Somewhere at Illinois State University this week, a man stood inside a room and talked about Jesus, immigration and deportation. Outside, a crowd of protesters did the only thing the modern campus left knows how to do when confronted with a microphone it doesn't control: they screamed one word at a door.
"SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!"
The video, shot by @TheNeoPopulist and posted Oct. 22 by Frontlines TPUSA, shows protesters chanting outside a Turning Point USA event on faith, immigration and deportation featuring speaker Joshua Haymes. As of Friday morning it had racked up more than 445,000 views on X, and Legal Insurrection wrote it up under the headline "Deranged Mob of Leftists Protest Turning Point USA Event at Illinois State U." One commenter there called the phrase "deranged mob of leftists" a "triple redundancy." Harsh. Accurate, but harsh.
Let's be clear about what these brave revolutionaries were resisting. Not a tank. Not a riot squad. A Christian talk. In a university building. That people signed up for. The equivalent of storming a book club because you heard somebody inside likes Ecclesiastes.
And the chant! "Shame!" Of all the words available in the English language, they picked the one that most accurately describes the footage of themselves. That's like a guy yelling "LOSER!" while falling off his own skateboard. Somewhere a philosophy professor is watching this, nodding and saying, "Ah yes, the Hegelian self-own."
The Demorat's sewer bureau obtained totally fictional, obviously fake statements from the protest's imaginary organizing committee. "We came to deconstruct oppressive structures," said one, "specifically that door." Another explained the group had drafted a list of demands: abolish borders, abolish ICE, and abolish the guy inside the building from having a weeknight. A third said she couldn't stay long because her shift as a barista started at nine and she needed time to "decompress from the trauma of other people's opinions."
Here's the funniest part: the event went on. The talk happened. Nobody inside converted to anarcho-veganism because of the noise. The protesters spent their evening yelling at glass, and the glass, as usual, won the debate on points.
This isn't even the first time Illinois State has made the conservative highlight reel. Last October, Fox News reported a Turning Point table on that same campus got flipped — twice — and the university ended up relieving a graduate teaching assistant of his duties. So the Redbirds' resistance has evolved from tipping over folding tables to yelling at doors. Give it another year and they'll be sending strongly worded emails to a parking meter.
Look, free speech means you're allowed to protest. Chant all you want. Make your little cardboard signs. But when your entire counter-argument to a speech about faith and immigration is one syllable, repeated at a building, maybe the shame is coming from inside the house.
Pro tip for next semester, kids: you could've just walked in, sat down, and asked a question. Then again, that would require hearing the answer.
— Tunnel Tucker covers Lib Lunacy for The Demorat and has never once screamed at a door, except his own fridge. This is satire; the quotes from "organizers" are invented parody.
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