The Pew Research Center recently released a study of the opinions of Americans born after 1980, sometimes called the Millennial Generation. Two-thirds of them voted for Obama. This compares to about a 50 - 50 split of older voters. This is the greatest such voting difference between generations found in 40 years of polling. The Millennial Generation thinks much more highly of government as the solution to problems than do the older generations.
The Millennial Generation has less confidence that wars sometimes need to be fought than the older generations. They are also stronger supporters of individual sexuality rights and are more strongly in favor of immigration. On the former issue I believe them often naive, while on the latter two issues they are right. They have also been slowly catching on to Obama. While 32% more of them voted for Obama, now only 14% more would do so.
Interestingly, college educated Millennial Generation people are more skeptical of government. Apparently, the unrelenting effort of most of our colleges to indoctrinate students to become Progressive Elitists, is not as effective as I thought it was. Still, this Millennial Generation seems to need a lot of seasoning before they can be trusted. Maybe by 2012 their swing away from Obama and his politics of envy and leveling will be sufficiently complete that he will not get a majority of their votes in his attempt to win re-election.
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2 comments:
Dont you think the Republican party can blaim themselves for this? By keeping a "famliy values" stance on everything they are pushing supporters away faster than they figure out it is the lesser of two evils.
Thanks for your comment Jonathon.
You are right that the Republicans do have a strong faction, the conservative part, which has often exhibited a severe lack of tolerance toward individual lifestyles which do not accord well with some traditional Christian religious beliefs. While they may be tolerant of individualism commercially and scientifically, they are not tolerant of those who use drugs other than alcohol and tobacco and they are not tolerant of many aspects of sexuality. These shortcomings do hurt them with respect to young people and older libertarian-minded people such as myself.
But, these forms of intolerance are slowly dying out even among the conservatives. The Republicans also have a substantial libertarian arm. Roughly 30% of Americans are conservative and about 20% are libertarian. About 20% are progressives, and about 20% are populists. There are some 10% left near the middle of the spectrum who dither about generally in that area.
For a real individualist, there are awkward associations with either party. I usually choose the Republicans as the lesser of two evils and try to reform any awkward bigotry. The Democrats are also heavy on bigotry, but in their case it is looking down their noses at some minorities as being incapable of managing their own lives without the strong guidance of the leftist elitists and they dislike commercial activity and property. Strangely, they also have their own warped views on sexuality also. For instance, gays are good, but bisexuals do not really exist. And there are the strange views that oppressed minorities are good and all minorities who are not oppressed are oppressors.
We do need to help everyone learn the need for a respectful tolerance of ideas and a benevolent attitude toward those whose values differ from ours, but who very importantly do not use force to impose their will and values on us. A live and let live mentality is critical. Sadly, many people want to use government to impose their values on others.
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