Yeah, the national organization is deplorable, but they don't necessarily have much influence on the individual troops. Because they are staffed with volunteers and it's possible for the amount of contact with the larger hierarchy to be quite low, there's a huge variation there and you can't assume the political content of each troop by default. It isn't necessary for troop leaders to actively do anything to resist the national organization to make their troops their own, because the day-to-day life of scouting is club meetings, outings, lessons, and that kind of thing, in the company of area children and leaders. They don't necessarily spend time on flag worship or memorize the promises and laws and so on - that's entirely up to the leaders. And the default state of most children is a focus on their day to day lives, so they're not typically that informed about the national organization unless their troop leaders have made an effort.
Children absorb behaviors, accents, and social norms from the cultures around them, sure, but having active parents who communicate to them about their values is generally a decent innoculation against simply absorbing the ones around them. They'll pick things up, of course, there are lots of important conversations to be had, but their parents will notice things and talk to them and they'll ask their parents questions if they have a good, open, and trusting relationship, and they'll ultimately grow up informed about their parents' moral and ethical positions and be reasonably likely to come to similar ones... or to examine them and then reject them as they grow up, but that is also a process involving conscious awareness and self examination. I and my sister and many of my friends were raised by progressive parents from outside the south, but surrounded at school by authoritarian racist fundamentalist culture from a wide variety of authority figures. My sister's Brownie scout leader was one. I observed a lot of northern expat kids of my acquaintance notice and realize things about southern culture and experiment with ideas acquired from it over the years, but ultimately basically mostly... reject it and move as far away from it as possible. So yeah, of course the purpose of Scouts and group activities like that is partially to indoctrinate children into a worldview, but they're designed from the assumption that it's a worldview shared with the children's parents. They probably work quite well at that. And of course, in the absence of a strong influence - or a good relationship - with parental figures, kids are going to be more influenced by other role models. But is a child of politically active, passionately progressive parents who likely work hard at communicating with their kid in a lot of danger of being brainwashed into the right wing by weekly-ish contact with a scout leader while they're still living at home and seeing their own parents daily? I don't think so. I still wouldn't want my kid in their troop, but I think it's not likely that big of a danger.
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Children absorb behaviors, accents, and social norms from the cultures around them, sure, but having active parents who communicate to them about their values is generally a decent innoculation against simply absorbing the ones around them. They'll pick things up, of course, there are lots of important conversations to be had, but their parents will notice things and talk to them and they'll ask their parents questions if they have a good, open, and trusting relationship, and they'll ultimately grow up informed about their parents' moral and ethical positions and be reasonably likely to come to similar ones... or to examine them and then reject them as they grow up, but that is also a process involving conscious awareness and self examination. I and my sister and many of my friends were raised by progressive parents from outside the south, but surrounded at school by authoritarian racist fundamentalist culture from a wide variety of authority figures. My sister's Brownie scout leader was one. I observed a lot of northern expat kids of my acquaintance notice and realize things about southern culture and experiment with ideas acquired from it over the years, but ultimately basically mostly... reject it and move as far away from it as possible. So yeah, of course the purpose of Scouts and group activities like that is partially to indoctrinate children into a worldview, but they're designed from the assumption that it's a worldview shared with the children's parents. They probably work quite well at that. And of course, in the absence of a strong influence - or a good relationship - with parental figures, kids are going to be more influenced by other role models. But is a child of politically active, passionately progressive parents who likely work hard at communicating with their kid in a lot of danger of being brainwashed into the right wing by weekly-ish contact with a scout leader while they're still living at home and seeing their own parents daily? I don't think so. I still wouldn't want my kid in their troop, but I think it's not likely that big of a danger.