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Yesterday I decided to look up my local young republicans group, to see if I could actually do something political instead of just talk about it online. This is in the U.S. of course.
I was quite surprised to find that, while there are ostensibly two groups operating in my area (a major metro in a purple state), there's basically nothing happening in either. One of the groups seems completely defunct, with a broken website. The other looked more 'official' and the site worked, but there was exactly... one event listed for all the rest of the next year: an awards dinner months out, that costs $75 for anyone who is not already a member to go to.
Nothing besides a basic google form with regards to contact, and no other events or opportunities listed whatsoever.
I talked to an AI about this, and apparently this is the norm? ChatGPT recommended I volunteer to canvas or whatever at the official GOP arm in my state, but I wanted to at least go to some sort of social event to start out. Again, nothing! All official meetings, no unofficial mixers or community building volunteering or anything.
Seriously, what is going on here? These are the most major political organizations in the country, and they're being run far worse than most local Effective Altruism groups. This just makes zero sense to me.
FWIW, I looked up the young democrats group in my area, and that seemed just as bad.
Am I missing something here? Is there a reason why these incredibly powerful, important political parties seem to have zero effort involved in actually getting young people to work for them? Seems like an incredibly massive self-own.
Even a highly motivated and intelligent young person will basically be at a loss as to what to do with their political energy. No wonder our generation is so politically blackpilled. No wonder everyone freaked out about Charlie Kirk's assassination!
Am I missing something, or are things really this bleak for political activism amongst the youth in the U.S.?
I wouldn't say it's "the norm" but it is in no way surprising.
As I brought up in my post from a few days ago, the the US Republican party isn't really a national organization in the way that our European commentors would naturally assume upon hearing the words "political party" or even in the way that US Democratic Party is. It is more a loose confederation of state, municipal, and regional parties who's individual scope, resources, and levels of engagement can vary wildly. This distributed party structure was baked in to the party's founding as a cross-regional cross-social-class coalition focused on a small number of specific core issues, and has persisted to the present day both out of cultural inertia and as a defense mechanism against subversion by the forces of "liquid modernity".
Speaking of which, you don't survive as a sincere conservative (as distinct from edge-lords posting on X) in this post-modern age without developing a level of reflexive fieldcraft. Advertising yourself as a young conservative seeking other young conservatives is a good way to get yourself canceled by both sides. Another way to think about it is that the first part of the entrance exam for joining the resistance is "can you find them?". This ties into what @Turniper was saying below about how the functions where the actual connections are made and work gets done are not going to be discoverable via a simple google search and how this is by design.
As far as actionable advice, all I can really offer you is "go where the conservatives are" but remind you that as an educated urban youth who's posting on a site like this one, where you think they are and where they actually are, may be very different.
By way of example, my introduction came through the fandom of a sports team.
As a religious guy, his best in would be the local pro life movement. Go join a group that protests or holds prayer vigils and go from there.
As a first step? yes but again fieldcraft.
Imagine you join such a group or attend one of their vigils and notice that 3 out of the 8 men there all go to the same gym and very specifically not that other gym.
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Lots of great responses here. I think another overlooked factor is that the generation with the most time and zeal to organize right now, Gen Z, are politically idiosyncratic. They identify much less with mainstream partisan labels, which means the usual groundswell of membership in these groups has been cannibalized by increasingly smaller factions. A twentysomething social democrat isn't joining the Young Democrats, they're joining the DSA or going to a theory reading group. A twentysomething God-and-guns conservative isn't joining the Young Republicans, they're joining TPUSA or diving down the Yarvin pipeline. No one wants to join a big tent, especially when there exist countless enclaves of online spaces where you can be surrounded by exceptionally like-minded people at all times, assuring you of the veracity and righteousness of your exact ideas. What's the draw of the YR/YD in comparison?
Further, if people want to make change and become politicians themselves, I feel like local organizing isn't the place where that's done anymore. I'm not sure where exactly it is being done, but hydroacetylene's evaluation that these groups are more like social clubs sounds about right. They're vestigial.
