Considering how important politics are to most EA cause areas, I find it surprising how little attention political work gets among EAs. I get the feeling that because politics are blocked from the Forum homepage, and because EA fellowships fail to mention high-leverage political work, young EAs often assume that this is not a high impact space without looking into it themselves.
Luckily, this is changing.
There is a growing movement of EAs recognizing the huge importance of politics, and realizing it's not as intractable as many of us assume. Over the past few months, we have joined together with EA club leaders from schools like Middlebury, the University of Michigan, Princeton, and MIT to create multiple curriculum/content options for EA groups to use exploring this cause area. What we've put together:
- One-week fellowship curriculum - easily added on to your existing intro or advanced fellowships! Can also be used to guide a reading-based general meeting.
- Three-week fellowship curriculum - for a deeper dive into the importance, tractability, and neglectedness of democracy preservation & U.S. politics.
- Slides presentation - for a presentator-led meeting on democracy preservation, with discussion & activities built in.
Link to content.
To reduce the friction of incorporating these resources even further, we are willing to video call into your meetings to give the presentation or guide the discussion. Just let us know how we can help!
We would be thrilled if your club incorporated these resources into your current intro fellowships, especially considering the 2026 midterm elections are just around the corner.
Thanks!
Thanks for sharing these Annika and Sam!
I'd recommend you (and anyone using these resources) check out the EA Groups Resources page on the approach to politics and polarised issues, so you can check out some considerations of when/how to raise such issues in your group
https://resources.eagroups.org/approach-to-politics-and-political-issues
It is important to know that, in the US (and lots of other countries)
Given most groups are funded by CEA (part of Effective Ventures which is a US charity), this applies to most EA groups in the US. It is probably also relevant for groups that might want to be funded by a US charity in the future.
Slides are quite good. Maybe this is somewhat played-out, but liberal influencers should take up a tack of commenting on how right-wing influencers claims just don't square with people's everyday lives. Like "have you really seen cartels murdering people, in your neighborhood? Or is that just something people on the internet are talking about?"