Colorado State University’s political science club, CSU Political Review, partnered with the Political Action Committee National Ground Game on Thursday to host a debate as part of the PAC’s movement Unfuck America.

The event was initially supposed to coincide with a debate featuring right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, hosted by CSU’s chapter of Turning Point USA, but after Kirk’s death Sept. 10, the Unfuck America Tour decided not to reschedule and instead held debates before and after Kirk’s Canvas Stadium vigil.

“I think it’s just about, like, picking up the mic from Charlie, but not in the same direction in which he was going,” said Zee Cohen-Sanchez, founder of NGG and Unfuck America. “That’s really important, that we continue to honor that in a way. But again, honoring it in a way where we’re taking it in a different direction.”

Unfuck America was formed back in February and uses a similar political outreach strategy to TPUSA, in which content creators tour college campuses to debate with students and then post clips designed to go viral on social media. Money earned from this internet virality is then used to boost fundraising efforts and support grassroots outreach like voter registration programs.

“Obviously, we’re going to have to have a little bit of controversy to go viral because that’s what it takes,” Cohen-Sanchez said. “At the same time, there needs to be that balance of, we’re actually here to have a true discussion, and not just these clips.”

Similar to what Kirk was going to do, Unfuck America set up an open mic tent on the Lory Student Center Plaza and encouraged students to come debate creators. Later in the evening, after Kirk’s vigil, Unfuck America held a Q&A-style debate in the LSC Grand Ballroom with political commentator Steven “Destiny” Bonnell II.

“Our role really here was to try to facilitate open dialogue about political topics that are difficult on campuses. Regardless of who these people are or what they stand for, we share that same value of harvesting a space for political dialogue.” -Victoria Doscotch, CSU Political Review co-president

The LSC Plaza debates featured several creators of all political ideologies, including conservative podcaster Austin Julio Broughton. Conversations got heated on occasion, although tension was mostly due to one heckler, who identified himself as Carlos, yelling vulgarities at Bonnell for the duration of the event. Carlos declined to provide his last name to The Collegian.

Victoria Doscotch, co-president of CSU Political Review, noted that the club only approved the LSC debate and was not aware that Unfuck America would hold a debate on The Plaza.

“CSU Political Review isn’t looking to highlight the type of discourse that was going on earlier because that wasn’t constructive,” Doscotch said regarding The Plaza debates.

Instead, Doscotch said CSU Political Review sought to harbor peaceful and constructive discourse in the name of the club’s free speech values.

“Our role really here was to try to facilitate open dialogue about political topics that are difficult on campuses,” Doscotch said. “Regardless of who these people are or what they stand for, we share that same value of harvesting a space for political dialogue.”

Still, the evening debates with Bonnell — which drew around 450 CSU students and Fort Collins community members — were not entirely cordial. Many participants asked their questions alongside a slew of insults, and members of the audience did not refrain from standing up to shout their reactions.

Although the debates covered a variety of topics from gender identity to gun control, the main subject of debate was Bonnell himself. Bonnell has faced numerous controversies throughout his political career, and participants did not shy away from bringing them up.

Several members asked Bonnell to clarify his stance on political violence after his remarks on the show “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” which, to many, came across as an endorsement of Kirk’s murder and a threat to conservatives in general.

“You need conservatives to be afraid of getting killed when they go to events so that they look to their leadership to turn down the temperature,” Bonnell said in the controversial interview.

The quote, which was brought up several times throughout the debate, came from a much longer dialogue in which Bonnell argued that right wing rhetoric typically fails to condemn political violence unless it is for partisan purposes. Bonnell doubled down on this stance and asked debaters why they looked to him to condemn violence but did not ask the same of President Donald Trump when democrats were victims of violence.

“I don’t like political violence; I don’t think anybody should be killed for their political belief or political opinion,” Bonnell said in an interview with The Collegian. “But it can’t constantly be that one side has all the fear and the other side feels like they can operate with impunity, because that dynamic just leads to one side taking advantage of the situation over and over and over again.”

After clarifying his stance multiple times amid audience heckling, Bonnell deemed questions regarding his remarks to be “deeply unserious” and repeatedly diverted the conversation to instances of right wing indifference to violence.

Participants also asked Bonnell about recent allegations of pedophilia, presumably referring to a recent civil lawsuit filed against Bonnell that alleged unlawful dissipation of sexually explicit material. The lawsuit is still ongoing and does not contain any mention of a minor, but online discourse suggests that the anonymous plaintiff was 17 years old.

“Anybody can file a civil lawsuit for any reason,” Bonnell said when asked about the allegations. “What about the lawsuit where your president was held liable for raping a woman? Seems like you don’t care much about lawsuits.”

After the debate, some members of the audience said they enjoyed the spectacle but weren’t sure that it was entirely productive.

“You know a lot of people who support Donald Trump might hear their side, and they think that he won, and a lot of people on the other side will think that Destiny did better in the debate, but I’m so not sure how constructive it’ll be,” attendee Jorge Rodriguez said.