It’s been said many times that if the GOP doesn’t dump the religious freaks immediately, it will go out of existence in the matter of just a couple of decades. This is self-evident to everybody, except for the most extreme of the Republicans. And, I mean, good for us because this self-immolation is funny to observe.
Here are some excerpts from a really good article explaining how massively the Millennials are detesting the GOP. It isn’t like this needs any proof because anybody who has met a young person realizes that the anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-gay, anti-pot, anti-government, anti-immigrant agenda does not even remotely resonate with the younger generation of iPads, YouTube, Tumblr, and texting. Still, it’s always fun to kick somebody when they are down.
Republicans were already destined for piecemeal decimation due to the declining numbers of their core constituency. But they don’t just have a demographic problem anymore; they have stylistic one. The conservative strategy of outrage upon outrage upon outrage bumps up against the policy preferences and the attitudes of millennials in perfect discord.
The point about the stylistic problem of the Republicans is well-taken. The ugly, vociferating older people who roll their eyes and stick their tongues out, promising fire and brimstone visited on anybody who wants to have a good time are just not cool.
The GOP has long staked a claim on The Disappearing Angry White Man, but they have apparently ever-narrowing odds of getting a bite at millennials, who appear to be more like The Somewhat Concerned Multicultural Moderate.
“The Somewhat Concerned Multicultural Moderate” is probably the best description I’ve ever seen of the Millennials, and this is a very good way to be.
The Rupe-Reason poll teases out some of the thinking behind the surge of young people abandoning the GOP, and finds a generation that is less apt to take to the streets, Occupy-style, than to throw a great block party: lots of drugs, poker and gays! Millennials don’t want to change things, apparently – they want everyone to get along.
This is also spot-on. Even at the Occupy protests, younger people sat there with beatific smiles and posters asking for “compassion.” Which, again, is a very valid life choice that is enormously better than the apocalyptic worldview of the Gen Xers (my generation.) I’d take an “everything is fine, let’s just all get along” youngster over “the world is about to end, oh the endless drama of my blighted existence” of my peer any day of the week.
There is a single problem I’ve seen in the article that I need to point out. Observe the contradiction inherent in the following statements:
74% of millennials, according to Reason, want the government to guarantee food and housing to all Americans. . . this next generation is not just inclusive, but conflict-adverse.
Conflict-adverse people will not be able to make any money, so who will provide guaranteed food and housing for everybody? I don’t know if the article’s author is unaware of this glaring contradiction in her own piece or if she left the issue hanging on purpose. However, the issue remains.
The backlash that the Millennials are offering to the apocalyptically-minded previous generations who sought reasons to be miserable is a refusal to tolerate any unpleasantness whatsoever. If Boomers and Gen Xers avidly searched for misery, the younger generation wants absolutely no misery at all. I understand them because my own tragedy-courting generation is getting on my nerves, as well. But I hope that the Millennials have enough fight in them to kick the GOP out of the political arena to let somebody less dinosauric come in.
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How much of this can be explained by younger people generally being more open, less conservative and more optimistic than older people because they have more of their lives ahead of them?
As far as I’m concerned, national politics have been driven by some kind of apocalyptic conniption for the last thirteen years, and getting worse in the last five years, and I’m really really sick of it. A large part of this is amplified shit fits of older greedy people’s makings. The average person in the US was a little over 37 in 2010; and the average asshole in the Senate is about 62.
This is why there has been so many new and restrictive voter registration laws passed by the old hysterical assholes who dominate state legislatures. They don’t want young people and they don’t want non-white people coming out to vote.
Also taking to the streets old school style is of limited effectiveness when you’re relying on media outlets who get their eyeballs and their advertising dollars from senior citizens.
You’ve got to laugh at the zombie in the front yard
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“As far as I’m concerned, national politics have been driven by some kind of apocalyptic conniption for the last thirteen years, and getting worse in the last five years, and I’m really really sick of it. ”
– If you don’t like the apocalyptic hysteria of the Boomers, wait until Gen Xers take their place. Then we will know the true apocalypsis. 🙂 🙂
“Also taking to the streets old school style is of limited effectiveness when you’re relying on media outlets who get their eyeballs and their advertising dollars from senior citizens.”
– Yes, street protests are completely dead. Even if it seems like they have achieved something in Ukraine.
