From “The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy” by Matthew Boedy
In late 2016, a group unknown beyond the fringes of conservative politics wanted to capitalize on the victory of Donald Trump and his plans for America. The group, which had begun a few years prior by attacking higher education, named 200 professors to a “watchlist” to expose their advancement of “leftist propaganda in the classroom.”
A year into my job as an English professor in a small Georgia town, at a school I had never heard of before applying, I was added to that list. I was added not because I discriminated against conservative students, but because months earlier I had written an opinion piece for our state’s largest newspaper arguing against a law that allows people to carry concealed firearms on college campuses.
This was my first introduction to Turning Point USA, an organization that built itself not only attacking higher education but defending unlimited gun rights. The watchlist caught professors’ attention across many other campuses as well. And that was the point, Turning Point’s list went viral and drew a lot of media coverage.