New, dead-eyed Children of the Corn group plans to cater to hep Republican youngfolk

Oh for the love of:

A group of young Republicans isn't waiting for party leaders to sort out the future of the party, they're putting their money, time and organizing prowess to work.

Concord 51, the brainchild of a group of young fiscal conservatives in New York City in their late 20s, among others, is looking to mobilize Republicans under 35 into a national movement.

There is nothing on this earth sadder than "young Republicans." If your entire political consciousness has been crafted from Ayn Rand novels and the selfish pigheadedness of youth, fine, but don't make the rest of us watch. With all due apologies to the young folks these days (I was young too, once, I promise; I remember it like it was yesterday, or at least like it was last Tuesday), there is something expansively depressing in watching a gaggle of bow-tied post-teens grapple with all the political questions that have dogged mankind ever since Plato sat around pondering his own eyelids, only to have them come to the conclusion that because of their particular young genius, they have had the answers to all those questions and more jotted down on the inside of their skulls this whole time.

Watching it is like watching a litter of kittens harnessed to the Budweiser wagon. It is like watching someone decide pi is too complicated so that the scientists must have gotten it wrong. Being lectured to dismissively on the irrelevance of our racist past from someone whose earliest memories contain little beyond the first episodes of Saved by the Bell is painful; hearing the hypotheses of why corporate pollution is a problem best solved by telling the polluted-upon to just suck it up gives one the overwhelming urge to sit them down on the playground and pour sand down their pants.

'We've created communications and a brand that is representative of not necessarily party politics, but what we believe to be the politics of our generation,' said Matthew Swift, a co-founder of Concord 51, who works at a management company.

The politics of your generation is to vote for the other guy. The politics of your generation on the conservative side is to edit together fake tapes and credulously believe whatever Matt Drudge, a fellow whose last big story came while you were still learning how to use the toilet, puts up on his eye-molesting website.

This is not your father's College Republicans, always in lockstep with the party platform. These Republicans make no bones about being frustrated with GOP candidates' propensity of focusing on social issues, which they believe is a major liability to many voters in their generation who don't see gay marriage, abortion and other issues as central to their core beliefs.

So ' you're not actually Republicans then. Good luck with that.

The makeup of the group ' which was started by a group of young white men, many in finance, public affairs and startups ' is also emblematic of the party's demographic problems. Swift said he is focused on increasing ethnic diversity and adding female members.

Never mind, you're Republicans. Good luck with that. (Mind you, this new PAC has also of yet only gathered three hundred members and, of the $116,000 they've raised, only 10 percent has gone to actual candidates, so the group is more aspirational than operational. Still, I have faith.)

I think it's great that the yunfolk today are getting involved with politics. Really, I do. I'm not that old, damn it. But the problem with Young Republicans, or College Republicans, or Hep and Happenin' Republicans, or Concord Republicans or whatever they're calling themselves in each passing iteration is the absolute, blind faith of a bunch of young white men in a bunch of corporatized talking points manufactured by old white men and being peddled to rubes for money ever since. These are the same people who are vigilant to the point of militancy on the prospect of some college professor or biology teacher somewhere indoctrinating the youth, but show them a Heritage Foundation brochure and they'll treat it like a holy Coke bottle falling from the sky. There isn't anything else in politics I find so inherently, well, creepy'and I've seen Steve King give a speech, so I've been around.