Interesting article with interesting hypothesis.

Damn - it dropped!

Thanks TBR

According to a 2020 NBC news poll, only 29% of adults favor overturning Roe...

Overturning Roe is not a 48/52 ratio. Overturning Roe is a lot closer to 35-40%.

"Only thing wrong, Boomers built this country, young people want drugs legalized, free school, endless handouts from parents and Gov."

Actually, it seems you totally missed the point.

Were all Boomers pot smoking, free love, hippies? No, just the ones you heard about.

Are all women pro-abortion rights? Nope, not even all young women are... just the ones you hear from. When surveyed, there are only a couple % different between men and women... like 48% of men and 45% of women in favor of overturning Roe, of I recall off the top of my head.

It seems, just like Boomers when they were being portrayed as just a bunch of free-love, pot smoking, acid dropping hippies, the vast, vast majority of young people are hard working and conservative leaning. You just don't hear about them, and not many of them vote.

@Wayne

I have been saying something similar for decades.

If you ask anyone the following questions, you will get a near 100% agreement on all questions.

Do you want the government to have a military?

Do you want police to protect you?

Do you want clean air to breathe and clean water to drink?

Do you want a judicial system to try people for breaking the law?

Do you want roads for us to drive on?

Do you want an authoritarian government?

Now, I believe, we would all agree on our answers to these questions.

Where we differ is . . .

How big of a military. How to use the military. How the police are held in check. How we get clean air and water.

That is the nuance.

So if you want to say that is getting from point A to B - fine. That's arguing over nothing much.

I don't want the military to be used unless it is last resort. I don't want cops put on pedestals and be indemnified for breaking laws that everyone else has to adhere to. I don't want companies polluting my air and water.

Only thing wrong, Boomers built this country, young people want drugs legalized, free school, endless handouts from parents and Gov., easy work with fat paychecks....

"I thought you only dealt in fact..."

Which is why the thread is titled with "interesting hypothesis" instead of "well supported conclusion"

It serves to explain how Democrats were proven wrong that increasing turnout among the youth would result in victory for their side, and warrants further consideration.

You know, how reliable beliefs are formed... idea, test, conclude. This article was mostly idea, and suggested further look into.

<p>"<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">Those of us in those first two groups you mention can't even have a discussion because all of the noise is all the other groups yelling at each other."</span></p>

<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:open sans,sans-serif; font-size:14px">I'm mostly conservative. I'm guessing you are mostly liberal. I bet if we could sit down in person over our favorite drinks, we would agree on more than we disagree on. We probably would mostly only disagree on the way to get from point A to point B, but we would both agree on point B. I've found that the internet is a horrible place for people to try to agree on anything because it is impersonal and you have to deal with the "peanut gallery" if you are trying to discuss anything in a public area, such as this forum.</span></p>

"It didn't have any solid data, just anecdotal evidence on the voting patterns of the last 3 generations and shifts in vote result when the number of youth coting ebbs and flows."

So it was an opinion piece.

I thought you only dealt in fact...

"One thinks the opportunities are equal for everyone already, one thinks that the system needs correction to get there."

Almost. Those two groups, plus a couple more.

Some think of life as a game of monopoly where the goal is to get rich even though you know it will make everyone else poor, and don't care.

Some think the very idea of equality is an attack on the clear superiority of (insert their race here). Others think it is their group's turn to be the superiors.

Then there are those that want to be able to push their religion on others, or at least love their lives without anyone ever saying or doing anything that is in opposition to their religion.

Others don't want to work and really just want government to give them stuff.... I used to think this was a lie told by Republicans to demonize Dems, but I have actually met a lot of these peeps in my support of Dem causes. There is plenty of stuff in the stores, so why should I have to work to produce stuff?

Those of us in those first two groups you mention can't even have a discussion because all of the noise is all the other groups yelling at each other.

The problem that exists is labeling.

You can define a conservative or liberal based upon their policy beliefs. It can pretty much be broken down to both believes that each person can achieve whatever they want in life. One thinks the opportunities are equal for everyone already, one thinks that the system needs correction to get there.

Now, when you define a republican or a democrat. FUCK. In 3 generations, holy shit has that changed. In my lifetime, we had Nixon. Nixon would be a flaming liberal as called by republicans today. And Trump is right there with the Strom Thurmond dixiecrat. Strom changed parties because the Democrats were becoming 'liberal.' Hell, you can go back and this could technically be 3 generations, but Teddy Roosevelt ran on a socialistic platform! I think it was the 1912 or 1916 election where EVERY candidate ran on a socialist platform. It was just the degree of socialism.

So if you take the parties out, do people change from conservative beliefs or liberal beliefs as they age? I can say that I have probably gotten a little more liberal than when I was 16. It took seeing things in the real world to learn how things really are to solidify my beliefs. It gave those beliefs some evidence that they were fine. It also took dealing with Reagan's shift of the republican party to realize it. Reagan, was just like Trump. He hunted votes. His hunting got the Moral Majority, evangelical group. That gave rise to having religion IN politics. Funny how the last two actors we had that ran for president left politics worse than it was prior!

Conventional wisdom is that the older you get the more conservative you get, however, that was somewhat refuted by an article I just read.

It didn't have any solid data, just anecdotal evidence on the voting patterns of the last 3 generations and shifts in vote result when the number of youth coting ebbs and flows.

The article's general, if not solidly supported idea is that liberals are just more motivated to vote when they are young then burn out, while conservatives are largely tuned-out in their youth, but tune-in by middle age. That is, we think of people under 30 as 2/3rds liberal and 1/3 conservative. If we could just get the youth to vote, we could crush the Boomers!!!!

But really it is just the 30-40% of under 30 that bother to vote that are 2/4rds liberal. It is likely the 60-70% that don't bother to vote are like 2/3rds conservative and 1/3rd liberal, By middle age, a lot of those conservative leaning that didn't vote, start voting so the "generation' shifts right without the individuals moving at all.

The conclusion, if the hypothesis is true, is that a liberal shift when the Boomers die off could be very real, as GenX will be so much smaller than Millennials or Gen Y, but also short lived, to only a couple decades as GenX dies and the larger generations that follow naturally shift right as more of them begin to vote.