Get The Flock Out: Young Libertarians Have A Message For Establishment Politicians

CINCINNATI — The chief obstacles to America First liberty are establishment politicians, the technocratic panopticon and endless foreign wars, according to student activists at a major Libertarian conference.

Some attendees at the 17th annual Young Americans for Liberty National Convention (YALCON) told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the most pressing issues for younger voters ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections and 2028 presidential race include “America First” values, the ongoing Iran war and concerns over the nation’s artificial intelligence (AI) data center boom.

One of the biggest concerns motivating U.S. voters right now is “probably data centers and [them] not taking people’s homes, or like AI [taking] your work,” according to one conference attendee, Josiah Walker.

“And also America First values, where we care about American citizens more than we care about foreigners, and people that don’t even live here, so we want to prioritize people that go to college here and live in our country and are born in our country,” Walker told the DCNF. “I don’t want no foreigners to come down here and take our jobs or take my friends’ jobs.”

Walker also claimed that the ongoing war with Iran does not “really have a purpose.”

“And [also] we shouldn’t have been going to war in another country that doesn’t really have a purpose … Just because a man could be a threat in two weeks doesn’t mean they have the right to go bomb this one entire family,” he told the DCNF.

Walker’s comments come as some recent polling suggests that many U.S. voters do not believe that President Donald Trump’s administration is actually putting Americans first. An Emerson College poll released in March found that 53% of likely U.S. voters believe the administration is not “putting America first,” compared to 42% who think it is.

Last week’s conference, which YAL has described as being where “young liberty leaders get trained,” had well over 600 attendees who primarily were “activists in the 18-30 [age] range,” a YAL spokesperson told the DCNF on Monday.

Several student activists the DCNF spoke with during YALCON seemed highly opposed to U.S. military intervention against Iran. Some featured speakers at this year’s YALCON included Grammy-nominated rapper Afroman, Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs.

Another YALCON attendee who was wearing a “Massie 2028” hat, Lucien Anderson, similarly told the DCNF that one of the key issues across the libertarian movement today is that politicians must put America first over other countries.

“I think the top two or top three issues right now in the libertarian movement is number one, Israel,” Anderson stated. “I think we are shifting towards a more America first oriented movement, especially among young [American] men.”

In January, Trump announced in a social media post that his administration is seeking to block big investors from purchasing single-family U.S. homes as part of a broader effort to bring down house costs. However, a spokesperson for BlackRock — the world’s largest asset manager — told Benzinga in January that it does not “buy single-family homes.”

Anderson went on to say that the U.S. government should exit the Iran war and instead focus on other issues such as addressing the growing national debt.

“I think leaving the Iran war would be a giant [win] … We just got to leave the war,”
Anderson told the DCNF. “We actually have to stop spending money, and stop being big government Republicans and be real, like, it’s stupid. We have a Republican president but we’re still getting, like, $4 trillion worth of debt.”

The U.S. national debt is currently sitting at $39.84 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury’s FiscalData platform.

YALCON attendee Derek Pardieu emphasized to the DCNF that young conservative voters want to get rid of “establishment” Republicans in power.

When asked about what the biggest issues in the conservative movement are today, Pardieu also told the DCNF he thinks “it really depends on who you ask.”

“I think at this point, when you say conservative movement, I think there’s at least two different conservative movements at this point now,” Pardieu explained.

“You have like the older generation, you know, boomers and maybe a little bit younger than that. And they seem to, you know, enjoy the war with Iran, these types of things,” he continued. “The Republican establishment that we’ve seen like the last 20 years, you know, or every couple years. And then you’ve got a young faction of, once again, under the banner of conservative conservatism, who are kind of opposed to all that … getting involved in wars overseas that have little to do with us, without clear objectives or that aren’t gonna benefit our lives in any type of tangible or measurable way. So I think the young folks would like to get these establishments folks out.”

Frustration with the GOP establishment reached a boiling point during one of the main stage speakers. Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was booed during a Wednesday night YALCON speech.

At one point during the speech, an audience member yelled at Ramaswamy that conference attendees “don’t want to hear your bullshit talking points,” adding that the Ohio Republican was a “political cretin,” Newsweek reported.

One male attendee who declined to provide his name to the DCNF said he thought Ramaswamy was booed because he “didn’t love America enough.”

Afroman, who won a defamation lawsuit in March filed by seven Ohio sheriff’s deputies, has become something of a hero to libertarians. The lawsuit followed a 2022 raid on Afroman’s home by the Adams County, Ohio Sheriff’s Office as part of a drug and kidnapping investigation, but authorities found no illegal items and no charges were filed against the rapper.

Afroman mentioned at one point during a Thursday discussion at YALCON that he would “like to see more good Boy Scouts become police officers,” as they are generally “trustworthy” individuals.