The hipster Republican boomlet has coincided with a strange Rand Paul boomlet. The idea is that not only can Rand Paul win the Republican nomination (which could be true for all I know) but that he’ll be a formidable (pundits love that word) general election candidate because teh kidz love him so much. Hip young gunslingers like Ruth Marcus and Joe Gandelman have been promoting this theory.
Here’s how Rand Paul will win over the youngsters: “by referencing modern cultural touchstones like Pink Floyd, Domino’s pizza and Monica Lewinsky.” And here is a pretty good summary of why it won’t work:
To recap, here’s the case for Rand Paul, millennial hero: He’s against surveillance and drone strikes, two issues on which the millennial vote is divided; he’s against comprehensive immigration reform and same-sex marriage, two things that millennial voters strongly support; he’s against big government and universal health care, two more things a majority of millennial voters back; and he likes to talk about getting people of color to vote for him, despite supporting voter suppression and the right of businesses to engage in race-based discrimination. Oh, and he’s comfortable telling the first black president, the one who “surrounds himself with Martin Luther King memorabilia in [the] Oval Office,” how he’s failing to live up to King’s legacy.
Look, I like making fun of stripey shirt Republican guy and the Fonz and McCardle/Suderman as much or more than the next liberal blogger, but I don’t think they and what they represent constitute the main thing that keeps millennials from voting Republican.
The reason that white middle-class people ever started voting Republican en masse in the first place is that Republicans won them over with race-baiting. And that dog whistle won’t hunt with millennials, or at least not as well as it hunted it with previous generations. Plus, race-baiting the blahs turns off the brahs, who are a larger proportion of millennials than they were of previous generations.
Only an idiot could believe that the politics of drones and surveillance are as potent as the politics of civil rights. The politics of drones and surveillance aren’t even as politically potent as the politics of immigration reform.
dp
“[M]odern cultural touchstones like Pink Floyd, Domino’s pizza and Monica Lewinsky”?
Jeez, I know about all those, but I’m freaking 52.
Anoniminous
You’ve GOT to be kidding.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, there’s your problem. Ruth Marcus and Joe Gandelman are idiots.
Frankensteinbeck
Call me when Rand Paul has a position on who is Best Pony. Until then, the youth vote is laughing at his attempts to ‘get jiggy with it.’
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous: Seriously. Domino’s Pizza almost tastes as good as the cardboard box it’s delivered in, Pink Floyd is 70’s/80’s hipster, and Monica Lewinsky was late 90’s. What, Aqua Buddha is going to appeal to the chidlhood of the Millenials? He’s not talking Barney and SpongeBob Squarepants?
Seanly
Is Rand Paul also into grunge rock & leg warmers?
Roger Moore
It also turns off Asian Americans, a small but growing part of the electorate. And I’m guessing that it’s not a good way of winning over all the whites who have married somebody from another race or ethnicity, or who have nieces and nephews and cousins from one of those groups. In the long run, Loving is going to hurt the racists more than all the other Supreme Court decisions put together.
srv
Doug, you just don’t get it. You’re too old to understand the kids.
Obama hasn’t gotten them a job, affordable college and can’t even get his website working. Living with mom & dad is harsh, and Rand understands that.
tofubo
the youngsters of the
brownshirted hitler youth, er gopteensalso, too:
Because nothing says small government like legislating what pets people can have based on their sexual identity.
http://kyrasmusings.tumblr.com/post/80500365017/because-nothing-says-small-government-like
Villago Delenda Est
Ack, wrong thread.
Amir Khalid
The members of Pink Floyd are in their sixties or seventies now, and their music isn’t what today’s young people listen to. Monica Lewinski is the answer to a trivia question about the 1990s. No one, to my knowledge, has ever considered eating Domino’s Pizza to be the mark of hipness. What country does Rand Paul live in, that he can be so out of touch with American pop culture?
ETA:
@Villago Delenda Est:
Either great minds think alike, or fools never differ.
Mnemosyne
Unless you want to drone strike a guy who just robbed a liquor store. Rand’s cool with that.
sparrow
@Roger Moore: … and (I know you implied this) even the white people with no close blah/brah relatives that just straight up aren’t into racism.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
Galt’s Gulch, Kentucky.
Chris
Didn’t Romney win the white vote even among millennials? I thought I’d read that here somewhere.
As for the Pauls… they’re grifters who’ve never had enough support to win a primary, or even front-runner it for any length of time. They’re not going anywhere, nor do I think they want to.
srv
@Amir Khalid:
You’re talking about kids who have made Pabst Blue Ribbon A Thing.
