Alexander Brown: The kids are all right
The team from Without Diminishment hits the campus circuit to meet young conservatives where they are.
We’re all but one month removed from the launch of Without Diminishment, and last week we had the pleasure of joining the UBC Conservatives for a panel before a packed lecture hall of students and guests eager to feel seen and heard on the issues that matter most to them.
‘An Evening Without Diminishment’ is how we were billed, and on the motivational and non-doomer front, I believe that we delivered. We were blessed to be flanked by the Hon. Gordon Campbell, who opened with august remarks on young conservatives taking back control of their future, lessons from his premiership, and providing a gentle hand in reminding those in attendance that you can fight your culture wars but don’t wholly lose sight of the economy, a firm rebuke of Canada’s failing status quo was on offer; yet optimism was still in ample supply.
Friend of Without Diminishment ‘Robin Skies’ joined Caroline Elliott, Geoff Russ, and myself on stage as an additional special guest, with words of wisdom on orienting oneself towards the social movements that matter most to young Canadians, and with remarks on the importance of becoming your own broadcaster. Skies, government name Adam Beattie, has quickly transformed from one of Canada’s top behind-the- scenes politicos into one of Canada’s most-popular TikTok influencers, routinely crossing millions in views and engagements with straight-to-camera, no-nonsense lessons to a predominantly younger audience no longer willing to settle for managed decline.
After a wide-ranging discussion on the early successes of the publication, the who we are and why we do it, and policy talk on the concerns surrounding a reconciliation model run amok, an overly permissible government drug culture gone predictably awry, and the need and the want from young people to build and defend monuments of meaning, the Q and A portion and discussions with the crowd afterwards very much reinforced the dynamics we’ve sought to engage with: an audience that hasn’t felt wholly served by its mainstream, or its campaigners.
There were thoughtful questions as to whether woke ‘gotcha’ conservative reporting and soundbites distract from the key issues such as affordability or immigration, concerns about drugs and crime, an esteemed UBC law professor expanded upon his concerns that the profession is being ceded to a group increasingly radical and out of touch with the principles of the profession, with co-founder and Editor-at-Large Geoff Russ encouraging the audience to march their way into institutions, and counter the left’s very own long march through our institutions, to the detriment of them all.
For myself, I was afforded the opportunity to expand on why I do what I do, and why I aided in founding this publication to begin with: we can lie to ourselves and cast aside concerns of this country being more of a gerontocracy than a generationally cohesive democracy, and abandon our teens, twenties, and even thirtysomethings to further alienation and radicalizing forces that seek to prey upon that animus — yes, the Nick Fuenteses of the world — or we can work like hell to offer them a better path, validate those concerns, and ensure they stay in a tent where light is capable of getting in, and where the radioactive fallout from fed-posting won’t cling to their clothes.