Meet the hip new Republican youth group: ‘Gen Z GOP’. Media outlets welcomed the group with open arms. NeverTrumper Bill Kristol tweeted that he is ‘heartened and encouraged’ by the organization’s launch. The only issue is the group’s staff appear to be anything but conservative. Cockburn has the receipts.
Elle Kalisz, the Gen Z GOP deputy communications director, volunteered for the Hillary Clinton campaign and attended the Women’s March. Kerlyn Mondesir Jr, the organization’s fiscal policy director, has openly admitted he doesn’t identify as a Republican. Same for the social media director, Ainsley Brown, who not only said just two years ago that she wasn’t Republican in but admitted she leans ‘to the left.’ Perhaps the tectonic politics of the last few years has prompted a change of heart…shunting them towards the Republican platform of the Romney era? It seems unlikely.
So if the staff aren’t Republicans, why are they promoting the GOP? Cockburn is lost as to what they stand for outside of the official message of the Democratic party: orange man bad.
‘Compassion, inclusivity, and the embrace of science are all incredibly important values that the current Republican party lacks,’ Ally Chun, the organization’s program coordinator said. ‘Gen Z GOP embraces these values which makes me extremely optimistic about the future of the movement and the Republican party.’
So we can trace Gen Z GOP’s appeal to its use of progressive buzzwords? At least the organization’s tweets are in all lowercase letters. So modern! Perhaps we are expecting too much of an organization founded by four Massachusetts teens. The Bay State is hardly a conservative stronghold these days.
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‘I think the only reason people gravitate to the Green New Deal or Medicare for All is because the GOP has failed to provide alternative solutions that actually address problems we care about,’ one of the cofounders told Newsmax. ‘If I’m faced with choosing between a policy solution I don’t like but actually addresses [the issue], I’m going to lean towards that instead of something that just ignores it.’
This would be a legitimate point if you ignored that young people have long voted more progressive than any other age group. Perhaps a history book or two would help them grasp a stronger idea of their values.
‘The reality of short-term electoral calamity for Trumpism is a moral responsibility for our generation,’ the cofounders write in the Boston Globe.
Sorry kids, but there’s nothing edgy or new about being strictly anti-Trump. Cockburn has a feeling the Lincoln Project Jr won’t be around long.