There’s no bottom to where this can lead.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Probably both :)
the Conster
Rand Paul is a goofy looking fuckstick with a whiny voice and a muskrat on his head. Not gonna happen
Villago Delenda Est
@the Conster: Fuckstick Defense League on line two for you.
Pogonip
@dp: I bet I could interview 10 kids and maybe one would be able to name a Pink Floyd song.
I’m 54. Maybe to the rich old guys who finance this stuff, I’m a kid.
Mike in NC
Does Rand Paul still live in his parents’ basement?
John Revolta
“Ah like Eyetalian people. I wanna say that right now. I see we got some Eyetalians sitttin’ up front here……………….Lemme tell ya a cute little ol’ story. This ol’ buck nig*er and this Jewboy……………”
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
As far as I can tell, no. From that story, it sounds as though Romney may have won white male millennials by a small margin, but I can’t really tell.
scav
They really don’t get out much, do they? Wandering about in a fog of antequated theoretical stereotypes, pausing to yell at scary actual people on or merely passing by the lawn or on the TeeVee set, getting back to the outreach program, well, gets you about the “young” crowd we’ve seen haunting the convention halls.
danielx
@Anoniminous:
This.
@Villago Delenda Est:
And this.
You’ve GOT to be fucking kidding me.
Domino’s pizza sucks donkey wang, and Pink Floyd and Monica Lewinsky are about as relevant to young’uns today as the first Battle of the Marne. If those are supposed to be Rand’s big cultural touchstones, he’d better go back to the whiteboard and come up with some better ideas.
Also, too – (warning, possible DougJ ironic reference) – I don’t know about Joe Gandelman, but Ruth Marcus is 55, which would seem to make her identification as hip young gunslinger somewhat erroneous. Possibly that age is considered to qualify one as hip, young, and (figuratively) a gunslinger in Villager circles, but nowhere else that I can think of.
dmsilev
@srv:
Given who his father is, I could almost feel slightly sorry for a Rand Paul who was still living at home.
Almost.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
Soft minds run together.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You made that up
I wasn’t around, but I don’t know if that was true of say, Wendell Wilkie and Eisenhower. I think the GOP evolved into the party of race baiting
Also, you remind me of something I’ve been meaning to post in an open thread: Dave Weigel, who shouldn’t be so blinded by white privilege, accused Obama of “dog whistling” about white people in his warnings about the upcoming midterms.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Southerners, Doug, Southerners. The Republican Party was the mouthpiece for white middle-class people in the north and west from its inception until Nixon initiated the Southern Strategy.
Pogonip
Which group are the brahs? (DD wearers? If so, that’s my demographic!)
Whoever the brahs are, I bet they can’t name a Pink Floyd song either.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I read something along those lines last week, but I can’t remember where. Romney won the 18/19 year old vote, and 21 and over broke for Obama. That squares with my own long lost youth, when among my first time voting social group the only person other than me (Dukakis) who voted was the lone Republican of my social acquaintance. The vast majority of my friends were sickened, but not registered.
ruemara
Pink Floyd? Domino’s Pizza? How old do you have to be for that to be what the cool young kids are into? Crist on a cracker. I’m hella old and I’m into younger things.
Unabogie
Folks, settle down. It’s not as if the media fluffing of Christie, Jeb, Cruz, Rand, and Palin is one sided. Look at all of the stories about the Democratic up-and-comers. Why just yesterday at Slate I read…er, no it was Politico. Er, wait…it was Swampland. Goddamit, there are up-and-comers on BOTH SIDES.
BOTH SIDES!
BOOOOOTTTTHHHHH SIIIIIIDESSSSS!!!!
RSA
@Amir Khalid:
For millennials, maybe delivering Domino’s Pizza…
Ash Can
Anyone who thinks Rand Paul is the GOP’s key to expanding its voting base in any way, shape or form is on crack. His policies are Republican policies, period, and Republican policies these days appeal to angry and/or frightened whites and no one else. The morons in the GOP can rebrand and retool and change their hair styles all they want. Unless and until they actually change their policies, they’ll still all be competing for the same dwindling voting bloc.
raven
I was never a big Floyd fan but my brother’s PF tribute band has lasted over a decade in LA and seems to be going strong.
Sly
@Chris:
Yes. 1996 and 2008 were the only two Presidential elections of the last ten where a majority of 18-30 year old whites voted for the Democrat, and they basically split down the middle in 1992.
@Mnemosyne:
Romney got 51% of white 18-29 year olds.
Keith G
The above is a bit inaccurate – or better, the above only applies to some white middle-class people who changed, but not all.
