THEY ARE REPUBLICANS; DONALD ISN'T:

Now that the election dust has settled just weeks until President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, the Republican Party is beginning to take stock of its future beyond President Donald Trump.

For many young Republicans, Trump's loss signals an opening for new directions within the party. Several said in interviews that they want the party to become more tolerant and inclusive while staying true to conservative values.

"The GOP has a lot of really good policy, a lot of winning policies, but it does seem like often we can get caught up on the losing ones and fight like hell for them," said Cameron Adkins, a sophomore who is vice president of College Republicans at Columbia University. "When in reality, they're losing issues with the American people."

Thirty-one percent of voters ages 18 to 24 supported Trump in November, according to exit polls, down from 37 percent in 2016. The Generation Z bloc, born after 1996, makes up at least 10 percent of the U.S. population, according to a report by the Brookings Institution, and it will only grow as the next election approaches. [...]

"I think the term 'conservatism' has been given this really bad rep for so long," he said, predicting that the ethos of the party will evolve to become, for example, less religious and more forward-thinking.

"I feel like that should change in a way, so that people can understand it a lot more than just 'a bunch of old racist white people' as they like to see it, you know, but in reality, it's a lot more than that."

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