How Conservatives Can Win Back Young Americans

And there’s some truth to this. For generations, conservatives have had to fret over the possibility of losing their children to the attractions of the left, and for generations we’ve been comforting ourselves with the bastardized saying, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 40, you have no brain.” We tell ourselves that as Americans age, get married, have children, and pay taxes, they’ll inevitably move to the right.

Not anymore.

Given the polling data, cheery optimism isn’t just whistling past the grave. It’s whistling with one foot in the grave. Older conservatives, clutching the Trump presidency like a security blanket, sound less like steady advocates for calm and more like the man questioned about how things are going just after jumping off the top of the Empire State Building: “So far, so good.”

Here’s what the polls show: Young Americans are moving left and staying there. According to a Pew Research study from June 2017, approximately 41 percent of millennials (people born between 1981 and 1996) considered themselves either mostly or consistently liberal in their views in 2004; in 2011, that number had remained somewhat steady at 38 percent; by 2017, that number had ballooned to 57 percent, with just 15 percent of millennials calling themselves consistently or mostly conservative. A March 2018 Pew study on the generation gap in American politics found that among Generation Xers (born between 1965 and 1980), 29 percent considered themselves liberal in 1994; today, that number has shot up to 43 percent. In 1994, liberal baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) were actually outnumbered by conservatives 29 percent to 22 percent; today, liberals outnumber conservatives 39 percent to 32 percent.

Typically, conservatives combat this sort of broad-based political change by pointing out the extremism of the left. During the Carter era, things certainly looked dark for the GOP, but conservatives were able to point out Carter’s incompetence; after Bill Clinton’s 1992 election victory, Republicans ran against Hillarycare and higher taxes; after Barack Obama’s landslide 2008 election, conservatives made war on Democrats’ overspending and regulatory overreach.

And there is no reason to think that Republicans can’t win the same kind of victories now. Republicans famously swept local and state political races across the country between 2010 and 2016; they took the House, the Senate, and the presidency. Meanwhile, Democrats have continued to swing more and more wildly to the left. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is now the ideological head of the party, promoting insane schemes to guarantee jobs, student loans, and an infinite supply of ambrosia and nectar to all through the power of centralized government. Thought leaders like Ta-Nehisi Coates have sought to replace the blue-collar base of Bill Clinton with the intersectional coalition of Barack Obama, using identity politics as a club against Americans who refuse to admit their “white privilege.” Campus ideologues have declared that the future will be replete with “safe spaces” and compulsory use of transgender pronouns. The left has thrown its moderates out with the bathwater. There is only one pro-life Democrat in Congress. There are few pro-gun Democrats there.

So why do the polls show Republicans facing likely defeat in upcoming elections? Why are the trend lines so awful?

The problem isn’t politics. It’s values.

The Conservative Generation Gap

To understand the generational shift taking place in American politics, we should narrow our focus: Instead of looking at young Americans vs. older Americans, let’s look at young conservatives vs. older conservatives. The data show that young conservatives tend toward libertarianism on issues like drugs and sex but share the same priorities as older conservatives on fiscal and economic issues.

This makes some sense. Younger Americans are less religious than older Americans by a long shot: Only 52 percent of millennials say they are “absolutely certain of their belief in God”; only 43 percent say they pray daily or more often; 28 percent say they attend religious services on a weekly basis; and a mere 41 percent say religion is very important to their lives. It makes sense, then, that liberal social values have resonated with younger Americans. They believe that the case for religious freedom is actually a case for religious bigotry and think that opposition to same-sex marriage reflects a hackneyed version of Old Testament sexual repression. Millennials were raised on the gospel of diversity and tolerance, not the Judeo-Christian moral standards of their grandparents.

But the leftward shift on social issues has infused even young religious conservatives. Forty-five percent of millennial evangelicals said they supported same-sex marriage as of 2014; the numbers are undoubtedly higher now (only 23 percent of older evangelicals supported same-sex marriage in the same poll). Fifty-one percent said homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with 32 percent of older evangelicals.