Quite frankly, lefty Democratic leadership in the 1970s-1990s had run out of steam and out of the ability to generate new ideas that captured the enthusiasm of the voters. Add that to a fundamental change in the nature of the process of America’s economic activity, and many voters (absent of racial motivations) lost faith that the basic policy thrust of the previous 40 years would be able to mitigate the growing onset of problems.
Part of the reason the Republicans were able to co opt some of those voters was that the Democrats seemed to no longer generate solutions.
Today, part of the reason the Rand Paul might be able to reach beyond those tried and true Republicans of the last few voting cycles is that the Democrats seem to be giving him room to run on their left on a few issues.
In the long term, I doubt Rand Paul can hide the odious baggage of his previous beliefs and statements, but he will try and he will be helped.
The best inoculation against Rand Paul, besides Youtube, is a Democratic leadership, including and especially the President, getting a whole fuck of a lot better dealing with certain civil liberty issues.
IowaOldLady
Rand Paul has been around saying stupid stuff on tape for a couple of years now. He’d be fun to make ads about. I mean ads by our side.
DougJ
@raven:
I can’t get into Floyd. Too openly white for me.
Gatchaman
Rand’s brand is that of the outsider. While I don’t think that is remotely true of him, that does appeal to a lot of younger voters who are fed up with both parties.
The idea that Democrats somehow have a lock on millennial voters because of gay marriage alone is wishful thinking. The “kids” I know are pretty much done with both parties. And these aren’t low information voters – these are young, well-educated professionals.
The current crop of GOP dingbats may be turning them off, but there are hardly any Democrats inspiring them.
raven
@DougJ: They never meant much to me either. Of all the bands from those days my brother got into them. Ya never know.
raven
@DougJ: Here’s their site.
KG
@RSA: fuck that, Dominos tippers are bad. you want to get in with another pizza place if you can. In college, I delivered for a Round Table Pizza and knew guys that delivered for Dominos in the same wealthy town, I made 40% more than they did, at least.
kc
I’m sure Rand Paul will attract all those young hipsters who want to go back to the days of “Whites Only” restrooms and drinking fountains.
DougJ
@raven:
“Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way” is a great line though. I’ll give them that.
kc
I dunno; look how worked up the pro-drones pro-all-seeing-surveillance commenters on here get.
Ruckus
@Gatchaman:
This.
I’m far from a millennial, decades in fact, but I work with some and they don’t get that they are reduced to two choices in politics. One choice for them is neither. And I believe they don’t see lesser of two evils as a choice. A lot of people of all age groups don’t see that though.
Davis X. Machina
Everybody who doesn’t vote, can’t vote against you.
If I were the GOP, I’d try and make the whole idea of politics somewhere between toxic, and ridiculous. I’d certainly want voting, or believing that voting makes a difference, to become the opposite-of-hip.
I know my voters, who are coming to Armageddon to do battle for the Lord, will turn out. 51% of 35% will do. The results of the election will still stand.
SiubhanDuinne
Okay, I can get Pink Floyd and even (at a stretch) Monica Lewinsky — although I would be really surprised if her name meant very much to young voters — but exactly how is Domino’s Pizza a “cultural touchstone,” modern or otherwise?
Davis X. Machina
@kc: No one will believe that he means it. People refused to believe that the Romney/Ryan economics platform was real.
Steeplejack (tablet)
All this talk of pizza has prompted me to order one—not from Domino’s but from local outfit Brick’s. (Thanks for the recommendation, Redshift.)
I will not be putting Pink Floyd on the music box.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Rand’s frequent plagiarism should be a real vote winner with the college kids.
Baud
Millennials will vote for the GOP for the same reason anyone votes for the GOP. They want to believe the lies.
Sly
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
This didn’t happen in the South.
Heliopause
Child, how old are you? In 1964 only an idiot would have believed that the politics of the Vietnam War would ever be potent. Any politics can be potent if enough people work long and hard enough to make it so.
Mnemosyne
@Sly:
Have you been able to find the gender breakdown of that group? Sorry, white guys, but I still suspect you’re the ones putting white millennials over the top, especially when you see the numbers for unmarried women and young women of all races.
Brian R.
@Heliopause:
Please.
Vietnam became a political issue because it was snatching up hundreds of thousands of young people and sending them off to die in a senseless war, inspiring people to rise up against the war because their own lives were literally on the line.
Drones are the exact opposite of that.
Keith G
@SiubhanDuinne: What you have to keep in mind that the “Pink Floyd, Domino’s pizza and Monica Lewinsky” are from a variety of widespread statements by Paul and referred to in one sentence by the author of Doug’s linked post. There is no evidence in the links that I followed that Paul made each of those statements to a particularly young crowd. It doen’t seem that “Pink Floyd, Domino’s pizza and Monica Lewinsky” truthfully encapsulated Paul’s master plan for domination. Here is one example of Paul’s use of the above -that was made to a college crowd.
