Scott Walker, former Wisconsin Gov. (R) and Young America’s Foundation President, says most students are aligned with conservative values but “the radicalization of college campuses” makes it difficult for them to speak up.
“It’s gone from left-wing bias to — the radicalization of college campuses,” Walker told Breitbart News reporter Bradley Jaye in a candid conversation at Young America’s Foundation (YAF) National Conservative Student Conference in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.
“This isn’t just pushing their agenda. This is, if you don’t agree with them, they cancel you, they’re actually outright dangerous in some cases,” Walker added.
The former governor went on to say, “Our polling shows this. We just did a poll before the presidential debate — overwhelmingly, college students are not conservative, they’re not liberal. The number one plurality of answers was moderate.”
“If you’re a student on a college campus, and you say you’re a moderate, that means you’re really open to conservative ideas, you’re just afraid to call yourself a conservative,” Walker said.
Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News
“The number one issue is economy — and on fairness issues, like, should men compete in women’s sports, should people be enrolled in college or employed based upon their race. Overwhelmingly, students said no, that’s not fair,” Walker explained.
“So when they’re independently, privately talking to a pollster, they’re a whole lot more aligned with us,” the former governor asserted.
Elsewhere in the interview, Walker talked about the benefits young people have by attending conservative conferences:
We have someone like Katie Pavlich, for example — she started out at the Reagan Ranch conference back in 2008, very first time, and who did she hear? Andrew Breitbart. She was so inspired by that, she knew that she wanted to pursue that kind of a career going forward. That all came from someone who came to a conference not really knowing what the future might hold, heard Andrew, met other students, got engaged, and look at what a difference she’s making today.
Jaye responded by noting that Breitbart News also has “some YAF alums who have gone on to do big things within the conservative movement.”
“In a lot of ways, y’all are preparing these young people, not just to make an impact now, but really, to set them on the path beyond school to go out into the nation and do some really big things,” Jaye added.
Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News
Walker explained that, “What we do is, we train the next generation of leaders in the fight for freedom.”
“You think of [Breitbart News editor-in-chief] Alex Marlow, you think of Wynton Hall, you think of even people like Peter Schweizer — Peter went to one of our conferences just like the other two did — now he’s got like seven New York Times best-selling books out there, the latest of which is Blood Money,” Walker added.
The former governor added that in addition to being a best-selling author, Schweizer has also become “a great investigative reporter,” who is “really having an impact on so many others.”
“So, some of these young people someday are going to be members of Congress, governors, who knows, maybe a president,” Walker said. “Others are going to be in the media, social media, and education.”
“As Andrew said, politics is downstream from culture,” Walker noted. “We need people at every step of the way, who are not afraid to stand up and tell the truth.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.