The Right Stuff

Conservative stars like Ben Shapiro and Stephen Miller were making waves at a young age. Meet the dozen who are following in their footsteps

Young Conservatives Making Waves

In 2001, Stephen Miller was a 16-year-old student at Santa Monica High School near the beach in Southern California when the 9/11 attacks kicked his patriotism into overdrive. Upset that students weren’t saying the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms, the future presidential confidante called into a radio show hosted by Larry Elder, a prominent Black conservative, to complain.

“California code required schools to cite the pledge,” Elder told Newsweek while recalling the phone call from Miller. “He demanded that the school abide by the code and created quite a stir. He was bright, funny and passionate.”

So much so that Elder took calls on air from Miller 69 times as a high schooler, and the teenager caught the attention of major conservative figures, such as Stephen Bannon, the late Andrew Breitbart and best-selling author-activist David Horowitz. Miller made waves again when he invited the latter to speak at his high school. When administrators balked, Miller took his case to the airwaves—on The Larry Elder Show—until the school cried uncle and allowed Horowitz to speak.

Around that same time, 17-year-old Ben Shapiro was a student at UCLA, having graduated from high school two years early, and the conservative teenager was already the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the country.

Miller, of course, pursued a career in politics, including stints as press secretary for Representative Michele Bachmann and Senator Jeff Sessions before becoming, at age 31, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump. Shapiro meanwhile, wrote two books before age 21 and in 2015 founded his own media company, The Daily Wire. Today, he boasts 13.8 million followers across Twitter, Youtube,

Facebook and Instagram.

This brief history lesson suggests that, when it comes to modern-day conservatives, there are clues at a young age as to whom the movement’s next influencers, akin to Shapiro or Miller, might be. With this in mind, Newsweek has identified its top 12 up-and-comers who should excite the right and make liberals very nervous, especially ahead of a contentious presidential race where Democrats are relying on young voters to put their candidate, Joe Biden, over the top.

They’re younger and far less known than, say, 28-year-old Tomi Lahren (followed by 1.6 million people on Twitter); 31-year-old Candace Owens (2.5 million Twitter followers); 33-year-old Steven Crowder (4.7 million Youtube subscribers); or 25-year-old Madison Cawthorn, the paralyzed congressional candidate in North Carolina who delivered an inspiring speech at the Republican National Convention, lifting himself with a walker from his wheelchair to exclaim, “Be a radical for our republic, for which I stand.” But the youngsters below are already generating plenty of controversy and therefore positive and negative buzz, depending on your political leanings. graduation remarks. The First Amendment, in fact, is a primary reason Dao leans right. “I grew up liberal, but, over time, I started to see that the people standing up for liberal principles like free speech were conservatives,” he told Newsweek. Dao, 17, is a member of Prager Force, an organization of 10,000 students nationwide who promote talk-show host Dennis Prager’s Prageru videos on Youtube. He rarely discusses politics in school, so two years ago he decided he “needed a place to vent” and made his first video and threw it up on his Instagram page, where it was well received. Now the aspiring political commentator has 71,000 followers on that platform, who watch short videos three times daily, and Dao recently launched a Youtube channel with videos as long as eight minutes, along with a weekly three-hour show dubbed America Rising. He’s been a guest on Prager’s nationally syndicated show, and the teenager spoke at a rally for Eric Early, the Republican running for Congress against powerful Democrat Adam Schiff. Dao won’t say where he intends to go to college because he says he was already doxxed once when liberals at his high school shared his home address online. “There’s this practice of leftists emailing college admissions offices trying to get them to rescind their offers to conservatives. The left plays dirty,” he said.

America’s Foundation, which, along with College Republicans, is one of the two largest organizations for conservative youth. Giannelli created her YAF chapter at her Illinois high school, where teachers and administrators dragged out the process for five months, about five times the norm for creating a club. Things were so bogged down that YAF attorneys had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to figure out what was going on, and that’s when internal emails revealed that one teacher worried the group might promote “hate, racism, and homophobia,” according to public documents. (The school did not respond to Newsweek’s request for comment.) Her chapter was finally approved last year, and 150 students attended its inaugural meeting. Her group generated more publicity when administrators wouldn’t allow members to temporarily plant 2,977 mini-flags in the grass on school property for a 9/11 memorial, so they did it across the street instead. “That we couldn’t remember such a tragic day in history on campus spoke volumes to us. It was definitely a red flag,” she said. Her group also brought in Steve Forbes to address students and has raised $6,000 for additional speakers. “Conservative values and the sanctity of life have always been a part of who I am,” Giannelli said. “As a freshman, I was quiet and sat in classes just observing. But by sophomore year, I discovered that more of my peers felt like I did and were noticing liberal indoctrination, so I wanted to bring a conservative voice to campus, because there was definitely a demand.” Since watching YAF go to bat for her by filing its FOIA request, she’s now considering law school. “With my leadership role, I’ve learned the importance of free speech. The First Amendment is very important, so we can always use more attorneys to defend it.”