Winston Churchill has been quoted as saying, “Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.”
And any man who writes on politics for New York Magazine has neither heart nor brains — especially if his name is Jonathan Chait:
How doomed are conservatives? Pretty doomed, if you look carefully at the Pew Research Survey’s close analysis of the youth vote in the 2012 elections. The Republicans’ long-term dilemma has generally been framed in racial terms, but it’s mainly a generational one. The youngest generation of voters contains a much smaller proportion of white voters than previous generations, and those whites in that generation vote Republican by a much smaller margin than their elders. What’s more, younger voters supported President Obama during the last two election cycles for reasons that seem to go beyond the usual reasons — social issues like gay marriage and feminism, immigration policy, or Obama’s personal appeal — and suggest a deeper attachment to liberalism. The proclivities of younger voters may actually portend a full-scale sea change in American politics.
Chait needs a quick trip to the Wizard of Oz. In addition to heart and brains, he might see if the old humbug has any common sense rattling around in that sack.
The transformation of the young from liberal to conservative begins when they get their first paycheck as teenagers. The look of shock and dismay on these kids’ faces would be comical if you didn’t remember having the same look on your face when you got your first paycheck. “What’s FICA?” they wail. The disbelief they feel that the government would take so much — enough to fill up their gas tanks or get a couple of CDs — is not quite a Road to Damascus moment, but it certainly gets the wheels turning.
Feeling this way doesn’t make them any less compassionate for those less fortunate, or resentful of those on the dole. But it is their first lesson in understanding the adage that all those who can’t wait for their “free” health care under Obamacare seem to have forgotten: “There is no free lunch.” The first step in the transformation of liberal to conservative is a cognitive one — the understanding that funding the government so that it can bestow all those benefits is a fine thing in the abstract. But when it comes to you having actual skin in the game when the government taxes you for those benefits, your perspective is altered dynamically.
Obviously, not all young people who harbor liberal tendencies end up being conservative. But something happens to many youngsters when they hit their 20s, get married, have a kid or two, and discover the real world — the world of mortgages, and bills, and saving for college, and scrimping and saving for that vacation every year. They concern themselves with things they never gave a second thought to when they were kids: values, morals, and the responsibility that comes with raising children.
Conservatism as a philosophy answers many of these needs. Conservatism as a political ideology, not so much. Some conservative ideologues have hijacked the philosophy of conservatism and enslaved it to a very unconservative agenda that is non-inclusive, revanchist, and destructive of community. It’s not that young people are any more or less liberal than they were in previous generations. Nor is it true that gay marriage and “free” contraceptives will make them permanently leftist in their worldview. In fact, to make that point, Chait goes whistling by the grave yard because he surely knows that with age brings wisdom. And the riot of conceits that still defines liberalism usually doesn’t survive the path to adulthood.
The “Millennial Generation” (we have to call them something) is no different than any other generation. Conservatives like to say that kids today have been brainwashed by liberal academia. We were saying the same thing 30 years ago, just like they were saying it 20 years ago and 10 years ago. Young people have always absorbed liberal ideas from their teachers and sought to change the world. We used to think you could do it through music and marching. We ended up ruining far more than we changed. What we know now is that a single entrepreneur has the potential to change the lives of thousands of people in real, concrete ways that no liberal could have imagined 30 years ago, and few could imagine today.
What has changed — and what is driving the young away from the GOP — is the make-up of much of the base of the current incarnation of the Republican Party — dominated by hyperpartisan ideologues, anti-government activists, and Christian zealots at war with modernity. Until more reasonable, pragmatic voices begin to be heard in the GOP, writers like Jonathan Chait will continue to fool themselves into thinking that the generational evolution from liberal to conservative has been halted and that liberals have won a permanent victory.
So; Where’s the Congressional White Caucus?
It’s called The Senate, and nearly 90% of House members. Why point out the white further with an adjective when it’s all around you?
I’ll make it simpler for you:
Ever wonder why people will always specify when a sheep is black, but not when it is white – if it’s white they just say sheep because that’s most of them. Same for Congress.
If we are to judge our fellow man based upon the content of their character and not the color of their skin, what is the rational argument for a Congressional Black Caucus?
Yes, hopelessly doomed. The GOP is now being hoisted on its own Southern Strategy petard, and a whole generation of young Obama voters are now committed Dems for life. And as the pool of likely GOP voters continuea to shrink, the GOP is wholly uncommitted to the hard work necessary to win over Hispanics and women. It’s over.
….Lusophones(portugese speaking Brazilians,Africans & Europeans)and Asians, and Arabs, and Gays, and……
If one must treat their constituents as an amalgamation of check box ticks, the republic is lost.
If one votes against the fiscal health and well being of the nation, the republic is lost.
If you’re strategy for winning elections is “just wait, those kids will come crawling back when they see how low their paychecks are”, then you’re a bigger Moran than I thought. The Dems will simply counter with “elect us and we’ll force your boss to pay you more.”
Perhaps a remedial reading course at the local JC is in order for you. The whole point of the article is that they may be liberal when they are young but turn more conservative the older they get.
