Liberty hosts young conservative leader Jason Mattera

Jason Mattera, a popular young conservative leader, was a special guest at Liberty University’s convocation on Friday.

Mattera, 26, is the media spokesman for Young America’s Foundation in Washington, D.C. and represents young people on radio and TV outlets across the country. He is the author of the New York Times best-seller “Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Generation Brainwashed my Generation.”

Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. welcomed Mattera, introducing him as an “author, commentator, media personality and a 20-something rock star in the conservative movement.”

Mattera has appeared on many national television and radio news shows and has written for the Washington Times, the Washington Examiner, Human Events, National Review Online, and Townhall.com. He’s a highly sought after speaker and an expert on campus activism strategy.

Born and raised as the son of a pastor in a nondenominational church in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mattera said he was a jock in high school and never saw himself in the role he is now.

But the 2008 presidential campaign stirred him to action, leading to his book.

“I was just dumbfounded how the liberal politicians used young people … to promote big-government policies that are a torpedo aimed at their financial future,” he said.

In the book, he discusses how we can “convey our bedrock conservative principles in a manner that relates and connects with young people” and present a battle plan.

“I know that there’s a political battle going on; you really do have two choices: you can keep your mouth shut, you can sit on the sidelines. I’m not going to sit on the sidelines; I’m going to be vocal in my opposition to liberalism because it is destructive to our generation,” he said. “ … It is our duty as young people to have a cultural, conservative countermovement that we can sway young people and we can persuade them not to buy into just the emotion of liberalism and actually convey our ideas in facts and way they can understand.”

Mattera signed copies of his book in the Liberty University Bookstore following convocation.