“The Federalist” co-founder Sean Davis discussed the problem with discourse about divides in the conservative movement at Turning Point USA’s “AmericaFest” last weekend, during an appearance Tuesday on “The Charlie Kirk Show.”

BLAKE NEFF: On the ground among attendees, we saw a lot of people who, frankly, enjoyed what Ben said and what Megan said-what Tucker said. And I think that’s really how a lot of the base feels. I think the people who are getting angry enough to boot others out are a pretty small slice of the coalition overall. ANDREW KOLVET: Yeah, and they’re loud online, though, right? I mean, that’s why I wanted to get your perspective, because to Blake’s point, there were people in the audience who were like, What are we fighting about? People had no idea that there was a kind of family business fight happening. And then you had people who were like-we actually did a show of hands in our members’ podcast room. We said, Who likes Ben’s approach? About half the hands went up. Then we said, Who likes Tucker’s approach? About half the hands went up. So it was a very mixed crowd-a very mixed reception to that. And to Blake’s point, I didn’t hear Ben saying we need to cancel people. Ben was just saying, Here are my lines. Here are my lines in the sand-take them or leave them. And he wasn’t calling us to cancel people either. He was just sort of Festivus for the rest of us. He was airing his grievances in a public place. We don’t tell anybody what to say at these things, actually. So from the outside, there is this loud contingent on X and other forums saying it’s time to excommunicate this person or that person. SEAN DAVIS: Yeah, and that’s to be expected online. This is politics, and politics is all about getting your way so that someone else you disagree with can’t get their way. That’s just part and parcel of how politics works. What I’ve always liked is the ecumenicalism of TPUSA and the movement in general. My personal philosophy is this: if you’re within the movement-define it as loosely as you like-if you’re putting points on the board, if you’re bringing people to the table, and you’re moving the ball where we need to go, I’m good with you. Even if I might disagree with you on a whole bunch of stuff. And that goes for Tucker, and Megan, and you, and Ben Shapiro, and Nicki Minaj, or anyone else. If you are rowing with us and you’re not actively trying to hurt the movement and hurt the country, there’s a lot of disagreement I can tolerate. And so I think it’s good to have that. The other thing to recognize is this: we’re never going to agree with everyone all the time. I don’t agree with my wife on everything all the time. I don’t agree with my kids on everything all the time. I have debates in my own head with myself on issues back and forth. So it’s hard to get full agreement with people you know and love and care about 100%. Imagine how much more difficult it’s going to be to agree with everyone all the time-people you don’t know, with different backgrounds and different priorities. And then you talk about the online nature. There is such a big divide. If you live your entire life on the internet with a screen in front of you, you’re going to have a very different perspective on where the country is than if you don’t do that. Twitter-or X-isn’t real life, but it can be reflective of it. So I don’t want to dismiss the online debates because they’re important, they do mean something, and they represent real people. But it’s really important to be out there talking to normal people-people who are not online, who are not political obsessives. Because as much as it may pain people like us to hear, we are political obsessives. Most people are not like us. They don’t look at the world through the lens that we look through. And so it’s great to have 30,000 people-especially young people-forming their own worldview and their own opinions, getting their perspective. And when they’re out there saying, Yeah, half of us liked it and half of us didn’t, that seems to me like you’ve struck a pretty good balance in representing the whole of the movement.

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