In 2011, mere minutes after libertarian icon Ron Paul won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, five-decade-old conservative youth activist group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) unceremoniously kicked Paul off their advisory board on which he had served for many years.
Why? Because Paul was anti-war.
“YAF’s concern with Rep. Paul stems from his delusional and disturbing alliance with the fringe Anti-War movement,” YAF said in a statement. “Rep. Paul’s refusal to support our nation’s military and national security interests border on treason…” declared a hyperbolic YAF spokesman.
At that time, Paul, who had become extremely popular with conservative and libertarian youth— hence his second successive CPAC straw poll victory— had also long been an outspoken critic of the Iraq War and consistently challenged the still dominant neoconservative view within the Republican establishment that America’s should be the world’s policeman.
YAF’s well-timed attack on Paul appeared to be an attempt to reinforce George W. Bush-style Republican hawkishness as conservatism proper. The point was to cast Paul as a fringe outlier, as so many conservative establishment types loved to do at the time.
Yet today, President Trump—who campaigned as a harsh critic of the U.S. debacle in Iraq and American nation-building abroad— doesn’t appear to “disturb” YAF to the degree that Paul did.
It’s amazing how quickly what’s deemed “conservative” can change.
This is also true for conservative youth. Last week, the New York Times published a story about an event held by right-leaning youth activist group Turning Point USA (TPUSA), founded by 24-year-old Charlie Kirk. The organization has a reputation as the most explicitly pro-Trump conservative youth activist group. Donald Trump, Jr. even spoke at their recent conference (which held a dinner at the Trump Hotel in D.C., no less!). YAF, meanwhile, continues to be at odds with TPUSA and its founder Kirk.
While there are valid criticisms of TPUSA, it’s also easy to understand why YAF might be uncomfortable with a newer conservative youth group emerging on the scene. But it’s actually another youth organization that might have a brighter horizon than both YAF and TPUSA, and is significantly better positioned to have the most impact on the Right and our larger politics in years to come.
The day after TPUSA held their event in Washington, D.C., Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) kicked off their annual national convention the next day in nearby Reston, Virginia with well over 400 students in attendance at the invite-only, four-day event (well over a thousand applied). Formerly known as Students for Ron Paul, YAL (disclosure: I was employed by YAL briefly in 2012) is one of the largest conservative and libertarian youth organizations in the country and holds just as much weight and political power, if not more, than groups like the College Republicans, TPUSA, or YAF. As the Washington Post reported last month, “In just 10 years, Young Americans for Liberty has grown to 300,000 members, more than the College Republicans.“
Verifiable numbers are important because sometimes political organizations like to inflate their numbers to appear larger than they really are to impress donors. But what makes YAL the most important conservative youth organization today has to do with much more than numbers.
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Youth activism is often both the origin and lifeblood of political movements. So many of today’s conservative stalwarts began as young activists for Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater. Sen. Bernie Sanders’, I-Vt., largely youth-driven movement in the 2016 presidential campaign still drives national discussions about socialism.
My first passion for a political campaign was Pat Buchanan’s second presidential bid, when he won the 1996 New Hampshire primary. I was in my early 20s and in my naiveté I was sure antiwar conservatism would take over the Republican Party. In fact, the opposite would eventually occur a number of years later, after Sept. 11.
But the chance for the Buchanan movement to achieve a lasting impact largely came and went with his campaign that year (though Trump has certainly vindicated Buchanan’s GOP brand in many ways two decades later). There was no “Students for Buchanan.” No political figures ran for Congress, president or other high offices under the “Buchanan Brigade” mantle. No institutions were born to maintain what that campaign had stood for and sought to promote.
The Goldwater and Reagan movements did continue, and erected institutions, YAF among them. Sanders has inspired more than one Bernie-style candidate to run for office and many Democrats have moved more in his direction.
Similarly, Ron Paul and his movement have successors in the congressman’s son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is the most popular libertarian politician in America today. Republican Reps. Justin Amash of Michigan and Thomas Massie of Kentucky are also rock stars in liberty movement circles and occasionally make waves nationally on libertarian issues. The relatively new House Freedom Caucus is often described as “libertarian” as much as conservative.
And again, Ron Paul not only inspired a youth movement, but the group is the largest and best organized on the Right today (it’s worth noting that the less conservative-oriented but substantial Students for Liberty is also making a mark in youth politics that often dovetails with YAL’s efforts).
In a post-Trump Republican Party, does a Trump youth movement emerge or endure, as TPUSA fashions itself today? Or does it simply thrive in this moment, but inevitably live or die with Trump’s presence on the political scene? (There’s reason to believe young pro-Trump conservatives are even fewer in number than one might think).
These are questions that can’t be answered. What we do know is the conversation on the Right that YAF once desperately tried to keep in the pro-war column by attacking Ron Paul is now an open discussion. Foreign policy opinions among the conservative base now occasionally veer closer to libertarian positions than at any time in recent memory.
Think about it: Right now GOP “Never Trump” hawks team with Democrats to bash Trump for meeting with Russia and North Korea. Red meat conservatives who might have struck hawkish postures in other scenarios now call for the president to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, while Obama Democrats (with some exceptions) and Bush Republicans criticize Trump for being weak.
The ultra-conservative position in this moment is to favor diplomacy, not war.
Conservatives are a long way from 2003.
There will likely be other similar moments. Hawks John Bolton and Mike Pompeo might be on Trump’s foreign policy team, but Sen. Rand Paul also has the president’s ear, particularly on foreign policy issues. Sen. Paul, it should be noted, spoke at both the TPUSA event and YAL conference last week, has spoken to YAF in the past, and also to Morton Blackwell’s longtime youth activist group the Leadership Institute.
So libertarian views, including non-interventionist or foreign policy realism, are now piercing virtually every aspect of the conservative youth activist bubble and the larger conservative movement whether old-guard GOP hawks like it or not. This is where YAL stands to capitalize in ways virtually no other similar youth group is positioned to do. Will today’s right-leaning youth come to dominate tomorrow’s conservative movement as their Goldwater and Reagan predecessors did?
Or as current YAL President Cliff Maloney, Jr. told the Washington Post earlier this month, “One thing Donald Trump has done is blown up labels. And everybody is trying to put the pieces together to define what does conservatism means,” Maloney said. “That’s a window for us.”
A window indeed, as Ron Paul’s ideological children— and actual child— continue to organize and reshape American conservatism on foreign policy and more, now a full decade into their movement.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Senator Rand Paul.
