The Gen Z conservatives will have to save the GOP
Vice President Kamala Harris’ progressive ideology is entirely off-putting for conservatives. But many of us know that a vote for former President Donald Trump would signal to the GOP that the current MAGA direction of the Republican Party is acceptable. It is not. Neither is a good option for us, especially for the younger conservatives who have heard stories of what the Republican Party used to be but have only had Trump as a presidential option.
Currently, America does not have a political party representing the interests of traditional conservatives. Even if we align more with Trump’s GOP on policy, we oppose both the increase in state power that comes with his philosophy and attaching ourselves to his moral bankruptcy. I think it’s ultimately on Gen Z conservatives to fix things.
While there’s a common misconception that Generation Z — those born between 1997 and 2012 — is very antiTrump, polls from earlier this year have indicated that we could actually be his most favorable generation, and the former president is projected to have closed the gap among young voters. However, those polls are from the head-to-head between Trump and President Joe Biden. Harris now has an opportunity to claw some of that support back.
Even though Trump has the loyalty of the majority of young Republican voters, there are some of us who are saddened by the direction of the Republican Party. Rather than following the small government platform that carried the GOP from President Ronald Reagan until the early 2010s, the party is now fully behind the intrusive way of MAGA. Trump, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance and the intellectuals who attempt to support them are fully interested in wielding government power so long as the ends justify the means.
Nobody from Gen Z has had the chance to vote for a Republican presidential nominee besides Trump, a fact that is particularly frustrating for young, small government conservatives like me. We entered the voting bloc during the peak of Trump’s influence, and we had little influence on how we got here. MAGA was our only choice.
Small government conservatives from my generation are incredibly frustrated with the current situation. We know that change must happen, but it’s unclear what the path forward is.
We are tasked with the incredibly difficult job of moving conservatism back to its roots and away from the caricature of itself that we have right now. This long-term mission began in 2016 for our coalition, but since then, it has become increasingly complicated as Trump and his successors have cemented themselves as the centerpiece of the Republican Party.
Personally, I see two paths to change. One is quick, unreliable, wishful thinking. The other is a long, difficult road, but it is more likely to leave a lasting impact.
The first is that in the event of a Trump loss, the GOP recognizes that electorally, the current path forward is less and less viable. I am less optimistic about this outcome. Despite the fact that a loss to Harris in November would be embarrassing for the party, Trump is already laying the groundwork for the same stolen election claims he made after his loss to Biden in 2020, and I have no reason to believe that his supporters won’t believe him a second time.
Still, Trump’s base is unlikely to suddenly switch their loyalty away from worship and back to conservatism so long as he remains a figure in American politics. The more likely path for us is a longer-term strategy to capture young voters and build a new generation of Reagan conservatives. Established political minds are hard to sway, but in the same way the MAGA movement captured the youth over the past election cycles, we need to do the same in those to come.
Trump and his allies are doing everything they can to help us in this goal. Eventually, the GOP will become sick of this culture of losing and recognize that a change is needed. We must convince young conservatives that there is a path to victory, and that those who are pushing the party away from its principles are the ones standing in the way.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY.