I’ll tell you why I don’t like reading this:
Even as young Republicans often accept the science of climate change and support LGBT rights, abortion remains a powerful force pulling them toward the Republican Party — and toward President Trump, whom many of them dislike.
Most of those interviewed said they were economically conservative, too, and several emphasized their support for Republican immigration policies and gun rights. But many young Republicans said, they would consider crossing the aisle in this election if not for abortion.
What it tells me is that the Republican Party’s only tether to the youth vote is abortion, which means that they’ll never let it go. I don’t expect the issue to become uncontroversial, but it would be nice if it went back to being nonpartisan in nature. I’d like to see the Republican Party morph away from being a conservative party and begin to take on more progressive elements. For the most part, they don’t have a ton of choice. They’re not going to remain competitive in national politics if they don’t get beyond the Jim Crow politics of the Christian Right.
The problem is that they’ve so thoroughly alienated the younger generations already, with their climate change-denial and their opposition to gay rights and theirh racist immigration policies and their opposition to any kind of sensible gun regulation, that they pretty much have to hold on like grim death to the one issue that still gives them support.
Maybe there will be an influx of pro-choice Republicans anyway over the next decade or two. It might be necessary for them to compete again in New England or California. But I’m not very hopeful. It’s an issue that helps them win the support of working class voters who have few other reasons to side with the upper management and investor classes.
Also, I can’t imagine voting for Trump for moral reasons.
And they expect our sympathy? The only, only, only way for any of those other goals to have conservative input and not alienating their LGBTQ friends is for them to hold their noses and vote for Biden. Otherwise, they will be shackled to a shrinking white nationalist party that doesn’t want their input, except to get the elderly leaders their coat.
Plus, if they really cared about abortion, making sure teens don’t have unprotected sex cuts down on abortions.
There are no moral or ethical reasons for voting for Trump. Also, no moral or ethical reasons for voting third party this year. Just throwing that out there. There will be no return to normalcy after Trump is deposed, but at least we can begin the next phase of existence with some semblance of sanity. For now? That is enough.