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What I really hate are those acpocalyptic proclaimers who demand that one should not vote because that will make everybody realize that you haven’t voted and they will repent of their sins and stop doing what they are doing.
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@shakti:
Your views on voting are misinformed. Passing voter ids laws have actually increased minority turnout. And as for voting fraud, apparently you have never lived in Chicago, or heard of Tammany Hall or the Pendergast machine.
Frankly, I don’t think that voting rights are restrictive enough. If I were in charge, the only people who could vote would be those who do not depend on the government for a paycheck (e.g. all bureaucrats, federal contractors, welfare recipients, emergency responders) excluding military personnel, and those who pay net positive federal taxes (in essence, those who have a private job / self-employed and pay into the system decide how their money is spent).
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” If I were in charge, the only people who could vote would be those who do not depend on the government for a paycheck (e.g. all bureaucrats, federal contractors, welfare recipients, emergency responders) excluding military personnel, and those who pay net positive federal taxes (in essence, those who have a private job / self-employed and pay into the system decide how their money is spent).”
– And the reason why you are not in charge of anything is clear from this statement. 🙂 🙂 Every single person in this country – or in any country – “depends on the government for a paycheck.” Do you realize that? 🙂 If there were no government, there would be no “paychecks.” Countries where governments collapse descend into carnage and forget all about “paychecks.”
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I don’t vote — I prefer buying my political voice by purchasing politicians in four packs.
The next time I’m in London, after enjoying the handmade mint humbugs offered in the lobby at Coutts, I’ll be sure to purchase one Tory, one Liberal, one Lib-Dem, and one Scottish Nationalist, the latter being just for sport. 🙂
Now if you’ll excuse me, the people to whom I repeated the phrase, “if I were in charge”, are now sneering at me and are insisting I correct myself.
Love and kisses,
Your man in the ruling class 🙂
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[sigh]
I just can’t call that one party “Labour”, mind you … they haven’t worked in years. 🙂
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“The GOP has long staked a claim on The Disappearing Angry White Man, but they have apparently ever-narrowing odds of getting a bite at millennials, who appear to be more like The Somewhat Concerned Multicultural Moderate.”
The problem is that millennials don’t vote. This is a very clear long term trend with some exceptions such as the 2008 general election. The current millenial voting rate is about 20% (20.2 for women, 19.8 for men) and the closest thing that I’ve seen to this opt out from the electoral process change is the secularization of Quebec in the sixties from the most religious province to the least.
“This is why there has been so many new and restrictive voter registration laws passed by the old hysterical assholes who dominate state legislatures. They don’t want young people and they don’t want non-white people coming out to vote.” – Shakti
You won’t find a graph on the future level of inequality anywhere on the Internet but I did a simple linear regression trend line on the inequality level in the US data for the last thirty years and by 2025-2030, all of the wealth will be owned by the top ten percent of the population and the bottom 90% will only have debts (r squared was 0.86 so a pretty good correlation). I don’t see an inflection point let alone an equilibrium point so barring massive civil disturbance this is what you’re going to get. This is where the surveillance state and the militarized police force keep the lid on the population. Since there is a really good correlation between poverty and criminalization in America, you’re going to get an effective disenfranchisement of the Hispanic and Afro-American plus uppity white millennial populations because in many states felons as well as prior felons can’t vote. Prisons are also placed in conservative, rural areas where the inmates’ numbers inflate the electoral power of the jurisdictions in spite of the fact that they can’t vote.
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I might be an Gen Xer, but I’m that rare one – probably the only one – who is not into apocalyptic scenarios. 🙂 “The bottom 90%” in the US live in a paradise. You’ve seen how people in other parts of the world live, right? ‘Inequality’ is meaningless as long as everybody gets their cheap, abundant food, their TVs, their cars, their smartphones, etc. People are happy, content but a little bored, so they invent scary stories to make their digestion go easier. The last thing anybody needs to worry about on this planet is the “inequality” in the rich countries.
The young people never vote. This is how it is in every country where voting is possible. But they will vote 10 years from now, and that’s when everything this article mentions will be crucial.
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Benjamin Franklin — ‘When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.’
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“Benjamin Franklin — ‘When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.’”
– Could you please offer the citation information for this quote. Thank you!
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Only because I like you: don’t waste any time on searching for the citation. You won’t find it.
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