Meh
More from that USA Today article
What evs.
Ian
Federal courts strike down gay marriage ban in Michigan this time.
danielx
@RSA:
But only if it’s done ironically.
Chris
@Keith G:
Yeah, and how many people turned out to vote for him at said presidential campaign?
Tripod
Nothing says cool like a band of old age pensioners. Well the three of them that are still kicking. Syd and Richard Wright have shuffled off the mortal coil. Roger Waters is seventy ffs. Who are these idiots?
RaflW
Where does the libertine Rand fall on the hot, pressing issue of “no sexytime in the house till the divorce decree is final” we just learned about today?
I mean, “the curly-haired lover of liberty ‘has appeal to millennials disillusioned by intrusive government'”, right? I’d say that having a judge surveil your dad’s bedroom (or, heck, your own – millennials ca get divorced too) is a pretty damn intrusive government.
? Martin
@dp:
You’re a ‘youth voter’, as they say in the GOP. Hell, you’re 15 years younger than the average Fox News watcher.
? Martin
@Keith G:
Why, that might be the majority of the economics department. Well done.
Keith G
@? Martin:And maybe some tech heads.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
Conservatives don’t want less government, they want less liberal government. They want much more authoritarian, more structure, more morality(whatever the hell that is), more militaristic, more imperialistic government.
the Conster
Rand Paul is a total fraud without the Goofy the 7th dwarf charm of his old man. If he were serious instead of a failing up poseur who can’t bear up to any scrutiny he would have done more than just grandstand about DROOOONZZZ – maybe really push pro-pot laws. He can’t, because he’s a states righter about drug laws and SSM, and who’s OK with keeping “those people” out. Also a federal Personhood law advocate. Villagers notwithstanding, the good news is that there is absolutely no Republican out there who will generate any excitement with teh kidz, the bad news is that the Democrats probably won’t either. It’s going to be all about the ground game to GOTV.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Sly:
Yeah, and I’m doubting that the attacker, at the time, was a Republican. Not even saying that the GOP wasn’t racist before the Southern Strategy, but its racism was a bit more subtle- and that racism wasn’t the selling point.
I’ll stand behind what I wrote. The GOP born of the northern white middle-class. It might not have been as strong in the major industrial cities, but the smaller cities, the towns, the rural communities across the northern tier were the backbone of the Republican Party. That party existed for over 110 years before its widespread, overt adoption of racist platforms (and, yes, I know all about the Lily White Republicans).
Keith G
The thing is that Paul gets a lot of press (as does Cruz) because the nature of contemporary “press” coverage is to be very concerned about “clicks”. Rand and Ted have the ability to generate clicks so they get headlines.
It is quite likely that the next GOP nominee will be a governor who is not currently well enough known to be click bate.
This is all so much foreplay, and not even with the right partner.
divF
@Heliopause: What made Vietnam potent as an issue was the prospect of being drafted and your remains returning home in a box. This happened to 58K (men mostly and a few women). Drones and the surveillance state are far less likely to rise to that level of potency, particularly in an era where most people want to make the most intimate and trivial details of their lives available on social media.
Chris
@Ruckus:
Quoted for truth.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ruckus: Meh. Countries where they have lots of choices between parties in first tier voting and/or legislative elections seem to wind up with coalitions that produce gov’ts that– exceptions made for cultural differences and George W Bush– don’t seem that radically different from our own. Our faults lie not (primarily) in our Senators but in ourselves.
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think that was my point.
kindness
They made a big deal out of Rand’s speech at Berkeley last week. What the pundits (outside the usual liberal blogs) didn’t mention was that every single statement Rand made in Berkeley that generated applause was a position Rand had previously stated he felt the exact opposite. Now will Millenials not see that contradiction? No, of course they will see it and that Rand is the guy telling you it’s raining while he’s pissing down your leg.
It’s the MSM pundits who will drool & swoon because they are paid to pop a tent in their pants for the next Republican Big Thing.
Heliopause
@Brian R.:
Might want to think about the “nothing becomes an issue until the majority of the population are affected by it” argument and what it means for civil rights. African-Americans were 10.5% of the total population according to the 1960 census and of course only a subset of them were active in civil rights.
Then you might want to notice that you dropped “surveillance” out of your comment.
Chris
@kindness:
It really impresses me how absolutely drooling stupid they think everyone, and particularly non-GOP demographics, is.
