From a new report by the College Republican National Committee (on p. 65) on young voters:
In the survey, we sought to test the extent to which opposition to same-sex marriage constituted a “deal breaker.” We did this by asking respondents how likely they would be to vote for a candidate who opposed same-sex marriage while also holding the same positions as the respondent on taxes, spending, immigration, and defense. Because respondents had been asked earlier in the survey to provide their position on these issues, the online survey was able to customize this “ideal candidate” for each respondent based on his or her personal positions.
The answer should concern Republicans, but not completely discourage them from reaching out to young voters. Among those respondents who said that same-sex marriage should be legal (a full 44% of young voters), half said that they would probably or definitely not vote for a candidate with whom they disagreed on same-sex marriage, even if they were in agreement on taxes, defense, immigration, and spending. But among those young voters who took the “let states decide” approach to marriage (some 26% of those surveyed), only 12% viewed opposition to same-sex marriage as a reason they probably or definitely would not vote for a candidate.
Taking the sample as a whole, about a quarter (26%) of young people say they’d probably or definitely not vote for a candidate who opposes gay marriage even if they were in agreement on many other issues. That opposition to gay marriage is a “deal breaker” to one out of four young voters represents neither a hopeless situation for the GOP nor a great one. It instead raises the challenge: how can the GOP expand its appeal on the issue, or win on issues of greater issue salience so that gay marriage is not a “deal breaker” for a large number of young voters?
As David Boaz blogs, the report found:
young voters are very much against excessive government spending (though they do support higher taxes on the wealthy) and are strongly in favor of gay marriage. They want to reform entitlements but see the Republican party as “closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”
What cannot be sustained, won’t be.
18 Comments for “Another GOP Wake-Up Call”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“What cannot be sustained, won’t be.”
Well, that verity doesn’t seem to be stopping the College Republicans from doing the same old same old, notwithstanding.
The enduring problem in the Republican Party is that supposedly pro-equality Republicans talk the equality talk, but walk the anti-equality walk.
posted by Houndentenor on
Like many of us do every morning, they’re going to hit the snooze button several times before actually waking up.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I’m not so sure that the College Republicans are hitting the snooze button so much as an attempt to find a way out, given the inevitability of marriage equality and the necessity of keeping the anti-equality base intact.
I found this particularly interesting: “That opposition to gay marriage is a “deal breaker” to one out of four young voters represents neither a hopeless situation for the GOP nor a great one. It instead raises the challenge: how can the GOP expand its appeal on the issue, or win on issues of greater issue salience so that gay marriage is not a “deal breaker” for a large number of young voters?”
Note the alternate paths posited: Either “expand its appeal on the issue” or “win on issues of greater issue salience so that gay marriage is not a deal breaker”.
The first articulated path is essentially the path articulated by Rand Paul — buy time while trying to turn the hearts and minds of the American people to embrace anti-equality.
The second is find and focus on other issues so critical to young people that the party’s anti-equality stance is rendered unimportant.
I don’t know if either approach will work (I doubt it), but I agree with Stephen that anti-equality positions cannot be sustained in the long run.
My guess is that the Republican Party will eventually go the way of the Church of England, dropping its active opposition to each and every move toward equality while shifting the party’s focus to (as Steve Jenkins, the Church’s spokesman put it this week) “safeguarding people’s right to hold religious beliefs”.
posted by Houndentenor on
You are right that it’s not sustainable. But for the time being, I can’t imagine a candidate getting through the GOP primaries with a pro or even neutral position on gay marriage. That may well change since we can see that younger Republicans are more favorable towards gay rights but for now I suspect that the number of people changing their votes to the Democrats solely on the issue of gay rights vs the number who are only voting Republican because of this and similar social issues is more in favor of the social conservatives. As long as that’s true, the party platform will not and cannot change. How long that will be I cannot say. I’m still stunned by how quickly the numbers have swung in our favor for marriage.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
As long as that’s true, the party platform will not and cannot change. How long that will be I cannot say.
The Republican divide is mostly generational, as Greg Sargent pointed out a few days ago:
But among young Republicans, the divide does not yet seem to be so great as to require immediate change. The party can probably get away with a straddle for another election cycle without losing young Republican loyalists, and if it can, it will rather than alienate the base. Ron Priebus has explicitly set that course for the party, in any event, and Priebus will chair through the 2016 election cycle.