Young conservatives in general are far more likely to support gay rights and marijuana decriminalization as well as openness to immigration. But they’re not embracing gay rights and marijuana decriminalization for the same reasons as liberals. Young liberals embrace the LGBTQ agenda because they believe that the strictures of traditional sexual lifestyles are damaging and intolerant; some even embrace marijuana decriminalization because they think that broadening one’s experiences by smoking pot is a necessary precondition to maturity. Young conservatives are far more likely to support same-sex marriage and marijuana decriminalization because they believe that the government should leave everyone alone. Young liberals call for tolerance because they want to promulgate a lifestyle, in other words; young conservatives call for tolerance because they actually believe in tolerance, even of lifestyle choices with which they disagree. In return, young conservatives demand that their opponents mind their own business.

Tolerance is a moral touchstone, then, for young Americans on both the left and the right, but for different reasons.

All of which suggests young conservatives have a shot at winning over their friends and classmates: They’re operating in the same moral universe as many of their peers. Contrary to Hollywood’s portrayal of young Republicans, they’re not Bible-thumping, church-going, hallelujah-shouting religious proselytizers. They’re small government, leave-everyone-alone libertarians. Young conservatives may not care about same-sex marriage, but they’re deeply pro-life and pro-gun. In fact, contrary to popular opinion, younger Americans tend to be more pro-gun rights than older Americans. They’re against government spending programs and favor private market solutions. They militantly oppose the myth of a racist, sexist America, even as they condemn individual cases of racism and sexism.

This should be their time to shine. Government spending grows yearly, as does regulation. Both parties appear to have abandoned fiscal responsibility. And with the new social consensus around controversial social issues like same-sex marriage, which has essentially been taken off the table by the Supreme Court, there’s no reason young Republicans can’t make serious inroads among young Americans of all political stripes.

But that’s not happening.

Which brings us to President Trump.

The Trump Phenomenon

President Trump’s startling popularity among Republicans has been well-documented. He has consistently maintained high levels of support among Republicans, no matter the headlines and controversies raging around him. Opposing Trump with a presidential primary challenger would be an exercise in futility—polls show that a huge majority of Republicans want to see Trump renominated. But that doesn’t hold true among younger Republicans. An incredible 82 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters between the ages of 18 and 24 say they “want another Republican to challenge President Trump for the party’s nomination in 2020.” So do 57 percent of those aged 25 to 34 and 58 percent of those aged 35 to 44. Compare that number with the 74 percent of Republicans over the age of 65 who oppose a primary challenge, and you’ve got a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon.

Why don’t young conservatives like Trump? It’s a question that baffles older conservatives. To older conservatives, Trump has been a savior. He’s the president who cut regulations and passed tax cuts and ended the individual mandate; the man who moved the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; the lively character who takes the fight to the media and refuses to back down when slandered. Most of all, he’s the figure who prevented the ascent of Hillary Clinton. Sure, he tweets silly things from time to time, but his Twitter presence helped him win the presidency. Yes, he’s rough around the edges and impolitic; he’s crude about women and ignorant about policy. But he’s politically incorrect, and he speaks the language of the average American. What’s not to like?

Young conservatives, however, are more likely to see Trump as an obstacle to progress. Yes, they acknowledge that he’s pushed some great policies. Sure, they’re happy to praise him when he’s right, and they’re amused when he attacks members of the media over their obvious bias. But they see him mainly as a club the left can wield against the right in perpetuity—a political monster living under the bed that Democrats can dredge up every time conservatives seem to be making headway. They cite his egregious response to the Charlottesville alt-right march and subsequent terror attack and his willingness to wink and nod at the alt-right during the campaign; they point to his nasty comments regarding women, as well as his penchant for bedding porn stars; they cringe at his reported comments about immigrants and balk at his nearly endless list of prevarications.

Older conservatives judge Trump on his politics; younger conservatives judge Trump on his values.

There are a few reasons for this gap. First, older conservatives already fought the character battle over Bill Clinton, and they carry the scars from that ordeal. They remember arguing that Bill Clinton was unfit for office based on his treatment of women and his perjury, and they remember losing that argument. They remember arguing that character counts, even as Democrats held aloft the banner of “Lion of the Senate” Teddy Kennedy, who left a woman to drown in his car and made waitress sandwiches with fellow Democratic senator Chris Dodd. Older conservatives remember Mitt Romney, the cleanest candidate for high office in modern American history, being destroyed by the media over pure nonsense. Older conservatives weren’t looking for character in 2016. They were looking for a hammer.

