The national GOP embraces obsolescence – part 2

The devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for. – Author Tucker Max

On Thursday, we discussed how the National GOP may not be as bad off as the defunct Kane County variety, but they’re still doing their damnedest to render themselves obsolete. The most obvious reason for this decline is the pervasive Party MAGA influence, particularly in primaries. A more subtle additional explanation is that Republicans aren’t nearly as monolithic on abortion as they’d like to think as evidenced by anti-abortion amendments failing in the deep red states of Kansas and Kentucky.

The incredible irony of this seeming Republican Roe v. Wade “victory” is, just like the dynamic we described with progressives, those GOP conservatives are creating the very reality they claim they’re toiling so diligently to prevent. And the capacity to work against your political self-interest may be one of the few remaining bipartisan efforts in the post COVID era.

Unlike those Republicans, I’m convinced my readers are smart enough to predict the inevitable equal and opposite reaction that always accompanies a ban on anything. Books go straight to the bestseller list, Prohibition couldn’t put a dent in alcohol consumption, and the War on Drugs has become an utter disaster.

Conservatives had been handily winning the war against abortion as demonstrated by the number of U. S. procedures plummeting from a high of 1.6 million in 1990 to an almost 2017 record low of 862,000. That’s a massive 46 percent decline. But in a similar “I won’t do what you tell me” vein, since MAGA purity test partisanship reared its ugly head, that trend has reversed with the number of abortions rising each year since 2017 to 930,000 in 2020, an 8 percent increase over that low.

The statistical jury is still out on the year after the Dobbs ruling, but if I was a betting man, I’d put money on their continued upward trend. To wit, Crains reported that Planned Parenthood Illinois has seen a 54 percent uptick in abortion patients since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

So, not only is the abortion issue wreaking all manner of Republican electoral havoc, but they’re creating the very reality they find so abhorrent. If Trump is, indeed, the GOP nominee, all Biden will have to do to beat him is repeat the quote, “I was able to kill Roe v. Wade” and it’s all over but the shouting.

2. An amazing capacity to aggravate young voters

Having done so myself, I get the irate folks who argue, “If I had to pay off my student loans, why shouldn’t they have to pay theirs?” Then there’s the stark reality that no one should get a cent to pursue a useless degree like women’s studies, French literature, or philosophy because it’s a recipe for working at Starbucks and never moving out of your mother’s basement.

But I’ve also supported student debt relief because it’s nothing more than a Ponzi scheme that’s artificially inflated college tuitions to epic levels. Yes! I paid off my student loans, but Loyola University’s tuition in the early ‘80s was five grand a year. It’s a whopping $48,000 now and inflation doesn’t nearly begin to account for that 906 percent increase. The entire student loan program is built upon the notion of exploiting teenagers’ dreams, which never sits very well with me.

But regardless of what you or I might think, the GOP celebration over denying Uncle Joe his signature legislation is going to come around to bite Republicans in their ample 2024 election butts. Young voters came out in 2020 droves just to vote against Trump, but anger is an even better motivator and those deeply-in-debt college graduates will take that ire out of the GOP regardless of their nominee.

When you consider how Trump supporters are dying off in droves, going out of their way to alienate young voters doesn’t bode well for the GOP’s White House ambitions. According to the NY Times, the number of registered white voters without a college degree, Trumps most rabid base, has declined by 5 million since he won in 2016. Meanwhile, the number of white voters with a degree and minority voters has increased by a staggering 13 million during the same period, and they don’t vote Republican.

Per Mr. Paisley’s part one quote, the last thing the GOP should be doing is inspire young Americans to put down the videogame controller long enough to vote against them. But that’s exactly what they did when they got the SCOTUS to shoot down Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan – along partisan lines, of course.

Can you say, “Be careful what you wish for because you might get it?” I knew you could!

So, by selling their souls to the MAGA devils, badly misjudging their own voters on the abortion issue, and going out of their way to aggravate young people who wouldn’t likely vote without Trump is in the mix, Republicans have officially passed those progressives Democratic Party regulars in the “hold my beer” contest to alienate the largest swath of Americans they possibly can. And considering those unyielding progressive efforts, I didn’t think that was possible.

Congratulations GOP! 2024 is going to be even more brutal than the midterms.