There is a lot of information to digest in the new Pew Research Center social & demographic trends poll. They explore in great detail the political opinions of each generation of Americans. At first glance, most of their results confirmed what I already believed to be the case, which is that younger generations are much more liberal or progressive in their social attitudes than their parents or grandparents, and that this holds even among young Republicans and non-Hispanic whites. One obvious conclusion is that integration works, and that the more that whites live, go to school, and work with people of other races or ethnic and religious backgrounds, the more they see them as nonthreatening and fully equal citizens.
The surprising news for me came in a different area of inquiry. I’ve been watching the performance of our government with growing alarm at least since the Republican retook control of Congress in the 2010 midterms. My main concern has been that a new generation of kids is growing up in an era of government shutdowns, credit defaults, and relentless gridlock and that they’re going to come to the conclusion that the federal government is worthless as a resource for solving their problems. On the one hand, I’ve been hopeful that they’d be resourceful enough to come up with new ways to address social and economic challenges, but on the other hand I have been worried that they’ll develop anti-government or libertarian views that will empower the right.
The polling data does not show this effect. In fact, the data show the exact opposite.
Every day, new members of Generation Z become eligible to vote and members of the Silent Generation pass away. So, just based on static public opinion, there is currently an inexorable movement toward support for more activist government.
It’s true that the older that people get and the more income that they have, the more they develop a self-interest in low levels of taxation and regulation. This explains the consistent trend line you see in the chart on the left. It strongly suggests that Generation Z will become less enthusiastic about government as it ages.
What I thought we might see in this data was an erosion of support among Millennials and (especially) Generation Z based on the fact that they’ve really seen very little positive action from the federal government in their lifetimes. Outside of President Obama’s first two years in office, there has been very little transformative legislation coming out of Washington DC.
It often seems to me that the Republicans benefit when the federal government is incapable of taking action because it reinforces their message that government is bad and inefficient. I think this helps explain why they don’t pay a higher price for taking hostages, shutting down the government, and causing downgrades of the national credit rating.
But, apparently, the young generations aren’t buying this. They want to see more government action and they still believe that the government can be a vehicle for positive social change. Seven in ten members of Generation Z feel this way and only three in ten of them think Donald Trump is doing a good job as president.
I’m not sure why they haven’t fallen victim to cynicism, but I’m grateful to see that they still express optimism. Hopefully they will come to understand that to get the federal government to work, they need to reproduce the conditions that prevailed in 2009-2010, which means they need to elect a Democrat president who can work with a Democratic Congress. That’s the only condition under which our government can function, let alone accomplish anything of real value.
Does it? I mean obviously around the edges of public opinion this is true, but I think it’s just that those generations held those views when they were younger. How they act when they vote tells the story. And so far the people who voted for Obama for president as their first presidential vote are just as likely to vote for Democrats as they were then.
18-29’s voted for Obama `08 at a rate of 64-35. In 2018, 30-44 voted 63-35 for Dem house.
Same question asked 10 years ago. Millenials have grown more pro-government with age:
I have never believed this “people get more conservative as they get older” crap ever. If you aren’t a conservative by the time you are 30 you are unlikely to ever become one. Perhaps people become less radical as they graduate from college and get real jobs, but that might mean they are less likely to spend a lot of time on protests and organizing as they start families.
Millennials have been utterly screwed by the 1% and have ZERO viable future within capitalism. It’s encouraging that more and more of them are getting that. Right now, the only thing holding the 1% in power is support of the ageing Silent and Boomer voters.
“I’m not sure why they haven’t fallen victim to cynicism”
Possibly because they can see that private industry won’t address the issues that they feel most pertinent, and that government intervention is the only way to solve the biggest problems of our time (e.g. global warming).
This is exactly the point I was going to make as well. Big Businesses have turned away from their employees in a very significant way (wage stagnation, lack of benefit or reducing benefits) as well as opposing tackling existential problems like climate change, deregulating vital parts of the economy (health, safety, environmental regs) or actively undermining representative democracy.
Student loan debt keeps millennials living like they are still in college…at least 3 roomates. The free market has never built affordable housing to met the needs of America.
The younger generations have also had far less time having spite-filled “conservative” sewage hosed all over them by the corrupt corporate media—unlike the Boomers and Silents, who have been (fatally) exposed to these braindeath-inducing toxins for 30+ years.
Democra-cide by Repubs might be a good theme for Dems to exploit, no?
“This is your government on “conservatism”? (egg fries) Any questions?”
I think they haven’t fallen victim to cynicism because the Republicans project bad faith from huge billboards in glowing neon. There is a price to be paid for such behavior. It’s slow to show up because youth is a constituency that often fails to engage. But we saw it slap them in the face in 2018 and 2020 promises to be worse.
Its not so much that government doesn’t work, its an issue of who its working for, and who it doesn’t.
Millennials got to see a Trump/GOP put a $2 trillion plus tax cut for rich people on the national credit card, while keeping them chained to a collective $2 trillion student loan debt, with no option but to keep running on a debt treadmill powered by usurious interest rates with no way out. They know government works, just not for them.
