The Future Path Republicans Need To Take
This is what the Republicans need to do to capture the next generation’s votes. Because they are falling behind.
The reasons why today’s Conservatives are losing prove grossly obvious. It starts with misconceptions that most of them are climate change deniers, hates minorities along with those in the LGBTQ community, and does not support any Government Safety Net.
Obviously, there are many Conservatives who do believe these things, just as there are many leftists who wish to abolish the Police, but these ideas that are attributed to them do not represent the general Conservative populace.
The question remains though, how can they stave off what so many Americans believe to be their philosophy? The answer is to apply Republican ideals such as limited government and free markets to issues like climate change and race, which currently Democrats hold a monopoly over. This isn’t to say that the right doesn’t hold a position on these issues, but it is critical for them to make it a central part of their ideology if they want to stand a chance of convincing young voters to elect them.
Unfortunately, as of now, most Millennials think the only solution to Climate Change is having companies spend trillions of dollars on wind and solar power (which do not always work and are extremely costly) and largely defunding/eliminating police departments and instituting more government programs which will have minorities treading water for generations.
If only they knew that Republicans support using cheaper energy which is efficient like nuclear, or if they knew that they want to allow minority kids to go to whatever school their parents want them to, it is my belief that millions of Americans, especially younger ones would either vote or understand Republicans more.
Republicans need to do more than just talking about the same issues.
Besides emphasizing issues that are important to young people, they must also change their views in certain areas. I understand that they are worried about doing that because it would turn off many Evangelicals which are a reliable electorate for them. However, not only do I think most will still vote for Republicans, but I also think it would make a lot of Independents and Moderates be much more comfortable with the Right. When I say modernize the platform, it means to advocate for the legalization of Marijuana, provide free Birth Control, allow for first-term abortions, make Healthcare a human right, unifyingly agree that Gay marriage should not be up to the states, etc. If they do not, surely the American public will move further and further to the Left.
So, why am I making a plea for Republicans to take steps to change their platform if I think it’s so flawed. The answer is simple, without those on the right holding their ground, ‘The Squad’ (Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley) will be the future policymakers of our country. Tom Perez, the chairman of the DNC, said that they will be the future for the Democrats. Let us imagine for a second what ‘The Squad’ leadership would look like, it can’t be that bad right?
Let’s start off with the Green New Deal which will cost between 52 trillion and 93 trillion dollars, but let’s go with the low end of that to give them the benefit of the doubt. Next on the list is Universal Healthcare. According to The Urban Institute, a highly respected source among those on the Left, a Single Payer system would cost $34 trillion over ten years. Lastly comes Reparations, some places like Marketwatch suggest it would cost upwards of $51 trillion, but again I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it costs 17 Trillion as estimated by Yahoo Finance.
The cost of all these plans comes out to a staggering 103 Trillion dollars over ten years. This doesn’t even include plans like Free College and it’s also giving them a best-case scenario which cuts out $75 trillion from their proposals. The proposals cost $10.3 trillion dollars per year which is double the amount we spent in 2019 ($4.45 Trillion). This would indefinitely increase taxes exponentially even if you spent nothing on the Military and increase taxes on Corporations (which I agree with) and the rich.
The problems with Progressives policy proposals stretches far beyond the costs
Even with the socialist level taxes, people will be hit with, are the proposals even worth the money in the first place? Let’s go through each major one, one at a time. If you like the total elimination of 83% of the energy sources along with the 12.5 million jobs that come with it (jobs gained from the GND won’t nearly cover the losses), in favor for your power being reliant on how windy or sunny it is while having gas and electricity become astronomically more expensive affecting low-income communities the most, you would love the Green New Deal (Heritage Foundation).
On top of this, the drastic change does nothing to stop climate change. The United Nations, themselves, estimated it will reduce the global temperature by a mere .17 degrees celsius if implemented throughout the entire country.
Next, we have Single Payer Healthcare. As noted before, one of the ways the GOP has to modernize is to say that Healthcare is a right. No one should have to die because you don’t make a certain amount of money. That in no way translates into meaning you can’t pay into a plan you like if you can afford it though. It also shouldn’t mean people should have to wait to get treatment for an average of 19.8 weeks like they do in Canada. On top of this medical innovation would grind to a halt because, without private healthcare, there will be little incentive to innovate.
With all those red flags comes an enormous cost, while instead a Public Option system would eliminate those ‘flags’ above and overall improve the quality of Healthcare through competition at a much lower cost.
Finally, we have Reparations, the argument against it is simply common sense. Nobody owns slaves, nobody chose to be a descendant of one; thus, they shouldn’t have to pay an extremely large fine for something they had nothing to do with. It is, also important to think about the cultural divide between races that would grow from this. Millions of Americans would feel that minorities are stealing money from them, that in no way is going to unite us. In a Washington Post opinion article, this idea was reiterated perfectly, “How do we pay reparations and still call ourselves one nation?”
Psychological problems run rampant in this solution on top of the cost, a better way to help minorities would be to impose nationwide school choice, end mass incarceration, provide free Birth Control and make police community-oriented while ending things like qualified immunity and Police Unions.
Basically, if Progressives control the United States we won’t have the fixing of systems, rather we will get the ‘dismantling’ of them as Ilhan Omar recently claimed. They will be replaced by Government controlled solutions that cost an immeasurable amount of money, five times more than our current national debt actually by my extremely generous standards, only to give solutions drastically worse or as bad as current systems in place today.
This is why it is of crucial importance for Conservatives to change their platform, not only to keep Progressives out of power for the long term, but also to help our country as a whole.
This is written and submitted by Issac Brickman.