Organization is just a tough thing in general. With time preferences getting shorter and the continued trend of Putnamian community decline, it doesn't surprise me that these websites are poorly maintained. WordPress power users aren't exactly abundant among the political striver crowd, either. I wonder if these groups have a secondary chat, like a Slack or Discord, where the "real" planning takes place. I'm reminded of my time in college when most clubs had some decrepit website but were thriving otherwise in another chat. Submitting to the Google Form might get you an invite there, where you can participate in earnest. Best of luck and props to you for trying to get involved.
A lot of high level planning and wrangling used to happen over TeamSpeak which has since been largely displaced by Discord and Signal due to better mobile integration.
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Around me, there is a DNC and GOP chapter, but they're both sclerotic and accomplish very little outside of having a monthly breakfast get together. All the real work happens in focused advocacy organizations. I used to do some work with a firearms rights group, and they were able to secure some real wins.
As far as recruiting at the campaign and career level, that looks like it's mostly just a way to secure contributions. If a successful real estate slumlord or a car dealership owner has a failson, he tends to end up as a staffer for somebody.
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That is how you take political action in 2026. You can reach an audience of millions with a camera in your basement, and many do!
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The US doesn’t really have a party system like other democracies. There is no Democratic or Republican Party as an actual organization with a Leader and a membership base that pays $100 a year to be a card-carrying Republican and a committee of leaders that picks all the candidates running for every seat. That’s in many ways a good thing, and the result of a popular vote based primary system with open party affiliation, but it also means that the parties are amorphous. Even the National Committees are weird quasi-governmental service operations that manage conventions and assist with fundraising and advertising, they’re not leadership bodies the same way most other countries’ political parties have them, and their managers are neither the leaders of the movement nor have any actual political power if the ‘party’ has a majority in both chambers and/or the presidency.
That context explains why grassroots politics in the US is mostly driven by organizations dedicated to specific policy goals like Pro Life or Pro Choice or anti-ICE or PETA or the NIMBYs or the YIMBYs by whatever name. Around election time huge PAC funding allows paid organizers to fund both volunteered and paid campaigns that operate the way that canvassers to in more traditional party systems, but the ‘social club’ style party all year, every year, is less of an American thing.
Good to know, I suppose I hadn’t ever looked into it before. I’m just sort of surprised there isn’t more of an effort to collect and groom young talent into future leaders.
Why do you think the current setup is a good thing?
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I have no idea what the official schedule for the democrat orgs in my city looks like. But I do know the potlucks I attend in which like half 90% of the candidates for certain state house seats and a bunch of dem precinct chairs and heads of random third party YIMBY orgs hobnob are probably not listed on them. I just happen to be friends with a dude who is in that scene, and he runs events.
They might not be on the party calendar, but I'm pretty sure that you could make a lot more connections at one of them, than at anything official.
Everyone I know who actually got involved pretty much did so by going to some sort of event, a protest, reading, rally, etc; and then just asking who they should talk to and being directed to someone who could use labor for calls/event planning/etc. To address the question you asked downthread, nobody wants randos off the street, because anyone who doesn't at least have the gumption to attend an event on their own is definitely not gonna follow through with dozens of hours of uncompensated labor. And that pretty much is required, if you really want to get involved. Almost everyone cuts their teeth as a gofer or door knocker, unless you plan to enter as a candidate and bring serious money/recognition.
Getting invited, personally, to go door to door isn’t hard, though- just hang around where young politically engaged conservatives are.
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I'm not sure where you are, but it makes no (short-term) sense for national institutions to build out efforts in places that are dark blue/red. They're already going to vote one way, and it's a waste of money to try to change that. Or at least that would be the steelman.
I said in the OP, I'm in a purple state. Not a waste of money at all, this is a hotly contested area.
Whoops, missed that - my bad!
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The young republicans recruits individuals involved in conservative politics already(pro-life movement, block walking, etc). It does not take randos interested off the streets; it’s a social club for young people who are already politically active.
The one near me hosts events, they just don’t advertise to the public.
