Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and Nairobi, Kenya, and the author of the book "The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness." Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) If Republicans are trying to alienate themselves from a generation of voters, they're doing a bang-up job. Polls shows that young people, and especially young women, are fleeing to the Democratic Party in large numbers. And who can blame them? Too many politicians in the GOP, and their media mouthpieces, have insulted them, smeared them and pawned their futures in exchange for short-term gain.

Jill Filipovic

The treatment of Parkland student David Hogg, 17, is just one obvious and egregious example. For having the audacity to say he believes the United States should have sane gun control laws -- in line with every other developed nation on Earth -- Hogg has been relentlessly attacked by right-wing media.

If Republicans want to have a prayer of attracting young voters in numbers sufficient to maintain their political control, they will need to show them through policies and behavior that they care about them. At the very least, they and their lieutenants might avoid trashing victims of the violence they've helped bring upon the country with their pro-gun policies.

Let's recall here that Hogg has entered the public consciousness as a result of being caught in a mass shooting during which 17 students and faculty were killed in minutes. He's a teenager, albeit a mature, charismatic, articulate one, but still, a young person who survived a serious trauma.

No matter, apparently. He's been the subject of obscene conspiracy theories, among them that he wasn't actually at the shooting or that he's a paid "crisis actor."