I was talking with my friend Jake about age/branding IRT political parties here in America. Specifically, how I believe that the Republican Party has, by and large, lost my generation and at least one or two after me. Jake argued that the lifecycle of generations shows that they will change allegiances as they hit middle-age and on. I agree, that the overall temperament changes but I think that certain branding issues remain regardless of the personal beliefs. Especially when there are certain emotional issues tied to that branding. My mother is my best example of this uncomfortable Republican fact.
My mom was a child of the 70s, and a Hispanic woman who grew up in small-town Texas. The defining political movement in her childhood was the labor movement of Caesar Chavez. Her parents had the whole family boycott California grapes, she followed his campaign, and because of that movement she grew up seeing the world through the lens of racial inequality apparent in her own life. Whenever she talks about it, I can see that young girl's fire in her eyes.
A lot has happened since the 70s. She's grown up and grown more conservative, slightly. Perhaps it's more that the world finally caught up to her liberalism and slightly overtook it. But she does not forgive or forget how bitterly the Republicans of the 60s/70s opposed the movement. She can't. She will occasionally take Republican positions and will even vote Republican once in a blue moon. But she will NEVER consider herself a Republican. The emotional impact of her childhood remains.
It also doesn't help that the Republicans have botched up few things as completely and repeatedly as Hispanic outreach for the last half century. But still.
I believe, and there have been a slew of articles/polls recently that back this up, that while the Democratic ranks are not necessarily controlling the entire Millennial vote, Republicans are not growing at all. Instead more and more are considering themselves Independent or Libertarian. Even many of those who consider themselves severely conservative want nothing to do with the Republican Party. No one suggests the Democrats are having this same problem with Liberals.
The Republicans wish this was just an issue problem, those are much easier to cure than a branding problem. Issue problems go away the minute a platform changes. Branding sticks long past facts have changed.
The uncomfortable truth is that when you add up the various emotional issues (same-sex marriage, climate change, immigration reform, etc.) the emotions are so completely against the Republican platform and so are the percentages. I would imagine that more than 50% of the population falls somewhere on one of those major issues. When you add in the remaining amount who are Democratic for other, less knee-jerk, reasons, then that is a sizeable percentage who will never intend to be a part of the Republican Party. They may vote for the occasional candidate but they will never consider themselves a part of the overall system.
Whenever I hear someone like Priebus talk about how the RNC is changing course on it's negatives, I have to wonder if he honestly believes this. I would assume he doesn't. To be more charitable, I would hope that he at least believes that the current actions are starting to staunch the wounds for the generation just reaching awareness and onwards. So, in his own way, he believes that, yes, the Republican Party is beginning to dig itself out of the hole that is currently 2-3 generations deep by looking towards the post-post Millennials. If this is not true then he's simply delusional. A successful 2014 midterms is a sign that the 40+ crowd is more fluid than many of us think, not that the Millennials are "starting to come around." It doesn't even begin to address a point that I have been telling to anyone who will listen since 2012: the post-Reagan Republican platform can no longer win a national election. Period.
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