On a recent evening in northern Kentucky, more than a dozen young Republicans gathered at a bar called dEcORa and talked politics with the Associated Press, trading jokes and sharp critiques of the presidential administration they had supported with high hopes last year. Their discussions had a common tone: enthusiasm had curdled into frustration, and several members said the Republican establishment had failed to make room for people their age.
Nathaniel Showalter, 34, told the Associated Press, “I absolutely do not regret voting for Trump in 2024,” and said he can’t wait for Trump “to get out of office.” Others in the group described a widening generational gap inside conservatism as younger Republicans looked ahead to a future that begins to feel possible without Trump at the top.
Several members said Trump’s war with Iran, which they discussed in terms of betrayal and broken expectations, has become the focal point for their anger. Michael Gartman, 32, called it “a complete betrayal of his promises,” and others said their voices were being drowned out by the political establishment, defense contractors and megadonors they believe are pushing Israel’s agenda.
The bar’s conversation also included critiques aimed at the national political ecosystem beyond foreign policy. TJ Roberts, 28, said the party’s internal culture leaves too many young conservatives feeling they are locked out of influence, warning that he feared younger people on the right would end up living “a shorter, less prosperous life than your parents.” Roberts convenes the group each month, and he said the goal is to make sure young Republicans have a voice in Washington.
Roberts said the group needs leadership changes, arguing that entitlement among the establishment—what he described as the feeling “Well, I’m better than the alternative”—leads Republicans to accept worse outcomes rather than choosing better alternatives. He offered a comparison that an illness could be preferable to another, and he said he would rather have “neither.”
In the discussion, members also described how their disagreements intersect with military service and the human cost of wars. Logan Edge, 30, who described himself as a gun lobbyist, mimicked Trump’s tone when discussing Miriam Adelson, then said the feeling behind his support had shifted toward something closer to grievance. “You can’t piss on my shoes and tell me it’s raining,” he said, in a remark included in the Associated Press reporting. Edge and others spoke of the Pentagon contractor row in Arlington National Cemetery views—where they said they could see corporate names like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman after visiting graves.
Angel Figueroa, 27, who said he has military service experience and knows people based in the Middle East, said he would find it devastating to see friends getting bombed. Another member, Elijah Drysdale, 27, said the fact that a military draft had become part of the conversation “speaks volumes” and said it was “why we need a change in leadership.” A separate exchange between a 14-year-old and his father, as described by the Associated Press, also highlighted how some in the group worry about the consequences of foreign wars for families and for young people considering enlistment.
While most of the group described Trump’s second term as falling short, not everyone said they wanted him fully overturned. Roberts said Trump “started the (establishment’s) downfall,” and a different member argument inside the room held that the “old order is dead,” even as others countered that it was only being kept alive by Trump himself. John Wardrop, 24, said “we could do a whole lot better,” and he pointed to some people in the administration as potential hopeful targets, while Drysdale said any association with the administration would be “a stain on your reputation” and argued that Trump had “broken a lot of his promises.”
Beyond the war and governance fights, members tied their frustration to political losses and leadership gaps among conservatives. The group said the defeat of Republican Rep. Thomas Massie in a Tuesday primary cost them one of their strongest allies in Congress, and they also mourned the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old conservative activist they described as the movement’s lone spokesperson with influence in the White House.
Several members said the practical effect of those events was to deepen a sense that young conservatives lack a clear institutional pathway to affect national politics, and they discussed how Trump’s power can shape who survives inside the party. They also said Massie had challenged the White House on issues such as the extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the national debt, while Trump responded by backing a primary challenger, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, who ran on fealty to the president. The group said Gallrein’s win showed Trump’s influence within the party but also heightened frustration among some younger Republicans.
By the end of the conversation, members debated the possibility of abandoning the GOP line entirely. Henry Hecht, 26, a libertarian who raised a question about what he would do next, drew mock reactions from others at the table, including a call to “Get him out of here.” Roberts and others pushed back with a focus on what they saw as the need to break a repeating political pattern, and they said they were unlikely to settle into the same cycle of promises and betrayal without changing leadership.
They closed with a shared sense that the frustration cannot continue indefinitely, with Roberts saying it “creates an endless cycle” and that “Eventually that cycle has to break.”