America’s Young Voters To The GOP, “Y’all Are CrayCray!”

by James Schlarmann

I make no secret of the fact that I am a former — or as I like to think of it, “recovering” — Republican. It was a product of environment and upbringing, but for a long time I was indeed a member of the Republican Youth. For a number of reasons I found myself at an ideological crossroads, and the decision I made in my mid-twenties to embrace what I felt deep down instead of what was shellacked on the surface let me to abandon the Grand Old Party. The Republicans turned into the party of the scared societal minority, leaving me and countless others to jettison their ideologies completely, and according to a new report written by The College Republican National Committee, my experience was neither unique nor rare.

In the absolutely excoriating report by the CRNC there were several factors listed as to why the GOP has been getting just pounded in the youth vote for the last two election cycles. Truthfully none of the findings in the report will come as a shock to anyone on the left, or even in the middle, of the political spectrum. The report details several key issues — gay marriage, immigration, taxes and the economy — where young adults and the Republicans are just on wholly different planets, let alone ideological wavelengths.

Love In The Time of Equality

On marriage equality, college students hammered the GOP. One respondent in the survey said of the issue, “In the short term, the party ought to promote the diversity of thought within its ranks and make clear that we welcome healthy debate on the policy topic at hand.” While that’s not exactly a full-throated endorsement of marriage equality, it is an acknowledgment of the fact that within the Republican Party, the younger you are, the more likely you are to support marriage equality.

The “diversity of thought” that the respondent was referring to is essentially this — most Americans under age 40 are in favor, and a growing number between 40 and 60 are getting there, but after that you’re left with mostly religious fundamentalists and much older voters who are against equality. One thing is certain, the reports’ authors were dead on the money in their assessment when they wrote, “On the ‘open-minded’ issue, yes, we will face serious difficulty so long as the issue of gay marriage remains on the table.” Gay marriage is the cornerstone civil rights movement of our lifetimes; if the GOP wants to survive they have to at the very least drown out the homophobic and hate-filled rhetoric of the most unevolved among them. The tea leaves on this issue are right in front of Reince Priebus and the Republican National Committee but the question is, “Will they listen?”

I don’t hold out much hope.

The Melting Pot That’s Only Half Boiling

On immigration, the CRNC confirmed what the rest of us know already — young Hispanic voters don’t trust the GOP as far as they can throw them. It’s not hard to understand why. During the 2012 presidential election, the Republicans’ nominee was a man who endorsed self-deportation without a hint of irony. In the primaries candidates were bragging about how high and how much electricity would be running through the border fence they’d erect between the U.S. and Mexico. You know, because all immigrants come from Mexico and all Mexican immigrants are bad, right?

The Hispanic students surveyed made it very clear that the GOP’s message to them is a hearty “STAY OUT!” As we saw in the last election, that is a recipe for continued defeat both on a national level and a local level. The largest growing segment of our population cannot be castigated as “takers” and “parasites” and then be expected to vote for a party who was doing all the castigation. Respondents said the party must make it known that they know “the difference between legal and illegal immigrants and to also differentiate illegal immigrants from the children of illegal immigrants.”

While I’m not a huge fan of classifying anyone as either “legal” or “illegal,” the larger message is one the Republicans should listen to if viability is their goal. I’ve been around some very hard-right leaning quarters of the Internet and have seen media outlets and rank and file Republicans demagogue not just undocumented Mexican immigrants, but their children as well. Remember the term “anchor baby?” Immigration is just one more area where older Republicans, or Republicans who are only exposed to news via their information feedback loop, are just completely ill-informed. Immigration from Mexico is stagnate and has been stagnate for some time now. People aren’t swarming the borders in droves just to have babies over here to suck off the Federal teat. That’s just outright racist, jingoistic propaganda, and the millennials know it.

No TEA For Us, Please

Perhaps the most worrying set of responses for the GOP will be those on taxes and the economy. Trickle-down theories are a laughing stock to the younger generations. Some are old enough to have seen and lived through the Clinton boom and they are all old enough to have seen their families struggle after the 2008 economic meltdown brought on by rampant deregulation and the government turning a blind-eye to the working class.

By and large, those who responded to the survey said that tax policies that heavily favor the rich — you know, the bread and butter of conservative economic theory for the last 30 or more years — aren’t what the country needs. The respondents said of the GOP’s stance on taxes, regulation and the economy, “Policies that lower taxes and regulations on small businesses are quite popular. Yet our focus on taxation and business issues has left many young voters thinking they will only reap the benefits of Republican policies if they become wealthy or rise to the top of a big business.” The last part is important, and it shows that what the left has said all along is true; that while the GOP’s efforts to protect the small business owner from the tyranny of over-taxation is a noble cause and all, that’s not what their actual policies do. When put in place, Republicanomics leaves the middle class more broke and less stable while strengthening the rich and mega-corporations like never before.

The New Republican Party?

Those surveyed seemed to show a desire to return to the Pre-Tea days of the party. That would be a welcome change for many on the left side of the aisle as well, since the stodgy, stalwart, intransigent Tea Party congressional Republicans in office now are so extreme there is no room for negotiating or discussion whatsoever. Essentially what these respondents said, and what the report lays out in no uncertain terms is that the heavy-handed, ignorance-laced rhetoric the GOP has been spitting out for over half a decade now has poisoned not just political discourse in this country, but has turned off the exact segment of the population the party needs to survive.

Many of us have been writing and talking about this for years. It’s not a shock or a surprise to us to see young adults bat the establishment about the ears for their mishandling of the country’s affairs. The country is divided, there’s no doubt about that, but there’s also no doubt that a major generational and therefore paradigm shift is underway. In twenty years the “conservative” party in American politics will be pro-marriage equality, pro-immigration, and will have pivoted on taxes and the economy to actually have a few ideas that bolster the middle class.

It wasn’t that long ago that people like Bob Dole were the mouthpieces and standard bearers of the party. Dole was undoubtedly as conservative as they came, but he also touted things like his dedication to the Violence Against Women Act, expanding food stamps, and saving Medicare. Dole famously said in his 1996 Republican presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention that year “that in time of need, the bridge between failure and success can be the government itself.” The GOP would do well to return to their Bob Dole days. They’ll still face stiff opposition from the left, but at least the playing field will be level again, and perhaps the business of running the country can get back to regular order.

What the GOP needs to do is read the CRNC’s report and take it as the most clear and unequivocal damnation of the hard-right bent they’ve been operating under for the last several years. Maybe they’ve been successful in locking up a ravenous group of paranoid and scared Baby Boomers who are afraid of societal decline when the “evil libruls” ruin their precious America. What they haven’t don’t though is foster within the next generation any trust or optimism for their party’s future national success. At a time when self-identifying Republicans are at an all-time low, ignoring the very people who will one day take over your party — if it still exists — seems like a recipe for further baffling and bewilderment on the national stage.