It makes sense, in a sense. Coming off the most anti-equality platform in the party’s long history of opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians, I suspect that it is unrealistic to expect rapid movement toward a turnaround.
Look for the party’s platform to remain in opposition to equality during the 2016 cycle, while candidates at the national level try to avoid the issue by insisting that it is a state issue (a poll-tested view consistent with the view of most Americans), and finally moving off the issue in 2020, switching to a platform calling for religious conscience protections — essentially exempting Christians from obeying the laws of the United States.
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
—young voters are very much against excessive government spending
Well, no doubt young conservatives (who were most likely the focus of the poll) have clear ideas about what is ‘excessive’ government spending. Who gets to decide what is ‘excessive government spending’?
posted by Houndentenor on
Worded that way, I don’t know anyone who isn’t against excessive government spending. Excessive is by definition “too much”. Who wants too much spending? The problem is in defining exactly what is excessive. Your idea of pork may be my idea of a much-needed infrastructure program. And vice versa. That’s why Republicans don’t spend less than Democrats. (Usually they spend more.) They just spend money on different things. It’s easy to find a consensus when we word things so vaguely. It’s quite another to agree on which cuts must be made to the budget. It’s disingenuous to throw out such vague sounding and agreeable terms and then pretend the majority is on your side. I feel confident that if that definition included which programs were to be cut and by how much, the number in agreement would be much lower. And to be fair, Democrats are just as slimy with this sort of thing as Republicans. It’s a trait of politicians and it continues because we like hearing these things and don’t press for details before going to the polls.
posted by Don on
Republicans of every age are for cutting spending, whether it is excessive or not. And Republicans of every age are against cutting Medicare, Social Security, and defense spending. They only want to cut “waste, fraud, and abuse” as well as “foreign aid” but those total dither in the 1% range.
Few Republican voters actually want to cut much less abolish our three biggest expenditures. This is why they elect politicians to cut it but don’t. The pols aren’t liars, the voters are bipolar.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Libertarian blogger James Peron has an interesting take on this over at the Huff. After demolishing the logic of various straddle strategies suggested by the College Republicans’ report, he concludes:
posted by Lori Heine on
This is another example of the Left-Right split that is happening in the libertarian movement. Left-leaning libertarians are increasingly coming to the same conclusions as Mr. Peron. Those who lean to the Right will persist in their attempts to “make the GOP more libertarian.”
That will result in more Rand Pauls, who try to assure the nutbag base that given time, the majority of the populace can be convinced to become as bigoted as they are.
Which is still light-years better than what they’ve been doing. As I believe, however, that the GOP has ruined itself morally by chasing after the bigot vote, I will not be voting for many of those “new Republicans.”
Leopards and spots, and all that.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Left-leaning libertarians are increasingly coming to the same conclusions as Mr. Peron. Those who lean to the Right will persist in their attempts to “make the GOP more libertarian.
I’ve never understood the distinction between “left-leaning” and “right-leaning” libertarians, which seems to be an attempt to distinguish between libertarians who believe that the government has a legitimate purpose as arbiter of personal morality and libertarians who do not, for two reasons:
(1) It has always seemed to me that the posited left-right dichotomy on equality is a false dichotomy. The “right to be left alone”, much denigrated by social conservatives, seem to me to fit into both left and right political philosophies. Social conservatism, the idea that the government should be the arbiter of our sexual lives, our reproduction and our morals, seems to me to be foreign to both, as well as foreign to the idea of individual liberty that marks our nation.
(2) It has never seemed to me that the libertarian movement has been consistent with a social conservative political philosophy, in the sense that libertarian ideals of individual liberty and limited government are inconsistent with the idea that the government should be the arbiter of our sexual lives, our reproduction and our morals. I don’t doubt that individual libertarians are personally socially conservative, in the sense that they might believe that homosexuality is a grave sin and abortion a violation of the natural order, but I can’t get my head around an individual who self-describes as libertarian and who at the same time would seek to make the government the arbiter of such matters.
To me, the notion that there are left-leaning and right-leaning libertarians is an odd notion. To may way of thinking, the libertarian movement — at least in modern times — is defined by the Libertarian Party platform, which has, for many years, taken positions that are entirely inconsistent with social conservative views on matters of concern to social conservatives.
