On Friday, Axios highlighted American Moment’s educational programming and personnel strategy in a new piece. Key excerpts below:
Startups including American Moment have sprung up to develop lists of thousands of younger “America First” personnel for the next GOP administration. Founded by Saurabh Sharma, the 24-year-old former head of the Young Conservatives of Texas, American Moment is dedicated to the idea of restaffing the government. Trump-endorsed Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance serves on its board.
Sharma said in an interview that he and his team have dozens of informal talent scouts on college campuses — from “certain Ivies with reactionary subcultures” to “normal conservative schools” like Hillsdale College to “religiously affiliated liberal arts schools.”
They have plugged into the younger staff populating hard-right offices on Capitol Hill and seek to attract a steady flow of young ideologues through events and a podcast.
American Moment says it has, so far, around 700 “fully vetted” personnel to potentially serve in the next administration. Sharma’s goal is to have 2,000 to 3,000 “America First” would-be government staffers in his database by the summer of 2024.
By then, the next Republican presidential nominee will be standing up their transition team and looking for staff to occupy not just senior jobs but the junior and mid-level positions American Moment wants to specialize in filling.
Sharma is prescriptive about what gets a person on his list. He wants applicants who want to cut not just illegal but also legal immigration into the United States. He favors people who are protectionist on trade and anti-interventionist on foreign policy. They must be eager to fight the “culture war.” Credentials are almost irrelevant.
“Reagan hired young, he hired ideological, and he hired underqualified,” Sharma said. “That gave him an enormous amount of soft power in the conservative movement for 40 years since, and many of those people are still in charge today.”