(Sarah Fleming)
Nick Solheim, CEO of American Moment—a right-wing youth organization—delivered a speech to the Boston College Republicans on Oct. 20, laced with inflammatory rhetoric and urging students to prepare to die in defense of their conservative values.
"Live in recognition of the fact that they will kill you and everybody that you love to get what they want—open borders, sex changes for minors, so-called gay marriages, health care for illegal immigrants, and so on," Solheim said. "If they're willing to kill the people making this policy, they're more than willing to kill the people who voted for it, too."
In his talk, titled "How to Implement the MAGA Agenda," Solheim repeatedly framed political conflict as a matter of life and death, telling students they must be prepared for martyrdom to advance the MAGA agenda.
"I want to start with a heavy exhortation—you need to be willing to be killed," Solheim said.
Solheim added that simply attending the event placed students at risk of political violence.
"There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in this country who would kill you for just being in this room," Solheim said.
To illustrate his point, Solheim cited leaked 2022 text messages from Jay Jones—the Democratic nominee for Virginia Attorney General—in which Jones said he wanted then–Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his children to die.
"The likely next Attorney General of the State of Virginia has called for the death of little fascist two- and five-year-old children of one of his Republican colleagues, and has not been denounced by a single Democrat in or seeking federally elected office," Solheim said.
Top Democrats quickly condemned Jones' texts but stopped short of calling for him to withdraw from the race.
Solheim said the opportunity for peaceful dialogue is over but urged the crowd to avoid turning toward political violence, referencing Charlie Kirk's assassination.
"No, we are not having a neat and tidy debate in the so-called marketplace of ideas—that is long past," Solheim said. "But we don't assassinate, attack indiscriminately, or violate our enemy, and for a simple reason. As Tucker Carlson once said, 'That's not how white men fight.'"
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Solheim received an invitation to speak at BC after the Sept. 10 assassination of Kirk, a popular, right-wing influencer who became famous through debates on college campuses. During his talk, Solheim wore a white t-shirt with Kirk's signature. The motive behind Kirk's killing remains unclear.
BC Republicans, who had previously hoped to invite Kirk to speak on campus, held a vigil in his honor on Sept. 10. Although he condemned increasing political violence in the United States, Solheim nonetheless described it as inevitable.
"The moment that we're in right now is truly catastrophic, perhaps even approaching the level of a civil war, or at the very least, all-out extrajudicial lawlessness," he said.
Founded in 2021 with backing from JD Vance, American Moment has worked to advance Project 2025—a conservative agenda aimed at shrinking the federal bureaucracy and promoting social conservative priorities, including rolling back protections for LGBTQ+ people and immigrants.
By recruiting right-leaning staffers, the organization seeks to grow right-wing populism and advance conservative priorities across all levels of government, according to Politico.
"We have prioritized building out a bench of young people, specifically at the junior to mid-level, to fill a lot of those roles and help the president and conservative presidents to fulfill that agenda," Solheim said.
Concluding his remarks, he encouraged the audience—especially young, Republican men—to support conservative causes and enter politics.
"We urgently need the people in this room, specifically the men, to come to D.C. and get involved in governing, forcefully saying, 'No, this is not the direction my country will go,'" he said.
Although the event was public and held on University property, an attendee barred a Heights photographer from taking photos for the duration of the talk.
This story was originally published in The Heights.
