ethnonationalist current. That framing, not any single campus night, is the episode's durable legacy.
  • Method summary: coordination emphasized memes, politeness for optics, and saturation — not argument won on the merits in a room, but volume, virality, and the forcing of defensive institutional behavior that could then be filmed.
  • Long tail: later Fuentes streams and follower accounts continued invoking "the wars" as precedent, and some claimed long-term influence on mainstream-right rhetoric about Israel aid and immigration levels.

Why it appears in this investigation​

The 2019–2020 conflict created a public, timestamped record of who attacked Charlie Kirk from his own right flank, and on what grounds — chiefly Israel loyalty and aid, immigration volume and composition, and LGBT inclusion in conservative institutions. After September 10, 2025, commentators on all sides re-read that record:

  • Some used it to claim Kirk had always been an "establishment" or donor-aligned figure.
  • Others claimed his later reported break with pro-Israel donor orthodoxy (see Israel friction and Tucker Carlson at TPUSA) was a slow arrival at positions Groypers had pressed years earlier.

Treat those framings as interpretation, not evidence. This page documents a political conflict. It does not establish motive for the assassination, and it does not assert that Fuentes, any Groyper participant, TPUSA, or any named living individual had involvement in or foreknowledge of Charlie Kirk's death. Post-assassination online speculation about Groyper ties to Tyler Robinson remains unproven in official reporting; Fuentes publicly condemned the shooting and told followers not to take up arms.

Status of principals named above​

Charlie Kirk — Deceased (2025).

Alive (as of page research): Nick Fuentes, Ashley St. Clair, Rob Smith, Michelle Malkin, Ben Shapiro, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Dan Crenshaw, Graham Allen, Benny Johnson, Jonah Goldberg, Matt Walsh, Patrick Casey, Kyle Kulinski, Jaden McNeil, Jake Lloyd, Rand Paul, Lara Trump, Alex Jones, Gavin McInnes, Scott Greer, Jacob Wohl, Anthime Gionet. All characterizations above are attributed to the party or outlet that made them.

Sources​

  • Diggit Magazine — Ico Maly, "Charlie Kirk's Culture War Tour and the Groyper trolls" (Oct 31, 2019) — OSU transcripts, DLive viewership, Culture War itinerary
  • Vox — Jane Coaston, "Why alt-right trolls shouted down Donald Trump Jr." (Nov 11, 2019) — UCLA, Crenshaw, Liberty/dancing Israelis, St. Clair, KSU
  • NBC News — Ben Collins (Nov 12, 2019) — UCLA chants, Crenshaw exchange, Fuentes "Groyper time," researcher quotes
  • GQ — Talia Lavin (Nov 25, 2019) — Houston "America First" chase description
  • Spectator — Ben Sixsmith, "How the groypers gave the 'debate guys' a rough time" (Nov 5, 2019) — debate-brand hypocrisy thesis
  • Wikipedia "Groypers" (Groyper War, Leadership Summit, America First Students, AFPAC, War 2 sections) and cited primary reporting
  • WCJB / TPUSA at UF chapter statement (Nov 12–13, 2019)
  • YAF public statement and period coverage of Malkin severance (Nov 17–18, 2019)
  • Period X/Twitter discussion (Oct 2019–Dec 2020): victory posts ("Battle of Houston," "Battle of Florida"), #GroyperUprising tactics-fail list, "won't debate" threads (Adam Green, Hotep Jesus, Cernovich), Kirk-won-via-MAGA-Doctrine / 1776 Commission claims, Matt Walsh "they tweet" post, An0maly campus-cons critique, Malkin "exposed Kirk" 2020 follow-up
  • Occidental Dissent period scorekeeping posts (OSU, Houston, North Carolina "loss")
  • ADL "Groyper Army" backgrounder and later AFPAC/AFF summaries
  • Fuentes America First episode titles as reported in period write-ups: "Charlie Kirk DECISIVELY ROUTED" (OSU), "UCLA Nationalist REVOLT Shuts Down TPUSA Don Jr. Event," "DECISIVE VICTORY AT THE BATTLE OF FLORIDA," "Unhinged Charlie Kirk CHEATS His Way to Stalemate at NCSU," "Total Victory / BATTLE OF NORTH CAROLINA," "Gatekeepers EXPOSED" (Malkin firing), Kirk "good faith dialogue" episode, SAS Shapiro-confrontation episode
  • Circulated coordination guidance as described in reporting and participant accounts (4chan threads, Telegram channels, Daily Stormer-style write-ups) — dress/demeanor advice, approved question set, ejection-shout script
  • Michelle Malkin period posts ("brilliant q's at CSU, OSU, Florida, Texas, UT"; "way bigger than Fuentes"; Mar 2020 EB-5 follow-up)
  • Investigation master file timeline entries (Charlie_Kirk.txt Groyper sections)
  • Research dumps: tmp/groyper_research/query1–query4

This website's author is @HolonCitizen on X and YouTube/@HolonCitizen. Follow me there.

Interesting​