salon.com

“How do you make abortion funny?” That was a key question mulled at a major conservative gathering Friday on how to make social conservatism appealing to young people, after an election where Republicans got trounced in the battle for millennial voters (who are are moving even further and further away from the Christian-right on marriage and other issues).

Abortion has to be made funny, the thinking goes, because funny sells on social media, and that’s where one goes to court young people. “You can engage with sarcasm, it’s hard with the abortion issue, but you have to,” said Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins at a breakout panel at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in Washington today on how to win millennial voters. “Unfortunately we have to, because this is the generation that we’ve been dealt.”

No examples as to how.

This is, again, the conservatives in the US today not getting it. It is not the way that the argument is being presented. It is really not. It is not because you’re not being earnest or sarcastic. People really understand you want to ban abortion and humiliate women who seek to have one. It is understood that the reason behind this is religious belief. Nobody is not understanding the message of the GOP on abortion.

Do conservatives really believe that they just need to tweak the message, or do they know they’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titantic?