According to a series of polls done recently by College Republicans, the GOP is in a "dismal situation" because it is a party for old fuddy-duddies who are seen as "closed-minded, racist, rigid" and "old-fashioned,", and that's why they don't appeal to the college-age crowd. Ideas like low taxes, smaller government and traditional marriage are old-fashioned and boring. What the kids want now is marriage for anybody, higher taxes (especially on 'the rich'), and help getting wherever it is that they decide they want to be. Young Latino voters feel that the party doesn't value them or undestand the difference between legal and illegal immigrants.
Yes, it's splashed all over the pages of the usual Leftist websites: Salon, Huffington Post, CBS. "The GOP is on the way out!" Trending now on Twitter, hashtag #GoodbyeGOP. Everyday, there is a source somewhere telling any interested Americans that the GOP is breathing its last. And these predictions may finally be coming true.
The GOP has practically abandoned the ideas of limited government and individual liberty for a long time now. Republican legislators have been almost as eager to increase spending and grow government as their Democrat counterparts, and any Republican who bucks the trend to fight for less spending, less taxation and more freedom is shouted down as an "extremist" by both fellow Republicans and the liberal media complex. If ideas such as limited government and greater liberty are no longer valued by "the kids" anyway, who exactly are we fighting for? The old folks are going to be gone from Earth in another 40-something years. If the kids want high taxes and nanny-states everywhere, who's to say they shouldn't have them?
The only way the GOP can seem to make anybody except conservatives happy these days is to be more like Democrats. If they try to maintain their current identity, they're branded as "mean" and "out-of-touch". This sends Republicans running towards the Left like nothing else. The result is that, over time, the Democrats have become what the Communists were in the 50's, and the Republicans have become what the Democrats were in the 50's, and the whole country has shifted to the Left. Young people see this as "normal" because that's what they've grown up with. Further, since Republicans attempt to present an alternative to the Democratic party, the unintended result is that they present an alternative to what is perceived as "cool", i.e., they come off as rigid and backwards.
If the GOP keeps tacking Left, they will alienate the conservative base, who is irritated with them for not maintaining conservative principles, and they will still alienate younger voters, who will persist in seeing them as the party if rich old white guys, because that's how the Leftist media will continue to paint them. As far as Latino voters go, every single Latino republican who has or ever will run for public office is called vile names by the Left and by Latinos aligned with Democrats. So to Latino voters who say that "the GOP doesn't value them" I would say "well, you'll never value the GOP so long as its differentiated from the DNC."
If "the kids" value unlimited legal/illegal immigration (who cares which is which), higher taxes on "the rich", unlimited spending on any conceivable entitlements and unlimited growth of government programs to help them get whatever they want at any given moment, than this country truly is doomed. The GOP has certainly done a fair share of the damage either by taking part in it or by failing to effectively counter it. Too late, the next generations will suffer the ill effects of these failures, but there may not be a Republican party around to blame when they do.
