How does the GOP win young voters once baby boomers and gen-x are gone?

[Leinad]

Regardless of anything else, they need to shut up about gay marriage. That's something that any rational person realizes is silly to oppose--even if you don't like it, why do you care?

Not sure if they need to take a fully socially liberal/libertarian stance. But they should secularize it. Opposition to abortion, for example, doesn't have to be based on evangelical Christianity to make sense. I would argue that the reason it's still legal is because they base their rhetoric on religion so much (and because "pro-life" sounds super-hypocritical if you're still in favor of the death penalty and reckless wars). While some young people are religious, many of us aren't and most of us that are don't base our politics on it. So appealing to evangelical voters will have less and less of an effect on elections, if trends continue. Which means some positions will need to be abandoned altogether, while others will just need a rhetorical overhaul to appeal to the more secular youth.

One interesting thing about young voters is that they don't like "politics as usual." They want change, and they don't care for pragmatism, moderation, or political expediency. My proof for that theory is how well people like Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders have done with young voters (which is funny, because conventional wisdom says that younger candidates do better with young voters, but it's two guys over 70 exciting the youth instead, while the youngster Rubio did poorly with his boring campaign that promised a fresh start to a century that is already about 1/6th of the way over). Both Paul and Sanders are considered outside of the mainstream to older voters, yet are cult-heroes in their respective anti-establishment ideological niches. Older voters prefer the Clintons and Romneys of the world, the ones who keep the trains running on time with a steady hand, while we prefer REVOLUTION!

Not that young people will stay that way as they get older, but it's how they seem to be now.