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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.?
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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