Next time when you read it, try not to move your lips.
I’ve known some co-workers who converted for that reason – but not many.
To make this strategy extra difficult, the Republican Party took their one group of enthusiastic young people – Ron Paul supporters – and told them in no uncertain terms to piss off. Instead of welcoming them to the fold (albeit with some disagreements on policy that would have to be worked out over time), they doubled-down on the party of the old white man.
How’s that working out?
Here’s another fact that converts the young from D to R when they start working: 75% of federal spending (over $2.7 Trillion of the $3.6 Trillion or so spent last year) is pure redistribution.
The breakdown is, roughly: $1.7 Trillion for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and $1 Trillion for the other 84 federal welfare programs. This doesn’t include state spending on Medicaid or state level welfare programs.
For a young working adult, the taxes you pay fund all of these programs. You receive benefits from none of them. Most people that are silly enough to have a job NEVER qualify for any of these programs with the exceptions of Social Security (for which you eventually get back about 75 cents on each dollar you pay in) and Medicare.
Explain to a kid looking at his first paycheck that 75% of the outrageous % of money the government is taking out of his paycheck, before he ever lays hands on it, is simply going to be handed over to someone else – someone who never lifted a finger to earn it.
But how many of those kids will have an actual tax liability in the first 5-10 years if their careers?
Well, I did. If you’re making $12 an hour, working 40+ hours a week, you’re paying federal taxes.
I’m either one of the youngest Boomers or one of the oldest GenXers. The summer I was 15, I detasseled corn all summer long, 12 hour days (5 AM-5:30 PM, half hour for lunch). I got one check at the end of the summer; no federal or state taxes were taken out, but quite a large chunk for social security. It was already being pointed out back ca 1980 that we wouldn’t be getting jack squat for SS, so it was pretty clear to me that I was being subjected to a Youth Tax. It sucked, more than getting sliced up by the edges of wet corn leaves. And that was my introduction to fiscal conservatism.
I’m only about a year older than you, and remember being told I would never collect social security.
That’s probably a safe bet.
I also remember my own first paycheck – and it sucked to see how much was taken out of it in various withholdings. Quite an eye opener…
Anyway, the other thing you mentioned is that whole “boomer” label. Never felt I had anything in common with them, and the cultural influences they claim are things I have no connection to.
I mean, I’m lumped in with Bill Clinton??? He was shaking hands as a teenager with John Kennedy – who died before I was even born.
If there are enough Jonathan Chaits around hammering away at the same points, foolish or no, they can win whatever it is they set out to win. Not that I want this to be so, but it certainly seems to be the case, as evidenced by 06 November’s outcome.
Speaking as a Jewish male, one who in political/worldview terms self-identifies as Reaganite/Beginite, I get personally quite embarrassed by all the Jonathan Chaits of this country — not just by their collective (and collectivist) viewpoint, but also by their wholly situational ethics and meanspirited dispositions (indeed, their dehumanizing tendencies).
But again, the fact is they are hugely numerous — and I specifically mean *Jewish*, or Jewishly-affiliated, writers who identify in their lives first and foremost with ceaselessly advancing the leftist agenda. And they themselves are either relatively young or know how to cultivate young surrogates. And the end-result of their labors (or their work in progress) is an ambient cultural/linguistic American life that horrifically disadvantages the GOP.
Both Greg Gutfeld and Ace of Spades nail this whole issue (and Mark Steyn is pretty much on the same page as well, even if he’s not focused too much on the generational element).
I mean, suppose that 70 percent of American Jews age 18-45 voted Obama — it wouldn’t surprise me if 20 percent of them were in “professions” (I use the term loosely) that have a potentially wide-ranging “cultural” impact within the US, including journalism of varying sorts. Now imagine that 80 percent of them learned to think like Jacques Derrida by the end of elementary school, and additionally to think like Herbert Marcuse by the end of middle school.
And now you get a sense of the challenge: adulthood, moneymaking, responsibility as we thought we knew it — none of these matter nor do they render any of the ingrained leftism the least bit susceptible to amelioration. If the GOP doesn’t get into the daycare business, especially targeting the affluent Jewish demographic, it only has itself to blame.
(Yes, I say that tongue-in-cheek, but the challenge is not unlike what I describe.)
So let me get this straight…a familiarity with modern decontructionism (Derrida) and existential thought(Marcuse) is something to be derided with disdain. wow. Don’t read a book. Just read the NY Post everyday, I guess. You morons will just have to keep wondering while counting the lint from your belly buttons as your world crumbles around you.
@Joe The word you are looking for is “moron”. Imbecile.
Unless, that is, you were comparing the author to Congressman Moran…
I assumed it was a dig at PJ blogger Rick Moran.
Oops, didn’t notice that this column IS by Moran.
>.>
“…Until more reasonable, pragmatic voices begin to be heard in the GOP…”
as I read that, I thought of Sen. Tom Coburn.
Like magic, there he was on Fox! The counter to Reid and Durbin.
