2019年7月23日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在DC华盛顿举行的2019年美国青少年学生行动峰会转折点上发表讲话。

18岁时，查理·柯克创立了一个名为“美国转折点”的组织，称自己是一个“保守的非营利”团体，其首要目标是在政治上组织年轻的保守派。正是在坦帕的共和党大会上，柯克遇到了共和党的百万富翁捐助者福斯特·弗里斯，并说服他为这个羽翼未丰的组织提供资金。那是提名温和派米特·罗姆尼为总统的大会。

七年后，柯克和他创建的组织强调了唐纳德·特朗普接管共和党的彻底程度。为了一睹风采，你所要做的就是参加本周在华盛顿举行的美国学生行动峰会。在那里，大约1500名年轻人，其中大多数是高中生，庆祝唐纳德的一切。红色马加帽随处可见；许多孩子穿着t恤，说“他们恨我们，cuz，他们不是我们。”一名年轻女子穿着一件里根-布什1980年竞选t恤向前共和党英雄致敬。

但是现在，这个政党不是里根的政党。那已经过去很久了。正如他们在特朗普周二近两个小时的演讲中给予他的热烈欢迎所示，这些孩子不是年轻的里根主义者，他们是彻头彻尾的特朗普人。他们不是年轻的美国人争取自由组织，这个保守的青年团体已经存在了几十年(里根也很喜欢)；这些是美国转折点的孩子。柯克认为，他们是未来，这与特朗普昨日的观点一致。“我认为[·特朗普已经永远改变了这个政党，而且越来越好，”他说。

柯克承认，在支持特朗普的问题上，这些孩子没有一两个话题可以围绕(尽管周三午餐时间在“第二修正案和个人安全”上进行了一次分组讨论)。这些孩子在许多问题上倾向于标准的保守立场——特朗普也是——但很明显，他的魅力在于他的个性；这是态度问题。像特朗普一样，他们骄傲地爱国，他们认为，大多数酷孩子认为爱国主义是为呆子准备的。他们厌恶政治正确性——明年对特朗普来说，这仍将是一个强有力的问题，就像2016年一样——因为“我们在学校每天都被灌输政治正确性，然后又被流行文化灌输”，伊莎贝尔·布朗说，她在科罗拉多州立大学上学时带柯克去演讲。在一个政治时刻，当社会主义在高中和大学年龄的孩子中得到尊重的倾听时，一个挤满了人的舞厅站起来为肯塔基州参议员兰德·保罗鼓掌，他回应特朗普说，“美国永远不会是一个社会主义国家。”。"

当然，任何共和党总统或候选人都会这么说。但对观众来说，这是一个向民主党候选人伸出隐喻手指的机会，他们在这个年龄段的人面前炫耀免费的大学教育。

有一个问题在会议上反复出现，表明特朗普对他现在领导的政党有多大改变:“无休止的战争”，正如柯克所说。这些孩子喜欢特朗普在最后一刻拒绝对伊朗进行军事报复，因为伊朗在本月初击落了一架美国无人机。参议员保罗第二次获得最热烈的欢呼，他赞扬特朗普克制自己不进一步介入中东。事实上，你离开学生行动峰会时认为国家安全顾问约翰·博尔顿应该发简历，因为特朗普在这个问题上比他的鹰派顾问更接近这些孩子。(事实上，华盛顿的谣言现在很普遍，博尔顿在这个世界上并不长久。乔治·布什时代肌肉发达的“新保守派”在唐纳德·特朗普的共和党中没有一席之地。柯克说，“我想要一个[共和党”，使蒙大拿州、密歇根州和密苏里州领先于中东。"

种族呢——明年特朗普最大的潜在弱点是什么？一个年轻人(他只说出了自己的名字特伦特，因为“我不太相信媒体”)承认，总统可能不应该敦促四名进步的国会女议员——也就是“班”——回到他们来自的地方(三名出生在美国)。但他不相信特朗普是种族主义者。“他们没有问题要继续，所以他们称他为种族主义者。“我也被称为种族主义者，”17岁的他说，“仅仅因为我是特朗普的支持者。但我没有。我父母知道，我朋友也知道。所以我不会让它困扰我。我认为特朗普也不应该。”

特朗普在到目前为止为明年选举所做的投票中，在年轻人中处于劣势。柯克承认:“我认为他不会赢得青年投票。”。“但我认为他会比人们预期的做得更好。”他指出，这就是2016年发生的情况，当时希拉里·克林顿赢得了55%的千禧一代，相比之下，2008年和2012年分别有66%和60%的人投票支持奥巴马。柯克说，限制他在千禧一代中的损失，谁知道呢？ ' '也许这就是让他高高在上的原因。"

我不一定相信，但话说回来，我生活在弗吉尼亚州麦克林的“沼泽”深处，在那里，我高中时代的女儿和她的朋友无法想象任何人会投票给特朗普，不管他们多大。当我告诉她我在TPUSA会议上时，她毫不掩饰地恐惧地说，“你知道他们想在她高中的[设立一个分校吗？"

