11 Up and Coming Young Conservatives You Should Know About
Some days it feels like everyone under 40 is liberal — at least, that’s what the media loves to tell us. But, yes, there are plenty of up and coming young conservatives you should be paying attention to.
For the purposes of this article, we’re going to assume you’re already familiar with young conservatives like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder. If you’re not, by all means, you should check them out, too. However, we’re going to focus on a few that might have escaped your attention.
Here are 11 reasons why the under-40 crowd isn’t as liberal as you might have thought.
Young Conservative #1: Katie Pavlich
Katie Pavlich is one of the most eminent conservative opinion journalists working today, currently writing for both Townhall.com and The Hill. She’s also been a contributor on Fox News’ “The Five.” In other words, she’s pretty much everywhere.
A 29-year-old graduate of the University of Arizona, Pavlich moved to Washington, D.C. after graduation and became an editor for Townhall. She slowly moved up from there, making appearances on most of the major cable networks. In addition to her media appearances, she also authored, “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up.”
Young Conservative #2: Lila Rose
Taking on abortion giant Planned Parenthood is a difficult task no matter who you are, particularly if you’re under the age of 30. However, the 29-year-old Rose has quickly established herself as one of America’s most preeminent pro-life activists, standing up to the abortion mill and other pro-death forces on the left.
Rose, an evangelical Protestant who converted to Catholicism, started Live Action when she was only 15-years-old. Rose met James O’Keefe of Project Veritas fame while she was in college and was inspired to take undercover videos of Planned Parenthood clinics. One of those videos even resulted in a loss of $61 million in state funding to the abortion giant. Anyone who can do that is well on their way to being a conservative legend, and all before the age of 30.
Here’s Rose discussing Trump’s decision to cut Title X funding for Planned Parenthood on Fox News:
Young Conservative #3: Ryan T. Anderson
Back in 2015, The Washington Post called Anderson “the conservative movement’s fresh-faced, millennial, Ivy League-educated spokesman against same-sex marriage.” He’s a bit more than that. Anderson, who’s received his Ph.D., is currently the William E. Simon senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and an author of several books, mostly taking on the media’s narrative on issues of religious freedom.
His books include “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom” and “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.” He’s also been cited in two Supreme Court cases.
Watch him debate same-sex marriage with Piers Morgan on CNN:
Young Conservative #4: Michael Knowles
Don’t let Knowles‘ patrician bearing fool you. Even though The Daily Wire podcast host may have a distinctly Buckley-esque bent, he’s only 28-years-old. The Yale graduate began in acting, including in several web-based series. After acting didn’t quite seem to work out, Knowles was invited onto The Daily Wire program of the decidedly not-under-30 Andrew Klavan, who hired him as a cultural correspondent in 2016. It was around this time that Knowles released the best-selling Amazon book, “Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide.” (It’s totally blank.)
Knowles has gotten his own podcast with The Daily Wire, joining Klavan and Wire impresario Ben Shapiro. No word yet on whether he plans a follow-up to his book, but he’ll probably require words this time.
Watch him in this PragerU video below:
Young Conservative #5: Kristin Tate
Kristin Tate isn’t a fan of government waste. In fact, the self-described “Libertarian Chick” writes columns about how the federal government is spending your money for The Hill, in between visits to Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Her latest book is called “How Do I Tax Thee?” Her first book, “Government Gone Wild,” was a smash hit when it was released. And all of this well before she’s hit 30.
Tate, needless to say, isn’t a fan of the swamp: “Both the Democrats and the Republicans have shown over and over, year in and year out, no matter who controls Congress or the White House, they’re not interested in us as individuals or in protecting our rights and freedoms,” Tate wrote in “Government Gone Wild.”
“They prefer to call all the shots in Washington, D.C. They claim to know what’s best for us. But for them, it’s not about us. Instead it’s all about their power, their privilege, and doing just enough to make sure they’re elected to another term. And another, and another…”
Young Conservative #6: Jimmy Sengenberger
At some point, Rush Limbaugh will have to give up the golden EIB microphone and Dennis Prager will be gone from the airwaves. Will radio all go over to liberals at that point? Not if Jimmy Sengenberger has anything to do with it. The host of “Business for Breakfast with Jimmy Sengenberger” probably isn’t well known outside of Denver, where he hosts shows on both KDMT-AM and KNUS-AM, but the young host is making a name for himself in a medium that usually skews older in terms of demographics. And he’s been doing it since 2008 — meaning he’s a veteran of an industry when most people his age are simply doing news on the 8’s.
