Ben Carson, former secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and short-lived 2016 GOP presidential candidate, spoke to the Auburn community Nov. 9 in Lowder Hall.
Auburn University’s Turning Point USA chapter, part of the national conservative student organization, hosted the event. In the week preceding the speech, the organization promoted it with flyers across campus and at daily tabling sessions along Haley Concourse. Among the Carson flyers, members of the organization also sported posters decrying “big government” and supporting gun rights.
TPUSA, a nonprofit organization founded in 2012 by pundit Charlie Kirk, works to educate young voters on “free market values.”
Jaden Heard, senior in business administration, serves as the president of the Auburn branch of TPUSA.
“TPUSA’s mission is to train and mobilize student conservatives to be active on campus and to contribute to society as hard workers for their country,” Heard said.
Auburn’s TPUSA meets every other Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in Lowder Hall. In their meetings, they teach leadership training, educate on certain topics and have guest speakers, according to Heard.
Heard said Carson partnered with TPUSA to go on a national tour of college campuses. He most recently visited the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Clemson University.
“I’m not sure why he’s doing it. I guess he’s just a nice guy, but he picked Auburn, and we got lucky,” Heard said. “People that are out of the loop or that don’t care about politics will use Dr. Ben Carson as an asset to tell us what we should have concern about.”
Prior to his political turn, Carson was a highly successful neurosurgeon. In 1987, Carson led a team of 70 medical professionals at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, conducting a surgery that separated craniopagus twins. This surgery was the first of its kind and was ultimately successful.
In May of 2015, Carson announced he was running for president as a Republican. He received much initial support but soon fell out of popularity and withdrew from the race in March of 2016, following the Super Tuesday primaries.
After Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, Carson was appointed secretary of HUD. His term as secretary ended after Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration.
The event opened at 7 p.m. in Lowder Hall with a recording of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, senior United States senator from Alabama and former Auburn University head football coach. He praised both Carson’s career and the university as an origin for future political leaders.
Carson began by acknowledging the veterans in the audience before lamenting the decline of American society. He told attendees, of which there were around 600, the American republic was faltering, largely due to “liberalism and progressivism.”
“We are as close to losing [the republic] right now as we have ever been,” Carson said.
Carson claimed professors may lend this “very dark period” to “microaggressions” or a “lack of safe spaces.” He disagreed before calling these explanations a “bunch of crap.”
Liberalism has infected American society, campuses, government and corporate boardrooms, according to Carson. He sees it as the duty of the current generation to reverse these changes. Carson called for a “fresh wave” of journalists, due to what he sees as an “biased press.”
Carson said students in attendance were either there for extra credit, which he said was unlikely because “the professors are so liberal” or they were “very concerned about what’s going on in our country.”
He went on to discuss a variety of contentious issues, from vaccines to pronoun usage to corruption in government. Throughout the speech, his views never strayed from the conservative mainstream.
Carson then gave a brief history of the country’s government. He started by praising the founding fathers, claiming that they “studied every governmental system in history.” He claimed the founding fathers extracted “good things” from various governments and implemented them into the American government people know today.
Carson likened current political ideology to a disease that needed a cure, calling back to his time as a physician.
“Liberalism and progressivism has infected our society,” Carson said. “It’s everywhere and has spread very rapidly.”
Carson continued by lamenting the “open borders” of the United States under the Biden administration. Carson said Hamas might come through the southern border, and they are planning something “pretty substantial.” He said if the terrorist organization wasn’t planning some sort of plot against the U.S., then they are “terrorists of malpractice.”
Spending the rest of the speech detailing his personal history, Carson said he grew up in a family that greatly valued education. When he was young, Carson said he “hated being stupid.” To remedy this, he read many books and studied hard in school.
“Between the covers of those books, I could do anything, I could be anyone, I could go anywhere,” Carson said.
Following sustained academic efforts, Carson received a full-ride scholarship to Yale. Only able to afford a singular application, he chose Yale because they defeated Harvard on an episode of G.E. College Bowl in 1968.
“I had a dream as a youngster, my own American dream. I always wanted to be a doctor. I loved going to the doctor when I was little. I would go to the doctor for a shot happily,” Carson said.
With the mention of shots, Carson declared himself “not an anti-vaxxer" before criticizing widespread use of the COVID-19 vaccine. The audience clapped after he announced American parents were “too smart to fall for” a vaccine mandate.
Carson then encouraged the audience to chase their “American dream,” reminding them to fight the “disease” of liberalism in America.
He then circled back to the sacrifice and dedication of veterans to emphasize the fight against liberal ideology.
“They did it for you, they did it for me, so we could live in freedom. That’s what you mean when you say, ‘land of the free,’ but you can’t say it without ‘home of the brave,’” Carson said. “And that’s what I call the American dream.”
After ending his speech, Carson went on to answer questions from the audience, which ranged from topics such as vaccinations to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign.
When asked about Kennedy, Carson declared he was once a Democrat, back when “Democrats were reasonable.”
Despite his strong beliefs on controversial issues, Carson warned against growing animosity in the country before citing his favorite acronym: WANE.
“We are not enemies,” Carson said. “You can’t keep two parts separated; they’ll die.”
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Brychelle Brooks is a sophomore majoring in public and professional writing. She has been with The Plainsman since August 2023.
Connor Copeland, freshman in English literature, has been with The Plainsman since fall 2023