You have no idea how much the GOP needs to change their image. The millenials only know Bush43, the 2008 financial meltdown, and hyperpartisanship in DC, greatly enabled by the absence of leadership of what remains of the Democratic Party.
I am 60. Well educated, but I thought the Dems had finally transitioned to welcoming fiscal conservatives in the 1990′s, as so many of us were horrified by the twin deficits (trade and federal) of the 1980′s after the stressors of the 1970′s.
anyway, thanks for providing a place to escape the Chaits (his acolytes still control TNR) who can not bring themselves to listen to those of us trying to explain that there view of liberalism is not sustainable. Criticize ACA? you become a rightwingnut at TNR.
I add that RedState is a more polite, but just as closeminded, when one challenges their “conservatism”.
When we watch the Black Friday crowds stampeding into stores for minor discounts we have a glance at the entitlement generation. They pushed credit card debt up 6+B for liabilities, worthless stuff of instant gratification, nosh mob chaos,and an animal delight in the suspension of human dignity.
This is the youth vote with the 3 second attention span, who text without the rules of grammar,who feed on computer generated graphics, and want to legalize everything. There are the future pillars of our society. Their education system has been the mass media with TV commercials, gansta rap, zombie murders, and plugged into the skull electronics. Their hardships have been smoothed over by 2 generations of saftey and mood pills.
All hope is not lost for there is is the other half of the 47% who can still access the American dream without the drawdowns of the mob.
I don’t think it’s the GOP base that is the problem. The media and the Democrats have spent years re-framing the debate and portraying government as a benevolent daddy figure who has to legislate every little aspect of your life and if you don’t have the government stamp of approval then you’re being discriminated against. For example, gay marriage. Legal protection in the form of civil unions wasn’t enough. Now my not caring what you call your legal union is an act of discrimination. Not wanting to pay for your abortion is now denying you your choice. Voting for Obamacare, a giant bureaucracy that literally gives your health care choices to an unelected bureaucrat to make, is celebrated by the very people who claim they don’t need a politician making their health care choices for them. The Dems won a slick marketing campaign that labeled up down and down, up. The GOP establishment better get it together, start acting like professionals and stop letting everyone else define their position and their party. They don’t need to be liked, they need to win.
“dominated by hyperpartisan ideologue”
Yes both sides are in fierce disagreement with eachother as well they should. I’d fiercly disagree with you driving a car off a cliff if we were both in it.
“anti-government activists”
Were this any other site I’d wonder if you ever listened to what has been said by Conservatives…but you have been exposed to the ideas we have. You have no excuse for not knowing the difference between limited government and anti-government.
“and Christian zealots at war with modernity”
What is modern is open to interpretation and is very sharply defined depending on who you speak to.
Am I at war with modernity? Depends. I of course am greatly troubled that at my age (24) most men have gotten a woman pregnant, has had an STD, and has experimented with controlled substances.
I am bothered by this idea that asking a question is grounds for character attacks and insults.
I am bothered when I see someone in college struggling to read books.
I am greatly troubled by this attitude that the religious right should just go into the closet and hide till voting day like a dirty secret.
That is modernity to me and you can keep it. From where I’m standing it itches, burns, and comes at the cost of being able to use my head for something more than a hat rack.
Actually, the getting a woman pregnant part is fine and normal. The problem is that these days the woman in question probably isn’t his wife, nor is he going to marry her and raise the child with her.
Yeah you’re right. Kinda loused that one up. Was kinda rage posting. :/
Mr. Moran, the Catholic Church is nearly 2000 years old and does not change. We are stable and preserve Truth throughout the ages. If modernity means rejection of Truth, we are rightly at war with it.
Except for the age of the universe, Earth’s place in it, the origin and history of life, the acceptability of eating meat on Fridays, how many days are in a year, when your savior was executed, and the proper role in society for women and non-Catholics. The Catholic Church is to stability what Michael Moore is to a balanced diet.
Look, we all have religious beliefs, things that we know without any evidence. And, to the extent that they cause no harm to me and mine, I have no problem with whatever you want to believe. The problem is that your idiotic insistence that a few dozen cells are a child, or that you know what is going on in the mind and heart of a homosexual, are causing significant numbers of people to vote for politicians who are some combination of destructive and brain damaged. You and your ilk have slipped a pole with the electorate. You can fight it, and just cause more damage, or you can realign and start exerting effective force in the “right” direction.
DNA is on our side, not yours in that insistence “a few dozen cells are a child”.
The DNA in a tumor is undeniably human. Do you want to make a case that they are children as well? DNA is irrelevant to the abortion debate.
As an orthodox Lutheran, I could agree with your intro, Jeff. But I won’t get into Roman Catholicism’s human nature/greed/power impulses that have caused its foundation to shift like sand over the years. It is a function of human nature, not God nature.
What I must rebut is your ridiculous comparison of a human embryo to a tumor just based on the numbers of its cells. Time is the dimension that ultimately defines a thing. Just because you can’t see the difference between and embryo and a tumor doesn’t mean there is no difference. And, by your admission, you are blind to that difference, iow, lacking insight/depth.