Younger conservatives, however, still feel that the battle over character is unfolding, which it is—among young Americans. Young Americans are still trying to decipher which party best reflects their moral values. Trump presents a serious problem for young conservatives trying to make the character argument in favor of the Republican party. Young conservatives didn’t see the battle of 2016 as a battle in which character had already lost. They saw it as presenting a question about their own character. Were they willing to stand enthusiastically with a man they personally abhorred? The answer, by and large, was no. Young conservatives want to be able to tell their friends—all future voters, by the way—that they didn’t stand by silently when a candidate of their party said he could grab women by their private parts.

Second, older conservatives saw the 2016 election as a cataclysmic event, perhaps, indeed, the end of the republic. Hillary Clinton posed an existential threat to the future of the country. Older conservatives remembered Hillary’s corruption from her days in the White House; they recalled her radicalism and her venality. They believed that Hillary, if elected, would usher in a generation-long rule of the hard left. Donald Trump’s victory, in that view, was a miracle of biblical proportions, the hand of God reaching down and plucking a reality TV star out of the realms of cornball theatrics and plopping him into the Oval Office in the biggest upset in political history.

Younger conservatives were far more sanguine about 2016. In their view, Hillary would certainly have been a rotten president. But would she bar the door to all future conservative victories? Younger conservatives thought such an outcome unlikely. After all, Republicans were likely to retain control of the Senate and the House. Furthermore, Hillary was widely disliked, burdened by scandal, and unpopular even with her own base. Older conservatives looked at young Americans and saw the end of the country; young conservatives looked at other young Americans and saw the possibility of change. If young conservatives voted for Trump, they did so far more halfheartedly than their parents and grandparents did.

Third, because young conservatives and older conservatives disagreed about the consequences of 2016, they also disagreed about the level of risk to the Republican party. This marks the third distinction between young and older conservatives regarding Trump: Thanks to the crisis mentality of older Americans, the brand damage done by Trump became of secondary concern; thanks to the lack of a crisis mentality among younger conservatives, the brand damage done by Trump became a crucial problem. Young conservatives simply couldn’t understand how so many older conservatives were willing to dispose of key planks of the Republican platform to back Trump, or why so many older conservatives who had preached to them about personal values were suddenly gushing over a man who bragged about sleeping with other men’s wives. Young conservatives knew that they were constantly being called racist, sexist, and homophobic by their comrades at school; they had always responded by saying that they and their party were being slandered. And they were right. But here was Trump—a man who, during the election cycle, feigned ignorance about David Duke—providing a custom-made caricature for the use of young liberals. This left young conservatives with a decision to make: Would they wear the Trump button and walk in line with him? Or would they separate from him, even if they embraced many of his policies?

Which brings us to the fourth area of controversy between older and younger conservatives regarding Trump: Is Trump an asset in the fight against political correctness? One area of significant overlap between younger and older conservatives in the current political maelstrom lies in their mutual opposition to political correctness. The modern left has become an extreme conglomeration of self-appointed victim groups, banded together by a common interest in tearing down the “system,” which they define as a white male patriarchy devoted to the repression of minorities. In its quest to tear down the “system,” the left has promoted censorship of opposing views and full-scale character assassination of anyone who dares to cite inconvenient data. Here, young conservatives and older conservatives agree. So do most Americans; according to polling data, 71 percent of Americans “believe that political correctness has silenced important discussions our society needs to have.”

Conservatives disagree, however, about the best measures to adopt to fight such intellectual tyranny. Older conservatives resonate to the verbal brickbats thrown by President Trump. They see him as a bull in a china shop, but he is our bull in their china shop. That’s the reason Trump could so easily escape punishment for political snafus that would have crushed any other conservative. He routinely claimed his own blunderings were the result of his willingness to fight political correctness. “Sure, he says dumb stuff sometimes,” the argument goes, “but he’s also willing to label the New York Times fake news. Nobody else fights like Trump fights!”

Young conservatives, by contrast, see Trump’s strategy for fighting political correctness as counterproductive. It’s one thing to attack politically correct viewpoints with data —to “destroy,” in the common YouTube parlance, political opposition through superior intellectual heft. But saying innately offensive things and then justifying those offensive statements under the rubric of political incorrectness actually undermines the battle against political correctness. The left wants to make the case that when conservatives say they’re being politically incorrect, they’re actually covering for their own bigotry; lending that case a helping hand by promoting bigotry under the guise of fighting political correctness does the left’s work for it.

