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Excellent piece today from the Bulwark.
https://thebulwark.com/darwin-is-coming-for-the-gop/
https://thebulwark.com/darwin-is-coming-for-the-gop/
In 1964, 80 percent of Republican House members and 82 percent of Republican senators voted for the Civil Rights Act. In 1980, GOP presidential candidates spoke of Mexico as “our neighbor to the south” and supported schooling for illegal immigrant children so they wouldn’t be “made to feel that they’re living outside the law.” And throughout the 1980s, congressional Republicans had slightly more women in their caucus than the Democrats did.
Today, Republicans drag their feet before punishing a fellow member of Congress who espouses white nationalism, the GOP president has shut down the government over his demands for an expensive wall to keep out mythical terrorists, and, oh, by the way, Democratic women in the House of Representatives outnumber Republican women 89-13.
That’s the bad news.
The worse news is that the kids are noticing.
Last week Pew released a study that showed that members of Generation Z (those born after 1996) are “moving toward adulthood with a liberal set of attitudes and an openness to emerging social trends.”
The study covers a wide array of topics, from attitudes on race, gender, and sexuality to the environment to the role that government should play in our lives. If you consider that the current era’s increased polarization has everyone digging in on closely held beliefs and you read this study, a picture emerges: Young people on both the left and right seek an America that is socially liberal, racially diverse, environmentally crunchy—and disturbingly reliant on the government to make those visions a reality. Meanwhile, older Republicans are everyone’s cranky uncle at Thanksgiving.