It is interesting, in that context, that this article and comments pivot around the short-term perceptual paradigm of youth (or prolonged youth).
Moreover the pro-abortion zealots (there is that word again, too) of which President Obama is demonstrably one based on his legislative record, does not exclusively involve the embryo. But you must know that unless you are also unaware of the difference between an embryo, a fetus or an unborn child capable of life outside the womb.
To the pro-abortion zealots, like President Obama, there should be no distinction.
“…a few dozen cells are a child…”. What about a few million? Exactly, when does one become a human? I sure would like to know.
I will leave to the Catholics to defend themselves but the Catholic Church has been at the forefront in warning the western world about the culture of death. The death cult has infiltrated all aspects of society and it’s effects are apparent to anyone that cares to look.
You and I may agree about many things but I cannot see how this society can be repaired if we continue the termination of millions of inconvenient people on so casual a basis. Those religious folk of the western tradition see humanity as a part of God’s plan, the left sees them as units of production. How do you view humanity; when does a human become human? Does a human have any value apart from what he contributes to your idea of society?
When does a human become human? I don’t know. Sometime after conception and before birth. Biology really isn’t a big fan of clear dividing lines, unlike the Law. If I were dictating abortion policy it would be no restrictions in the first trimester, moderately restricted in the second, and the only way you’re getting a third trimester abortion is if the mothers life is endangered.
But this isn’t about my ideas on abortion policy, it’s about what the body politic will accept, and this last election has shown that the minimum acceptable position for a politician is “rape, incest, or life of the mother.” Anything else repels enough people to make that politician a loser. We cannot afford to associate with losers, noble or otherwise.
Jeff, I’m afraid you’ve been suckered by the LSM on Catholic Church teachings. You don’t appear to have the knowledge to discuss this topic well.
The original legislation did not (and still has not) answered that question effectivly.
The passing of Roe V Wade had zip to do with any scientific conclusions being uncovered.
The fact that even now FOURTY YEARS after it’s passing it is still contested and still gets people into office (and at times ignoring party lines) is solid proof that what you are selling as a negative is not so.
Also, Jeff, sorry to pile on, but I could not help but notice your capitalization of the word “law”. The only proper context for capitalizing “Law” is when referring to God’s Law. Such as the Old Testament, Ten Commandments, etc.
Clearly, you are not referring to the Law of God but rather the law of man, right?
You might check into a church that preaches the Gospel and it’s relationship to Law. Law and Gospel. It might be a saving eye-opener for you.
I hope that you do.
Whatever happened to the idea that some things are best kept in the privacy of one’s home? Now, I understand that it makes people uncomfortable to realize that it takes some basic morals to be able to govern oneself enough to keep ones vices strictly private rather than foisting them off on society as a whole, but if you can’t govern yourself, then what you makes you think that society composed of such individuals as yourself will also be able to govern itself?
A society of free men must also be a society of moral men. It has nothing to do with people not wanting you to indulge in every whim you have and everything to do with you being able to govern yourself rather than needing others to govern you for the good/safety of society as a whole.
Harris, your analogy is more apt than you realize. Of course the children will always vote for Santa Claus, just as the bad kids will always vote for weak baby-sitter who lets them do whatever they want. Children will never vote for discipline, morality, self-sacrifice or the good of society, much less understand it. Adolescents worship at the altar of instant self-gratification. We now have several generations of “Adult-o-lescents” who still believe in free lunch.
Wankers in other words. We are governed by a generation of wankers.
They’re doomed because they foolishly let the liberals take control of education. Once liberals got into the colleges, they filled them with their own kind, especially in the liberal arts and teaching colleges. Generations of liberals were thus churned out, particularly those coming back into teaching. They spread the contagion of dumbed down education and liberal ideology to following generations and with each generation it was refined and distilled.
Now most government school graduates are functionally illiterate and innumerate with no historic or economic knowledge, at least none realistic. So they are perfect fodder for the Democrats. I also don’t think finding out about FICA, insurance and having a family changes things much. Instead, they have been taught to look to government for free stuff.
If all of those things actually did make people Conservative then Republicans would be shoo-ins.
I’ve heard this before, and while I used to buy it, a recent National Review editorial on “tone” leads me to reject it. There will always be a cacophony of voices, many properly articulating liberty, some botching the message. It will always be impossible to silence everyone else, and I don’t think that advisable (on basic principle). Democrats are not held accountable for the socialist rantings of a great many. That the playing field is imbalanced is a given, and while efforts at Breitbart will help to even it out, it will not change overnight. Instead, committed messaging must be able to drive the key points of Conservative values, and demonstrate their utility, regardless of what anyone says about them.
“……But something happens to many youngsters when they hit their 20s, get married, have a kid or two, and discover the real world — the world of mortgages, and bills, and saving for college, and scrimping and saving for that vacation every year……..”
ah…… there’s the problem. A lot of people just don’t do that………
Exactly. A Millennial’s definition of Responsibility is as thus :
“Not getting married IS responsible! I’m not willing to give up casual sex and marijuana!”
