Republicans seek diversity
The Republican Party is about limited government, individual liberties and working people of all walks of life who desire better opportunities for their children.
I want to lay out a plan for the next four years that highlights what conservatives need to do in order to reclaim a majority in Congress, take back the White House and reach out to African-Americans and other minorities.
The Republican Party in 2016 controlled the Office of the President, the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate while also holding on to a strong conservative Supreme Court.
As of the most recent election, our party has lost everything except the Supreme Court. We need a change.
This loss could be a major blow to Republicans, but as a leader in the conservative movement both in Neshoba County and on the state level, I see a path forward that includes increasing our minority outreach and spreading our strong message of limited government and individual liberties for all Americans.
One of the first things the GOP needs to do in order to win again is to increase our minority outreach.
Former President Trump in the November election gained six percentage points among black men and five percentage points among Hispanic women.
The Trump Campaign did this right during their campaign with those kinds of gains. He visited largely black and Hispanic areas and introduced policies that not only help these two groups but made many Americans flourish. Trump received 47 percent of the overall vote.
Historically, our party does not have a good history of success with minority engagement Like it or not, it’s true and we need work in that area.
The best way we can solve our need for diversity is on the local level. By getting involved with minority groups and engaging our friends, we will be able to demonstrate the real Republican Party, not the one created in the media.
The second thing our party needs is to get more young people involved. The United States has 328 million people, where people ranging from 24-29 make up 23 million people and people ranging from 20 to 24 make up 22 million people.
This together is 45 million people, or roughly 47 percent of the votes in the 2020 election.
From now on, this generation will largely decide the next elections, and this year the Democrats did a far better job at youth outreach than the Republican Party did — and they won.
The myth about the GOP created in the media is that we are all older white males and sadly this is partly true, but I envision more aggressive outreach among all who champion limited government and individual liberties as I do.
Demographics are changing. We need younger voters in the GOP, more minority voters and more female voters if we can ever dream of taking back the House, the Senate and the White House.
We do have fringe groups that I condemn such as QAnon operating under the flag of the Republican Party that are actively causing our support from these key demographic groups that we need to suffer.
I have signed on to a letter with Teenage Republicans from around the nation in order to hopefully make a dent in QAnon’s activities. This letter denounces the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots and directly condemns QAnon.
So, I call on all my fellow Republicans to stand united that we may once again take back our majority in Congress. We need to get back to doing actual work passing real bills that affect the working man and woman. We can focus on improving our economy once again instead of wasting taxpayer funds on the impeachment of a now private citizen.
If we can improve on the things I’ve talked about here, we have a very real shot at reclaiming our majority over the next four years.
This is why we must reform our party to accommodate the younger generations and improve minority outreach. Because in the end, young people are our future and they will decide who is elected over the next four years.
I look forward to a more diverse Grand Old Party holding its head even higher when we crush and wipe away the blemish left by the radical left. If we put forth better candidates with more principled policies, I think our future is bright.
Ty Martin is a 10th grader at Neshoba Central High School in Philadelphia and vice-chairman of the Mississippi Teenage Republicans Federation.