By Joe Vitale

It should not be surprising that Republicans are worried. Following a Presidential election in which Democrats captured the popular vote for the fifth time in the past six elections, there are obvious reasons why the GOP is finding itself falling behind in a rapidly changing electorate.

After President Obama’s latest State of the Union Address, the party stands at a crossroads. At this point, it can either compromise with voters or it can remain stiff and continue to rage against the Democrats. With the former, there is hope for the GOP, but with the latter, not so much.

The party’s stance on everything from immigration and gay rights to gun control and abortion is becoming less and less consistent with the changing electorate. As many Republicans in the House continue to campaign against Roe v. Wade, they are suffering at the polls with their unpopular (and biologically bizarre) convictions. A similar story describes the hostility towards gay marriage within the party, an issue more than half of all voters support. Moreover, the moral crusades for preserving “tradition” are becoming more and more costly in the polls as support for gay marriage continues to come from young voters and college educated voters.

Unfortunately, the GOP, a party often seen to be run by angry old white men, consists of very little malleable material. Too much of the core ideology of the GOP remains rooted in the Encroachment Story — that our big cities and our big government want to have their way with those in the rural regions of southern and western America. The idea is the crux of the conservative moment: that there exists a continuing battle between Big Government and Individual Freedom. It is a polarizing sentiment that the GOP cannot seem to shake out.

In approaching the 2016 campaigning season, the GOP is in dire need of deciding what changes to make and how to make them. Regardless of how it does so, the changes need to force voters to reevaluate its perception of the party. The party’s best approach is to rethink both its tone and its delivery.

The Republican Party needs to begin by minimizing its less anti-government sentiment. A campaign that does nothing but blame government cannot put forward any progressive-minded government program changes. Criticizing President Obama may be filler during a campaign season but will not suffice in inciting a surge of conservatism in the United States.

In the past, the GOP continuously denounced Obama’s Dodd-Frank financial regulation, yet it failed to offer an alternative plan to the reform. They have also opposed many of Obama’s plans to cut the deficit but default to proposing cutting small programs like PBS and other liberal favorites. The GOP’s fierce opposition to cutting defense spending is also becoming less favorable, yet there are no signs of the GOP budging.

While forfeiting all of these issues is unlikely, compromise does remain feasible and proposing ideas about regulation reform and supporting reasonable budget cuts can be a start.

The GOP also needs to reconsider its use of technology: how they connect with voters and how much they spend doing so. This past November, Romney connected with over 12 million Facebook users, a weak number when compared to Obama’s 33 million. Romney’s digital tool, Orca, experienced a server crash on Election Day, while Obama unveiled Narwhal, a data platform containing information about campaign staffers and voters, which was easily accessible and widely used by his campaign staff and his supporters leading up to election night.  While Romney profited slightly from his online ads, Obama’s team’s profits doubled their spending on online advertisements. The GOP’s base voters in rural areas provide low return on online ads and their approach to attracting young, urban voters is failing.

“They were playing chess while we were playing checkers,” a member of Romney’s digital team reported to one of his top aides following the election results.

With the GOP, the problem has little to do with the party’s  emerging figures. Pundit favorites such as Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan are not doomed to fall before their Democratic peers. They are all capable leaders. It is about their tone and ability to excite the American people about progress in the party.

Trying to mold the electorate is a task too large for such an unpopular party. Instead, the GOP needs to adapt and create excitement around modern conservatism in America. It is going to take not a regression to old traditions, but a look far into the future.

Joseph Vitale, FCRH ’16, is a political science major from Staten Island, NY.