The dystopian Republican future. Image: Jes/Flickr, Donkey Hotey/Flickr

Nobody actually wants dystopia to arrive, right? Other than a handful of perversely apocalyptic survivalists and some deranged End Times cults? Well, Republicans too, apparently. There’s a new Gallup poll out that charts the differences between the current priorities of Republican and Democrat voters, and it appears that the Grand Ol’ Party has embraced some serious dystopian drift—if we were to focus on their priorities alone, we’d eventually end up with something resembling Elysium.

First, there’s a 39-percentage point gulf between Democrats and Republicans on protecting the environment—71 percent of Dems think it’s important, while a comparatively meager 32 percent of GOPers do. This is perhaps unsurprising, given the relentless activism of conservative organizers like the Kochs who’ve put a premium removing environmental regulations and letting factories and power plants pollute to their sooty heart’s content.

So, despoiled environment, a primo ingredient of any good dystopia—Check. 

Next up, let’s talk about income inequality, which, taken to its most extreme conclusion yields a society where a few wealthy elite live cordoned off and above the teeming resource-strapped poor. Another dystopian staple, of course. Here’s Gallup explaining how that one landed: “Democrats and Republicans also differ substantially in their rankings of the distribution of income and wealth (with Democrats 34 points higher) and poverty and homelessness (29 points).”

Those are some pretty serious priority gaps. 72 percent of Dems think we should address inequality, while just 38 percent of Republicans do. So let’s add a vast divide between the haves and the have nots to our future scorched Earth. Now we’re cooking with fracked gas. In fact, the nonpartisan Gallup headlined its findings as follows: “Partisans Most Divided on Prioritizing the Environment, Distribution of Wealth.”

But what else?

“Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to prioritize education, gun policy, race relations, policies toward gays and lesbians, energy policy, and Social Security and Medicare.”

More tolerant social mores, a more educated populace, fewer armed militias—more counter-dystopia moves. Okay, okay, you’re getting the point. The left’s goals have often been derided as utopian-leaning; so what do Republicans want more of that Democrats don’t? What would the government of their ideal society tackle?

The military, clearly—and terrorism. Gallup explains: Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say the president and Congress should prioritize the military and national defense (15 points), and taxes (13 points) reducing them, specifically. Their interest is primarily in abolishing the policy mechanism that combats dystopian creep through distributing income more evenly, and militarizing a security state. Republicans are also more concerned with immigration; primarily, preventing undocumented immigration and building a more exclusionary border. 

To be fair, both parties are concerned with “the economy” roughly equally. And the single dystopian problem Republicans are more concerned about is state surveillance; they’re a bit more eager to act than Democrats, though still not quite half do.

To summarize, strictly by reading this poll, we see that Republicans’ current priorities are the pursuit of a heavily militarized, low-tax state where environmental degradation and inequality remain unaddressed and are allowed to fester. Yes, I realize that I’m indulging a fair bit of hyperbole here to make a point about conservative politics in the US. But I think that point is worth underlining: There’s very little long term thinking in Republican policy goals right now; it’s mostly fear-driven and reactionary. It’s not that Democrats are doing a better or worse job of governing—it’s simply that their stated priorities imagine a much more optimistic future. 

It is striking that one of our nation’s major political parties doesn’t seem to be spending much time conceptualizing the future at all—except to recoil from the dangers it poses—when it which, I get it, is a standard and perhaps essential feature of conservatism. Still, if the party looked forward just a bit more, the GOP might realize that given our current trajectory—especially with skyrocketing carbon emissions and the widening equality gulf—might be leading us down the road to ruin.