Gen Z Republicans see new era for party after Trump

Now that the election dust has settled just weeks before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, the Republican Party is starting to take stock of its future beyond President Donald Trump.

For many young Republicans, the loss of Trump signals an opening to new leadership within the party. Several have said in interviews that they want the party to become more tolerant and inclusive while remaining true to conservative values.

“The GOP has a lot of really good policies, a lot of winning policies, but it seems like a lot of times we can catch ourselves on the losers and fight like hell for them,” said Cameron Adkins, a sophomore who is vice -President of College Republicans at Columbia University. “When in reality they lose issues with the American people.”

According to polls, 31% of voters aged 18 to 24 supported Trump in November, up from 37% in 2016. The Generation Z bloc, born after 1996, represents at least 10% of the American population, according to a report by the Brookings Institution, and it will only grow as the next election approaches.

Adkins, 19, said he hoped the party could broaden its reach by continuing to prioritize core social issues, such as guns and abortion, while embracing a rapidly diversifying electorate by watering down its rhetoric about racial injustice, which research shows that young people tend to be more exploited.

“We should try to broaden our reach, even if it costs us” some of the more traditional Republican voters, he said. “I guess I’m ready to lose as long as we do the right thing.”

Clay Robinson, an Arizona State University College of Republicans leader, also said he wanted the party to focus more on inclusiveness.

“Our generation is much more concerned with social issues than, say, economic issues or something different. I think that’s a sign that we really care about communities and the well-being of our people, not just out of their wallet, ”Robinson said. 19. “It is a more holistic approach to what constitutes the health of every individual in the nation.”

Several young Republicans have specifically highlighted LGBTQ rights and climate change as key to joining the Gen Z bloc, as Gen Z know these issues.

This is why Isaiah De Alba, 19, said the Republican Party needs diverse and young perspectives like hers. De Alba, who grew up in Los Angeles in a Mexican Cuban home, is the political director of College Republicans at the University of Oregon. He voted for Trump but hopes someone who recognizes that the country “is not the same place it was 30, 40, 50 years ago” then leads the party.

“I think the term ‘conservatism’ has been given to this very bad reputation for so long,” he said, predicting that the party ethos will evolve to become, for example, less religious and more avant-garde. .

“I have a feeling that should change in a way, so that people can understand it a lot more than just ‘a bunch of old racist white people’ as they like to see it, you know, but in reality it is. is much more than that. “

However, not all young conservatives hope for radical change. While most see a future for the party beyond the Trump presidency, Sydney Salatto has expressed frustration with lawmakers who she says have turned their backs on Trump after her loss.

As he continues to fight the election results almost two months after it ended, Republican officials have begun to break with Trump over his dissemination of unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud and his refusal to recognize Biden as the winner.

“I want to see a lot of people primarized and rooted out,” said Salatto, 22, president of a conservative women’s organization at the University of Tampa. “I think they are as bad as the Democrats.”

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Salatto said the party was no longer “a cohesive group” and lawmakers who moved away from Trump were not “serving” their constituents.

Yet despite the dissonance, all of the young voters have said Trumpism is here to stay.

Robinson said that if he supported Trump’s “America First” policies, they might not be better defended by Trump himself. He said the party needed someone who “doesn’t necessarily put off people like Trump does.”

They are waiting for new faces to rule the country.

“It’s going to be difficult to stay relevant and get re-elected,” Robinson said. “People are talking to the polls, and if they don’t want to address these issues, they will pay the price.”