NASHVILLE, Tenn. — “Everybody needs to be reading more history.”
While not a typical applause line, it was a favorite of the crowd of twenty and thirty-somethings listening to Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti speak at the National Young Republican Convention. Skrmetti, fresh off a landmark victory at the Supreme Court, implored the crowd to take seriously their duty to know how America works and leave it better off for future generations.
“You’re the ones who are coming into this, and you’ve got the future ahead of you, we run the country, and we need to do it wisely,” Skrmetti told the crowd of sharply-dressed attendees in the ballroom of the Sheraton Music City Hotel last weekend. “That means everybody needs to be reading more history. You’ve got to have the perspective of knowing how things have worked in the past.”
Skrmetti, who loves American history and has four young children, praised the Founding Fathers for their sacrifices to build the United States.
“America is not just a short-term thing where we get what we can get and then run for the hills,” he said. “It is literally created to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, and we have to have the multi-generational perspective and be looking not just to get short-term wins, but to strengthen our country.”
This year’s convention was attended by more than 1,000 Republicans between the ages of 18 and 40 from all 50 states. It was the largest convention in decades, and the second largest ever, according to organizers.
Speakers and participants included a variety of Tennessee political staples, such as Governor Bill Lee and Reps. John Rose and Tim Burchett, in addition to sports commentator Clay Travis and conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings.
From Thursday to Sunday, attendees milled about the convention space, which featured booths from diverse organizations such as Trump Mobile, PETA, and WinRed. Multiple attendees told The Daily Wire they were there to meet like-minded people.
Kellie Lynch, a Republican from New York, said that she thought the most significant issues facing young people were the economy, the cost of living, and the rise of artificial intelligence. While much has been made of the gender divide in voting patterns, Lynch said that the GOP did a “great job” reaching out to women. She thought media bias played a major role in some women’s perception of Republicans.
Booths at the Young Republican convention/ Photo: Catherine Maxwell.
Another attendee, Kyle Mason, an investment property specialist from Texas, said he believed President Donald Trump’s embrace of masculinity was key to the reason many younger men were starting to vote Republican. In his spare time, Mason volunteers with Republican political efforts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
After his panel appearance, Skrmetti told The Daily Wire that he had a lot of older mentors who helped him be involved in civic action, and he now wants to play that role for others. Asked about some young people who see politics as hopelessly corrupt, Skrmetti pointed out that America was founded by men who were skeptical of the government.
“Cynical people are a critical part of America, and we need them, but we need them not to sit on the sidelines and gripe. We need them to take their cynicism and put it to work on behalf of all the American people,” he said.
He added that one way to expose corruption and push for change was on the internet, which he said really opened up the national conversation for input from anyone.
Skrmetti’s sentiment was present in other speeches, including by Governor Lee, who noted that he would probably float into “political obscurity” once his term in office was over.
“You’re the future of America, you have an obligation and a responsibility to wake up every day and ask yourself those questions so you’ll be engaging in the things that matter and that change the lives of the people around you,” Lee said.
Lee speaks at convention: Photo by: Jonathan Williams | NationalPhotography.us via YRNC.
The National Young Republicans now have chapters in almost every state, with a Delaware chapter being chartered over the weekend, Chair Hayden Padgett told The Daily Wire. The last state needing a chapter is Wyoming.
Padgett said that the purpose of the Young Republicans was twofold: to build community and to aid in political campaigns.
During the 2024 election cycle, which he described as “wild” in the “best way,” Padgett said a contingent of Young Republicans knocked on the doors of 3% of Montana voters in support of Tim Sheehy, who successfully defeated incumbent Democrat Senator Jon Tester.
His pitch to young people was that Republican policies would help them achieve the American dream of starting a family, owning a business, and buying a home. Padgett was re-elected as chair of the Young Republicans after a contentious challenge from New York State Young Republicans Chair Peter Giunta.
“If you want to have a better life, if you want to have a family, if you want to have the ability to actually achieve the American dream, we are putting in the policies, and have been for 150 years, whatever it is, that actually make that possible,” Padgett said. “So come join that.”
