Instapundit Wants GOP To Be Hep And Groovy Like Now And Happening 30-Year-Old Flick 'Footloose'

Glenn Reynolds, last seen in these pages wondering why bitches be fucking boys’ shit up, yo, has noticed that Barack Stalin Obama won the youth vote in the 2012 election by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. Luckily Glenn’s day job keeps him engaged with young people, so he is receptive to their concerns about the future and understands why they saw Obama as the candidate best suited to understand and advocate for them, and now Glenn can offer the GOP all sorts of nifty ideas about how to appeal to the 18-to-29 demographic.

Or he could base his concern-trolling on a character in a movie that is older than every single member of that demographic. Whatever.

Seems an Instapundit fanboy recently wrote to Glenn to say that everything for him comes down to the movie Footloose (we think maybe the guy was playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and got confused, but we digress):

For a large majority of people, the political question is, ‘How would the sanctimonious preacher from the movie ‘Footloose’ feel about this subject?’ They answer the question, and then take the opposite position.

(By the way, Mr. Instapundit Fanboi, being “a couple of years younger than Gen X” would put you squarely in your mid-thirties, which takes you out of that youth vote age range. Your average college-age voter probably thinks you are a card-carrying member of AARP by now. Shut up. Also we are aware there was a "Footloose" remake, and are giving it exactly as much consideration as it deserves, i.e., none.)

Anyway, this Footloose construction is so simple as to be brilliant. How would the sanctimonious Baptist preacher, played in the movie by John Lithgow in full His judgement cometh mode, feel about, say, abortion? We’re guessing he would be opposed, so the GOP should adopt a pro-choice position, immediately alienating the religious conservatives that vote for its candidates in droves. Great idea, Professor Reynolds.

Ha ha, we kid. Glenn Reynolds would never have the sack to take on the official GOP position on abortion. Here, instead, are the slightly less controversial issues for which Glenn is brave enough to advocate:

Drinking.Glenn wants the federal drinking age lowered to 18. We actually agree with this and for the same reasons as Glenn. Plus Sanctimonious John Lithgow would hate it so it is an excellent idea. Though we don't think this will automatically drag a bunch of young folks into the GOP column. Imagine it: a bunch of bros playing beer pong in the Sigma Chi house, occasionally breaking the chugging-barfing-chugging cycle that makes up any competitive beer pong match in order to toast the super-cool Republicans who made it all possible. “Here’s to the GOP! We should totes vote for them in the election!” “Wasn’t that last week?” “Oh no, dudes! We missed it because we were all in Jagermeister comas!”

Unlocked cell phones.Recently passed federal law makes it illegal for consumers to put new SIM cards in their phones so they can be used on any network the phone’s owner wants, and every single person under thirty uses only cell phones. We cannot imagine why Sanctimonious John Lithgow would care one way or the other about unlocked cell phones, but we agree that the cellular providers should not be able to lock you into a two-year contract to use their crappy service, with huge penalties for breaking said contract, no matter how cool-looking the iPhone 4879S or whatever happens to be. Co-sign! Though good luck getting it past the telecommunications industry lobby. We tried to break an AT&T contract once and woke up the next day with a severed rotary-dial handset in our bed. True story!

Student loans.Sanctimonious John Lithgow would probably hate these, because usury, unless the student uses the loans to pay tuition at Bob Jones University, because it is a good Christian madrassa. Barack Obama actually made college affordability and student loan reform a major part of his platform. Glenn Reynolds would also like Republicans to push hard for limits on universities’ tuition rates and “regulate higher education’s often dishonest representations to prospective students.” Whoa! Regulation? What kind of a libertarian are you? Did you not just finish telling us that the cell phone industry should be in effect de-regulated? We have whiplash, sir. Lucky we have insurance so we can see a doctor about it, because Obamacare.

So there you have it. Beer and unlocked cell phones are your path back to electoral dominance, Republicans. If Mitt Romney had been this visionary a thinker, Ann might be blowing him underneath the Resolute desk right about now.

[ NY Post ]