Inspired by Charlie Kirk, young Republicans reach across aisle at LRCC

LACONIA — Anna D’Amato and Ambert Hebert, students at Lakes Region Community College, started Liberty Leaders a year ago, and through it, they’re learning to navigate a dynamic political environment.

Liberty Leaders is a school club which facilitates membership chapters of Turning Point USA, Young Americans for Liberty and College Republicans.

D’Amato, club president, and Hebert, vice president, both 19, say they met Charlie Kirk before his death, and his dedication to the principles of free speech played a major role in their own understanding of politics. 

“We actually got the chance to meet Charlie Kirk” at the student action summit in Tampa in July, D’Amato said at the end of last month in the student senate room near the cafeteria at LRCC. 

The pair started the college club about a year ago and initially hosted “Trump tables” — opportunities to provide information regarding then-candidate President Donald Trump, and politics more generally, to other students. D’Amato and Hebert are second-year students at LRCC, and came to their interest in politics in similar ways.  

Both remember experiences during high school where teachers or other students expressed intolerance to their political viewpoints, which they say emboldened them in their beliefs. They’d always been interested in politics, but were not particularly engaged in their younger years. Since becoming more involved in the political sphere in New Hampshire, their interest has only grown.

“It was just very pushy to choose that side,” Hebert said regarding the Democratic Party during the 2016 General Election. Trump would go on to take the White House that year over former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton — Hebert and D’Amato were just grade school kids back then. 

D’Amato said her political awakening began in earnest during high school; she’d wear a Trump T-shirt, and said she was bullied by other students for doing so. She comes from Newton, Massachusetts, and Hebert from Boscawen.  

“We’ve both lost friendships over political views, and I think that’s absolutely ridiculous,” Hebert said.  

Their story regarding political engagement, influenced by Kirk, is somewhat typical among younger Republicans. Kirk, before his murder earlier this year, rose quickly through the ranks in the Republican political machine. He earned recognition over the last decade or so, debating college students at their campuses, resulting in numerous viral videos, which spread among young voters on social media. 

In 2024, Trump narrowly beat former Vice President Kamala Harris to win his second term in the White House. He earned some 46% of the vote among voters aged 18 to 29 — 10% more than in 2020 — closing a gap which Democrats typically dominate. Harris won about 52% of the same demographic. Many analyses credit Kirk’s efforts, in part, with delivering the victory for the GOP.

Kirk was killed by a shooter on Sept. 10, in Orem, Utah, while speaking at Utah Valley University. The club put up on a table on campus the next Monday.

“It was hard, and then seeing the video,” D’Amato said, a reference to videos capturing the moment of Kirk’s murder. Those videos quickly went viral online. “I couldn’t believe it was real.”

Now, D’Amato and Hebert table each week, hoping to inform their classmates and the public about their beliefs, and aiming to have constructive conversations with people with whom they disagree. So far, their efforts have been successful, they said, and other students at LRCC are generally amiable toward them.  

“We wanted to speak to explain,” D’Amato said. “The young opinion does matter.” 

“If you don’t agree with us, that’s OK,” she said.  

The two, plus another club member, are headed to Americafest, a conference in Phoenix hosted by TPUSA later this month. D’Amato and Hebert are collecting donations to support expenses to attend. The LRCC club has 25 members in total.

To find out more about their upcoming trip, contact D’Amato at adamato06@icloud.com or Hebert at ambear345@icloud.com.

They attended TPUSA conferences previously, and met other young Republicans involved in the conservative movement. 

“It’s rewarding,” Hebert said.

“It makes it feel like all the work we’ve been putting in in New Hampshire is paying off,” D’Amato said.

In the future, they’d like to organize conferences in New England, where student groups from each state would come together. If more young voters understood that it's alright to disagree and to debate and were able to find common ground, politics may be better off, they said.

“We shouldn’t be afraid to speak about our views, either side,” Hebert said.

“People are not going to agree on everything,” she said.

“A lot of people are waking up and realizing that it's OK to have a different opinion,” D’Amato said.