GOP Lost The Culture War & Don't Care (It Was Just A Tool)

 

If you listen to the talking heads on cable news, they will tell you that we have been engaged in a culture war in this country. If so, the Republicans have lost that war. The young people in this nation -- generation Z and the Millennials -- do not accept the positions staked out by Republicans in that "war", and they are not likely to change their attitudes as they grow older.

A reasonable person might think the Republicans need to alter their views to appeal to these younger voters. But they won't do that. They don't really care about losing that "culture war". It was always just a tool they could use to keep their bigoted base in line and keep Republican officials in power. And they will keep using that tool.

The following is a piece of an article by David Atkins in The Washington Monthly:

It’s just an evil plan -- the culmination of the same logic that began with Nixon. They don’t intend to win the hearts and minds of Generation Z or Generation Alpha with new ideas. They don’t intend to win a majority of the votes of Americans today. They don’t believe that a democracy that does not privilege socially conservative white evangelicals has a right to exist in America. They don’t see this graph as a persuasion challenge; they see it as a crisis in need of theocratic totalitarian response.

The Trumpian ethos, and those who adhere to it, are not about winning the culture war. They have only the intention of ruling, and inflicting as much pain to their enemies as possible from a minority position. Conservatives intend to dominate the Senate forever with an increasingly extremist minority of white evangelical votes despiterepresenting less than 30 percent of the country. They intend to enforce regressive policy with Federalist Society Supreme Court justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, using different rules for bringing nominations under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. They intend to suppress liberal votes and then refuse to certify Democratic victories when they happen anyway. They intend to gerrymander legislatures forever to hold supermajorities while winning far fewer votes.

Conservatives see no reason to back off of this plan, no matter how much generational replacement occurs. They have no intention of moderating themselves or their ideas to meet new challenges–in part because it’s impossible to imagine a “conservative” response to the climate crisis, housing costs, or radical inequality that does not decenter conservative white evangelicals who have no intention of giving up ill-gotten power.

They only intend to rule–no matter what it takes, and no matter how many lines they cross.