How to Win Back Young Americans

The gap between younger conservatives and older conservatives over Trump isn’t likely to be bridged any time soon. It speaks to deep issues of values and hopes for the future. And if the gap between young conservatives and older conservatives is a microcosm of the gap between conservatives and young Americans more broadly, then the future looks grim.

So what can conservatives do to close the generation gap and win over young Americans?

To begin with, conservatives must stop promoting the notion that policy victories translate to political victory. Foolishly hopeful Republican legislators keep repeating the tired nostrum that if they simply pursue solid policy, young Americans will follow—if they pass tax cuts, cut regulation, and build up the military, they’ll stave off the impending generational electoral tsunami. Certainly, good policy is a precondition to victory. But it’s not enough. When asked about youth outreach, conservative politicians talk about things like school choice; this is a missed opportunity to discuss what really matters to younger voters.

Second, most voters make decisions on the basis of perceptions about character. This is especially true for young Americans, who engage in politics because they want to change the world and because they want to feel better about themselves. Democrats know this. Democrats win elections by claiming that Republicans are morally deficient; they claim, as Joe Biden did in 2012, that Republicans want to “put y’all back in chains,” or that Republicans are fighting a “war on women,” or that conservatives don’t care about the impoverished. Democrats will make the case that not only is Donald Trump personally deplorable, but that anyone who expresses even mild support for him is deplorable by extension. That argument did little to stir older Americans who had been through the political wars; it didn’t upset seasoned politics-watchers who knew that Hillary Clinton was more than a little deplorable herself. But it worked among young Americans, and it will continue to work so long as conservatives’ response is “but Hillary.”

So, how should conservatives respond?

They should respond by acting morally and arguing morally.

First, and most pressingly, with regard to President Trump this means condemning bad behavior. Conservatives should celebrate every victory for their policies earned by President Trump; they should praise him to the skies for them. Conservatives should laugh along with Trump when he correctly attacks phony media coverage. But they should not humor him over his personal failings, proclaim him a David-like figure in the absence of David-like holiness, or shrug off his various imbecilities and vile utterances simply because they like his policies. Young Americans aren’t judging Trump. They’ve already judged him. They’re judging you and determining whether or not they can ever vote for the same candidates you endorse based on whether or not they admire your character. That doesn’t mean Trump can’t win re-election or win over young people. But that requires him to change his character, and it requires us to call on him to do so.

Second, conservatives must argue in moral terms, and they must use moral terminology young Americans understand. This means learning to argue on secular grounds rather than religious grounds and recognizing that tolerance is a key value to young Americans. Fortunately, tolerance of opposing viewpoints is also a key value for small-government conservatives.

Arguing in secular terms doesn’t mean arguing without reference to values. It means arguing against the controlling hand of the left. Capitalism is good because you own your own labor and you have the right to exchange that labor for someone else’s labor and no one has the right to steal your labor from you. Socialism is evil because it says that a third party can tell you what your labor is worth.

Religious freedom is good because freedom of association is good and no one has the right to tell you how to live your life so long as you’re not forcibly imposing your views on anyone else. Governmental discrimination against religious institutions is evil because it is none of the government’s business how you choose to worship, how you choose to operate your business, and how you choose to raise your child.

Freedom of speech is good because you have value as an individual human being with a unique point of view; you’re not reducible to your skin color, your ethnicity, or your income. Political correctness and identity politics are evil because they utilize censorship to box you into a group identity that denies your individuality.

Small government is good because it allows you to pursue your goals without someone else telling you what to do, and if we can’t agree to leave each other alone, you’ll have to fear my tyranny as much as I fear yours. Big government is evil because it insists that a cadre of bureaucrats knows more about how to run your life than you do.

These are winning arguments. And young Americans are open to them.

Most of all, conservatives can’t lose hope. A crisis mentality breeds poor decisions and short-term thinking that sacrifices long-term interests. We’ve seen discouraging trendlines before. But they can be reversed. In 1976, it would have been difficult to imagine the Reagan Revolution that was just four years away. Young Americans won’t inevitably move toward conservatism, contrary to the old saw. But decline isn’t inevitable either.

Also in THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Kristen Soltis Anderson points out how the right’s disdain for millennial voters is mutual, and suggests conservatives try to bridge the gap.