Last week while speaking at a Turning Point USA chapter in Illinois, my photo was used in a flyer designed by campus leftists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Under text that said: “NOW HIRING CONSERVATIVE MINORITIES,” the poster said that because I’m a black conservative, I “lack dignity, shame, and charisma.” It also implied that my thoughts and motivations were for sale to the highest bidder, a constant (and dreadfully boring) critique of black conservatives.

This is just one example of the left’s war on minorities of any kind who dare to challenge leftist dogma. To them, blacks, Latinos, or anyone nonwhite who rails against the prevailing victimhood orthodoxy of the left is a “white supremacist” or “grifter for hire.”

In response to our event with @robsmithonline, which had an AMAZING turnout, campus socialists decided to put up these flyers. Absolutely disgusting. @charliekirk11 @TPUSA pic.twitter.com/zqxEA8l0V4 — TPUSA at UIUC (@TPUSAatUIUC) October 17, 2019

And, if you think it’s just black conservatives that are smeared: you’re wrong. Chinese University of Michigan student and conservative activist Kathy Zhu was just smeared with a photo of her plastered around campus with text that read: “We have white supremacists on campus. They can be dangerous.” For a moment, set aside the leftist absurdity of falling a young Chinese woman a “white supremacist” and think about how unsafe she must feel walking around campus at night.

This has been posted around my school at @UMich This is complete slander and incites violence towards me. Being a trump supporter does not make me a white supremacist. I’m also asian if you SJWs can’t tell. pic.twitter.com/zT86PHBv4H — Kathy Zhu (@PoliticalKathy) October 22, 2019

When the left smears me, or Kathy, or any number or Black/Latino/gay/Asian campus conservatives who dare to think for ourselves, they’re showing their true colors. They don’t care about “equality” for “people of color.” If they did, they’d welcome different and diverse opinions. Instead, they seek to silence, shame, and bully us for not promoting their agenda in the way they see fit.

I’m currently on the fall leg of a campus lecture tour that I call “From Leftist to Liberated.” In it I share my story about “coming out” as a conservative with which you’re probably all well aware, but I talk to conservative AND liberal students and community members about military service, the politics of the moment, and good old fashioned “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” motivation that can only come from a guy who grew up black and poor in Akron, Ohio, and has been able to overcome many obstacles to succeed based in no small part to the fact that I was blessed enough to be born into the greatest country in the world.

This is what they fear. That my message of motivation, hope, and love for country will Trump their message of fear, divisiveness, and hatred for America. When people like me, or Kathy, or any number of conservative minorities are smeared, the left is showing what they truly fear: a coalition of young, attractive, diverse freedom fighters coming together to save America from their assault on it and the values we all share.

My message for them: you should be afraid, because if the bullets that whizzed by my head in Iraq didn’t stop me, your flyers, tweets, names, and protesters certainly won’t.

Rob Smith is an Iraq War Veteran, Political Commentator, and Contributor with Turning Point USA. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @robsmithonline