The good news is millennials saw their peers at Parkland successfully push back on the GOP. They rally to the creativity, courage and plain spoken practicality of AOC, thinking and sounding a lot like them. All of a piece — breaking the boundaries of “traditional” politics and speaking to the realistic possibilities of a government that works for them for a change. AOC’s question, why do we only ask how we are going to pay for something when its not for war or tax cuts, both of which benefit wealth, brings the possibilities into sharp focus.
Speaking of AOC, Democratic party leadership don’t seem to realize what they have in her. Rather than nurturing and channeling her energy and emotion, they’re making a HUGE mistake trying to clip her wings to have her fall in line with the small bore incremental solution faction, an approach that, however well intentioned it may have been on the part of some, has failed to make government work in significant ways for anyone other than they wealthy. Other than the ACA, I add obligatorily.
In order to harness this millennial energy for real positive change and not see it die on the vine, the democrats are going to have to let go of corporate money and wealth that constrains positive change, limiting it to the small bore and incremental so as not to get in the way of their needs. This maddening insistence to reinstate Pay/Go rules is laying the foundation for a justification for that, which is really an excuse to continue to first do no harm to the wealthy. That those needs get served by the GOP as well is the leverage they have over democrats; there’s no good reason for democratic leadership to not break those bonds. Unless of course, they’re fine where they are. That may be cool for some in leadership; for the vast majority of the rest of us, its not. We need more from them than that.
Lastly, what would really make millennials think government doesn’t work for them is if the democrats fail them by ultimately squandering this burgeoning opportunity to make positive change. (we were in a similar position in 2008 with Obama, and ended up losing governorships and state houses en masse) That would be tragic, because they wouldn’t just be failing them. They’d be failing a clear majority that is desperate for change.
Hmmm….
She got a seat on the Financial Services Committee.
She conducted a workshop on how to use social media to communicate and advance your agenda for Democratic Representatives.
Are you sure she is not being given the guidance and share of voice she deserves?
I’m sure as she matures in her legislative role, she will be asked to shoulder more.
As I see it, right now we need the experience and history of the older members to guide us through this death march of the Republican traitors. But over the next 4-6 years the mantle for the Democrats will pass to the young Turks.
It’s The Narrative that the media (particularly Politico and The Hill) have created.
Exhibits:
Exasperated Democrats try to rein in Ocasio-Cortez
Ocasio-Cortez seeks Energy and Commerce seat despite clash with Pallone
Top House Dem to Ocasio-Cortez: `Don’t attack your own people’
Some Senate Dems see Ocasio-Cortez as weak spokeswoman for party
Then you’ve got Claire McCaskill mouthing off. Anyway, I think everything is fine on this department and she’s kicking ass.
. . . McCaskill, Politico, and The Hill are not “Democratic party leadership”, which was the assertion.
And Exhibit 3’s a lie: “Top House Dem” = Pelosi, that quote is not she.
Cuz that looks nearly opposite what I’ve seen. There was a Politico article quoting some rank-and-file Dems, not party leadership, in some pretty annoying sniping (though not, as I recall, related to any perceived or actual failure to “fall in line with the small bore incremental solution faction” — more “stylistic” was my impression).
But Pelosi is the de facto party leader, and I’ve been mostly impressed with the partnership she seems to be forging with AOC, at times in I-got-your-back-you-got-mine mode. Just not seein’ the leadership-undercutting-AOC that you’ve made central to your narrative. For example, she seems to have done exceptionally well for a freshman in terms of committee assignments, the climate change special committee, etc., all prerogatives of the Speaker.
There may also be more awareness among younger people of other countries where government serves their populations more competently than ours has.
I’m not sure why they haven’t fallen victim to cynicism
I’m a millennial. Speaking only for myself, the answer is because There Is No Alternative. Ever since Reagan, the line between the market economy and the non-market economy has blurred. Libertarians said this would lead to more prosperity for everyone, but they were wrong. The market sucks and life gets a little bit worse each year. Government is a way of pushing back on the market fundamentalism that’s warped American society.
“The polling data does not show this effect. In fact, the data show the exact opposite.”
“I’m not sure why they haven’t fallen victim to cynicism…”
I wouldn’t know for sure but perhaps the kids observe more about how big gov’t functions than they get credit for. Perhaps they’ve noticed all their lives that while gov’t increasingly fails for THEM, it continues to be quite valuable and functions well for corporations, the rich, and most important, the older members of their families. On a daily basis they see their retired Boomer (or older) family elders enjoying Medicare, Social Security, and defined benefit pensions. And no one has ever given them a credible answer as to why their piece of that cake must be taken away from their future.
I see this every day. I am a professor Act a university. The students are all Generation Z and are very liberal. They remind me of my youth. Of course, I was a baby boomer. They have definite ideas as to how the government should work and they seem committed to having it grow and do more. They understand that things used to be better, but now they’re not. And, for what it’s worth, they seem to be saying that they’re not going to take it. I have a lot of confidence in them going forward.
. . . Because they’re pretty much our last hope. If they don’t succeed where we failed, that’s all she wrote.