Last Updated on April 21, 2023
Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) parted ways with woke CEO Lauren Daugherty on Thursday.
Daugherty’s abrupt removal came after former YAL President, Cliff Maloney, won a two-year-long legal battle this month, beating back phony accusations against him that were orchestrated by his political opponents.
Daugherty took the helm at YAL in 2021 after a spate of unproven ‘Me Too’ claims spurred YAL’s board to take action, evidently applying the “Believe All Women” rationale and jettisoning Cliff Maloney.
The shake-up at YAL has taken place amidst the group’s disastrous fundraising performance in the wake of Maloney’s 2021 exit.
Records show that when Maloney and Greiss took over YAL the yearly budget was $1.9 million. In 2018, they launched the largest door-knocking program in America; Operation Win at the Door (OWD). Through OWD, Maloney and Greiss elected 179 America First state legislators, redefining the political landscape across the United States and effectively building an army of political soldiers for liberty, with the juice to make a difference.
A Bloody Hatchet Wound to Grind
Leaked emails from 2021 provided to National File by former YAL employees show that Addyson Garner, a disgruntled former volunteer, demanded that Maloney create a new full-time position for her within YAL, claiming that “no one is more suited for the role”.
Maloney declined to elevate Garner, which incensed Garner and her allies, including Zuri Davis a known supporter of BLM, and Nathan Kelly, a man transitioning to female calling himself Kelly Wright, who has been known to have dalliances with Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradly. In addition to transitioning from male to female, Kelly is a self-described anarchist who is known to affiliate with Antifa.
Garner’s ability to cater to Black Lives Matter, transgender activists, and militant feminists and to champion those causes to the the Board and donors at YAL eventually led to YAL terminating Maloney and Greiss.
Predictably, the politicized removal campaign threatened to upend all that Maloney, Greiss, and YAL had spent years accomplishing.
In 2020, Maloney and Greiss’s final year running YAL, the organization had ballooned to a $13 million budget and was seen as the most feared grassroots force in the political arena.
The explosion of YAL’s influence came in large part thanks to door-knocking campaigns launched by Maloney and Greiss. YAL now publicly admits that, without the Maloney and Greiss duo at the helm, they’ve lost their ability to run effective door-knocking campaigns, and that the total number of doors knocked on completely collapsed following the men’s removal.
Here is a breakdown of the total number of doors knocked on per year by YAL campaigners:
2018 = 1,050,057
2019 = 483,507
2020 = 1,500,571
Maloney and Greiss Depart YAL
2021 AND 2022 AND 2023 COMBINED: 765,865
The steep decline in doors knocked through Operation Win at the Door began once Maloney and Greiss were no longer running YAL. Current YAL staff has confirmed that YAL’s fundraising is failing and the now-deposed Daugherty planned on knocking on zero doors in 2023.
Many donors and supporters of liberty across the nation were surprised by the sudden change in strategy when the organization was clearly making a huge impact on state policy across America.
Maloney even coined YAL’s successful motto, Make Liberty Win.
We don’t yet know how many legislative wins YAL managed to secure in 2022. YAL’s reporting on political programs has recently been less than transparent, according to sources. Critics point out that getting wins will be tough when your most impactful strategy of knocking on doors was brought to a complete halt by the CEO.
It is unclear whether Daughterty has been removed by YAL as a result of her poor performance running the political programs at YAL, or because of her anemic fundraising efforts and her inability to match her predecessor’s fundraising prowess.
Either way, the strategic move away from focusing on doors is likely just one of several reasons Daugherty has been removed by YAL.
Some observers are speculating as to whether the recent development means that YAL will be bringing back Maloney to run their operations, alongside his chief strategist, Justin Greiss.
