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<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
This reminds me of two of my favorite quotes. Google attributes
them this way:<br>
<br>
"A conservative is a liberal who got mugged the night before."
-Frank Rizzo<br>
<br>
"If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a
conservative who's been arrested." -Tom Wolfe <br>
<br>
Fiscally, I've turned more conservative over the years. Socially,
though, I'm still quite liberal. Most important to me at the
moment, though, are concerns about government overreach and the
loss of personal liberties. I don't know where that falls on the
conservative/liberal axis.<br>
<br>
I don't know how you could ever get younger generations on par
with older generations with respect to political power. Young
adults just out of high school will never have as much political
clout as older generations who have made their fortunes and have
been entrenched in government for decades. Sheer numbers working
together might help, and maybe term limits would bring fresh blood
to that nest of vampires known as Congress. They say that science
advances as older scientists entrenched in their views die off,
and I suspect it's the same with politics as well.<br>
<br>
Paul<br>
<br>
On 06/24/2012 05:48 AM, Art Deco wrote:<br>
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<div class="timestamp">June 22, 2012</div>
<h1>Old vs. Young</h1>
<span>
<h6 class="byline">By <a moz-do-not-send="true" rel="author"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/david_leonhardt/index.html"
title="More Articles by David Leonhardt" class="meta-per">DAVID
LEONHARDT</a></h6>
</span>
<div id="articleBody">
<p>
Washington </p>
<p>
IN a partisan country locked in a polarizing campaign, there
is no shortage of much discussed divisions: religious and
secular, the 99 percent and the 1 percent, red America and
blue America. </p>
<p>
But you can make a strong case that one dividing line has
actually received too little attention. It’s the line between
young and old. </p>
<p>
Draw it at the age of 65, 50 or 40. Wherever the line is, the
people on either side of it end up looking very different,
both economically and politically. The generation gap may not
be a pop culture staple, as it was in the 1960s, but it is
probably wider than it has been at any time since then. </p>
<p>
Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, younger and older adults voted
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html">in
largely similar ways</a>, with a majority of each supporting
the winner in every presidential election. Sometime around
2004, though, older voters began moving right, while younger
voters shifted left. This year, polls suggest that <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates/mitt-romney?inline=nyt-per"
title="More articles about Mitt Romney." class="meta-per">Mitt
Romney</a> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/154712/presidential-election-age-factor-among-whites.aspx">will
win a landslide</a> among the over-65 crowd and that <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per"
title="More articles about Barack Obama." class="meta-per">President
Obama</a> will do likewise among those under 40. </p>
<p>
Beyond political parties, the two have different views on many
of the biggest questions before the country. The young not
only favor gay marriage and school funding more strongly; they
are also notably less religious, more positive toward
immigrants, less hostile to <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/social_security_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"
title="More articles about Social Security."
class="meta-classifier">Social Security</a> cuts and
military cuts and <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/02/24/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change/">more
optimistic</a> about the country’s future. They are both
more open to change and more confident that life in the United
States will remain good. </p>
<p>
Their optimism is especially striking in the context of their
economic troubles. Older Americans have obviously suffered in
recent years, with many now fearing a significantly diminished
retirement. But the economic slump of the last decade — a
mediocre expansion, followed by a terrible downturn — has
still taken a much higher toll on the young. Less established
in their working lives, they have struggled to get hired and
to hold on to jobs. </p>
<p>
The wealth gap between households headed by someone over 65
and those headed by someone under 35 is wider than at any
point since the Federal Reserve Board began keeping consistent
data in 1989. The gap in homeownership is the largest since <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/census_bureau/index.html?inline=nyt-org"
title="More articles about Census Bureau, U.S."
class="meta-org">Census Bureau</a> data began in 1982. The
income gap is also at a recorded high; median
inflation-adjusted income for households headed by people
between 25 and 34 has dropped 11 percent in the last decade
while remaining essentially unchanged for the 55-to-64 age
group. </p>
<p>
If there is a theme unifying these economic and political
trends, in fact, it is that the young are generally losing out
to the old. On a different subject, Warren E. Buffett, 81, has
joked that there really is a class war in this country — and
that his class is winning it. He could say the same about a
generational war. </p>
<p>
Younger adults are faring worse in the private sector and, in
large part because they have less political power, have a less
generous safety net beneath them. Older Americans vote at
higher rates and are better organized. There is no American
Association of Non-Retired Persons. “Pell grants,” notes the
political scientist <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9685.html">Kay
Lehman Schlozman</a>, “have never been called the third rail
of American politics.” </p>
<p>
Over all, more than 50 percent of federal benefits flow to the
13 percent of the population over 65. Some of these benefits
come from Social Security, which many people pay for over the
course of their working lives. But a large chunk comes through
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"
title="Recent and archival health news about Medicare."
