(MintPress) – As the Republican Party attempts to cloak itself in a facade more favorable to young and minority voters, extreme right-wing pundits within the party are standing their ground, claiming Republicans will swing back with the weight of their “conservative” values, despite a culture shift in America toward immigration and acceptance of liberal social issues.
The widespread notion that the Party needs to change stems from analysis following the defeat of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, marking the fifth time in the last six elections the GOP has lost the national popular vote. Rather than continue on along a path that simply isn’t working, the Party is looking to innovate, or at least portray that innovation to the public.
Post-election focus groups echoed this belief, revealing a common trend: Republicans are out of touch with young people and minorities and are defined by what they stand against, rather than what they stand for.
“Asked to describe Republicans, they said that the Party is ‘scary,’ ‘narrow minded,’ and ‘out of touch’ and that we were a Party of ‘stuffy old men,’” a report stemming from the focus group states.
The discovery of that sentiment led to the creation of the Growth and Opportunity Project, authored by Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus. The document produced through the initiative proves the first step to change is admitting the problem.
“The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself,” it states. “We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”
The report also recognizes the need to appeal to younger voters, who are different than the Reagan generation. As noted in the report, the party has done its job in appealing to Reagan-era Republicans — young people, however, weren’t around in that era, can’t relate and don’t care.
“Young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country,” the RNC Growth and Opportunity Project report states.
Actions among members of the Republican Party supporters play into this viewpoint. As Republicans attempted to change their messaging toward minorities, 30-year-old Scott Terry addressed his support for racial segregation at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) panel and claimed young, White males were the ones systematically disenfranchised.
In conversation with Terry, speaker K. Carl Smith of the Frederick Douglass Republicans discussed Douglass’ famous forgiveness of a former slave master. Terry responded: “For what? For feeding him and housing him?” His comment was met by both astonishment and applause.
Opposition to evolution
Despite the findings from focus groups, online surveys and common sense, there are still some within the party who disagree, most of whom are political pundits who earn a living by representing the unapologetic right-wing party.
Donald Trump gave a mixed-message speech Friday at CPAC, calling on the party to abandon its hard-line approach toward cutting down on entitlement programs, while at the same time telling fellow Republicans to abandon its mission to appeal to more Hispanic voters.
“Every one of those 11 million people will be voting Democrat,” he told the CPAC crowd. “It’s just the way it works. And you have to be very, very careful, because you could say that to a certain extent, the odds aren’t looking so great right now for Republicans, that you’re on a suicide mission … you’re not going to get those votes.”
That same sentiment was echoed by right-wing political pundit Ann Coulter, who claimed the party was shifting in the wrong direction on the immigration issue, as well.
“If amnesty goes through, America becomes California, and no Republican will ever win another national election,” Coulter said. “The state that gave us Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan will never elect another Republican.”
In the eyes of right-wing pundit Rush Limbaugh, the party needs to move more to the right — that, he says, was the reason for defeat of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008 and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney 2012.
“Everybody thinks conservatism has gone by the wayside,” he said in his recent radio show. “How do we know? We haven’t nominated any conservatives. McCain wasn’t conservative. Romney wasn’t conservative.”
The pundits may drive the conversation among American voters, but they aren’t lawmakers. And, according to the studies conducted by the RNC, they’re becoming increasingly out of touch. They may still appeal to the audience their age, but their younger generation of colleagues will have a different America to cater to.