The big takeaway from the American midterm elections is that generational change is underway. John Della Volpe writes:
Stressed and sickened by thoughts of their rights and democracy slipping away, young Americans across gender, racial, geographic and education lines banded together last week to help save the Democrats from what many foresaw as a sizable midterm defeat. If the elections had been decided by voters 45 and older, Republicans would have won the House by an even greater margin and likely taken the Senate. But thanks to young voters (especially the 18-to-29 age group, which had the second-highest turnout in midterm elections in almost 30 years, according to early estimates from Tufts University), Democrats retained the Senate, showing that an alliance of Gen Z and millennial voters answered history’s call to defend democracy. The majority of them rejected the big lie. They possess the turbulent, kinetic energy that withstands red waves. They will propel Democrats’ progressive agenda forward if the party seizes the moment.
The change has actually been underway for a while:
In 2018, young voters were key to Nancy Pelosi regaining the speaker’s gavel. In 2020, millennials and members of Gen Z were instrumental in moving Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin into Joe Biden’s column, thus relegating Donald Trump to a one-term presidency. Winning one election might be an accident. Two, an anomaly. Three in a row proves that earning the support of the Gen Z-millennial alliance is essential to winning elections in our current era.
Smart politicians should be paying attention:
This union of Gen Z and millennial voters will account for nearly 40 percent of votes in the next presidential election, according to estimates from the Center for American Progress. Republicans ignore this voting bloc at their peril. Even among white voters — the traditional Republican base — the youngest are slipping away to support Democrats. While midterm estimates show that the majority of whites over 30 years old voted Republican, 58 percent of whites under 30 voted for Democratic House candidates.
Democrats in the House have noted the change. They are handing over the reins to the next generation. Republican continue to believe that their future belongs to a seventy-six-year-old man.
We'll have to see if that trend holds for us as well.
Image: Quinn Glabicki/Reuters
14 comments:
While they certainly had ample reason to turn out in numbers, it is nonetheless encouraging to see that young people are starting to realize the potential power they have, Owen. One hopes it is indeed the start of a new direction for our benighted friends across the border.
As an old teacher, Lorne, I hope the young can do something to make the world a place.
Mild improvements to the US gerontocracy, which still resembles the old Soviet politburo. In the last Congress, the average house member was 58.4 years old, while the average senator was 64.3, according to the Congressional Research Service, making it the oldest Congress in at least two decades. The average American, by contrast, is 38.8 years old.
The leaders are even older. At 79 years old, Biden is the oldest president in US history, Mitch McConnell is 80 and Nancy Pelosi is 82. Her replacement, Hakeem Jeffries, is a spry 52, while incoming house speaker Kevin McCarthy is 57. People like Diane Feinstein are well into senility, and the cognitive decline of Trump and Biden are the frequent subject of partisan attacks. There really ought to be a mandatory retirement age for politicians and judges.
Cap
I agree, Cap. Canadian Supreme Court judges must retire at 75. Sounds like a good number to me.
There really ought to be a mandatory retirement age for politicians and judges.
I'm in at two term limits and ten years max on judges.
Both out at 65.
Don't even attempt to do the "wisdom of elders" thing. If that had a scintilla of validity; we wouldn't be having this conversation.
The problem will be setting the magic number, lungta. Someone will scream discrimination.
I read that when the Fox news cronies learned of the Gen Z turnout they started crying about raising the voting age to 21. That's stupidity to the enth degree.
Fox News is a font of stupidity, zoombats.
I ran across this excellent article early today
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/opinion-danielle-smith-kari-lake-alberta-arizona-1.6657181?cmp=rss
Reading your post made me think about it..
(i’m still thinking & wondering..)
Perhaps I want to blend them.. in my head
- your post & comments, cross pollinated
vis a vis the age or generational cohorts ‘in play’
in Arizona / Alberta
Mound may already have
some strong reference material stockpiled
Bottom Line.. the ‘future’ is intimidating (to say the least)
I don’t want to go off on a litany
re ‘destructive examples’ & compound failures
My interest as a ‘Reality Advisor’ is Pro Exemplar & simple
Exemplars seem to have the ‘innate’
as well as ‘learned’ talent of ‘leadership’..
They ‘just do it’ .. (better angels ?)
They appear to grow & ‘hone’ such talent
on their path through Life ..
Is it ‘cumulative’ ?
Or are they simply - always - ‘refining’ their talent ?
I know Edward de Bono suggests ‘thinking’
is something you can exercise & improve constantly / daily
haha.. will let you know..
when I have it all figured out.. eh ! 🦎
Well, will you look at that, the kultural marxists have cooked up another way to divide folks and collide them together to keep driving that dialectical continuum while avoiding anything that really matters.
Meanwhile, The Hill is reportng that "House Republicans critical of U.S. assistance to Ukraine during its war with Russia introduced a privileged resolution on Thursday to audit the funds allocated by Congress. The resolution is being led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and backed by a group of GOP lawmakers. House and Senate lawmakers from both sides of the aisle supportive of continued U.S. assistance to Ukraine say these colleagues are part of a minority fringe."
Where have we heard that before? The bipartisan war machine needs to be audited especially with the recent collapse of the FTX which was laundering money through the Ukraine. Tax dollars that were meant to go to the war effort were being rerouted back to the Democrat party. That is a criminal act. If only a fringe minority is concerned about it, then something serious is very wrong.
The fake fact checkers are straight up lying about this. Millions of tax dollars were sent to the Ukraine and diverted to FTX. FTX was the second largest Democrat donor. There's no fake fact checking around that. The fake fact checkers are lying. Mitt Romney and his spook have shady business dealings in the Ukraine. Perhaps we should audit that as well.
While we talk about how utterly useless the mainstream media is, we need to highlight Vanity Fair and the Rolling Stone Magazine. They have become ridiculous. The Rolling Stone Magazine used to have credibility. Now they're just more partisan trash like the rest of them.
The New York Post is reporting that "Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is scheduled to speak at an exclusive conference hosted by the New York Times alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen."
"The DealBook Summit, sponsored by Accenture, will be held at Jazz at Lincoln Center in Manhattan on Nov. 30 and features speeches from supposed luminaries such as Mark Zuckerberg, Mayor Eric Adams, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Vice President Mike Pence."
This is a perefect example of the oligrachical infiltration of both parties but not one of us rubes will ever even notice.
Smith as Alberta's Kari Lake. That's an interesting comparison, sal. Some people can improve their thinking. Unfortunately, others just get stuck and spin their wheels.
Did you get this information from the Post, Mary? What are your sources?
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ftx-latest-sequoia-says-sorry-013554798.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma
Bloomberg
FTX Latest: Bankman-Fried Says He Will Speak at Event as Planned
Thu, November 24, 2022, 7:32 AM
-- Sam Bankman-Fried said in a tweet that he would speak with New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit next week, honoring his scheduled appearance. It’s unclear if FTX’s former CEO will appear in person. If he speaks at the Nov. 30 event it would be his first public appearance since the collapse of his empire.
This should be one for the ages.
The Bitcoin Bubble has burst, Mary.
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