newswire: 8/22/2020
- Four Massachusetts teens have launched Gen Z GOP, an organization that hopes to serve as a political home for disillusioned young Republicans. They argue that the party has been overtaken by Trumpism and won't survive unless it distances itself from the president and takes a more inclusive approach. (Newsweek)
- NH: Many Republicans will dismiss these kids as just a bunch of RINOs (Republicans in name only). And indeed, these young Republicans share many views with Democrats: support of gay rights, respect for scientific expertise, and concern about climate change. So, what keeps them holding on to the Grand Old Party? Among their friends, they no doubt argue in favor of markets, big business, and limited government spending.
- I would assume these late-wave Millennial Republicans grew up in a liberal town with educated Republican parents. They share their generation's progressive views on social issues but retain their support for social discipline and public frugality. (See "Democrats face More Generational Tension Than Republicans" and "Millennials and Their Continuity of Generational Traits.") They reject Trump because his brash populism clashes with their own generation's ecumenical niceness and their trust in credentialed professionals.
- In many ways, these Millennial Republicans harken back to the traditional views held by the leaders of the Republican Party over most of its history--from the 1850s through the 1970s--before it began to steer a more exuberant, individualist, and populist course.
- Who set this new direction? Well, none other than Boomers and Xers--the parents of Millennials--who as young adults made absolutely certain that the party would jettison Rockefeller Republicans in favor of Reagan Republicans. In economics, they favored supply-siders over Keynesians. In foreign policy, they favored victory over accommodation. In religion, they favored the evangelical over the mainstream.
- Historically, the GOP has often been nativist and protectionist, but it has never been never--until recently--been populist. It always advocated in favor of the proper and educated and elite and risk-averse and self-disciplined classes and heaped abuse on the slobbering and raving riffraff... whom they charged were led by Democrats. In the age of Trump, that distinction too has been reversed or at least has been obscured to the point of irrelevance.
- My point is this: If Boomer and Xer Republicans were ever to allow the re-emergence of the Rockefeller-style Republican--educated, cosmopolitan, socially liberal, pro-business--such a candidate might actually be able to win over a very large share of the Millennial Generation. But of course that would never happen. The Millennials' parents would never allow it.
DID YOU KNOW?
- Big Money Goes Blue. For the first time in a decade, Wall Street donors are giving more money to Democrats than to Republicans. That’s according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which recently shared with NPR that of the nearly $800 million donated to politicians by banks, securities firms, and real estate companies by the end of June, just over half went to Democrats. The last time Wall Street went for Democrats was with Barack Obama in 2008; after the passage of the Dodd-Frank bill two years later, deep-pocketed donors switched back to Republicans. Historically, the finance sector is by far the biggest source of donations to political campaigns: The top five donors to Democratic campaigns in the current election cycle have given an eye-popping $114.6 million. Among the top five Republican donors, it’s $58 million. Though the S&P 500 has reached record highs during Trump’s presidency, Wall Street donors view Biden as a safer, more predictable bet.