好吧，我告诉她。我遇到的孩子们总是彬彬有礼，大多数看起来都很聪明。他们是正常的孩子；他们只是戴着马加帽。

YOUNG TRUMP FANS REVEAL THE PRESIDENT'S HOLD ON REPUBLICAN PARTY'S FUTURE AT CHARLIE KIRK-FOUNDED CONFERENCE

US President Donald Trump addresses the Turning Point USAs Teen Student Action Summit 2019 in Washington, DC, on July 23, 2019.PHOTO BY NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

When, as an 18 year old, Charlie Kirk founded an organization called Turning Point USA, it described itself as a ''conservative non-profit" group with the overarching goal of organizing young conservatives politically. It was at the Republican convention in Tampa that Kirk met megabucks GOP donor Foster Friess and persuaded him to fund the fledgling organization. That was the convention that nominated milquetoast Mitt Romney for president.

Seven years later, Kirk and the organization he founded underscore how thoroughly Donald J. Trump has taken over the Republican Party. To get a glimpse of that, all you had to do was attend TPUSA's Student Action Summit, underway this week in Washington. There, some 1,500 young people, most of them high schoolers, celebrated all things Donald. Red MAGA hats were everywhere; many kids wore T-shirts saying "they hate us cuz they ain't us." One young woman saluted a previous GOP hero by wearing a vintage Reagan-Bush 1980 campaign T-shirt.

But this party, now, is not the party of Reagan. That's long gone. As the rapturous welcome they gave Trump at his nearly two-hour speech on Tuesday shows, these kids are not young Reaganites, they are Trumpkins through and through. They are not Young Americans for Freedom, the conservative youth group that has existed for decades (and which Reagan loved); these are the kids of Turning Point USA. And in Kirk's view, echoing Trump yesterday, they are the future. ''I think [Trump] has changed the party forever, and for the better," he says.

There is, Kirk acknowledges, no one or two issues around which these kids rally when it comes to backing Trump (though a break-out session at lunchtime Wednesday on ''the second amendment and personal safety" was packed). These are kids who lean toward standard conservative positions on lots of issues—as does Trump—but his allure, it's clear, is his persona; it's attitudinal. Like Trump, they are proudly patriotic at a time when, they assume, most of the cool kids think patriotism is for dorks. They loathe political correctness—it will still be a potent issue for Trump next year, as it was in 2016—because ''we've had it shoved in our faces all day every day in school and then from the pop culture," says Isabel Brown, who brought Kirk to speak at Colorado State University when she was a student there. And at a political moment when socialism is being given a respectful hearing among high school and college aged kids, a packed ballroom rose to applaud Kentucky Senator Rand Paul when, echoing Trump, he said, ''America will never be a socialist nation."

Any GOP president or candidate would say that, of course. But for the audience, it's a chance to flash a metaphorical finger at the Democratic candidates, who are dangling free college education in front of people just this age.

There is one issue that comes up repeatedly at the conference that shows just how much Trump has changed the party he now leads: "endless wars," as Kirk puts it. These kids love the fact that at the last minute Trump declined to retaliate militarily against Iran when it shot down a U.S. drone earlier this month. Senator Paul got his second loudest ovation when he praised Trump's restraint from getting further involved in the Middle East. Indeed, you come away from the Student Action Summit thinking that National Security Adviser John Bolton should be sending out resumes, because Trump is much closer to these kids on this issue than he is to his hawkish adviser. (And in fact, rumors in D.C. are now widespread that Bolton isn't long for this world.) The muscular ''neocons" of the George W. Bush era have no place in Donald Trump's GOP. ''I want," says Kirk, '' a [GOP] that puts Montana, Michigan and Missouri ahead of the Middle East."

What about race—potentially Trump's deepest vulnerability next year? One young man (who gave only his first name, Trent, because ''I don't really trust the media") concedes that the president probably shouldn't have urged the four progressive congresswomen—aka the "Squad"—to "go back" to where they came from (three were born in the U.S.). But he doesn't believe Trump's a racist. ''They have no issues to run on so they call him a racist. I've been called a racist too,'' says the 17 year old, ''simply because I'm a Trump supporter. But I'm not. My parents know that, my friends know that. So I don't let it bother me. I don't think Trump should either."

Trump is underwater among young people in polling done so far for next year's election. ''I don't think he'll win the youth vote," Kirk allows. ''But I think he'll do better than people expect." That, he noted, is what happened in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won 55 percent of millennials, compared to 66 percent and 60 percent who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 respectively. Limit the size of his loss among millennials, says Kirk, and who knows? ''Maybe that will be the thing that puts him over the top."

I don't necessarily believe it, but then again, I live deep in the ''Swamp''—in McLean, Virginia—where my high-school-aged daughter and her friends cannot imagine anyone voting for Trump, no matter how old they are. When I told her I was at the TPUSA conference, she said, with unconcealed horror, ''you know that they're trying to set up a branch at [her high school]?"

Fine, I tell her. The kids I met were unfailingly polite, and most seemed pretty bright. They're normal kids; they're just wearing MAGA hats.