PatsFanInVa

The Millennials - Pew Research Center

Patsfanin Philly

And that's the group that is the most likely to think that health care reform won't affect them...Wait until the taxes kick in and see what their reaction is to it....




http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/po...are_090109.pdf
Young people under 30 are the most likely age group to think reform would have no effect (54%), while seniors are the least likely to think they’d be helped (7%.)

Patriot_in_NY

I'm not sure that I would say they are the most politicaly progressive just because they voted for Barack. The country was ripe for change. They went with it. This iPod generation is also generally "tuned out" as well, and I expect will go "back to sleep" for the next election cycle unless there is a compelling reason not to.

Young people are generally way more liberal then older folks who actually grow up and are faced with other issues that begin to crowd out the "social issues" that dominate youth.

Things like fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, etc..... become more important with age.

sdaniels7114

This new generation won't kill the right. It'll just kill the nitwitcons like Sairy.

The right will shift its positions and things will rebalance.

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Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob everyone.

PatsFanInVa

This one is in the general intro information, but of course it looks unlikely that the youngest would be significantly helped; the question is, are the young in favor of the program based on its effect on others. Since half this paragraph compares the elderly's belief on the personal effect, and the other half states it would "have no effect", and since this particular paragraph isn't backed by a particular question with a breakout (there is no breakout by age in any of the dozens of polling questions,) it's hard to tell what "have no effect" means in this context.

A lot of good info on the pulse of the public on September 1, by the way.

PFnV

PatsFanInVa

They're in a position like the Dems after Reagan's election, if we disregard the difference between ideologies.

The GOP is seeking unity in reaction against a demonstrably stronger popular position. The difference is that the wheels seem to have come off the GOP in terms of the radicalization of their elected politicians.

This may be an early phase of reaction, or they may need to pursue this radicalization until the party simply disintegrates under the weight of its ideological baggage.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

PFnV

PatsFanInVa

Do fiscal responsibility and lower taxes make you suddenly become more white or religious?

This generation is more racially diverse than any in the history of generational research. This generation is less religiously observant than any since generational research began.

Now of course we can have a purely academic argument about how non-whites and non-Christians should understand how much better for them the right is than the left, but they do not vote that way, and they do not answer survey questions that way.

To my eye, it is obvious how and why the Right has historically alientated these demographics, but we needn't get into that. We have a whole thread nearby, where one of our local rightists complain that a poll oversamples African Americans. Of course the oversampling was corrected in the poll in question, but that's not the point (here.) The point is that the rightists know it's bad for the right-wing cause when African Americans are proportionately represented, or God forbid, if they are overrepresented. This is backed up by the behaviors of non-white and non-Christian voters.

They are more significantly represented in the Millenial cohort than in the boomers, Gen. x, or the WWII generation.

PFnV

Real World

Most people under 30 lean left of center. It's when they get older, start working fulltime, have kids, are maybe paying a mortgage, and see uncle sam raping their wallets, that they move more toward the right. Furthermore, this past election was one like no other. It was a perfect storm in a sense. The internet explosion, an extremely articualte african-american candidate, an unattractive geazer opponent, and 8 years of George Bush. The problem for Obama though, is with so much promised, and so much expected, a letdown could do more for his opposition, than it will have done for him. There is a high level of buyers remorse out there right now, and he needs to remedy that, if he wants to maintain the fandom he accrued during the election. Talking about the demise of one side, or questioning weather one is doomed, is follish. People did that at the turn of this past century for one, and then this past November for the other. They'll both remain strong so long as there is no viable 3rd option, and each repeatedy shows their ineptitude, when given total control.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

Patsfanin Philly

Thank you but please don't words in my mouth or make attributions that I didn't say. In quoting my posting, you split my quote and interjected,(see post #5)
>>>>>>
They're more likely to have the reaction you'd like them to have, if they are required to purchase health insurance they were not previously required to have. The self-perceived "immortality" of the young adults in the age cohort is certainly nothing new. There may be resentment by those who feel that they are healthier and therefore should not be part of a society-wide solution to a society-wide problem. However, they are also both communitarian and voluntarist by comparison to previous age cohorts.

Then again, baby boomers were idealistic until they all started developing real estate and buying junk bonds, right?<<<<<<<<<
attributing it to me. I never wrote it!!!!!I'll assume it was an innocent mistake and that you'll correct it.....
Thanks.

Items in red not mine....

PatsFanInVa

Well, RW, I wouldn't want to appear "follish."

The characteristics of the present generation, however, does not augur well for a party continuing to pursue the poliltics of exclusion.

I do not for a minute buy that life-stage behavior explains the right's epic fail among younger voters.

Rather, there is a mix. Their attitudes will naturally track (to an extent) the same way Baby Boomers' attitudes did.

That is to say, when they have more money, the most selfish elements will be more concerned with their taxes than with others' wellbeing.

It is also the case, however, that society changed wherever the baby boomers turned to accomodate them. The Millenials are nearly the size of the boomer cohort (in stark contrast to Generation X.) We have started to see a similar response. Just as long(er) hair was not a sign of insanity or rebellion from 1970 onward, piercings and tats have gained similar status, on the fashion end.

On the more significant end, everybody (except a few idiots, probably some of whom post frequently here,) understood that Archie Bunker was a satire and not a role model by the 70s, and it's now considered aberrant in most of America to openly advocate segregation. In other words, once we have made a significant advance, the right must move forward or die, once the body politic embraces a progressive stance for a given era.

Additionally, whereas the idealism expressed by young baby boomers in the 60s had a prevalent individualist cast, the idealism expressed by the millenials has a comparatively communitarian cast.

PFnV