class="meta-classifier">Medicare</a>, and contrary to
widespread perception, most Americans <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/business/06leonhardt.html">do
not come close</a> to paying for their own Medicare benefits
through payroll taxes. Medicare, in addition to being the
largest source of the country’s projected budget deficits, is
a transfer program from young to old. </p>
<p>
Meanwhile, education spending — the area that the young say
should be cut the least, polls show — is taking deep cuts. The
young also want the government to take action to slow <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"
title="Recent and archival news about global warming."
class="meta-classifier">global warming</a>; Congress shows
no signs of doing so. Even on <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"
title="More articles about Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions,
and Domestic Partnerships." class="meta-classifier">same-sex
marriage</a>, where public opinion is moving toward youthful
opinion, all 31 states that have held referendums on the
matter have voted against same-sex marriage. </p>
<p>
Over the long term, obviously, the young have a distinct
advantage: they’re not going away. So one of the central
questions for the future of American politics is whether
today’s 20- and 30-year-olds will hold on to many of the
opinions they have today, a pattern that would be less
surprising than glib clichés about aging and conservatism
suggest. Until recently, as the presidential results from the
1970s through the 1990s make clear, Americans did not grow
much more conservative as they aged. </p>
<p>
And while today’s young are not down-the-line liberal — they
favor private accounts for Social Security and have
reservations about government actions to protect online
privacy — they certainly <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.newamerica.net/files/nafmigration/NSCZukinPublicOpinion.pdf">lean
left</a>. </p>
<p>
No one knows exactly why, but there are some suspects. Having
grown up surrounded by diversity, they are socially liberal,
almost unconsciously so. Many of them also came of age in the
(ultimately unpopular) George W. Bush presidency, or the
(ultimately popular) Bill Clinton presidency, and pollsters at
the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/pew_research_center/index.html?inline=nyt-org"
title="More articles about Pew Research Center"
class="meta-org">Pew Research Center</a> argue that the
president during a generation’s formative years casts a long
shadow, for better or worse. Hammered by the economic
downturn, young voters say they want government to play a
significant role in the economy. </p>
<p>
These attitudes create a challenge for the Republican Party
that is arguably as big as its better known struggles for the
votes of Latinos. “We’ve got a generation of young people who
are more socially liberal and more open to activist
government,” says Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew center,
which has done <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.people-press.org/2011/11/03/the-generation-gap-and-the-2012-election-3/">some
of the most extensive</a> generational polling. “They are
quite distinct.” </p>
<p>
Shortly after Mr. Bush won re-election in 2004, just when the
age gap was emerging, his chief campaign strategist, Matthew
Dowd, wrote a memo to other top Bush aides urging them not to
assume that a new Republican majority was emerging. The exit
polls, he wrote to Karl Rove and others, showed that younger
voters had voted strongly Democratic, and those voters would
be in the electorate for a long time to come. </p>
<p>
“They don’t think the Republican Party thinks like them,” much
as older voters feel alienated by what they see as today’s
immigrant-embracing, gay-friendly, activist-government
Democratic Party, Mr. Dowd said last week. “I don’t expect
these younger voters to wake up all of a sudden when they’re
38 years old and say, ‘I was for gay marriage before, but now
I’m against it.’ ” </p>
<p>
Still, it would be mistake to assume that today’s young are
going to be Democrats for life. Many children of the 1960s,
after all, grew up to be Ronald Reagan voters. The political
landscape shifts over time. Frustrated by a weak economy and a
government that disproportionately benefits the old, younger
adults could become ever more reluctant to send tax dollars to
Washington. The Republican Party could grow more libertarian
and thus more in line with the social views of the young. </p>
<p>
What seems clear is that the marketing gurus are finally
right: today’s young really are different. They view a
boisterously diverse United States as a fact of life, and they
view life as clearly better than it used to be. But they are
also products of the longest economic slump in 70 years, and
they would like a little help. They wish the country would
devote more attention to its future, especially on education
and the climate. They, of course, will have to live with that
future. </p>
<div class="authorIdentification">
<p>David Leonhardt is the Washington bureau chief of The New
York Times.</p>
</div>
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<br>
-- <br>
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com"
target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>
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