10 Reasons Why the Republican Party Is Dying

Back in 2016, I told people that the Republican party is dying—and warned them that they would act like a viper flailing for its last bite against a mongoose. Snakes, like any other animal, will become twice as vicious and three times as aggressive when they feel they're cornered.

When Donald Trump won the election, I was shocked that so many people would vote for the GOP. I was doubly struck by the sheer amount of people who seemed to be swayed by the propaganda and talk on forums. For a moment, it looked like I was wrong.

Many of the votes belonged to Millennials and older Gen Z kids. I looked around, wondering why people would believe in the GOP's lies, sexism, and racism. I started to wonder if, maybe I was wrong about Americans' beliefs.

Then, word got out about Russia's massive interference in the election as well as the insane amount of propaganda people were exposed to. I then took careful notice when they mentioned Republican fundraising letters taking the form of bills—not to mention the extreme gerrymandering going on.

I took a look at the popular vote, and Hillary Clinton won that by three million. It all made sense. The GOP was making deals with the devil in order to maintain whatever power they had. They knew they lost and that they can't win by regular means.

A healthy political party wouldn't have to do this. The GOP's dying, and it's their own fault that it's happening, too.

They used fear mongering and racism to get votes on the short term.

It's common knowledge that the GOP runs on a fear-based platform, and that's by design, too. Neuroscientists found that people who are fearful of the future tend to align themselves with conservative views.

An age-old political tactic is to create a scapegoat to blame for social ills. A good scapegoat is one who is marginalized and doesn't necessarily have the means to fight back. What better scapegoat is there, then, than minorities?

For years, the Republican party used the "Southern Strategy" to do this. The Southern Strategy is the use of subtly racist policies and xenophobic rhetoric to urge people to vote Republican. As years passed, the strategy became more overt.

By 2016, Republicans ran on a platform that talked about preserving "the American way of life" from liberals and minorities who would want to destroy it.

The thing is that running an entire platform on fear doesn't work for the long term, especially when you look at the data. The Cato Institute pointed out the following discrepancy in Republican viewpoints:

"For instance, the chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack caused by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion per year while the chance of being murdered in an attack committed by an illegal immigrant is an astronomical 1 in 10.9 billion per year."

Most people don't realize how toxic this strategy has become to the Republican party's future, seemingly because Republicans are now completely immoral.

Racism no longer works in many neighborhoods now that America is way more diverse.

Short term wins do not equal long term gains. The biggest reason why the Republican party is dying is because the people who they rely on for votes are not going to be mainstream Americans for much longer.

America is increasingly diverse, and currently has a handful of minority-majority states. According to statistics, non-whites will outnumber whites by 2040. Many parts of the country already have 50 percent or more of their populations composed of minorities.

It's easy to see why right-wing rhetoric doesn't jive with minorities. You can't really appeal to people by saying you hate their race, nor will most minorities want to tolerate a government that works against them.

Moreover, as white Americans move to increasingly diverse cities, the fear-mongering rhetoric that the GOP espouses stops being appealing to them. After all, it's hard to be scared of marginalized groups when they're your neighbors, coworkers, and friends.

Their tight ties to the religious right doesn't bode well, either.

Despite the mandate that separates church and state, Republican leaders have long mentioned God and Jesus as part of their campaign platform. This was done by design during the 1980s, when political parties started to reach out to specific segments of the population.

The GOP reached out to the "moral right," a movement that involved Evangelical churchgoers. By offering to be the political party that would overturn Roe vs. Wade and do what they could to write Evangelical doctrine as law, they gained an ally in the religious right.

Since the age of Ronald Regan, the Republican party has relied on the religious right to deliver votes—and vote, the religious right did. Many of those same Christian voter groups helped usher President Donald Trump into office, too.

However, their allies are also part of the reason the Republican party is dying. Younger generations are leaving the church in spades, and these days, atheism is now the fastest-growing religious affiliation in America.

Because atheists want to avoid having religious tenets shoved down their throats, they are more likely to vote for the Democratic party. By default, this means that the Republican party is losing their grip on younger voters.

The GOP's voter base is literally dying out.

It's no secret that the Republican party is dying on a literal level. Statistics show that the party's voter base skews whiter and older. People over the age of 60 are the ones who are most likely to vote Republican.

