Posted by
Patrick "Sarge" Murray on Saturday, April 12, 2008 6:00:00 PM
Also, as Barone points out:
“Have Uncle Sam pay for health care? Hey, that's like, neat. But they also say that Millennials favor systems that give them lots of choices. They want to mouse-click on the option they prefer. This, of course, is in conflict or at least tension with systems in which government makes choices for you. If young voters' positive disposition to government programs gives Democrats an opening, their preference for choices gives Republicans one, too.”
Indeed, this generation, more than any other, has grown up in an era of more options than any previous times, and if the Republicans do have one tangible strength right now, it is being better at delivering options to the masses than the one-size-fits-all, big government liberal Democrats.
The response on the part of the Millenials on so-called “economic injustices” is one that strikes me as ephemeral. Sure, we all grow up thinking things should be fair because we were insulated from economic realities by the protection of our parents’ homes. Nothing sobers up such shoddy, pie-in-the-sky thinking than facing the harsh reality of what it takes to succeed in the real world, along with the entry barriers to success that come in the form of high taxes for productive people.
As somebody who instructs lots of Millenials for a living, I can personally attest that many of them are very attuned to the idea that we get paid based on how productive and how irreplaceable we are. The idea that “it’s your money,” and that individuals are better stewards and spenders of their own money than the government is are not ones lost on these younger people, either.
The strong Millenial support of Obama is also attributable to be susceptible to mistaking feeling for thinking. Critical thinking is an art not taught in most schools these days, but it can later be developed through life experience, something most Millenials simply lack due to extended youth. Again, this problem tends to solve itself once these young’uns spend enough time in the real world.
Does this mean that Republicans are to be marginalized for a generation? Hardly. But, as the authors correctly point out, the party is going to have to “change its brand” if it is to be viable in the marketplace in the long term. Taking a strong stand on meaningful tax and Social Security reform would be good places to start. The authors, of course, say that the party must, in exchange, forego traditional values issues. Such a contention must be taken with a grain of salt since these authors are, after all, Democrats.
One particularly heartening aspect for the authors’ findings is the Millenials favoring ‘bottom-up’ organizing to try to solve problems as opposed to solutions dictated from the top down. People have always been better at solutions than has government, and this fundamental hallmark of this youthful generation could very easily play into Republican hands if that party is smart enough to capitalize on that opportunity.
To things to note than continue to be reasons for optimism for yours truly: one is that these Millenials are very security-minded. This in an issue that the Dems have entirely ceded to Republicans due to the fact that the former party is permanently beholden to peace-at-all costs socialists/communists. Another reason for long-term optimism regarding conservatism’s future, despite what these authors say, is a numerical trend not mentioned during this interview. Conservatives are having more kids than liberals are, and conservatives rarely if ever cross over to liberalism, while it is not common for liberals to make some huge ideologically ‘right’ turns once sufficiently sobered by, again, real-world experience. A large factor for conservatives’ fertility advantage is that those on the right tend to be very much concerned about the long-term (and families are the foundation for building and maintain societies and cultures) while liberals are much more absorbed in the short-term fads, another thing that explains the young liberals’ support for Obama.