Lessons for Young Conservatives from the Governors Ball

C onservatives have long recognized that young people are essential to electoral success. Even if the youth vote doesn’t break Republican (far from it), there is a critical mass of teenagers and young adults across America who are looking to get involved and are of practical value to the goal of installing Republican presidents in the White House and majorities in Congress. Political campaigns, constituency offices, think tanks, media outlets, and other organizations in the conservative constellation need a steady pipeline of young people to carry out their work to persuade voters. With their enthusiasm, energy, and deference, these youths — between the ages of 15 and 25 — make for perfect staffers, interns, or volunteers at low expense.

Their work (admittedly menial, at times) greases the wheels of the well-oiled and well-funded machine needed to win. Bill Buckley was astute to recognize this when he created Young Americans for Freedom in 1960. Several more groups, ranging from Students for Liberty to Turning Point USA, have since emerged and are active today on college campuses.

But these groups are missing an opportunity elsewhere.

Last weekend, I visited the Governors Ball, a music festival in New York City. Though rather new compared with other notables on the pop-music social calendar, it has become a hot ticket for young people seeking a concert experience as summer begins. The festival boasts drinks, games, giveaways, and entertaining stalls alongside the music. Past lineups have included Guns N’ Roses, Kanye West, Kings of Leon, and Eagles of Death Metal, along with other up-and-coming hip-hop and pop artists. This year, it was headlined by Halsey, Kid Cudi, and J. Cole, each of whom drew large crowds expecting post-Covid concert fun.

But as one entered the event, the blazons of three progressive organizations — Everytown for Gun Safety, Planned Parenthood, and Headcount, which works to register young voters — were highly visible and beckoned attendees. As tens of thousands of young people walked past, the workers at these organizations were stopping them, talking to them, and conveying their message to all and sundry. And with the credibility of being inside the Governors Ball, these groups were getting results. Rachel Parks, a field coordinator for Headcount, told me that she’d registered about 1,500 people by noon on Sunday, the slowest day of the festival. The average age of the newly registered voters was 18, while those above 16 were being “preregistered” to vote. “As the midterms approach, we’re pushing to get as many people registered as possible,” she said, noting that Headcount had been setting up stalls at music festivals all across the country for nearly 18 years. Each effort churns out a tranche of new, mostly Democratic, voters.

As the Left preached, the Right was absent. Not a single conservative, libertarian, or otherwise nonprogressive youth organizing group was in sight at the festival. They should have been. In the milieu of thousands of their peers, drawn from across the country, it would have been a golden chance to engage, convince, and recruit new blood from far and wide to the cause of conservatism. The presence of these organizations — to speak with attendees, hand out flyers and gifts, and collect email addresses or social-media handles — would offer some young people (many still in high school) early exposure to conservative ideas, which they probably don’t hear much of except in the form of partisan criticism. The details collected would be valuable data for local organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts. At any rate, having conservative youth organizers present would be a counterweight to the progressives — providing an alternative voice on abortion, gun safety, and elections.

Some might argue that music festivals are too progressive to be worth the effort. Is trying to recruit a handful of brave youths — i.e., brave enough to be seen talking to conservatives — worth being scorned by a majority or even a plurality of left-wing music-festival attendees, who might harangue and harass the workers? Anyone who considers this risk should remember how similar it is to college campuses nowadays, which have been ground zero for conservative organizing for a very long time. There, too, our chaps are harassed with vitriol by students, faculty members, and administrators alike. Yet conservative groups persist on campus. If they can make gains in those ivy-walled gothic gauntlets with roving mobs of social-justice warriors, an open, breezy, and colorful music festival should be easy to handle.

Especially with the Covid-restriction cloud lifting, conservative groups should put these festivals on their recruitment calendars. Their job is to bolster the youth flank every chance they get, nurturing talented leaders while swelling the ranks with activists. Pop-music festivals — whether it’s Burning Man, Lollapalooza, Firefly, or others — generate enormous interest among their target demographics, which they should be trying to tap.

By not showing up, they’re missing a lucrative chance to obtain new followers. It’s a loss for the whole conservative movement. Young conservatives, whether they like them or not, must attend these festivals. There is no excuse for their glaring absence.