Is this the end of US Conservatism?

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The recent Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage (a massive defeat to the religious right) made me wonder if it is all downhill from here for US Conservatism.

The concept of linking a Small Government platform (the Fiscal Conservatives) with a Christian platform (the Social Conservatives) seems to have backfired for the GOP, as the latter is dragging down the former.

I have identified 3 key problems with the current Republican platform which combine into a simple ultimatum: Reform or Die.

1. The Republicans have lost The Female Vote
2. The Republicans have lost The Young Vote
3. The Republicans have lost The Non-White Vote

1. The female vote
The 2012 election had the greatest documented gender gap since Gallup started polling it in 1952. The Democrats have reliable held the Female Vote for 20 years, while the Male Vote is only conditionally in favour of the Republicans.



This suggests that the Republican party platform is currently systematically unappealing to female voters. If the Republicans were to attempt to rectify this disadvantage, they would somehow have to reach out to female voters. However, the Social Conservatives are adamantly pushing the Anti-Abortion agenda within the party, at state level and at the federal level. So the Republicans seem to be between a rock and a hard place: If they compromise on abortion (or more broadly: Women's reproductive rights) they will lose Social Conservative voters (my guess is that quite a few will simply choose not to vote), and if they do not, they will continue to lose the Female Vote.

And with people like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, it will be extremely easy for Democrats to file the "War on Women" charge against the Republicans again.

And even though the Republican won the Male Vote, they lost the election. In other words, the Democrats (for the time being) can "afford" to have a platform that appeals less to men, as its appeal to women more than compensates for this disadvantage.

2. The Young Vote
Christianity remains at the core of US Conservatism. However, religiosity is declining in the US, thus gradually eroding the Conservative voter base.



And if one digs a bit deeper, it turns out that younger religious voters are also less politically religious - that is, their religion is less likely to influence their views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion than older voters. Meaning that Conservatism will have an increasingly harder time appealing to even the Christian Vote. Time itself is against Conservatism, it would seem.

See more here: http://www.pewforum.org/Age/Religion-Am ... px#beliefs

3. The Non-White Vote
As I have mentioned before on WP, I consider this the number one challenge to the Republicans, simply because of the number of voters it involves.

Once again, Pew delivers:


Now, here is the 2012 vote by race:


The Republicans are failing miserably at attracting Non-White voters. My guess is that the Social Conservative Platform only appeals to Southern Whites while alienating everyone else.

Another look at the same numbers:



It won't take a political mastermind to paint the Republicans as a racist party, regardless of its actual truth value.

4. Conclusion
So, is it over? Will Conservatism crash and burn due to demographic changes? Or have I missed some crucial variable or misinterpreted others?

And - assuming that I'm right - what kind of Republican party will emerge from the ashes of the current one?

Conservatism will never die. I think it is evolving into a massive splintering, though. I think if the Republican party wants to survive, it will need to shift back to the "fiscally conservative" culture that it had before Reagan screwed it all up. Bringing religious conservatism into politics is a dead end. There are too many differences between the various religions to unite them into a single group.

I think the biggest problems facing the Republicans right now is the perception that they are mostly concerned with helping out big business.

Another issue that is causing an exodus of party members (on both sides) is the constant attitude of being 100% against something just because the other party is for it. This has been a problem for a very long time, but the public perception of it is getting to the point that both parties will likely be out of favor in a generation or so. I see the Tea Party and the Libertarians rising up in the near future into major contenders. I could also see some of the less fanatic socialist style parties gaining traction in the future (albeit a somewhat distant future).

I dont live in your country. But as a woman, the thing that were disturbing me, were not discussions about abortions. (In a moderate liberian way I am against abortions, but far more I am against idiots doing attacks on abortion doctors or such stuff... From my opinion you dont fight about different political viewings, you talk about them.) But simply how some of the conservatives treated women in general, as if we are dumb idiots.

I mean "If a woman was truly raped, she cant get pregnant?" So is it common in the USA that you have to remove your brain, when you are against abortions? I mean only because of believing in creation, that doesnt mean, that people have to miss every lesson of biology. This is so stupid and dumb that I hardly couldnt believe that this kind of idiot was allowed to talk for a political party. And the far worst thing: This is out of idioticy an attack against every woman that was raped and got pregnant. I mean this guy told thousend of poor womens into their face: "I know, you wanted it. Huahuahua..." I mean how is a guy that is simply an cruel idiot and bastard, that simply seem to hate all women ever born (beside the unborn that are still in wombs) to make women vote for the republicans?

"A woman that was raped, should be happy to receive a present from god as excuse." Wheew....I mean first, there shall be people against abortions that dont believe in god, so out of that, that makes no sense then anyway. And I dont know what book the guy have read, and about what gods believe this guy was refering, but according to my book, the last thing Jesus would have told a raped woman would have been: "Shut up and now be happy to carry out the DNA of a sick pervert bastard, you pregnancyslave." Sorry, this is simply cruel. This is like kicking someone, that is already lying on the floor with broken bones. So I dont know about what religion and god this guy was talking, but definitly none of the christian believes, that I have read about, because the guy I have read about, simply would have reached out a hand to help and give shelter.