Why not have public events and take randos off the streets? Problem is you have a ton of motivated young men and women that would likely join or get involved, but the process is quite illegible and difficult. Surely the party wants to increase recruitment, especially with much bemoaned the lack of elite human capital?
The events are, literally, social events to network/build camaraderie among people who are already politically involved. You earn an invitation, you don’t request one.
You want an in for young republicans? Go join a pro-life protest a couple times, then volunteer for the campaign of your local further-right Republican in the primary- look for state legislator candidates with a GOA or taxpayer-friendly endorsement. You’ll get an invite.
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You don't want randos off the street. As another commenter mentioned: street randos includes a raft of unserious people (I don't think you actually have a ton motivated young men and women). Plus, with any political organization you have the problem that growing the organization benefits the organization but may not benefit the individuals who currently make up the organization.
Lack of EHC is an external critique. Most Republican organizers wouldn't agree with it.
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If I had to guess, it's that people who want to get into such groups generally want to do so as a start in politics, and they tend to start in college - getting elected to the Student Union, getting involved in college branch of political party, etc. Building connections, networking, maybe positioning themselves for an internship with Congresscritter of some kind.
For the ordinary person not particularly interested in being on the machinery side, I don't know how they do go about getting involved. I think you would probably have to link up with your local party branch rather than "is there anything going on that I could join online?"
The US has local party committees. You can get involved by going to your precinct convention, in person, and voting in the party election. These precinct elections are very poorly attended and so you can probably win a ticket to your county convention. It helps if you’ve previously volunteered with an advocacy org and block walked in the primary- you need both of these to get an invite to young republicans, which is a social club and not a political org, but it’s not necessary just to vote in party elections(and literally ‘showing up in person on a random Tuesday in the late evening’ is the only bar to clear for that).
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This is far too cumbersome, no wonder there are so few talented young people in the Republican party. Absurd dropping of the ball imo.
If they lack the talent to find their way in, they wouldn't be the sort of talent being looked for.
A political party isn't a technocratic assembly looking for credential applicants, it is a group of networkers who can network with and for eachother by their own initiative. People who just want to volunteer for an advocacy group can go to the advocacy groups directly. Networking societies don't fall into a well-structured hierarchy, but rather create an ecosystem of push and pulls as people put something out and offer/encourage/ask/trade others to put in. People who don't understand that / don't at least intuitively grasp it are not the sort of people fit for ill-structured coalition politics.
To bring an anime demonstration of the concept, have you ever read / watched Hunter x Hunter? Do you remember what the first test of the Hunter Exam really was? It isn't the sort of awe-inspiring feats, battles of wits, or hunter-and-hunted of the later series. It is to literally find the exam location.
Some entry tests aren't about streamlining or maximizing candidates, and then filtering over time. It is to filter out unsuitable candidates at the start.
While gatekeeping is typically good, one has to wonder who benefits when they hide there's even a gate to be kept in the first place.
Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I can't help but think that political parties shouldn't be taking notes from the Kybalion on how to manage entry.
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This sounds like lazy cope, at best. The organization would be far better served by actively pulling talented people into politics and away from business or other life paths at critical moments.
I'm surprised by how many people here think this is some sort of optimal, or even thought out strategy. My money is on the party organizers being lazy or not caring about the party as a whole, and/or just general societal degradation of community activity, as other posters have pointed out.
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You ever heard the expression "Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work"? Something similar exists in political parties. Political party youth groups are youths in public exhibition, while youths in party organs are youth in politics.
What this does mean, though, is that it is low-hanging fruits to make the sort of improvements that cause an effect, and of course get notice. Volunteer not just to join a youth group, but to lead the organization efforts for something, and its that coordination effort that will create the opportunities for others to join. Sure, the nominal existing head may get the notice / credit initially... but if they already have a reputation for not doing much, the practical coordination / networking goes through you.
Fair points! I do suppose young people just go into politics instead of hanging in the youth group. Still, seems like a huge miss in terms of just funneling more youths into the organization, capitalizing on political sentiment, etc.
Be the change you wish to see, and all that.
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