Dan Crenshaw youth summit calls for unity and Reagan-style conservatism

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HOUSTON — U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw needs a brand new Reagan revolution — a return to the Nineteen Eighties-era Republican Party pillars of small authorities, low taxes and much less welfare that he says have been crowded out by infighting lately.

The craving for an earlier period was made clear by the Delorean that was parked subsequent to the stage of the third annual Crenshaw Youth Summit on the Hilton Hotel in downtown Houston this weekend, at which Crenshaw known as on a couple of hundred younger conservatives to stop poisonous ongoing occasion squabbles, and unite to protect the imaginative and prescient outlined by Reagan a long time in the past.

“These divisions are manufactured. They’re not real. They are manufactured by opportunists online, on TV and on social media who can’t string a sentence together about serious public policy,” he mentioned. “They say they fight for you, but the truth is they only fight for your attention. They fight for your fundraising dollars, they fight for your clicks, your likes, your views — knowing that America has been conditioned to be attentive to only drama.”

The occasion got here as a youthful, extra numerous technology of Americans more and more flocks to the left of the Democratic Party. Among Generation Z — these born after 1996 — barely greater than half are non-Hispanic white, in line with Pew Research. Twenty-five p.c are Hispanic, 14% are Black, 6% are Asian, and 5% are another race or two or extra races.

It’s a very regarding development for the Texas GOP because it heads into midterm elections subsequent month and as Democrats rally round key points for youthful Americans, together with LGBTQ rights and abortion entry. While most polling reveals Gov. Greg Abbott and different top-ticket candidates main of their respective races, younger Texans lean far more to liberal figures, resembling Abbott challenger Beto O’Rourke, than they do longtime GOP mainstays.

“This is something that the GOP has struggled with for a long time,” mentioned Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston professor of political science and longtime observer of Southeast Texas politics. “I like to joke with my students that the current crop of Republican candidates put the ‘old’ in ‘Grand Old Party.’ They all look like the younger voters’ grandparents, and that’s not the best way to attract a younger audience.”

That, Rottinghaus mentioned, has supplied a gap for figures resembling Crenshaw, a 38-year-old former Navy SEAL who’s all-but sure to win reelection in November. The two-term congressman was as soon as a rising star within the Republican Party, however more and more has warred with figures resembling Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — who Crenshaw not too long ago known as an fool — and different Trump allies. Far-right media equally have focused Crenshaw, and he’s responded with denunciations of them as a part of the “woke right.”

Crenshaw’s two-day convention was marketed to youngsters and younger adults by their mid-20s, and featured lots of conventional GOP speaking factors from Abbott, longtime conservative radio commentator Dennis Prager, National Review Editor Rich Lowry and Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, amongst others. Speakers typically claimed that liberals are destroying free speech and faith; that present immigration coverage has allowed the southern border to be flooded by fentanyl and terrorists; and that creeping socialism and “cancel culture” are contributing to American decline.

The same youth summit was held final month within the Woodlands, and featured far-right and Christian Nationalist figures, resembling Greene and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado. But whereas that occasion targeted closely on the tradition battle points which have come to outline a lot of the Republican Party platform, many attendees at Crenshaw’s occasion mentioned they search a extra reasonable strategy to American politics and had been far-less allegiant to the previous president than their MAGA hat-wearing friends.

“It seems like, very recently, it’s been really hard for any side to make any change,” mentioned Kevin Loewenstein, a 19-year-old Houstonian and self-described die-hard conservative. “We just keep going back to divide. It’s divide, divide, divide.”

Many attendees mentioned Sunday that they’ve grown bored with polarization and political bomb-throwing which have develop into the norm in American politics and that make it tough to seek out widespread floor on financial and social points. Others mentioned they really feel considerably politically homeless amongst their age cohort and thus are extra prepared to reasonable their positions on points, resembling immigration, abortion and LGBTQ rights.

“I’m pro-life — I believe that life begins at conception,” mentioned Ryan DeLong, 24. “But there are a lot of people who don’t have the same religion or morals as me. … I’d like to see the country come together. I’m a Republican, but I’m for the country first.”

Disclosure: The University of Houston has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Find a whole list of them here.