That’s a great point, lzzrdgrrl… the problem is that most of the Millenials aren’t getting paychecks. They are getting allowances, or government checks, or cash under the table — none of which have taxes deducted. I too am familiar with Churchill’s quote, but we are seeing a generation, the Baby Boomers, who have successfully gone their entire lives dodging the consequences of their decisions, and most of them will die as the same kind of leftists that they were in their 20s. (It’s worth noting here that Churchill was promptly voted out of office in Britain as soon as WWII was over.)
The last generation to face the paycheck shock was Gen X, which was always a more conservative generation than the ones either before it or after it. But there were never enough X’ers to make a diffference. The Silent Generation, the last American generation to know real hardship, was in league with GenX, but they are dying off now, and American politics will swing permanantly to the Boomer-Millennial axis. These two together will milk GenX for its last dime, but that last dime has almost been reached now.
I realize this is all an over-simplification — I know X’ers who consistently vote leftist, and I know Millennials who are more conservative than I am. But in concerning the average behavior of large groups, Skinner rules. Voting for free stuff gets rewarded, at least in the short term, and voting for fiscal and cultural responsibility gets you called a racist sexist homophobe. X’ers have been insulted all their lives so they don’t care, but being in with the kewl kidz is very important for the Millennials, and very few of them will be willing to face the consequences of going against the groupthink. Because, as someone up-thread said, children will always vote for Santa Claus.
As a culture we are consuming our seed corn. When today’s young people realize this they may swing past conservative into reactionary territory. Periods of moral laxity often give birth to a new found appreciation of Puritanism. Queen Victoria, a name synonymous with sexual repression, had 11 aunts and uncles who survived childhood and as many as 56 bastard first cousins on her father’s side of the family and only three surviving legitimate ones! Such were the norms of the upper class during the Regency period.
Baby Boomers never grew-up, kept their Gen X kids from growing up (against those kids’ disgust and resentment) and now the current young crowd has no friggin’ idea that it should.
View from an outsider: Interesting article and it does refer to demography, at least in so far as the “young” are concerned. But I do find the “young” at least as much a euphemism as “youths” in France. In this way the careful parsing of words to stay on the right side of politics also causes the author to miss the point.
It is not so much that the “young” that support Obama. The real driver for the permanent Democratic demography crystallizing in the USA is the changing demography of the “young”. The “old” are overwhelmingly white, the “young” not so much. Ignoring this, and not noticing the incredible speed at which this turnover is occurring, is to miss the point.
Of course, the solution proposed is even more of the same — this is rather incredible, but perhaps inevitable. After all, even if all migration is halted (impossible), then just the demographic momentum of the already born is enough to cement a Democratic majority that can last a generation, at the very least.
I can already project future presidential elections, if you care. As Mark Steyn observed elsewhere, you only have to do some counting as Bob Beckle did on election night: Obama will win if the white vote is below 73% of the total. You can do this trick next time again, and with high likelihood, the white vote will decline as another cohort of “young” will have reached voting age and another cluster of octogenarians who voted for immigration reform some 50 years ago depart for better places…
When I was in High School (Years ago)
I overheard some friends. (They were Spanish)
They were talking about the local Coca Cola bottling plant
They said there was one white guy that worked there. They wanted to get fired (Everyone else that worked there was white)
I asked why did they want to get him fired ? Was he a bad worker ?
What was it?
They said it was nothing personal. It was just because he was white.
And that people who were Spanish would get him fired just on general principals, so a Spanish worker could replace him.
Then they asked me a question
Don’t white people do the same thing?
They were surprised when I said no, we don’t.
Minorities, did not vote for Obama because of any policies he does or does not do
They voted because of his skin color
And
they thought whites would do the same for Romney
They are puzzled, because they did not
This is a generational swing. A look at the history of this country finds that the same party has generally won seven of nine (or ten) presidential elections. The GOP had almost complete control after the Civil War. Beginning with FDR in 1932, the Dems won seven of nine election, fueled by the Great Depression and WWII. Then with Nixon in 1968, the GOP won seven of ten elections, most of them during the Cold War. I fear we may be in a Democratic era. Will the nation survive? Time will tell.
To: Generation Loser
From Generation Boomer
Subject: You lose!
You bought it. Don’t know what you saw in it, but you bought it, hook, line, and sinker. When this thing really, really blows up, I’m going to be dead. And you’re going to be S.O.L. And I’m going to be laughing my butt off at you idiots from the beyond. You could have had America, the land that other people dream of, but you traded it for what was behind door #3. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is behind door #3. When you keep growing everything without the expectation of bounds, what you always get is bounds. What can’t go on, won’t go on. It’s going to go kersplat in your faces. And I’ll enjoy watching it happen to you, because you asked for it.
I’ll get my social security, and my medicare, and then I’ll die. And you suckers are going to get stuck with the bill. We could have done this the smart way, but no, you have to be clever. Well, suck it up, when I’m gone and you’re stuck holding the bag, because you asked for it.
Eat my shorts. Every last one of you. I’m going to a better place, and you’re going to inherit 100% pure unadulterated suck. When you’re hungry and cold because you decided to shut down the energy industry, suck an egg. You asked for it. I’ll be doing fine, and you’ll be in a world of suck.
