☆ Perspective: Local conservatives need more consistent youth organizing/outreach
Former political strategist Richard Maher is president of the San Francisco Young Republicans and has worked to build the once-flatlining social club into a robust, engaged conservative community. Opp Now exclusively asked Maher to unpack the tricks of the trade when it comes to reaching youth who question the ascendant hard-Left worldview—especially when many are U-Hauling it elsewhere.
Opportunity Now: How did you start working with the San Francisco Young Republicans group?
Richard Maher: It was 2020, and we were in the throes of lockdown. I was contacted by an acquaintance involved with the SF Republican Central Committee and was asked, “Are you interested in restarting this organization?”
We wondered from the beginning how to engage conservatives in SF, in the summer of 2020, in one of the most Covid-restricted areas in the country. But quickly, our concerns were proven wrong. We could easily get 40–50 people out to general meetings just to discuss politics, the election, and cultural issues. And many of them commuted from cities outside of SF in Northern California.
ON: It's often a surprise to see conservatives coming out of the woodwork to engage these important topics with like-minded people. Really, many are just waiting for their opportunity to discuss and debate without being shut down—or given the “-ist” label. But what was it about 2020 that made for such great SFYR turnout?
RM: In retrospect, election years generate a lot of excitement, especially if it's a contentious cycle like 2020's. So it's crucial as an organization to tap into that. With that said, election-year enthusiasm isn't automatically going to sustain, so we can't be overly optimistic and neglect retention efforts.
ON: Have you taken any cues from the local Left? We see—and this has been the case for decades—how they incite political involvement during and in between elections.
RM: My acquaintance who helped relaunch SFYR was himself a member of the SF Democrats before his political conversion. So he brought a lot of the approaches and tactics from this much larger, longstanding organization. For example, he established our precinct walking activities, where we distribute flyers and discuss issues with neighborhood voters.
In CA and in SF specifically, conservatives haven't been as consistent as progressives when it comes to organizing. The Left is tied to their public sector unions and is constantly practicing political activism and doing things like ballot harvesting. The conservative approach is usually: There's a big contentious election or a ballot initiative we care about, so let's start from square one and visit a bunch of local groups (e.g., churches, PTA meetings). But this means reinventing the wheel every time. Progressive groups tend to be much better at maintaining consistency, in activities and interorganizational relationships. We aim to do that well at SFYR.
ON: It sounds like regular organizing is key to maintaining momentum during political lolls (though in the Silicon Valley, do things ever really calm down?). And we're guessing another piece of the puzzle is community.
RM: That's the reason we started a SFYR group chat on Telegram: to encourage group members to have free discourse with one other in between our monthly meetings. We've found it's important for members to be actively engaging even when we aren't physically together—and keep in mind, we always meet in person, never online. People often post news stories and generate conversations about it; they'll share observations about living in the area (e.g., someone had to close their business due to crime conditions). More often than not, there's a lively discussion going on.
We've also found it's vital to constantly recruit members—
ON: —because when it comes to young folks, SF's population is only shrinking.
RM: Yes, and we define “young” as 18–40 years old. Even so, that time period encapsulates a lot of life changes: establishing one's career, transferring elsewhere, starting a family, etc. And then there's individuals who aren't deeply rooted in the area but came to SF to get their career started. It's a transient city in general. So we're always looking to recruit members.
Furthermore, to increase buy-in with existing members, we give them responsibilities (e.g., to plan an activity, organize volunteers, connect with potential speakers). This allows members to advance in their own values. After all, they may join SFYR with preexisting knowledge of conservative philosophy and politics. Then through their involvement, they have rich discussions and deepen their political understanding, while at the same time developing leadership skills. I'm an example of this: Through my leadership roles, I've moved up in my participation in the movement. I haven't particularly sought those roles out, but it's been a meaningful experience.
ON: And likely, some people are never going to reach for those leadership roles—
RM: —which is completely fine. In these kinds of professional groups, some show up (at least initially) for the social aspect and to hear interesting conversations, and that's great. For many people, this is what furthering their values looks like.
Also, oftentimes, we can encourage them from there to, for instance, join us on a Saturday morning during election season for precinct walking. When we follow up consistently about it, we've found that a lot of people get involved with volunteering.
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