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College Young Republican Clubs Provide A Preview Of A Dying GOP
The Young Republicans I was with 30 years ago were paragons of civility compared to the Young Republicans of today.https://thebanter.substack.com/p/college-young-republican-clubs-provide
https://archive.is/sQbCS
Once upon a time, I was a blissfully ignorant college student who paid little to no attention to politics. One day, a friend of mine, Jen, asked me if I wanted to go on a trip to Washington D.C. with the Young Republicans club. I was not a Republican (or a Democrat…yet) but the trip was inexpensive, I was young, and I had never been on a road trip with friends before. Also, Jen wanted me there to head off any possibility of her being raped so of course I was going to go. You may recall I’ve told that story before. On this trip, I learned exactly what the Republican Party was and what it stood for. The sour taste the experience left in my mouth solidified my political leanings if not my involvement. And yet, the Young Republicans of the early 90s, distasteful as they were, were not the toxic assholes we see today. What we see today is a preview of the rapidly approaching death of the GOP.
A party of jerks
I am not one to overly romanticize the past. Video games were not better when I was a kid. I like being an adult more than I liked being a teen. I love 80s music but the clothes and hairstyles were hot garbage. So I like to think I’m fairly clear-eyed when I look back at my past and who I was at the time. I’m not going to pretend I was a paragon of virtue but none of my friends were foaming-at-the-mouth racists. Racism was far more acceptable in the 80s and early 90s and even then, I do not recall anyone in my social circle being an open bigot. This made the Washington trip super awkward. Long before Donald Trump and social media unleashed the very worst of the “Fuck Your Feelings” crowd, Republicans tended to keep their ugliness under wraps. At least in the Northeast. They were certainly comfortable spewing it among themselves, though, and we were all “Young Republicans” on this trip, right? Bleh. I know I’m giving you the impression that it was constant nastiness throughout the whole trip, but it really wasn’t. Not until it was coaxed out of the group I was with by people who should have known better.
Everyone on the trip was, surprise, white. All of them, except me, had grown up with money and a sheltered life. This would explain why not one of them recognized a very bad neighborhood when they saw it. We drove down to DC in a rented van and we got lost, naturally. We were supposed to be at a military base where we would be staying for the weekend. We ended up in the residential part of DC about 15 years before the gentrification kicked into high gear. Back then, large swaths of DC were, shall we say, not safe and the part we got lost in was one of them. Every other corner was a liquor store and a van full of 19-year-old white kids did not belong there. I was very aware of this. No one else was and I marveled at the total ignorance. I slouched down in my seat and hoped no one would notice us.
Eventually, a cop stopped our merry little van of white kids and wanted to know why we were there. He gave us directions and politely told us to leave as soon as possible. There was much confusion and I just bit my tongue. I would not hear the phrase “white privilege” for another 20 years but, wow. Eventually, we found our way to where we were supposed to be and our trip began in earnest. Over the next three days, I discovered that Vodka and Doritos make a particularly nasty color when regurgitated by a particularly drunk ROTC cadet. I discovered that Andrews Air Force Base (in the 90s) had unbelievably terrible security and what Air Force One looks like up close. Really up close (no, I shan’t be elaborating). I also discovered that the Republican Party is the party of racist jerks. Among our various activities for the weekend, we were scheduled to meet with a few well-known Republicans. This was actually something I looked forward to. One of the people we were supposed to meet was Jeanne Kirkpatrick and I really really wanted to ask her about…Bill the Cat:
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I personally blame Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk, but I'm sure there's more to it than that. 