Losers.
I don’t think this kind of attitude is exactly what God defines as “heavenly.” Just sayin’.
Did he mention G-d or a religious affiliation?
Why are you?
“The Beyond” and a “better place” in the OP’s comment = the afterlife. He thinks he’ll be gloating down upon the younger generations from Heaven, with precisely the same kind of condescending attitudes that I’ve always understood as being un-heavenly.
I see the problem differently than the people here.
I think that whenever the Republicans have had a rational, defensible, reasonable criticism such as the need for welfare reform, or the need for lower (though not lowest possible) taxes, the Democrats have scrambled to accept some moderate version of it so that they can compete for center-right voters.
This hasn’t lead to greater cooperation, it hasn’t lead to a merging of the parties, it has led the Republicans to drop their reasonable stances, adopt the insanity of the Birchers and Randians and start scuttling their party and their brand.
The Republicans want to be distinct from the Democrats, to have power and not share it SO BADLY that you’re busy committing suicide.
And as long as you’re doing that, what happens isn’t that people become Republicans as they grow older, but rather that they drag the Democrats further to the right.
So basically, all national politics are going to end up as the current interpretations of gun rights/2nd amendment? That would be really nice. Don’t think it’s actually happening, though…
The problem with that theory is, the Democrats have turned very sharply left since Clinton’s time. Clinton himself, with a couple of exceptions, had no particular love of centrism; it was simply what he had to do to get re-elected in 1996. Since then the Demos have nominated enviro-wacko Al Gore, military deserter John Kerry, and Weatherman wannabe Barack Obama. I fail to see any center-right policies there.
Whenever the Dems have offered to compromise, it has always been a trick, and centrists keep falling for it over and over. They almost seem to take delight in how predictably the Democrats and the mainstream media consistently fool them, as if they were watching some kind of magic act. The latest such trick was sequestration, which Republicans foolishly voted for; now what will happen is that defense will be slashed while entitlement spending will continue to grow.
That’s why my contention that there is no centrist vote, in any significant numbers. Most of the people who proclaim themselves “centrist” vote left without giving the matter serious thought, and so as a practical matter there’s no difference between them and the hard-left Democratic base.
Oldies are probably at their highest proportion of the population now than at any time past or future. The natural self-interested thing for them to do is vote Dem, cash out and ‘apres-moi le deluge’. It’s a miserable short sighted strategy, but when were the narcissicistic boomers anything else. It’s called SKI-ing.
It’s just a bit sad that there are so many youngsters duped into supporting this strategy.
It’s easy to understand why the Republicans lost this election. Just look at the attitudes displayed throughout the right-wing commentosphere.
According to the GOP’s base, anyone who shows the least bit of concern for rising economic inequality is automatically a radical Marxist communist. Anyone who believes in gay equality or access to contraception has “no respect for our Christian nation.” Anyone who supports using tax and regulatory policy to curb fossil-fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is somehow a tyrannical and despotic “enemy of freedom.” And, MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, anyone whose moral or political calculus is two centimeters to the left of Rush Limbaugh or Grover Norquist is a delusional crybaby who’s completely out of touch with the “real world.”
Guess what, conservatives? The American voters, especially the young, find your attitudes to be hypocritical, judgmental, arrogant and condescending. And they responded by punishing you in this election.
Statistically, most youths in America are not well acquainted with the issues of the day. That is why the Republicans lost. Lost, I might add, by a slimmer majority than in 2008. Please do not assume that two elections are indicative of a permanent schematic shift, lest you forget that Bush, Jr. also won two consecutive elections.
Excellent takedown! Those strawmen surely won’t be getting back up after the thrashing you just gave them.
Karl – Well, of course there is inequality because the media tells me so right? Is it really rising? The standard economic measurement of inequality (gini coefficient) hasn’t really changed, so I doubt that is true. Romney especially had difficulty making his point. And yes, it isn’t about access to contraception it’s about the government (ie. me) paying for it. Why? And for gay “equality”, in which you really mean a government definition of marriage, I agree, get the government out of the marriage business. So you are left arguing for what? Taxpayer sponsored condoms and birth control pills? That’s an ideology? Oh I forgot, global warming… tax, regulatory and budget policy are being used to push an ideology. It is a thin edge of a wedge to insert the government into our lives. Fact is, CO2 is not a strong greenhouse gas, in fact H20 is a much stronger GHG, so ask yourself (if you are honest) why the focus on C02? Why aren’t we focusing on water emissions? And if it’s such a crisis, why is Mr. Internet still not acting like it? Even the UN admits that the globe is not getting warmer over the last 15 years. It’s a policy in search of a real problem. We have much better ways to spend our time, how about things like making sure there’s cheap energy and cheap food?
You think most voters are in the recesses of the conservative blogosphere?
I’m getting really sick of people trying to gag the “extremists”, like if we were just a little nicer the people who oppose us would suddenly agree with us. If you believe that I’ve got a Mullah who would be happy to smile and shake your hand while hiding the knife to stab you when your back it turned. Here I thought we were the party that DOESN’T live in lala land.