Sengenberger is also the president of the Liberty Day Institute, a non-profit founded in 1996. “Its longest-running initiative educates students, particularly fifth graders, on the U.S. Constitution and American government through Constitution booklets, classroom resources, and school volunteers,” Sengenberger notes on his webpage.
Here’s Sengenberger on social justice:
Young Conservative #7: Matt Walsh
We’ve all been conditioned so that when we hear the words “Christian conservative,” our mind immediately floats to someone older. Matt Walsh could change that.
Bearded, young and opinionated, Walsh has recently joined Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, where he’s become somewhat well-known for doing his podcast from the confines of his car. Unlike his co-worker Michael Knowles, Walsh doesn’t have a blank book to his name; his “The Unholy Trinity: Blocking the Left’s Assault on Life, Marriage, and Gender” actually has words in it. Walsh is well-known for touching upon many themes, including moral rot in American society, the lack of responsibility among younger Americans and the importance of family.
Young Conservative #8: Kyle Kashuv
In the wake of the tragic Parkland shooting in February, many of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School became well-known political activists. While most of these were calling for gun control, Kashuv believed students could be kept safe without throwing the Second Amendment into the trash can.
This led to plenty of flak from the media — when they didn’t outright ignore him — including a bizarre saga where Newsweek reporter Kurt Eichenwald emailed Ben Shapiro insinuating that Kashuv was mentally ill. Throughout all of this, Kashuv has managed to maintain level while speaking out for his principles — both signs this is one young conservative who will go far.
Young Conservative #9: Charlie Kirk
Charlie Kirk began a career of conservative activism young — during his high school years, actually, when he started the group SOS Liberty. In 2012, he gained a modicum of fame when, upon graduating high school, he wrote an op-ed piece for Fox News about the national debt.
“In two weeks I will graduate from Wheeling High School,” Kirk wrote. “It is going to be a day to remember for the rest of my life. My principal will hand me a diploma, but that diploma is also an invoice for $870,000 — my share of America’s 2012 debt burden. The average American earns $1.3 million during their working career. When we factor in future deficit spending and interest, every single high school student owes the federal government more than they will ever earn in their lifetime. Since the day I was born, the United States has accrued eleven trillion dollars worth of new debt; and for those eighteen years of my existence, I haven’t even had a say in it.”
Kirk would begin having a say in it very soon. You may have heard of his forming a conservative group — Turning Point USA, home of Candace Owens, says that its “mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.” It bills itself as “the largest and fastest growing youth organization in America.”
Kirk may have accomplished quite a bit at such a young age (24), but you can imagine we’ll see even more in the years to come. After all, as he said in his Fox News piece just a few short years ago: “There is significant promise in my generation. It is not too late to turn our fiscal ship around. Together we, the young people of America, can send a clear and concise message to every single Congressman, Senator, and Representative: We can’t afford it.”
Young Conservative #10: James O’Keefe
While many of you may know James O’Keefe’s videos or his Project Veritas, many of you aren’t familiar with the man behind the projects. You know the drill when it comes to Project Veritas: They target a liberal organization, liberal organization says the video was “edited as to remove context,” the people speaking in the video end up getting fired and/or resigning anyway.
With his very first video, O’Keefe managed to take down “community organizing” group ACORN by pretending to be a pimp trying to find lodging with his, um, employee — and getting plenty of help from members of the organization. On Project Veritas’ page, O’Keefe notes that his “investigations have led directly to the passage of new legislation, federal and state investigations, congressional inquiries, the de-funding of taxpayer-funded groups, arrests, resignations, firings, re-trainings and disciplinary action.”
And he’s still at it. Check out this recent undercover video his journalists did that exposed teachers’ unions (which, we must warn you, contains some sensitive material. Viewer discretion is advised):
Young Conservative #11: Candace Owens
For Candace Owens, getting a name-check from Kanye West its just part of the gig. The Turning Point USA pundit has been gaining a huge following on YouTube, to the point where the fine liberal folks at Salon have actually dubbed her the “toxic right’s newest African-American star.” I’m not quite sure what a rightist has to do in order to be labeled “toxic” or what Owens’ melanin has to do with this, but I’m going to chalk this up to having a lot more to do with the media than with any actual concern.
Owens is probably best known for her “Red Pill Black” YouTube vodcast, but she’s been an activist for a number of years now. In fact, her conservative activism has gone back to high school, when racist threats against her were linked to the son of the Democrat mayor of Stamford, Connecticut. That’s not the kind of thing that’s going to stop Owens, however, and she now has over 200,000 subscribers on YouTube.
These are the young conservatives. They’ve used new media — YouTube, podcasting, social media — to make a name for themselves. Yet the principles that they’re advocating — limited government, strong families, patriotism — are as old as the country.
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