How white millennials will (temporarily) rescue the GOP

[DonViejo]

How conservatives can still forestall their demographic decline

ALEX PAREENE

The Pew Research Institute last week released a report on the views and lives of American millennials — defined by Pew as adults born after 1980 — based on a new poll, and polling of all American generational groups dating back decades. Basically, here is your emerging Democratic majority, mostly emerged. The youth are to the left of older generations on almost every major issue. They are more likely than older voters to identify as liberals. Many still identify as independents, but the Republican Party has almost no appeal to them.

America, in other words, is getting more diverse, and more liberal. That’s not great news for the Republicans, who these days win elections mainly in places and times when older, whiter people aren’t outnumbered by younger, more racially diverse people. Liberals, meanwhile, are getting almost gleeful about the near future, as these liberal younger voters are a rapidly growing portion of the electorate.

As Jonathan Chait argues, “The overall picture is an electorate that is growing steadily more liberal on both social and economic policy, and whose views Republicans will eventually have to accommodate.” By accommodate, he means “be less conservative.” The Republican Party will need to do that to survive. Most of the serious members of the party know that. But they are also asking themselves exactly how long they can hold out. It might be a bit longer than this report suggests.

There is still a strong attitude divide among millenials along racial lines. A majority of white millennials disapprove of Barack Obama, a majority of white millennials think government should be smaller and provide fewer services, a majority of white millennials think the government has no responsibility to provide health insurance for all (white millennials are even a tad more conservative on this one than the oldest, most conservative group in Pew’s report). On most of these issues, the white millennials are more liberal than older whites — and the millennial generation is less white than prior generations — but the racial divide that defines our politics stubbornly remains.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/03/10/how_white_millennials_will_temporarily_rescue_the_gop/

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. Yuck

This surprises me. Government smaller? Services fewer? Government has no responsibility to provide health insurance? I suppose that it's safe to say to say that, despite the fact that many young white millennials are more liberal than their older, some of their parents' views have rubbed off on them?

[Proud Public Servant]

2. I suppose it makes sense

Millennials -- adults born after 1980, per the article -- have basically had government telling them, their whole lives:

A secure retirement? Fuck you, we're busting unions and predicting the demise of social security.
An affordable education? Fuck you, we're shedding education grants and making a profit off your student loans.
Jobs? Fuck you, government can't create jobs, only private sector "job creators" can.
Mass transit? Fuck you, this is car country.

What a surprise that millennials may respond with "Government? Fuck that."

I think the irony here, though, is that they're still pretty liberal -- it's just that they don't look to government to bring about or secure that liberal vision. In that sense it hearkens back to the tradition of small-government liberalism represented 100 years ago by figures like Woodrow Wilson and Louis Brandeis.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. Plus

pretty much their whole life, they've heard Republicans beating everybody over the head with their "government is the problem, not the solution" mantra (except when it comes to fighting terrorism and wars but only when a Republican is in the WH) and, to the extent Democrats have tried to do stuff, the Republicans have obstructed them every inch of the way and/or made government severely dysfunctional to the point that it gets shut down, so what has the government done for them anyway, right? They've been around as services get cut- mostly by Republicans- and then cut some more. Come to think of it, the total number of years that Democrats have really had to do anything remotely progressive- the years where they held both the executive branch and both chambers in Congress- has been a whopping 4 years out of 33 and there has only been a Democrat in the WH for 14 (soon to be a total of 16 so far. I guess- when you take all that into consideration- it does makes more sense. Clearly, we have a lot to do to show these millenials that a strong activist government can and does play a positive role in improving people's lives.

[Chan790]

5. Bingo.

I miss being a millennial by their definition by 22 days and that's largely my experience.

Retirement? I've been told since HS that it is a certainty that my generation will have to work in some form until we die.

Affordable education? I'm luckier than most. I got a mostly-full ride and graduated with under $20K in debt, mostly linked to student loans for books and living expenses through 4 years of college. Of course...

Jobs? When I got out the other end, it was the start of the 1st "job-less recovery" which proceeded the economic collapse which proceeded the 2nd "job-less recovery". There hasn't been a hiring market since I graduated from college...in 2002! At this point, I'm beginning to support the notion of imposed retirement on people over 65. They didn't save? The Bush economy ate their retirements? Not my problem. 65 years old and 1 day...you're retiring. We'll carry your shit to your car for you.

Back to Affordable education...so yeah, even that small loan debt is crushing when you're perma-jobbed into fast food because the old fuckers refuse to accept that their working days are over for better or worse. The Inuits used to put their old people on ice floes and push off...it's becoming a more viable idea. Kill all the 80 year olds! (No, really...we need a governmental means to force people into retirement...economic seems best. A max age on initiation of Social Security benefits...if you don't take them by your 70th birthday, forfeit! Boost the payments to cover the losses in 401Ks. It'll be cheaper in the long run and do a bunch to encourage job-growth while tackling underemployment.)

Mass transit? I wish we as a nation would accept mass-transit. It's not my generation that believes in a "car country", it's my parents and grandparents that refuse to use public transit, oppose every public transit initiative and grouse whenever funds are earmarked for mass transit that could be spent on roads.

[Skip Intro]

10. Kicking the elderly to the curb is your answer?

Why don't you grow up and DO something rather than whine about how unfair life is for you?

[Chan790]

11. I didn't say life was unfair...

I am not apologetic though about being a partisan for my peers...and yes, the solution is generational warfare.

Fuck old people who can't do their jobs and refuse to retire. Their time is past and they're a burden. You don't want to know how many old people I know that can't do their fucking jobs anymore that we're forced to countenance in that because their bosses don't want to let them go because "they need this job." You know who else needs that job...someone still capable of doing it. They're taking up space and jobs they have no entitlement to.

Compelled retirement. It's the humane and socially-responsible choice.

[Indyfan53]

4. Speaking as a white millennial...

Fuck the GOP!

[Laelth]

6. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[blkmusclmachine]

7. ,

,

[Redfairen]

8. The GOP doesn't want to be rescued.

Anyone who talks to an old reactionary will quickly learn they have no interest in adapting to the views of the young. That's kinda the whole point for them. This piece is basically expecting some old dogs to learn new tricks. Haha. Reactionary control of the GOP will continue until enough of them die that they can no longer dominate by force of numbers.

[Doctor_J]

9. this only helps the dems if they court liberal voters

If they continue to move to the right, these voters will stay home.

[Jamaal510]

12. The GOP

is so laughably incompetent. They are like the Oakland Raiders of the two major parties. The answers to their problems are right in front of them: they could easily moderate their platform just a little bit, ditch the fundamentalist rhetoric, and maybe even jump on the drug issue to win a bunch of voters (back) to their side. I'm not one to normally give the GOP advice, but I strongly believe that they still can win if they just stick to a message of cutting taxes, and spare everyone of the bigoted rhetoric and regressive social policies. But no--it is apparently far better for them to be on the wrong side of everything, and to oppose everything. Do they even want to win a national election fair-and-square anymore?

[jumptheshadow]

13. And 40 years from now, their grandchildren will complain about their conservatism

Twenty-five years from now, they will demand that they lose their jobs.

Karma. It's funny like that.