2) Selective Social Conservatism
The religious right needs to take a long hard look at what hills it wants to die on. The GOP should reduce their social conservatism to issues that will be viable long term or are needed to keep the religious right happy. I'd suggest abortion and crime are the best issues to retain.
What do you mean by crime? Crime has been going down in the last two decades so I don't think it is as big an issue as it once was. Indeed much of the push both within the social conservative community and more broadly is towards liberalization on crime-restricting the death penalty if not abolishing it, ending the Drug Wars, demilitarizing the police, and restricting mandatory minimum sentences/3 strikes laws to violent criminals.
