GOP youth: Party is 'brutal, closed-minded, racist'

Bush supporter's bumper sticker with a noose. (photo: Getty Images)

By Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone

05 June 13
readersupportednews.org
 

he College Republican National Committee has commissioned a report examining the party's dim prospects with millennials, who gave Barack Obama a five-million-vote edge over Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. The focus-group reviews are in - and they are brutal. Here are the 10 most scathing quotes from the admirably frank report, titled "Grand Old Party of a Brand New Generation." 

1. "Young 'winnable' Obama voters were asked to say what words came to mind when they heard 'Republican Party.' The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned."

2. "Asked which words least described the GOP, respondents gravitated toward 'open-minded' (35%), 'tolerant' (25%), 'caring' (22%), and 'cooperative' (21%)."

3. "For the GOP, being thought of as closed-minded is hardly a good thing. But if the GOP is thought of as the 'stupid party,' it may as well be the kiss of death."

4. "A Hispanic voter in the San Diego focus group harshly laid out how she thought Republicans viewed social mobility for immigrants: '[They have] that mentality that you're born like royalty and the peasants stay peasants.'"

5. "An outright majority of young people still think those Republican policies are to blame [for the Great Recession] - hardly an encouraging finding."

6. "If young voters primarily thought the Republican Party's policy plan in 2012 was to prevent gay marriage and to ensure very low taxes for very rich people . . . it's understandable that a large majority voted the other way. . . . Opposition to gay marriage is a 'deal breaker' to one out of four young voters."

7. "Our focus on taxation and business issues has left many young voters thinking they will only reap the benefits of Republican policies if they become wealthy or rise to the top of a big business. We've become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it, but won't offer a hand to help you get there."

8. "Perhaps most troubling for Republicans is the finding from the March 2013 CRNC survey that showed 54% of young voters saying 'taxes should go up on the wealthy.'"

9. "When asked if they thought any Republican policies were making them personally worse off, one replied, 'Arizona comes to mind, all the laws that they've passed there regarding immigration and being allowed to pull somebody over just based on how they look.'"

10. "It is not that young voters are enamored of the Democratic Party. They simply dislike the Republican Party more."