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Approval for the Republican Party amongst the American public is at an all time low. As of last October, a mere 24% of Americans said that they viewed the GOP positively, according to a Gallup Poll.
The same poll indicated that the majority of Americans, 54% to be precise, view the Republican Party negatively.
These poll numbers pose a serious problem for the future of Republicans as discussion of the 2016 presidential election is steadily ramping up. If they cannot alter the public perception of their party soon, they will have little hope of putting one of their own in the oval office.
The GOP has experienced a dramatic decline in support thus far in the 21st century. In December of 2001, polling showed that upwards of 57% of Americans views them positively while only 22% claimed to view them negatively.
Essentially, in a little over ten years the Republican Party has managed to almost completely swap the amount of supporters they had for the amount of people who will simply never vote for them.
It has been through a continuous process of disregarding and alienating a multitude of groups amongst the American populous that they have lost much of their support in recent years.
For example, the GOP’s complete inaction on the subject of immigration reform has encouraged many Hispanics to vote for the Democratic Party. In fact, 70% of Hispanics voted for President Obama in the 2012 election.
With their opposition to abortion and their campaign to prevent the birth control pill from being covered under most insurance plans, Republicans have unintentionally pushed many women in America towards the Democratic Party.
Also, some Republicans’ hilariously ignorant remarks about women, which have provided endless material for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, have done wonders for ensuring that the GOP will not be receiving many votes from women.
While the GOP has never been very popular within the African American community, their recent push to incorporate Voter ID laws, which many argued were a not-so-veiled attempt to minimize the amount of black voters and seemed awfully reminiscent of Jim Crowe laws, did nothing to help their support in that demographic.
However, it has been their conservative nature, their resistance to accept new ideas or social change that has isolated them from much of the American public far more than any other aspect of their ideological beliefs.
The age of the Internet, where almost all of the information possessed by man is accessible via an iPhone, has resulted in the most informed and knowledgeable group of voters in our nation’s history. Public discourse has undergone a revolution and ideas literally spread at the speed of light.
For a group whose members oft insist upon Creationism despite of hundreds of years of scientific evidence that disprove it and reject the occurrence of climate change despite the scientific community’s repeated ability to prove it, this availability of information will prove to be their ultimate downfall.
The GOP can simply no longer advance viewpoints that are based off of archaic principles within a society that is rapidly advancing intellectually.
In order for the Republican Party to have a worthwhile future in American politics, they need to adapt. The cannot hold onto Christianity to guide their political beliefs in a culture that is becoming increasing secular. They cannot neglect the needs of racial minorities. They cannot continue to regard women to be in a place lower than men. They cannot reject science in a society where Neil DeGrasse Tyson has achieved celebrity status due to his empirically loved ability to spread scientific knowledge to the general public.
However, to abandon these habits would be to abandon what it is that makes them the Republican Party. Though to remain steadfast in these habits will slowly but surely lead to the death of their party.
It is the evolution of American thought, and the GOP’s inability to adapt, which will bring about their extinction. Which is ironic, considering that many of them don’t believe in evolution.
