Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said at Turning Point USA’s Teen Student Action Summit in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday that the left has “declared a war on words” through censoring conservative views on social media, college campuses, and elsewhere.

“What they’re beginning to do is attack the words that you use when you’re talking about a policy,” said Blackburn, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee and its effort to investigate tech platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter censoring conservatives.

“It’s like the left has declared a war on words,” Blackburn said.

“They are trying to silence your voices,” Blackburn said. “And in all this tolerance that they talk about — they’re very intolerant.”

“As soon as a conservative weighs in on an argument what starts to happen?” she said. “They want to silence you.”

“What they are trying to do is weaponize your words and then use those words against you,” Blackburn said.

Blackburn also told the hundreds of young people at the conference that they need to be educated not only about conservative values and issues but to understand the talking points from the left.

“We cannot let the left set the terms of the conversation,” Blackburn said. “We can’t let them set the terms of the debate and we cannot let them win the vote.”

“You’re going to have to really, really fight for this in the things you say, online and face to face with individuals,” she said. “And be ready to defend what you believe in.”

“What they want you to do is sit down, shut up and give up,” Blackburn said.

And, Blackburn said, she will continue her work in the Senate to make sure the “virtual space” online continues to be “free, fair and open,” including “holding big tech accountable for what they are doing.”

Blackburn concluded her remarks by telling the crowd they are part of a team that will be vital to shaping the future.

“We are all on team USA,” Blackburn said. “And in 2020 we’re all going to be on Team Trump.”

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