Challenges Facing Progressive Youth Politics

I’m about to jump in a cab to the airport, but wanted to say two things.

First, I think that your first point is right on and it is both one of the biggest problems and most eminently fixable. Lots of groups sprung up as part of the 2003/04 youth org explosion that did a really good job of culturally engaging non-activists in the electoral process. The tactics are out there and tested. Some groups do a good job of it (mostly those new groups that have managed to survive post ‘04). Many of the older groups and structures still fail to do this well.

One of the biggest hurdles here is that it’s not necessarily a structural or strategic problem. All these groups could theoretically engage in this kind of outreach, but they don’t. It’s a human resource problem in that the types of people running these programs came into progressive youth politics through an activisty, semi-professional mindset. That’s what they know and love about it. It’s cool, but its only part of the equation because as you point out, it only nets your a certain subset of young voter supporters.

Convincing folks that they need to supplement their tactics with more culturally relevant programs is something I hope we can do here at FM.

I think that your second, fourth and fifth points are all part of a single equation that I spoke about early as the Progressive Politics and Social Justice Divide. Your point is larger, but these three things really comprise that divide and are a big factor I think in accounting for lack of diversity.

My cab is here, got to go. More later.

One other thing to remember when we’re talking about this is that building infrastructure is great, but there are lots of different types of infrastructure. Concurrent with the conversation you suggest, also need to be talking about the different types of infrastructure that fill these and other holes in the movement:

• leadership training
• GOTV
• longterm engagement
• partisan vs. “nonpartisan” ( issue-based)