Saturday is the long day of the conference. It starts at nine and runs through five, then there is a banquet with a speaker. This year Taylor went with a youth movement for the speakers. Patrick Casey started things off with a talk about his group and what they are doing. Young people are terrible public speakers, because they are inexperienced, and nervous, but Casey delivered a nice professional talk that did not try to do too much.

That’s the key with public speaking. You’re not Cicero or Patrick Henry so don’t try too hard. Make your points, respect the audience and play within yourself. Casey delivered a nice professional speech that covered the material. It suggests he is growing into his role as a leader of his group. There’s nothing wrong with youthful energy, which AIM has in plenty, but there needs to be a steady hand guiding that youthful energy.

It occurred to me, while interacting with the AIM guys, that the biggest challenge they will face is maintaining discipline in the organization. Bring together a bunch of bright young guys and they will come up with a million new ideas. Not all of them will be great ideas, which where guys like Casey need to step in and impose some discipline, in order to keep the groups on the same page and out of dangerous waters.

The trouble, young guys will buck and not want to take direction from the home office on what they are doing locally. Casey is going to have make belonging to his brand so valuable that the local chapters will never consider breaking off on their own, which was an issue with the Identity Europa organization. Casey is a bright guy getting good advice, so they will unriddle it, but it will be a challenge for them in the near term…

John Derbyshire, who gave a talk on his idea of an arctic alliance. It’s a stock talk he has given before in various ways, but with so many new people showing up at these things, it is important they hear the source material for many of the ideas they have found persuasive. His talk was a good counter to the Casey talk, as Derb is more on the philosophy and theory end, while Casey is a retail organizer.

Political theory and meta-politics are important, but they are useless without a retail arm implementing those ideas. At the same time, organizing to gain political power is just barbarism, unless it is toward some larger goal. Power is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. America has rotten elites and they need to be replaced, but their rotten ideas have to be defeated as well. Giving the audience a taste of bother ends of that political teeter-totter was a good way to open the show…

The afternoon session shifted gears a bit. Jared always has at least one speaker discuss events in Europe, which is a great way to add some perspective. As Americans, we often fail to notice what’s happening in the broader world. That’s mostly because our media is all propaganda at this point, but we have always been a provincial people. We have a big country with plenty to keep us busy. Still what’s happening in with regards to the big issues of this age is just as important as what is happening here.

John Morgan from Counter-Currents gave a great talk on Hungary. He is an American, but he spends most of his life in Europe. Oddly, what is happening in Eastern Europe probably has more salience for dissidents than much of what is happening here. In Hungary, they are wrestling with the problems of globalism, nationalism and migration and radical democracy. In a sense, the great fight between globalism and nationalism is being fought in these former Soviet Bloc nations, so it should have our attention…

The dinner speaker was James Allsup, who has a hug YouTube following. I’ve been to a lot of events for all sorts of things and I can count on one hand the number of time I paid attention to a dinner speech. By that stage, I’m tired and ready for a nap. The Allsup speech was great and had my attention throughout. He’s only 23, but handles himself like a veteran on stage. Unlike Nick Fuentes, it seems perfectly natural. I really enjoyed listening to his talk and he is going to be a big star ion this scene for years to come…

Generational politics is a little annoying, because the supposed differences in generations are usually meaningless. Since the middle of the last century, it is mostly a way to keep whites bickering with one another, rather than defending their interests as a group. Something that is different with the next generation though is total comfort with all media. The Millennials grew up consuming product, but the Zoomers have grown up producing product. It’s second nature for them.

I think that may be why we are seeing so many you YouTube stars with a lever of sophistication in their product that seems impossible. Allsup has done a million video and interview by the time he is 23. This young girl calling herself “Soph” is probably a sign of things to come. Producing content is as natural to her as breathing, because she grew up doing it. She’s also consuming content at a rate never seen, so she has internalized ideas it used to years to grasp. The Zoomers are going to be different…

It used to be that countries routinely issued visas to people entering for business or tourism without too much hassle. It was what civilized countries did. On the other hand, the less civilized discouraged visitors. Albania was famous for operating like a hermit colony during the Cold War. Saudi Arabia is known for being unfriendly to visitors, even their fellow Muslims. The rule of thumb was that the openness to tourism was a proxy for the degree of order and civility in the society.

Today, America is now routinely rejecting people from Western countries because of their politics. Greg Johnson’s Canadian video guy was detained by U.S. customs at the airport and then deported, because he was coming to AmRen. He was told he violated the terms of his visa, because he intended to interview people at the event. It is complete nonsense, but they don’t need a reason to reject someone. He was also made persona non grata for five years. This is where we are now in America…

There was a lovely couple from Wisconsin in attendance and we chatted at length about what we need to do and where we want this thing to go. It is a common conversation I have with people new to this stuff and I don’t always have the best answers. I think I may have stumbled upon one this weekend. I said, “The best thing you can do for the cause is bring two of your friends next year.” That really is the right answer, when you step back and look at it. It is our version of “think globally, act locally.”

Everyone has a role to play, but the most important role is for everyone in dissident politics to get creative on red-pilling their friends and family. That means getting together to talk about what works and what does not work. If everyone at AmRen could convert one friend by next year, the event is sold out in weeks, not months. If that keeps happening the thing will not be held in a forest, but on the Capital Mall. In all matters, it is numbers that matter. First we get the numbers, then everything else is possible…

To support my work, please subscribe here.