The Future
I truly believe that the future of the Conservative movement is bright. I have reason to think so and so should you. The five young men on this list (besides countless others) remind me that the battle for America’s soul is not over. Leftist ideologues may control our nation’s schools, the news media, most major corporations, and entertainment media. However, we all should be grateful that some member of Gen Z are pushing back.
Sure, the current states of affairs is looking rather dim in the United States. Fortunately, we have some young “reinforcements” coming in to fight the good fight. Here are five young conservatives (under 30 years old) to keep an eye on in the coming years.
5 Under 30
1. Will Witt (mid-twenties?)
Will Witt is a media personality and political commentator on the conservative media platform Prager University. He first gained prominence for his “Man on the Street” videos on the Prager U YouTube channel—amassing millions of views on many of his videos. He often goes to universities and public places to ask people questions about politics or current events. Interestingly, Will conducts his videos in a respectful, non-confrontational manner, so he gets some interesting responses from people.
Besides doing his “Man on the Street” videos, Will Witt has become a versatile content producer on Prager U. Will is also a filmmaker, conference speaker, podcast host, social media guru, and does daily video streams on the Prager U YouTube Channel with co-host Amala Ekpunobi.
To date, Will has created to short video documentaries on the Prager U YouTube: Religion of Green and Fleeing California. These two documentaries have garnered a combined 10 million views in the past year.
All of these accomplishments are pretty impressive for a guy who’s a college drop-out. Not to shabby at all, Mr. Witt.
Finally, Will is soon releasing his first ever book this fall. The title is called How to Win Friends and Influence Enemies: Taking on Liberal Arguments with Logic and Humor (this book’s title is a spoof of the self-help classic How to Win Friends and Influence People). It comes out in September, so I highly recommend that you go check it out.
As a personal side note, I actually got to talk to Will Witt about a month ago over a Zoom call. Will hosted a Q&A for PragerFORCE members like myself. His Q&A showed me that Will Witt is an intelligent thinker with a bright future. I would definitely look into Will Witt’s work overall.
2. Charlie Kirk (27 years old)
You know that I had to include Charlie Kirk. He’s my “fearless leader” after all since I’m a member of his organization Turning Point USA.
For the uninitiated, Charlie Kirk is the founder and president of the conservative student advocacy organization Turning Point USA. Charlie and others founded this Turning Point USA (TP USA) in 2012 to “… identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government”.
TP USA has grown massively in the past few years. Currently, over 2500 American universities and high schools have TP USA chapters. TP USA has gotten so massive that it has become a much more influential organization than even College Republicans (the beef between TP USA and CRs is a story for another day).
Currently, Charlie is by far the most influential figure on this list. Besides founding TP USA, Charlie hosts the radio show The Charlie Kirk Show, writes weekly columns, makes guest appearances on televised news shows, and speaks at events/conferences.
Clearly, Charlie keeps himself pretty busy. His hard-work and perseverance have created the most impactful conservative student organization in America. Charlie has positively impacted my life ever since I joined my school’s Turning Point USA chapter last fall.
Picture with Charlie Kirk at an October 2020 Students for Trump event in Southlake, Texas. You know that I had to flex a little bit in this post.
The above picture is a signed copy of Charlie’s book The MAGA Doctrine. Charlie sent me a copy of the book after I defended Charlie from a lame hit piece from the whiny conservative writer Rod Dreher. Here is a link to my response of Dreher’s article. That whole debacle took place in late December 2020 to early January 2021.
3. Joe Mitchell (24 years old)
Joe Mitchell is currently Representative in the Iowa House of Representatives and the founder/chairman of the non-profit organization Run Gen Z.
Impressively, Mitchell ran for and won the 84th House District seat in Iowa as a 21 year-old! You heard that right. The guy became a state-wide elected official as a senior in college. His 2018 election victory made him the youngest member of the Iowa Legislature. Truly remarkable.
The reason that I know about Mitchell is through his organization Run Gen Z. I first heard about Run Gen Z back in December at SAS 2020. A couple months later in April 2021, I listened to a speech from a head figure of Run Gen Z: Joel Castro (a 20-something city councilman in the City of Alvin, Texas) at a conference for the Texas Federation of College Republicans.
Run Gen Z is a non-profit organization dedicated to recruiting and preparing young Gen Z conservatives to run for public office. Certainly, the future of America and the conservative movement depends on my generation: Gen Z. Thus, this organization is accomplishing an important task in readying future conservative leaders to run for office. We should all thank Mr. Mitchell for starting this organization and getting Gen Z conservatives to run for office. Our country needs intelligent, virtuous people in power to better our communities.
4. Madison Cawthorn (25 years old)
Madison Cawthorn is currently the youngest member of the United States House of Representatives. Representative Cawthorn won the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina in November 2020 with 54% of the vote. He then was sworn into office in January 2021 to start his first two-year term in Congress.
Now, Cawthorn’s life hasn’t always been this rosy. In 2014, Cawthorn became partially paralyzed after a serious car-wreck. Just six years later, Cawthorn won a Congressional election and just got married. What a great story to hear!
Many people see Cawthorn as a future heavy-hitter in Republican politics with his fresh ideas, his passionate speaking style, and his commitment to conservative values. Moreover, Cawthorn frequently speaks at influential events—such as CPAC, the Republican National Convention, and TP USA’s Student Action Summit (SAS). Suffice to say, we should all keep an eye on Cawthorn in the years to come.
Personally, I first learned about Cawthorn at TP USA’s 2020 Student Action Summit (SAS). I had heard of his name before the conference, but I didn’t know too much about him until he spoke at SAS. Oddly enough, I actually “bumped into” him and said hello as he scooted by me in the convention center. He seemed like a really down-to-earth guy from everything that I gathered about Cawthorn. Another funny thing I learned is that almost all the conservative ladies at SAS were really attracted to Cawthorn. I can guarantee that a lot of young women were quite unhappy when Cawthorn got married recently.
5. John Doyle (21 years old)
John Doyle is a personal favorite and “guilty pleasure” of mine. Undoubtedly, he is not yet a well-known figure in the broader conservative movement (especially compared to Charlie Kirk and Madison Cawthorn). However, he is the youngest guy on this list, and John has plenty of potential to make a name for himself in the political realm.
Mr. Doyle is a rising YouTube video host, speaker, and conservative activist. His YouTube channel Heck off Commie has over 300 thousand subscribers and 23 million total views in under 3 years. He also speaks at various organizations and colleges—including Turning Point USA and College Republicans chapters.
I personally started watching John Doyle/Heck Off Commie right before the pandemic: early 2020/late 2019. Since then, I have become an avid follower of his videos.
John Doyle has a unique perspective when compared to most conservative pundits and influencers. His goals are more long-term in fixing America. For the past few decades, most Baby Boomer and Gen X conservatives/Republicans defined conservatism as mainly keeping corporate tax rates low and pointing out leftist hypocrisy.
What’s more, he often critiques the GOP/conservative establishment figures who exist purely to make money and “own the libs!” Overall, John has shifted my mindset on what it actually means to be a conservative. Conservatism is about preserving traditional Christian values, the natural family, and American civil society.
I could keep gushing about how much of a fan that I am for John Doyle, but I know that this post is getting pretty long. So, I hope that enjoyed this post.