The older you get, the more likely it is that you'll vote conservative. Generation Z has already shown that they are staunchly averse to conservatism—for the most part. Millennials identify as Democrat twice as often as they identify as Republican.

Among Generation X, the numbers still skew slightly Democratic. The number of right-leaning Baby Boomers is about even with left-leaning Boomers. Meanwhile, the Silent Generation is the only generation to pointedly lean right.

Republican candidates should be worried about their voters dying of old age. Eventually, there won't be people to vote for a rebirth of the Republican party, even if the electoral college would technically favor them.

Younger generations also don't benefit from Republican policies, and they know that.

Right now, we have an America that is very youth-hostile. Things that many older generations took for granted are no longer available to millions of younger Americans.

Things like safe schools, well-funded schools, affordable college, and even affordable housing are no longer available in major cities. Even small towns struggle to provide a reasonable future for their kids—and if you think younger Americans aren't aware of that, you're dead wrong.

The Republican party is dying among younger Americans because most younger Americans are well-aware of how Republican policies stripped governments of their ability to provide basics for newer generations.

This is doubly true among college students who bear the brunt of "free market" college prices.

Speaking of college students, it's worth pointing out that college-educated people lean left.

Multiple Pew studies have shown that college-educated people tend to lean left in their voting habits. For the Republican party, this should be cause for concern.

Population statistics show that our society is more educated than it has ever been, and that trend continues to grow. This suggests that being a Republican will become less and less normal—and that the party itself may gain a stigma of being "the party of illiterates."

Then, there's the fact that the Republican party has become increasingly hostile towards women.

It's known that white women still regularly vote Republican, but that's not going to stay the case for too much longer. The GOP has become increasingly anti-female, and women are starting to take note of it.

I'm not just talking about their anti-abortion, anti-contraception stances, either. The pro-life position the party has might work well with some women's beliefs, but that's the only real debatable aspect of the GOP's behavior that could be argued as pro-woman.

Regularly looking the other way when politicians sexually assault women isn't a good look. The fact that they had multiple scandals involving politicians who were guilty of domestic abuse doesn't help, nor does the party's disdain for legislature that protects domestic violence victims.

Time after time, the GOP has rallied against women's rights. The Republican party also has regularly voted against helping women with childcare subsidies and other family-centric agendas.

Even conservative women are starting to realize it, which means that they, too, have started to walk away.

No matter how you look at it, Republicans have relied on a demographic that is rapidly shrinking.

For a good 30 years, Republicans have relied on getting votes from older, rural, religious individuals who have a xenophobic bent. America itself has become younger, more urban, less religious, and more diverse than ever before.

By catering to a rapidly-disappearing demographic, the Republican party has slowly sealed its fate as a dying political party.

The ugly aftermath of the 2016 election ruined the GOP's good name.

If you ask me, the most damning thing about the future of the Republican party can be seen in its "sore winner" syndrome. The past two years can only be described as a political nightmare.

After President Trump got elected to the White House, news outlets became barraged with scandal after scandal. Sexual assault confessions from Republican politicians, outright lies on political grandstands, and blatant disregard for voters' opinions became the norm.

America saw a fully Republican government kill off net neutrality, start trade wars that tanked American businesses, and also alienate itself from allies. Only recently, we saw a rapist who went on an unhinged tirade about women get elected to the Supreme Court.

Trump lost the popular vote, but could have still made Republicans look good. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of corruption and scandal has proven that the GOP doesn't care about the country—let alone the working class voters they depend on.

The effects of the craven behavior of the GOP can be seen in the approval rating of Trump, as well as the polls that tout the public opinion of Congress. The approval rates of both the President and Congress are shockingly low.

Personally, I don't know anyone in my circles who would vote for a Republican Presidential nominee ever again because the Republicans in Congress are blowing it. If you ask me, that's a good thing.

Rather than try to fix the cancer in their party, the GOP doubled down.

What's really telling about the Republican party's behavior is the fact that they do not try to fix it. Rather than adapt to the new needs of an evolving country, the vast majority of the party decided to double down on the failing politics and people that put them in this mess.

Their behavior is akin to the cancer patient who refuses chemo because they can just keep on going, hoping for the best outcome. No matter how you slice it, the Republican party is dying—and it's all their goddamned fault.