wifeisafurd said:
OaktownBear said:
wifeisafurd said:
Divider in chief.
His law and order message will far better received than is perceived on this site.
We all have our bubbles. We all see things based on our peers. IMO, your generation still expects that following generations will ultimately view things the way yours does. I think that it may be better received among your peers, but not nearly so much among mine and definitely not among those younger than me. No major leader has taken the line to go out and shoot protesters. The views of law enforcement in the 60's have been rejected as ineffective for decades. I don't think Gen-X and younger are going to be nearly as susceptible to this message than you think.
I could definitely be wrong. We shall see.
I'm assuming we can agree that he gave an incredibly divisive speech?
As to your main point, for the last decade I kept hearing that demographic changes will mean a change in government and policy, and yet here we are. My favorite is demographic changes will make Texas a blue state - heard that one for 20 years plus running now. The generation discussion is strange. The generation above me was in the streets demonstrating in college against war and social injustice, yet they have turned conservative. We were not exactly a conservative bastion when I went to Cal, but again wherever my generation (whatever it is called - trail or post boomers?) also became more conservative. I mean I have black and gay friends who voted for Trump. so yes we all have bubbles and generational stuff.
As for the younger - and I assume younger voters are you talking about, let me quote Churchill: "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."
The question for you is do our voting patterns really change drastically as we age and if that's the case, will Millennials be the generation that bucks the trend by not becoming more conservative as they get older?
Some Pew stuff since I know you ardently read polls:
"In 2007, 68 percent of that generation's respondents wanted "a bigger government providing more services." That number for Millennials dipped to 57 percent ten years later still the largest percentage among any demographic, but also the only generation to show a decreased interest in the idea of bigger government.
Following other generations, Millennials are also more likely to say it's important to protect the rights of Americans to own guns than to control gun ownership (27 percent in 2007, 43 percent in 2017). As well, support for government aid for the needy has decreased, although support for gay marriage, marijuana legalization and abortion has increased for Millennials over the past ten years. Somewhat of a mixed bag on the wedge issue. The generation still leans more Democratic. That mixed bag may reflect the increased racial and ethnic diversity in younger generations 40 percent of Millennials are non-white, the highest share among the adult generations. So I don't know either.
But I suspect there is a large portion of the population this played very well with, as well as those impacted directly by the rioting and looting. There are a lot more of Hankie's pictures than those shown by Okaydo on the internet. TV was absurd. Two nights ago all they showed on every LA station was revolving shots of violent demonstrators and property burning. For hours. Maybe there is a more diverse view on public radio (thought they had a lot of angry callers about the police not protecting their cities from rioters). Let me repspectfully submit to you this site is not representative.
WIAF - I wanted to come back to this in thinking about it more.
Again, older generations control the questions and the definitions. That doesn't make them the right questions. The fake Churchill quote just isn't at play on this issue.
What older people define as "liberal" and "conservative" are not the end all. They tend to maintain the definitions of their youth whether they are inherently accurate. Gun rights are not inherently liberal or conservative.
Millenials and particularly Zoomers have some specific characteristics that are holding. They are less religious for instance.
But maybe the biggest point is they do not believe in sorting individuals by labels. They eschew male and female classifications and characteristics. Even young conservative Christians and Evangelicals are challenging church leaders who they believe are too willing to divide over religious grouping or issues. And they were raised to learn about people by getting to know them and not making shorthand assumptions based on identity characteristics. They have a strong sense that the prior generations have done that too much. I would say they differ from even my Gen-X generation in that way. They do not look at police killing a Black man and immediately ask what he did to deserve it. They are very sensitive to unequal treatment. And this is true across political spectrum.
The younger generations also are a lot more likely to talk through issues than to accept that might makes right. They were specifically raised against that point.
I'll give you an anecdotal point that hit me how different my kids' upbringing is from mine. I was talking to my daughter about some school issues lately. Last year in response to the school shootings some parents had pushed hard for an armed school resource officer. The students were overwhelmingly and vehemently opposed. It really didn't make sense for their school, But in the course of the conversation I said they already had people that could break up fights. Her response was "fights? No one would have a fist fight. They would be humiliated and the rest of the student body would be all over them for being so stupid.
I don't know about you, WIAF, but for me growing up in a white, upper middle class area, I doubt there were many days in my K-12 career where there wasn't a fist fight somewhere at the school. And usually a lot of people went running to watch.
Liberal or conservative, I don't think you are going to get a lot of support from younger generations for going in with military and laying down the law. I think the response you are going to get is "when has that ever worked?"
Polls so far are not indicating support for the police over the protesters on this and I don't think they are going to change. And frankly, unlike ever before we are seeing widespread coverage of police engaging in tactics that are either instigating or making matters worse. That is something protesters in the sixties couldn't do. I think you will find that Trump's approach will appeal to people who were already voting for him.