How can Republicans get the youth vote? Oh, they’ll just drop references to Pink Floyd and Domino’s. Because clearly, the only thing on young people’s minds when they go and vote is which candidate looks more hip and trendy. That’s the only thing that’s kept us from voting Republicans, and if only they could package their message right, we’d all be John Birchers. How can Republicans get the black vote? Well, they’ll tell them all the same things they usually do, but they’ll put it in the mouth of Herman Cain, who’s blacker than Obama – because clearly, that’s the only thing black people care about. How can Republicans get the woman vote? Why, they’ll run Sarah Palin! Look out, Democrats! They’ve figured out your cunning campaign strategies and now you don’t stand a chance!
Chris
@kindness:
The gulf between the amount of coverage Ron and Rand Paul get in the media, and the amount of support they actually get in votes every time a national election rolls around, is one of the more remarkable examples of disconnect between the MSM and the public – and between what we the people are told we care about, and what we actually care about.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: They live in their impervious bubble of privilege and they have nothing in common with most of the electorate. Their analysis comes from their gut not facts. So its no wonder that they are often wrong.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Luckily for them, there’s no one to judge their mistakes other than themselves, so upwards they fail.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Not so lucky for us, though!
Wag
Rand Paul referencing Pink Floyd is a dog whistle for pot legalization.
Because nothing sounds better in headphones while stoned than Echoes or maybe Wish You Were Here.
the Conster
@Wag:
Comfortably Numb.
David Koch
[spit take]
Dexter's new approach
A quick skimming of the recently released Pew report on the Mellennials shows the Republicans are fucked with young people more than ever. These kids have much less interest in traditional “conservative” institutions like marriage, having children, religion, cars culture and especially the suburbs compared to pervious generations at the same age.
The idea that any Republican candidate can make it through the primaries and not burn bridges with non-red-state millennials is nuts. If anything, Paul appeals to suburban blue-state Gen-Xers, but that won;t matter in the primaries.
He’s a shallow nobody lightweight anyway, so it’s hilarious that we talk about him as a potential most-powerful-man-in-the-world.
David Koch
Geeno
@Roger Moore: And nothing makes me feel better then the thought that Loving will destroy the hate that is the GOP today.
dcdl
@Roger Moore: That is so true what you stated. I don’t think it is talked about enough.
My family history is white and rural, but a good part of the family has either married someone of a different color or adopted a child of a different color. People I know are republicans are slowly changing especially with regards to race. I myself married someone of a different color. Woe to anybody who says racist crap around my family, extended family or me.
On another side note with republican family members slowly changing is healthcare and social services. My husband was laid off about 5 months ago after 21 years of working for same employer. Those relatives know how hard my husband is looking for a job and how much I’m trying to do with getting work. They are now realizing is isn’t getting employment that pays a LIVING wage. Another battle I’m showing them along with SNAP benefits, UI, and the ACA. The change is slowly happening.
Betsy
@the Conster: that picture in the salon article, his entire head –face, hair, and all — is so lumpy and bumpy, it looks like it is made out of some showy, huge size spherical nautical exhibition knot that sailors might make to pass the weeks during becalmed spells in the South Atlantic. I mean I thought that’s what the picture was, out of the corner of my eye.
Geeno
@DougJ: Floyd was great up through the Animals album. Then Roger Waters, who by that time had established himself as the band’s leader (they were still doing homage to Syd for some time), became completely self-absorbed, and then everything was about him – the Wall for example – when he left, PF had a decent, but by no means complete, come back to their station under Dave Gilmour, but by then, they’re four rich guys in their fifties – yeah … not so much of the young rebels in them anymore. Oh well.
Early Floyd, and a bit of late Floyd is worthwhile. That whole middle part was typical late 70’s solipsistic bullshit.
Still – Several species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave, Grooving with a Pict, very white, but not without merit.
Ruckus
@dcdl:
I was at one time in a mixed race relationship(a couple of decades worth) and occasionally when we would go out someone would give us the look. I almost got into it one time with a guy, was ready to hurt him over it. Didn’t care the end cost, wiping that look off his face would have been worth it. Fortunately he got the message without me doing anything more than calling him out on it.
That of course would not have changed his mind. What you are going through is what it takes for minds to be changed. People have to see for themselves that they have been lied to and for decades now. They have to see for themselves that liberal policies may not be the best but they are significantly better than what the conservative politicians and their owners want.
Wag
@Geeno:
Tum ba, ha hee!
Jewish Steel
Wiggity wiggity! Rand Poochy in da house!
Villago Delenda Est
@David Koch: nice! Glenn Greenwald, SOOPER GENIOUS!