As incalculably screwed-up as things seem to be in this country, the future should be okay because the young people get it. They’ve internalized the important things and rejected a lot of the bullshit. The main thing is that they believe in pluralism and representative democracy and they reject rampant inequality. In general, they are not haters, and in almost every area, they reject conservatism.
Of course, we see this in nationwide polls. There may remain pockets of the country where the kids grow up despising pluralism, skeptical of gay rights, and completely unconcerned with inequality. But, on the whole, the country is going to eventually tip in a progressive direction and the political playing field will reset on turf substantially to the left of where we stand today.
In other words, I am not sure when the tectonic plate of the left and the tectonic plate of the right will slip, but I know in which direction the energy will be released.
Happy Independence Day!!
Happy 4th, BooMan!
Sloppy thinking expressed in sloppy language.
When today’s young people turn 65, they will think and act much as do today’s 65-year-olds.
I can only guess what you mean by “representative democracy”. Democracy can only represent the majority faction. That is where we are today and we don’t like it: largely because a first-past-the-post election is the only measuring instrument sensitive enough to determine who the majority is.
If you intend the word “representative” to connote some notion of universal rights, transitive in effect to minority rights, then what you want is not democracy, but the republic, which is based upon institutions and cannot in principle “represent” any faction at all.
Benjamin Franklin said the founders had given us “a Republic, if you can keep it.” We didn’t. Maybe they didn’t either, but it was the right idea.
wut? I’m in my 60’s and am just as progressive as I was when I was in my teens. I’m more pragmatic, but my values haven’t shifted over time. I don’t anticipate suddenly becoming a conservative on the day I have to file for Medicare.
And BooMan…I absolutely loved your reference to tectonic plates.
Cheery, and a pretty bold assumption that tomorrow’s 65 year-olds will be just like today. As far as I know, today’s 65 year-olds don’t share the attitudes of their grandparents, i.e. the New Deal generation.
Political attitudes don’t take shape automatically. They’re a reaction to their times. Otherwise literally nothing would ever change.
And cue the obligatory statement of cynicism and despair.
Bullshit.
Go back and look at the difference between Obama’s supporters and Clinton’s supporters. Of the group old enough to have lived in this country while it still had apartheid, Clinton cleaned up. It wasn’t because of anything particular to her, although some of her surrogates blew a few dog whistles. It was because Obama was too much change for those 65 year olds.
Tomorrow’s 65 year olds will have grown up in Obama’s America and a black candidate won’t phase them a bit.
Same for gay rights.
The only areas where tomorrow’s 65 years olds will resemble today’s are health and tax-aversion. As you grow older and make more money, you naturally pay more in taxes. This is why people in their 40’s and 50’s and more conservative on taxes than people younger or past retirement. That cycle won’t likely change. But tomorrow’s elderly will be much more progressive than the Reagan coalition we are dealing with today.
Research has been done, and it says you are wrong. People don’t become more conservative as they age. If anything, they tend to become more liberal and open minded. http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/voter-conservative-aging-liberal-120119.htm
Not exactly:
IOW absent longitudinal studies it’s not clear. Conforming to significant major cultural shifts isn’t the same thing as becoming more liberal.
The RW knows that with normal politics of voting they will lose. The real question hidden underneath this fact that needs to be addressed. Will the RW respect the peoples voting them out? When there policies are thoroughly rejected by voting, will they quietly go in the corner and think or will they choose guns and revolt?
I ask for in my town there has been a RW attack that shows the disrespect for the law. An Aryen Nation member(GOP)lover shot a motorcycle police officer during a routine traffic stop.
http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jul/01/suspect-vancouver-police-shooting-identified/
What will these type of individuals do when the shift comes?
My 15 year old would agree. He’s possibly even more toward the left than I am.
Booman…
I agree with much that you say here, but this part is what frightens me.
I fear the earthquake’s results. An armed and determined minority can do real damage. There is no practical way to disarm the right and neither is there a way to stop…or even slow down…what is about to happen.
But will the new majority…a very passive bunch it seems to me, overall quite convinced of its own entitlement…be able to protect its turf from the newly disenfranchised?
I can see a Ukraine-like problem approaching, only on a much more massive scale.
Let us pray.
AG
Hey, thanks for warning us, AG. Liberals should be cautious of being gunned down if they demand government actions in response to their electoral majorities.
Given your deep admiration for the Paul movement, by definition you oppose in nearly all meaningful ways the liberal movement. So your warning that liberals should avoid exercising power is awfully convenient.
Arthur wants to enable today’s right-wing movement. Each and every post of his is meant to further that goal.
You are 100% correct, and it is evident based on the actions the right are taking to disenfranchise young people (particularly college students) and to try and trivial science.
The Republicans know that they have a major problem with democracy and are becoming more-and-more fascist. But the R’s could overcome if they could just put people in front of profits.
The kids are alright, but do they actually turn up at the polls?
Midterm data would be more instructive for purposes of this discussion. Presidential years are such overhyped beauty contests that real trends show up in midterms, such as when young Republicans started dumping liberal and moderates in the 1970s and 1980s.
It’s not an unreasonable a fortiori argument, though.
If there’s a 20%+ gap in turnout in presidential years, what are the odds of it being even larger in mid-term elections?
We have the politics of old people. And though the politics of today’s youth will eventually be reflected in the politics of the old people of the future, that’s eventually.
Gawd this is funny, kids can’t be as dumb this crew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxg30c6z00E
I have a lot of experience with today’s teens and young adults. In my experience, they are community minded, egalitarian, and pragmatic. They don’t identify strongly with either political party because they think America should be more than what either is offering. I think that’s a damn good thing. I trust my future in their hands.
Generational demographic analysis assumes that similar cultural experiences mean similar trends in ….you name it… including politics. It also means that other generations are going to act independently of those trends.
There are a lot of kids who are alright. The number of activist kids on the left is reminiscent of the growing number in the period 1964-1971. Some of this new generation are grandkids of those kids who were active.
But activists and even Democratic voting young people are not as geographically dispersed as that Boomer bunch of activists. Progressives since Reagan have self-selected concentrations in places where there are other progressives, and even sacrificed promotions to avoid going to Birmingham, Jackson, or Shreveport. That means that the critical mass of local liberal support that existed for the civil rights movement in these areas is harder to muster even though it still most certainly exists. People are even beginning to give up on North Carolina, which used to be the progressive sanctuary on the South Atlantic coast even in rural areas (excepting a region around Princeton NC, the then self-advertised “home of the KKK”).
The other change is conservative capture of some educational institutions that very much were liberal institutions in the 1960s. That and the further bureacratization of higher education means fewer spaces of public political debate and organizing, something assumed before the 1960s that was taken away in the actions of college presidents like Clark Kerr.
These educational trends have made current youth angry with their choices and spurred some political activism, but it is not clear that that will result in electoral action yet–in part because electoral victories over the past two decades have been singularly unproductive except for backstopping against the Republican conservative media-financial juggernaut.
The other failing of both the youth of the 1960s and current political activists is missing the centrality of what the media considers “lesser offices” to the tone of politics in the country. The anti-immigrant riots in San Diego exist because of the complicity of local elected law enforcement officials only one step or two removed from Sheriff Joe Arapaio and the population who cheers them on.
The anti-immigrant riots in San Diego exist because of the complicity of local elected law enforcement officials only one step or two removed from Sheriff Joe Arapaio and the population who cheers them on.
Don’t let the TradMed off the hook either.
Traditional media operates from a white priveledge framework. Very little of what they do should surprise people.