Our trainer, David Blair, led youth engagement for the Trump 2016 campaign. “From Trump Tower,” he bragged.
The trainees: Nickolas from the conservative controversialists Turning Point; Alyssa, an intern with the right-wing Atlas Network in Ohio; Michael from Young Americans for Liberty; Caleb, youth campaigner for Orange County’s pro-Trump congresswoman; two flatmates sniffing for internships; a high-school senior in New Mexico. And us, undercover openDemocracy reporters.
Our host via Zoom, the Leadership Institute, exists to “place conservatives in the government, politics and media” – and it says its graduates include Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence. Like a multi-level marketing scheme, the workshop taught us to recruit students to right-wing activism, who would in turn recruit others. Blair stressed a growing marginalisation of conservative ideology on college campuses, and a “moral obligation” to save the US.