From the outside large parts of the republicans are simply hard to understand. On one side they insist on chrisitan believings...on the other side they seem to be against any form of governmental form of sharing this believings like welfare, sharing ressources, ... that are for me the basics of christian believings?

And to be racistic in a country, that existences and success is depending on many dozends of different nations refugees, that all brought their languages once, their customs, their believings...

From my point of view, they should get out of religion. That must not mean that you dont want to keep the things you like on religion, support of families and all that...but simply do stop reasoning with "... but in Mose 0.8.15 is written..." In the moment I reason with a book that is bound to a religion I have already lost the possibilty to convince someone, that simply dont believe in the religion. Why not simply say: "Because I think that the basic family as we have it, is a basic part to give children a good home and so to raise them to good citizens and neighbors for our country." There is no need to "god around" all the time. And there is also nothing bad about a politician not being perfect and misspelling forms of Brasilia, I mean noone is perfect and you can laugh about that, as you could laugh about Obama in his hypermillion president car, being beaten by a little stair. ^^ But stuff like that "If a woman is really raped, she cant get pregnant." is not simply a sign of missknowlege, but also a sign of cruelty, of uninterest. If I dont know not even the most basic parts about a certain topic...then goddamn I should shut up. And not tell cruel, ignorant nonsense instead that pushes every sane person away from me.

I think what the conservatives would need, would simply be a moderate conservative. No lunatic weaponguy, pushing people away, that do not want to take normal citizens weapons, but simply a bit more safety about it. No lunatic religion guy, pushing nonreligious people away. And no lunatic womanhater, repeating stuff he read in "Stuff that will cause every woman on earth to think you are a really, really dumb as*hole." I mean it cant be that hard to find a normal moderate person, that likes traditional family, that likes firearms under certain conditions, and that did not miss the complete biology lessons with taking the evil creationism as excuse. But the republican candidates from the latest two selections, simply would have been unvotable, if I was allowed to vote in your country.

Things like this will accelerate the separation of the liberty movement from the GOP.

I know a decent number of young people, who are atheist, pro-gay marriage, pro-women's rights, very socially liberal.

However, they are not economically liberal. While they don't believe in starving babies, they dislike massive government waste, bloated government programs and high taxes. They are concerned about excessive regulation hindering growth and competition, and want to work in the private sector.

So they don't have a clear choice in the election.

I chose the Planet X option.

[speculation]

I think that Conservatism won't necessarily "die", but that it will either have to dump the Christian Social Conservatism and embrace Conservative peoples of ALL kinds (i.e., non-white, female, youth, LGBT, et cetera), or its member will simply have to get used to being treated like members of the Tin-Foil Hat Party - laughed at, ridiculed, parodied, and otherwise ignored.

[/speculation]

The republican party needs to trim it's sails to meet the current situation. Speaking as a hate-filled right wing fanatic, I vote republican since I see it as the lesser satan.
I do not think the GOP represents the average conservative living and working in the year 2013. They cannot capture the votes of the died-in-the-wool liberals (why would they want to?) but they can capture more libertarians, moderates, and even liberals nearer the center.

So, if conservatism can't survive by getting the vote, they will survive by gerrymandering, dominating local governments and governorships with PAC money, procedural tactics, and election fraud.

The problem with conservatives is not a conflict between the libertarian and religious branches, but that BOTH BRANCHES have become morally bankrupt.

Religious right simply uses religion as an excuse to hate-on people they see as different from themselves.

And what passes for libertarians are really just a bunch of narcissistic douchebags who think that freedom means complete lack of restraint and the right to ruthlessly exploit anyone too weak to resist them.

If conservatism wants to survive, it needs to grow some ethics and develop an understanding for what real liberty is...

As Edmund Burke said:

The conservatives are dead. Long live the Libertarians and the Minarchists (people who believe in limited government).

Even on the political left there are those inclined toward the libertarian view. They are not all Michael Moore Alex Baldwin Pinko Stinko, Hate America, Commie lovers. They may have to part company with the bat-shit craze left wing Liberals, sooner or later.

ruveyn

Conservatives teach that universal access to health care is not biblical.

Yeah, but OT god is a douche.

What the conservatives fail to realize is that today the practice of medicine is secularized but in Old Testament times the Levitical Priests were responsible for medical care. The Doctors were not supported by unaffordable lump sum payments nor were they supported by unaffordable insurance premiums but these Doctors were supported by a form of taxation called the tithe which is based on 10 percent of agricultural income.

Today's conservative preachers still demand tithes but none of them offer comprehensive medical services.