So who are these “right-leaning libertarians” and how to they fit into the libertarian movement? I am, perhaps, too harsh, but it seems to me that they are nothing more than government-hating social conservatives who have dressed themselves in “libertarian” clothing. In a word, pretenders.
posted by Don on
Whether this is accurate, it is my estimation. Right leaning libertarians are more concerned with money and left leaning more concerned with personal freedoms. In the end, it is a self-interested hierarchy. And frankly, I think nearly everyone tends to vote for the platform that most closely affects them personally.
I’ve never had a problem understanding the libertarian wing of republicans. They tolerate social conservatives because they need the votes. And they know they aren’t going to arrested or harassed for their sexual orientation (hetero).
So while they lament the trampling of other people’s rights, it does put more dollars in their pockets. I do not see this as a cruel or heartless analysis, simply a pragmatic one. The only way to make the shift is to offer them a viable alternative in two economic libertarians where one is also a social libertarian. Then things are likely to shift. But with the evangelicals in charge of republican nominations, that’s not gonna happen.
posted by Lori Heine on
Left-leaning libertarians believe in — as much as possible — achieving a liberal and productive society by means that do not involve violence. They want to achieve this without resorting to a legalized monopoly of force.
In the political process, the Leviathan State (which took years to build, and will take many more to dismantle) would be tackled — by left-libertarians — in ways that protect those more vulnerable. They would not begin by making the poor bite the bullet, while permitting the rich and big corporations to keep all their goodies — and maybe, maaaaybe, get around to sacrificing sometime later.
As a progressive Christian, I am very interested in exploring the crucial role people of faith could play in positive social change without aggression.
Right-leaning libertarians would — who knows? I agree it’s difficult to pin down exactly what makes them libertarians in any genuine sense, except that they want government to leave THEM alone to do what THEY want (usually at others’ expense). Your puzzlement is understandable. I’m puzzled, too.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Thanks, Lorie. The explanation makes sense, at least in terms of what defines a left-libertarian, and by extrapolation, right-libertarians.
I can’t figure out how hard-core social conservatives like Rand Paul fit into the libertarian tent at all, but Rand Paul has always been odd, if not necessarily a duck.
posted by Kosh III on
“essentially exempting Christians from obeying the laws of the United States.”
In other words “Special Rights” are perfectly fine when it’s THEIR special rights. I believe Jesus addressed this when he said “Woe unto you…hypocrites….”
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
Historically, ‘libertarians’ were basically anarchists with some democratic-socialist leanings. Today, Norm C is probably one of the few people that meet this historic/original definition.
Later on we started to see the ‘new’ libertarians with a decidedly ‘right-wing’ bent. Their economic theories were opposed to all things socialism, which they broadly defined, and they generally sang the praises of folks like Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman.
These new libertarians quickly declared themselves to be the one, true rulers of the philosophy. More recently, we had ‘paleo-conservatives’ within the ‘right-libertarian’ movement claiming to be libertarians, except that they (1) believe that the 14th Amendment does not really exist or should be repealed, (2) are actually more aligned with the American Independent Party or the Constitution Party.
posted by Lori Heine on
Social conservatives declare themselves the true rulers of every philosophy. Also of every political party, every nation, every church, and on and on.
I refuse to surrender a single blade of grass to these people. The way to defeat them is certainly not to simply give up anything of value they try to take, just because they grab for it.
Last night at our meeting of LGBT libertarians, we were discussing this very matter. What, we were wondering, is the complexion of our local libertarian scene? Are there a lot of social cons to contend with? Others there were more familiar with the situation than I am, and they admitted a lot of that sort exist — and that these people claim the right to run everything.
We are concerned with how to counteract that. Because they must be resisted. To quit simply because they haven’t magically evaporated into the ozone at the first hint of opposition isn’t an option.
posted by Mike in Houston on
And now erstwhile GOP savior, Marco Rubio is threatening to take his ball and go home, if — wait for it — immigration reform provides for same-sex legally married couples to have the same ability as straight married couples to sponsor their non-U.S. partner for a green card.
Oh — and he’s come out against ENDA, calling it “special protections based on orientation”…
This the day after Congressman Trent Franks pulls an Akin and Senator Jeff Flake’s son is caught out spouting racist & homophobic bile on social media…
Outreach!