I have written time and again about the damage the Republican Party has done to itself with the millennial generation.

The American system is set up to have two parties competing for votes. But Americans have not had the same two parties to choose from since the beginning.

If a woman rising in power is too tough or aggressive, she's attacked for it. If she's attractive, she's accused of having used that to her advantage. And even if a woman is beyond qualified for a role, there will always be those who raise doubts about if she's really qualified.

When talented, qualified women take on greater responsibility, the simple fact of being talented and qualified is hardly enough to shield them from the gender-specific animosity that will come their way.

Election losses are always an inkblot test for partisans. If a candidate's defeat has no clear and obvious cause, if the data points are all over the map, it is easy for those on the sidelines to claim, 'Candidate X would have won if only he or she had been more like... me.'

After Mitt Romney's defeat, the RNC released its official assessment of what happened - a failure to reach younger voters, nonwhite voters, women - but was met with a counter-narrative that, in fact, it was Romney's failure to be conservative enough that led to a depressed Republican base.

Without a clear diagnosis of why the candidate or party failed, there can be no clear consensus about how to move forward.

Trump won 44.4 percent of votes in Virginia in 2016. At press time, Ed Gillespie had won 45 percent of the vote in 2017.

In the United States, it is unmistakable that young people have broken away from the political right and have gravitated to more leftist-populist figures like Bernie Sanders.

Millennials easily connect the dots between good education and good opportunities, and they also understand that it isn't just hard work that determines how well a child will be educated - it also depends on where they live and the resources their parents commit to their education.

Often times, when we talk about improving our public schools, it is easy to come back to the question of money. Are schools basically fine, just underfunded? Millennials say no - more funding isn't the cure-all for what ails our schools.

Millennials are not deeply familiar with school choice, and have some reservations, especially about the types of institutions that a student might choose to attend with taxpayer dollars.

If there is one issue where one could justifiably assume that Republicans are all in agreement, it is on lowering taxes.

Congress has been productive when focusing on bites of policy that don't inflame the divisions within the party and quietly do the work of governing.

The reality is that the Republican Party may have unified government but is not unified enough on many major signature policy areas.

Either people are changing their minds about Trump, or increasing numbers of his supporters are deciding it is too embarrassing to admit they support him. Neither is a particularly good position to be in.

Overall, America's math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have risen since the 1990s though remain disappointing when compared to the rest of the globe.

In 2010, voters certainly hit the brakes on the Obama presidency. Fast forward to the 2016 election, where voters yanked up on the emergency brake and did a donut in the parking lot. Now, the car has stopped. We sit here dizzy for a moment, looking to get on the road again.

There's no question that a Democratic Congress plus a Trump presidency would equal gridlock. Nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing gets accomplished, nothing gets reformed. Voters know this.

Electing Democrats means nothing happens. Elect Republicans, and at least there's a chance.

There's no counting the number of times the media have asked, 'Will this be the thing that drives Donald Trump's supporters away from him? Is this finally the time?'

Obama's numbers fell by a slightly larger amount over his first few months because he enjoyed much more support right at the start from Republicans, support that eroded quickly.

'Staunch conservatives' and 'free marketeers' are fairly typical Republicans, while the 'American preservationists' are far less reliably a part of a GOP coalition.

Candidates, of course, often claim that they want to run 'a purely positive campaign,' but this rarely materializes.

Tax reform exists, sort of, as an outline - miles away from being actual passed legislation.

The idea that someone, somewhere will campaign in a positive, uplifting way on an agenda that can inspire Americans? I'm sadly done holding my breath.

Let's think about where things stood in December 2015. By that time, Republicans had already had such epic and long-standing struggles with young people that I'd written a whole book about it. Additionally, Republicans had already had a bruising start to their primary season.

Young voters may be growing up in an era of increased global connection, cooperation and commerce. But they're very open to politicians who tell them it is these very things that are keeping elites in power and keeping their generation down.

Fast-moving views are not likely to be strongly held views. Instead, they're much more likely to be about people mirroring back the signals they see coming from the leaders they support. People can resolve dissonance by shifting their own view on issues that aren't top of mind.

When the oldest batch of millennials really first began voting around the mid-2000s, they leaned a little toward the Democrats, looking a lot like the Gen Xers also did at that time.

Major realigning events can reshape coalitions and change how large groups of people view politics, policy, and the parties.

Maybe President Trump will turn out to be a fabulously successful president who will endear the millennial generation to the Right anew.

I remember fancying myself a junior 'McCainiac' in 2000, though politics were rarely discussed in our household.

My slice of the millennial generation, as we grew up, became - to the dismay of the GOP - a bloc of fairly consistently Democratic voters.

Winning feels great, and everybody loves a winner. But the very best figure out what's coming next and don't assume they've got the winning formula forever.

With Trump assuming the role of America's CEO, it may be chaos rather than callousness that threatens to harm his standing with the American voters who are giving him a chance.

President Trump, who made his name in the business world and built a brand as a successful CEO via a reality TV show that punished incompetence, was not just elected for a series of tough policy views.

Trump was elected in part because enough Americans viewed him as a capable and strong leader, someone who is 'decisive' and 'competent.'

'Trump is a mean man' is a message that Democrats used time and time and time again in the 2016 race. Airwaves were filled with reminders that Trump has insulted just about everyone.

Thoughtful education programs and access to effective forms of contraception are key to preventing unplanned pregnancy.

True small-c conservatives should fight at every turn to preserve basic standards of conduct and institutions that have served our nation well.

Not all change and disruption succeeds, to be sure.

Conservative women often make the case that 'all issues are women's issues,' and are sometimes derided by those on the Left when they do so.

Women want fair taxes, a growing economy, affordable health care, secure borders, and the defeat of ISIS. They don't need the solutions to be wrapped in pink. They just want problems solved.

Women face unique challenges in society, no doubt. But focusing narrowly on women as a special interest group isn't the winning play. The ability to pay your bills, send your kids to a good school, and keep your family safe are 'women's issues' after all.

Being a skeptical and thoughtful consumer of polls is essential.

In the 2012 election, the polls that had made Mitt Romney so confident that he was going to win were his own internal polls, based on models that failed to accurately estimate voter turnout. But the public polls, especially statewide polls, painted a fairly accurate picture of how the electoral college might go.

Donald Trump, having spent decades in the public eye as an entertainer, may not understand what the nuclear triad is, or what America's 'first use' nuclear policy is, or why starting a trade war would be a disaster. But he does understand storytelling, the power of a clear narrative, and the importance of stirring emotion.