“access to contraception ”
Right, because there is no “access” unless someone else can be compelled to pay for it. Right?
Hey, isn’t paying for the pill cheaper than paying for TANF? Or is anyone who wants to have sex but can’t afford to pay for the pill out-of-pocket a “slut”?
Never trust anyone under thirty.
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/works both ways
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/That’s not “wet” behind the ears. It’s snot.
I might add that when millions of young adults are entering the worst overall job market in over a generation – and an economic climate where soaring inequality at the top has left rank-and-file workers in the dust – don’t be surprised if they start voting en masse for continued food stamp benefits and want to pay for it with tax hikes on the rich. Especially when so many job openings nowadays are part-time and pay just barely above minimum wage.
“Jonathan Chait doomed to continue making a fool of himself?”
Several years ago TNR’s obsession with Bush’s impending fascist tyranny compelled me to terminate my subscription of decades’ standing. I wrote them a heartfelt letter explaining that I was forced to take this action by the irresponsible rhetoric, especially Chait’s. I urged them to put him into psychological counseling because he was clearly deranged and he was jeopardizing the reputation of the magazine. Apparently he hasn’t gotten it yet. The man’s a complete loon.
Wow, conservatives are still in the fact-free cocoon, amazing. In fact, the party a person votes for when they’re young is almost always they way they will also vote when they are middle-aged and elderly. Ronald Reagan, for example, won the youth vote in 1980 and those voters are todays dying breed of geezers who still vote Republican. Earth to Angry Old White Folks: voters under age 45 strongly supported Obama, voters aged 18-29 supported Democrats by a 2-1 margin, and those few younger voters who did choose Romney are mostly in the South (and Utah.)
As a Democrat, I sincerely hope the GOP keeps screaming about gays, insulting Latinos, scaring women, opposing college loans while giving billions to corporate interests. Yep, just keep all that up, while staying in you PJMedia cocoons.
Of course Mr Alex M, you can hope all you like for continued conservatism amongst conservatives. That is like hoping for sand on the beach.
But that is not the interesting point. Instead, what is really interesting is your belief (really proposal) that liberal values are universal.
You really propose that the current alliance between the rich white Left and the new demography of the poor “young” will be liberal (because liberalism, according to you, is universal).
You are of course wrong. Liberalism is not a universal ideology. Eventually the demography will change so much that liberals can be ejected from the dominating alliance, at which point the new demography will develop its own ideology. That ideology will not be liberal.
Events can change worldviews instantly.
Just wait until U6 is over 20%, we have a failed debt auction, we default, the dollar collapses, Iran gets the Bomb, and there’s a regional war in the Middle East…
First of all you’re a racist and a hypocrite. The obvious delight you take in dismissing people who don’t fit your preferred demographics is truly sickening to behold.
But besides that you’re a liar (or you only get your news from the NY Times). Republicans and Conservatives weren’t screaming about gays and latinos… YOU were. Republicans tried to make this election about fiscal sanity, economic stewardship and foreign policy competence. Knowing that all three of those topics are complete losers for Obama YOUR SIDE was the one bringing up irrelevancies at every opportunity in a desperate attempt to change the subject.
Well, your desperate attempt worked. Your guy won the election. Unfortunately your sort are every bit as petty and vicious in victory as you were in defeat, possibly even more so. I just hope our side remembers this when things shift again…as they always do.
In their current forms the Democrats and Republicans are BOTH doomed.
Math always wins. It’s an utterly implacable foe, and both parties are on the wrong side of it. The Republicans slightly less so than the Democrats, but not enough to matter.
Stupid in America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw&feature=related
Okay, you’re actually taking the generation gap even a little bit seriously? You give the caveat that they won’t stick to their liberal ways while saying we need to reform to attract them? This “generation gap” has nearly always been a factor in modern election and, lo and behold, sometimes Republicans still win. Excuse me if I fail to be concerned with the voting patterns of children.
JLanceCombs – I didn’t know children could vote in this country! When did we lower the voting age a second time, and why didn’t I hear about it?
Has anyone else noticed the correlation (worldwide) between liberals winning elections and the trends to get married later and later?
I have been asking the retorical question lately: If/when the higher education bubble pops will we start seeing a shift in voting behavior? My thinking is similar to the points made here. A 20 year old with a job is more likely to be conservative than a 20 year old at college. He is also likely to mature in his life faster (get married, have kids, etc) which is likely to change his political thinking sooner.
I see some cultural trends that are promising, I just hope they aren’t overpowered by inertia of the trends they are replacing.
Spot on article. Especially the part about the first paycheck….I said exactly the same words. I thought I was “rich” until I saw what I netted.
