Republicans have declared all-out war on younger voters
During the 2022 midterms, NBC News conducted exit polls that broke down voting results by everything from race to gender to age. Republicans didn't fare well among younger voters.
Voters aged 18-24 went Democrat by 61 percent, while voters aged 25-29 preferred Democrats by 65 percent. And voters aged 30-39 favored Democrats by 54 percent. These figures indicate that the GOP is faring even worse among Generation Z than among Millennials.
In an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on May 8, voting rights organizer and former congressional aide Rotimi Adeoye emphasizes that the GOP realizes it has a Gen-Z problem and is dealing with it by "working around the clock to make it harder for students to vote."
Adeoye points out that voter suppression bills aimed at college students have been pushed by Republicans in Florida, Georgia and Texas. And such bills, according to Adeoye, use the same suppression tactics Republicans have been using against African-American voters.
"This isn't new," Adeoye argues. "Conservatives have a history of suppressing voters they can't win over.… With a presidential election on the horizon, Republicans are hyper-aware of Gen Z's voting power. Although young voters in past elections have been inconsistent, Gen Z in the last midterm election put Republicans on notice. And since the GOP can't win young voters on the issues they care about…. voter suppression strategies used for decades to suppress minority voters are now being copied and pasted to suppress Gen Z voting."
The voting rights organizer continues, "But this can't last forever. Republicans are well aware that their archaic policy ideas alone won't bring in new voters. That's why they're scrambling to enforce these oppressive voting laws. They know that this new breed of Americans could boot them out of their cushy seats of power in a heartbeat."
Good gourd, did he only read the headline? Or is he really this cynical about the GOP's ongoing campaign to rule with an iron fist over a majority of Americans, most of whom would rather tuck into a charcuterie board of brine-pickled assholes than ever vote Republican?
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is apparently pleased as punch that Texas' influx of likely Democratic-leaning residents will nevertheless be turned into an electoral advantage for Republicans, and he's telegraphing his Machiavellian glee to the world.
Behold!
Texas\u2019s population boom should be a boon to Democrats. But Republicans are reaping the gains.https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/10/texas-population-boom-benefits-politics/?tid=ss_tw\u00a0\u2026
— Senator John Cornyn (@Senator John Cornyn) 1620728818
The headline, which Cornyn replicates in his post, reads, "Texas's population boom should be a boon to Democrats. But Republicans are reaping the gains."
Does that mean—as you might assume, given that Cornyn is a loyal Republican—that Republicans are wooing these voters to their side, despite what appears to be a Democratic advantage? Ha ha ha ha ha! No, of course not. It means they're cheating in order to maintain their feeble grasp on power.
Yet the change coming to Texas is, for now, likely to be the opposite of what one might expect. The state's growth — fueled overwhelmingly by people of color in its largest cities and their close-in suburbs — should be cause for celebration among Democrats.
But because of the way the GOP-controlled legislature is expected to redraw congressional districts, this growth is predicted to be a boon for Republicans instead. When coupled with new lines in states such as Florida and Georgia, it might even be enough to flip control of the House in next year's midterm elections.
"Gerrymandering is an easy road map to a Republican majority," said Michael Li, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute. "They have a lot of incentive to be very aggressive."
Got that? While demographic trends are decidedly not in the GOP's favor, they're going to twist congressional districts into pretzels until they get the outcomes they want. That's called gerrymandering. Another word for it would be "cheating." Coincidentally enough, this is just the kind of thing the For the People Act, which Republicans hate, was created to stop.
Needless to say, Twitter had some salty responses:
And yet the subhead tells the real story of Republican cheatingpic.twitter.com/zWTgmXWR6w
— Molly Jong-Fast\ud83c\udfe1 (@Molly Jong-Fast\ud83c\udfe1) 1620731435
Cornyn likes this headline because it makes it seem as if Texas is growing the GOP, but he\u2019s actually just bragging about Republicans diluting the voting power of new Texans through redistricting, while exploiting the fact of their residency to gain a seat in Congress.https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1392063678128742400\u00a0\u2026
— Brian Beutler (@Brian Beutler) 1620729474
Not often that a sitting Senator announces on Twitter his willingness to violate his oath to protect the Constitution in order to ensure his party of racists can stay in power against the will of the people. #Deplorable
— William F Tulloch \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08 (@William F Tulloch \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08) 1620731640
So here\u2019s Cornyn gloating about GOP voter suppression. \n\nAs if we needed any further proof of the radical anti-democracy shift in today\u2019s Republican party.
— \ud83d\ude37 Bibliobibuli. Hygge is my ikigai. \ud83d\ude37 (@\ud83d\ude37 Bibliobibuli. Hygge is my ikigai. \ud83d\ude37) 1620732243
So Republicans are power-mad enemies of democracy. That part we knew. The alarming bit is that they're not even trying to hide it anymore.