Climate Lies Define A Shrinking GOP; Generational Split On Climate Worries Stronger Than Ever

[hatrack]

EDIT

As a June analysis by Brookings pointed out, “Trump owns a shrinking Republican party.” The authors explain that GOP party identification “took a sharp drop at the end of George W. Bush’s second term and never really recovered. The trend seems to have taken another drop after Trump’s election.”

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Not only has GOP party affiliation dropped sharply since the election, it appears to have dropped most sharply among millennials, who are the age group most concerned about global warming and its impacts. Based on interviews with more than 10,000 voters, the Pew Research Center reported in March that “increasing numbers of millennials identify with Democrats rather than Republican.”

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At the same time, Pew noted in a January report that “addressing global climate change is the only issue, among 19 included in the survey, which is viewed by significantly more people under 30 (56%) than those 65 and older (37%) as a top policy priority.”

If Trump is chasing moderates and millennials out of the GOP, then the remaining pool of Republicans will be more prone to climate denial. And under those circumstances, any survey on an issue like global warming will show an increase in political polarization, when much of it is simply a shift in partisan identification.

EDIT

https://thinkprogress.org/as-gop-shrinks-under-trump-partisan-divide-on-climate-grows-8075b4825ce4/

[mountain grammy]

1. If this translates to the 2018 midterms

We just might have some hope.