Salon highlights the dangers of these extremist, Turning Point USA candidates trying to infiltrate the Michigan state House, starting with Rylee Linting in HD-27
LANSING — In case you missed it, late last week, Salon highlighted the dangerous, far-right candidate running for the Michigan state House in HD-27, Rylee Linting. A Charlie Kirk protégée, Linting represents the dangerous threat these Turning Point USA extremists pose to Michiganders and their rights.
Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA peddles radical positions that are wildly out of step with Michiganders — from abortion bans with no exceptions to big tax cuts for billionaires. Linting is running to unseat state Rep. Jamie Churches, a champion for the middle class who has delivered for her district on the issues they care about most — instead of pushing an unpopular MAGA agenda at them.
Over the past two years, Michigan Dems in the state House have passed historic legislation to protect reproductive rights, support Michigan students, and lower costs. If elected, Turning Point USA candidates like Linting could block all future progress while dragging Michiganders back decades.
Check out more from Salon’s report below:
Salon: “We’ve seen this with the Federalist Society”: Turning Point’s effort to “infiltrate state capitols”
- Turning Point USA is pushing to transform itself from a right-wing campus activism organization into an incubator for Republican candidates, with a slate of Turning Point-affiliated candidates seeking public office in the 2024 elections. In Michigan’s 27th state House District, Rylee Linting, the youth vice chair of the state GOP, is running in the hopes of flipping a seat in the state’s narrowly divided legislature…
- There is something notable about Linting’s candidacy, however. She is just 22 years old and has a background as a professional activist at Turning Point Action, the 501(c)(4) — often called a “dark money” group — associated with activist Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. And, she’s not alone: Rylee is one of a crop of Turning Point-affiliated candidates seeking elected office this year…
- Behind the aesthetics of youth, however, Turning Point candidates are among the most conservative Republicans. Smith was one of the Arizona Republicans who voted to keep the state’s 1864 abortion ban in place earlier this year. Luna co-sponsored legislation introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green R-Ga., to impeach a slate of Biden Cabinet officials.
- Democratic Michigan state Sen. Darrin Camilleri, who represents a district that overlaps with the suburban Detroit district where Linting is running, said in an interview that the strong focus on cultural conservatism demonstrates that Linting is a “really strange” decision in a race to represent a downriver community.
- “We have crumbling infrastructure. We need to continue to support our police officers and our firefighters. We need to continue to invest in jobs on the Detroit waterfront,” Camilleri said. “The other thing that’s really fascinating about her campaign is that she’s running as a staunch anti-abortion candidate when regular voters downriver are pro-choice…”
- “They are finding candidates that have zero qualifications but are willing to parrot right-wing talking points and are using them to infiltrate state capitols,” Camilleri said. “We’ve got to do all that we can to stop them because if they find success here in Michigan they’re going to take it all over the nation…”
- “We’ve seen this with the Federalist Society where they are trying to push their right-wing judges from the local level to the Supreme Court. This is their attempt to do that with the candidate pipeline,” Camilleri said. “They were successful with the Supreme Court, we need to make sure they’re not successful with candidates in the political system.”
###
