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FreedomWorks Is Closing — And Blaming Trump
By LUKE MULLINS
05/08/2024
The libertarian organization couldn’t survive the populist shift in the Republican Party.
FreedomWorks, the once-swaggering conservative organization that helped turn tea party protesters into a national political force, is shutting down, according to its president, a casualty of the ideological split in a Republican Party dominated by former President Donald Trump.
“We’re dissolved,” said the group’s president, Adam Brandon. “It’s effective immediately.”
FreedomWorks’ board of directors voted unanimously on Tuesday to dissolve the organization, Brandon said. Wednesday will be the last workday for the group’s roughly 25 employees, though staffers will continue to receive paychecks and health care benefits for the next few months.
The development brings to a close a period of turmoil for the organization. FreedomWorks laid off 40 percent of its staff in March of 2023, and as a result of a drop in fundraising, its total revenue has declined by roughly half, to about $8 million, since 2022, Brandon said.
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO Magazine, Brandon said the decision to shut down was driven by the ideological upheaval of the Trump era.
After Trump took control of the conservative movement, Brandon said, a “huge gap” opened up between the libertarian principles of FreedomWorks leadership and the MAGA-style populism of its members. FreedomWorks leaders, for example, still believed in free trade, small government and a robust merit-based immigration system. Increasingly, however, those positions clashed with a Trump-aligned membership who called for tariffs on imported goods and a wall to keep immigrants out but were willing, in Brandon’s view, to remain silent as Trump’s administration added $8 trillion to the national debt.
“A lot of our base aged, and so the new activists that have come in [with] Trump, they tend to be much more populist,” Brandon said. “So you look at the base and that just kind of shifted.”
This same split was creating headaches in other parts of the organization as well. “Our staff became divided into MAGA and Never Trump factions,” Brandon said in an internal document reviewed by POLITICO Magazine. It also impacted fundraising.
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Brandon said he has plans to launch a new organization focused on politically independent members of the millennial and Gen Z generations, whom he thinks will be receptive to libertarian policies. “If we started something new, you could build it from the ground up,” Brandon said. “You could build a brand that matches what these folks want, and you could get away around all the baggage [associated with the FreedomWorks brand].”
Full article:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/08/freedomworks-is-closing-and-blaming-trump-00156784
By LUKE MULLINS
05/08/2024
The libertarian organization couldn’t survive the populist shift in the Republican Party.
FreedomWorks, the once-swaggering conservative organization that helped turn tea party protesters into a national political force, is shutting down, according to its president, a casualty of the ideological split in a Republican Party dominated by former President Donald Trump.
“We’re dissolved,” said the group’s president, Adam Brandon. “It’s effective immediately.”
FreedomWorks’ board of directors voted unanimously on Tuesday to dissolve the organization, Brandon said. Wednesday will be the last workday for the group’s roughly 25 employees, though staffers will continue to receive paychecks and health care benefits for the next few months.
The development brings to a close a period of turmoil for the organization. FreedomWorks laid off 40 percent of its staff in March of 2023, and as a result of a drop in fundraising, its total revenue has declined by roughly half, to about $8 million, since 2022, Brandon said.
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO Magazine, Brandon said the decision to shut down was driven by the ideological upheaval of the Trump era.
After Trump took control of the conservative movement, Brandon said, a “huge gap” opened up between the libertarian principles of FreedomWorks leadership and the MAGA-style populism of its members. FreedomWorks leaders, for example, still believed in free trade, small government and a robust merit-based immigration system. Increasingly, however, those positions clashed with a Trump-aligned membership who called for tariffs on imported goods and a wall to keep immigrants out but were willing, in Brandon’s view, to remain silent as Trump’s administration added $8 trillion to the national debt.
“A lot of our base aged, and so the new activists that have come in [with] Trump, they tend to be much more populist,” Brandon said. “So you look at the base and that just kind of shifted.”
This same split was creating headaches in other parts of the organization as well. “Our staff became divided into MAGA and Never Trump factions,” Brandon said in an internal document reviewed by POLITICO Magazine. It also impacted fundraising.
.
.
.
Brandon said he has plans to launch a new organization focused on politically independent members of the millennial and Gen Z generations, whom he thinks will be receptive to libertarian policies. “If we started something new, you could build it from the ground up,” Brandon said. “You could build a brand that matches what these folks want, and you could get away around all the baggage [associated with the FreedomWorks brand].”
Full article:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/08/freedomworks-is-closing-and-blaming-trump-00156784
