They came. They saw. They got everything they wanted — fist fights, fireworks and flash bangs.
On Monday, Turning Point USA brought its traveling roadshow of conspicuous Christian conservatism to its bête noire: UC Berkeley, aka ground zero for anarchism, anti-fascism, antisemitism, atheism, communism, transgenderism, etcetera, etcetera.
This was Turning Point’s first visit to a California campus since the murder of Charlie Kirk, its co-founder, in September.
What followed was predictable.
Brooding over the fact their university’s facilities would soon be used by an out-of-state organization whose leadership has opposed the separation of church and state, the Civil Rights Act, sexual freedom, academic freedom, climate science and democracy itself, Berkeley students erupted.
Like Pavlov’s dogs salivating before they even see Alpo in the bowl, Cal students allegedly started vandalizing before Turning Point’s event, featuring professional goofball Rob Schneider, even began.
Over the next several hours, a crowd of hundreds assembled outside Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, where “America’s Comeback Tour” was staged. There, they chanted anti-fascist jingles, held anti-Trump signs, taunted Turning Point attendees and, in a couple cases, hurled glass bottles at riot shield-wielding police officers. Someone even threw a rock at a cop; and, at least, one person was transported to a hospital after getting hit in the head.
By the end of the day, at least four people were arrested. Two were booked for “physical altercations” – one for “pushing on the barricade separating a crowd of protesters” from Turning Point attendees and another for climbing over said barricade and sitting on it.
Are these crimes worthy of investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division?
They are for the Trump administration, which has now launched two probes – an extraordinary escalation triggered by a few bloody noses, rocks, bottles and some standard-fare college-protest theatrics.
From the moment the first bottle flew, the right-wing media machine was primed, immediately pumping out stories, all variations of the same themes – violent leftists, campus anarchy and Christian conservative victimhood.
Between Monday morning through Wednesday afternoon, Fox News had run no fewer than 13 articles and on-air segments. (If only they had cared a tenth as much about hundreds of Trump supporters attacking police at the Capitol on January 6th.)
Berkeley students didn’t realize it, but they walked into a bear trap. Every punch thrown, every keffiyeh worn, every pro-antifa sign held was fodder for the right-wing echo chamber that feeds on images of universities in chaos and out of control. This provides cover for the Trump administration’s unprecedented assaults on higher education. (In fact, Berkeley is already the target of multiple federal investigations.)
Turning Point knows this. They show up to universities to bait, not debate. And Berkeley’s protesters became props, unpaid actors and unwitting accomplices in conservatives’ content strategy.
The tragedy isn’t just that the ascendant alt-right is playing this insidious game, cloaked behind Christian sanctimoniousness; it’s that Berkeley’s high-scoring, high-achieving student body never recognized the script.
Protests don’t have to be docile, but they should be smart. “No Kings” protests demonstrated how to be forceful without being violent. When students act like predictable lab animals, they help the Trump administration to further undermine their universities’ autonomy.
Berkeley students may have thought they were protesting Turning Point. But the stakes were, and are, much larger. Academic freedom at Cal and far beyond now hangs in the balance, and their behavior will tip the scales.
Max Taves is deputy opinion editor at Bay Area News Group. Reach him at mtaves@bayareanewsgroup.com.