College Republicans, emboldened and buoyed by President Donald Trump and GOP majorities in Congress, are having a moment. I encourage these Young Turks to pause and reflect on their message and tactics. Young people are justifiably resistant to advice from elders — “Don’t trust anyone over 30” — but I claim a personal-experience exception.

Twenty-one years ago, I was the bombastic chairman of the College Republicans at the University of Colorado, riding a similar wave of conservative resurgence. My alma mater is hardly a bastion of conservative thought; Cal Berkeley and CU Boulder are ideological twins. Freshman year, I was quickly swept up in student activism that shaped the course of my early adulthood.

Though our club was ostensibly organized to serve the party’s mission, we were equally a support group for students feeling unwelcome on a campus that extolled diversity, but not in political matters. We were one of the most successful non-sports clubs in very quick order. At the time, I explained our success in simple terms: There’s no need to join the College Democrats because your student ID is your membership card.

The novelty and success of conservative students at a notoriously liberal school was the thing of assignment editors’ dreams. Fox News flew in to profile me. The late Rush Limbaugh — at the time the undisputed king of provocative conservatism — singled us out for praise.

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Despite being an election year, we focused heavily on ideas close to campus life. Nearly two decades before the Supreme Court would decide Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, prohibiting race-based preferences in admissions, we spotlighted the inherent unfairness behind the “race box” on application forms with an “affirmative action bake sale”.

Sale prices were based on which box you ticked — $1 for white students, $1.25 for those of Asian descent (famously penalized by affirmative action) and $0 for black students. This sparked outrage from many corners, to which we replied, “This is the system you’re defending.” Perhaps a bit nuanced for college politics, but it illustrates the point.

Right on cue, the administration threatened to deny us an event permit. A volunteer attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education threatened to sue CU in federal court, providing us a bonus opportunity to talk about campus speech codes.

Our group also sponsored visits from Ann Coulter and Dinesh D’Souza, then-reasonable conservative voices who have become far nastier and vitriolic in service of Trump’s Republican party. Their stark change in tone is reflected by today’s College Republicans at Arizona State University, who recently held their own provocative event calling for students to report and deport suspected undocumented classmates. How one does this on a campus full of international students on legal visas, they wouldn’t say. Knowing what it’s like to be young and idealistic, I endeavor to judge these students’ actions in the most empathetic way possible. They support a president who, for all intents and purposes, is himself the party. These students likely care deeply about the direction of the country, but the GOP has let them down by abandoning principle for personality. Their campus activism is mean, brash and blunt. Why expect anything different from the party of Trump?

When planning our own controversial events, we had the benefit of grown-up counsel from local conservative politicians and advisors. I am not privy to the minds of today’s college Republicans who trip over themselves to support President Trump’s worst impulses. The best I can do is offer them advice as an alumnus of our shared collegiate vigor. Today’s crop of College Republicans are tomorrow’s congresspeople and party leaders. We should help them be and do better.

Unsolicited advice No. 1: All press is not good press. Attention is the currency of today’s 24-hour news cycle, and it feels exhilarating to be part of something “big.” This attention, and the validation you derive from it in the moment, is fleeting. After the media circus subsides, you will be responsible for owning your actions and words in smaller but far more consequential circles. Saying and doing controversial things in pursuit of a noble ideal is easier to defend than boostering your tribe at the cost of your personal integrity.

Unsolicited advice No. 2: Discovering your personal ideology pays greater dividends than party loyalty. The Republican Party of 2025 is unrecognizable to me from the party that earned my support two decades ago. Decide what you believe and hold true to those principles rather than outsourcing that work to your party. You might even discover you hold some positions which — gasp! — you may label as progressive.

That’s a good thing. Which brings me to unsolicited advice No. 3: Your political views (and pretty much everything else about you) will be different in 20 years — and that’s a good thing too. Today’s chattering class would lead you to believe anything other than total loyalty to Trump Republicanism makes you a woke weakling. College students are smarter than this. Give your present self (and your current “opponents”) grace and understanding knowing your future self will be very different indeed — maybe even no longer Republican.

If our country has any hope of healing our disgraceful political polarization, we must provide young minds the ideological foundations and emotional tools to navigate heated disagreement with dignity and self-respect.

Brad Jones, now a registered Libertarian, is based in Lake City.