If the GOP is not doomed long term, it will because people will notice their checks continuing to shrink, with no benefit to them (and at the same time, see other non-productive types getting the freebies and openly flaunting it)and will finally decide this isn’t the route to go. As my dad used to say, “People vote their pocketbook”. When some of these liberals/younger folks finally feel the pain, without any gain, they will understand the enormity of the issue. Whether they flip to be more conservative, because of it, is up for grabs. I think you’ll see alot more change in the voting only when the new limit defining “taxing the wealthy” hits at 50,000 or 60,000 dollars a year (this isn’t unrealistic, based on the continued loss of high paying jobs in this country. Of course, by then, it may be too late for them and the country.
If only this article were true … but I’m not so sure. I know a lot of very successful, very well educated, older individuals who are bluer-than-blue Democrats. In fact, virtually everyone I know is a Democrat, except the working poor and working middle class.
The Republican brand is damaged. Not completely, but damaged. The Democrats have brilliantly created and exploited wedge issues — politicizing the weather, politicizing the definition of marriage (which everyone agreed with only 12 years ago), and politicizing feminist issues like abortion-on-demand. They even made it seem mean-spirited to oppose illegal immigration. I have heard numerous people say that any land that Mexico used to hold, Mexicans can move into. I have heard Latinos, educated and seemingly reasonable ones, basically say, “It’s our land, anyway.” Not reconquistas — just ordinary folks.
The Democrats have also brilliantly exploited race — creating to some extent identities based on race, class, gender, religion and sexual orientation. People literally think of themselves and say, “As a white man …” or, “As a single white woman …” Years of propagandizing on this issue has changed how people think of themselves, not so much as Americans with equal protection under the law, but as a collection of demographic characteristics.
African-Americans identify strongly as Democrats — almost without exception. So do urban and suburban elites.
The GOP has a problem. Mainstream Protestant churches, cognitive urban and suburban elites, the education system, the mainstream media and Hollywood all identify strongly as progressive. For the GOP to make its point, it needs to reframe the discussion entirely. But the public discussion is entirely on Democratic terms. Reframing the discussion will involve these powerful groups practically giving up their identities — not gonna happen by the GOP. It practically requires a conversion experience.
The only answer is to draw pre-existing conservative values out of the Democrats themselves. Many have strongly conservative lifestyles. That’s our opening.
If the GOP is doomed they did it to themselves by being gutless traitors to the Party’s conservative base.
I would say that if the GOP is doomed it’s because of guys like you.
The party can only sell what a majority of people want, and bitter old conservatives have set themselves against the majority of America. That’s your own failing.
I enthusiastically second Joshua Scholar’s observation. The GOP lost because of right-wing obnoxiety, not because they betrayed the base by “not being conservative enough.” The GOP lost for being too right-wing, and the only way the GOP can win future elections is by moving back toward the center.
Mr. Moran’s Churchill quote only shows Churchill in a bad light. Perhaps he had too much champagne or scotch to drink when he said it. Liberals are as degenerate at the tender age of 20 as they might be at 40. To be young and liberal is no excuse to be bad and points to bad parentage.
As for today’s tattooed, spiked and earringed youth of today, please give informed advice when you get a job, move out of mommy and daddy’s house, get married, make a mortgage payment and raise children. Until then, shut up. Learn and work instead of twittering and ipodding. Take remdial writing classes. Read about Western Civilization, American history and the root of both, Christianity. Stop watching TV and throw away your little gadgets. Grow up.
As for Mr. Moran’s desire for modernity and contempt for social conservatives and Christianity, if modernity means scrapping civilization and supporting the current narcissistic life which includes 40 % illegitmacy rates, 50 % divorce rates, one million abortion a year and a culture of vulgarity, count me out. As it is, the slow-motion collapse of America is upon us and the two-party elite is dry-rotting. Unless America’s kiddies like the idea of wallowing in bankruptcy and poverty, they will have to change their immature attitudes.
Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve chosen Paganism as my “higher power” and have no interest in converting to Christianity.
And the only “immature attitudes” here are the arrogant and condescending ones trumpeted by the hard right.
I encourage you to keep whining incessantly about tattoos, fornication, Obamacare, climate science, the younger generations and the decline of “traditional” Christianity. The more you keep up the reactionary diatribes, the quicker your own viewpoints will get marginalized, and the rest of us can go to work (yes, WORK) building a better 21st-century Renaissance America.
Enjoy national bankruptcy, Mr. Bonner.
First off Churchill never said that if you had done any research you might have known that but Chait is right. When you have in the last decade 15 million new Hispanic voters, 4.5 million new Asian voters, 4.2 million new black voters and only 2.5 million new white voters and you only appeal to elderly and dying whites then I believe even you can do the math. Those numbers will only get wider every decade and unless the Republicans stop appealing to the white Southern bigots and religious freaks then they will not be winning to many elections on the National level.
Winston Churchill has been quoted as saying, “Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.”
He would have been wise, indeed, if he had added, “And any man who is over 50 and is not a moderate, has no soul.”
Just to add as a postscript: Rick Moran might believe that “The transformation of the young from liberal to conservative begins when they get their first paycheck as teenagers,” but more realistically, that transformation actually begins when they bear the responsibility of parenthood. Most young people who are liberals don’t have kids — and the majority of them don’t become parents until they’re well into their 30s. Parenthood, not the paycheck, is the “great conservatizer.”