American elections and demographics
Nov. 7th, 2020 09:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerWe know that Republicans tend to skew older.
Does anyone know if they're getting even older on average or if people are becoming Republican as they age?
And, for instance, whether a chunk of the Democratic success in the election was because of demographic change over the last 4 years (although obviously many other factors are at work as well)?
Does anyone know if they're getting even older on average or if people are becoming Republican as they age?
And, for instance, whether a chunk of the Democratic success in the election was because of demographic change over the last 4 years (although obviously many other factors are at work as well)?
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 11:27 am (UTC)"In the United States, around 2.7 million people who are old enough to vote die every year, and around 3.8 million to 4 million people turn 18. In the last presidential election — and research since then suggests that this trend will continue — younger people were more likely to vote for Democrats, and older people were more likely to vote Republican. It is more complicated than that in detail, but the basic trend is there. This means that by age alone, between the 2016 and 2018 elections, more potential non-Trump voters will join the electorate, while more potential Trump voters, or non-Democrat voters, will depart from it."
https://medium.com/s/story/demographics-show-that-trump-can-only-lose-c55d9f79449
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 11:48 am (UTC)I'll keep an eye out and let you know what happens at 61.
Though maybe it'll kick at 67 when I pick up the state pension!
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 11:52 am (UTC)I think this might actually be due to my becoming freelance at 46, and hence having a different relationship to work and "free time", as well as a reaction to global issues (such as climate change) and national policies.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 12:52 pm (UTC)But frankly I always prefer to see myself as ordinary than extraordinary. That way Trump lies!
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 01:05 pm (UTC)He lies every way.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 10:01 am (UTC)That said, it's my understanding that people tending *on average* to become more conservative as they grow older has been a very widely-observed and long-established pattern. And anecdotally it goes back as far as you like in written human history.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 10:07 am (UTC)I saw an analysis that said it wasn't that people become conservative
but rather that rich people = conservative
and rich people = live longer, ESPECIALLY in the US with no NHS/affordable healthcare
so, basically, the lower income people [who tend to vote Democrat] die sooner due to lack of access to healthcare...
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 10:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 11:07 am (UTC)So, my parents & stepfather are all late 60s/early 70s. They were fiery reformist pacifist anti-nuclear liberals in their youth - that's how they all met - and they pretty much still are. They're a bit wobbly on transgender issues, because the awful sustained media coverage of anti-trans talking points has kind of leaked through to them, but they're at least receptive to their children saying "oi! that's a dogwhistle for transphobia, and here's why".
(And I am personally pleased and relieved when my younger brothers speak up at least as vehemently as I do on that issue.)
They're also a bit well-meaning Nice White Person about racism, and specifically anti-Muslim prejudice, but I suspect even there they are all probably better than they were fifty years ago. They've never stopped supporting (and in some cases actively working for) human rights and individual liberty and saving the environment and international peace agreements and so on. They're sometimes a bit defensive about being told "hey, that's not the language people in that community like these days" because they have that self-image of being Good People Trying To Change The World, but they have actually listened and done their best.
So in conclusion, I don't think this specific set of older people have got more right wing as they've grown older, but they have been slower to adapt to what the youth of today are saying. (And by that I mean the teens and early 20s, not mid-40s xennials like me.) Or maybe just People Not Them.
Meanwhile, I think Tony and I have got considerably more 'left wing' in the last 15-20 years, but I wonder if that's because the wider political situation has moved so much towards inequality, poverty and authoritarianism in that time. My friend Adam said memorably in a LibDem policy discussion a few years back, we should be as socialist as it takes to ensure no-one is enslaved by poverty.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 11:12 am (UTC)And yes - I've moved left because I've realised that lots of things I thought were working weren't. I'll happily take a right wing approach to poverty reduction if it's offered, but most of what's offered from the right at the moment is "let them starve, it'll make them more excited to have jobs".
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-08 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 10:33 am (UTC)The Democrats have made the mistake of assuming that demography is destiny and the Hispanic vote for Trump is also interesting.
People here tend to become more conservative as they age of course (and yes, I know I'm still a left tending socialist in my mid sixties) Adjusts flat hat :o)
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 10:47 am (UTC)I can totally believe they become stuck in their ways (small c conservative). I'm not sure they necessarily become abortion-hating racists.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 11:31 am (UTC)https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/the-gop-is-dying-off-literally-118035
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 12:00 pm (UTC)The decreasing opposition to inter-racial marriage is parallel to, and entirely explained by, the mortality curve.
Equal access to marriage for people of all sexual orientations showed a similar trajectory, but not an identical one: something between a quarter and a half of the change in attitudes is due to people *changing their minds* during their adult lives, rather than dying with the beliefs they grew up with.
However... Hate campaigns work, in an age where social media manipulation has made changing people's attitudes a numerate engineering discipline, instead of an art. Society's acceptance of transgender people is diminishing as a result of well-organised campaigns that now have their sights on homosexuality, disability, and racial equality; lethally-stupid conspiracy theories do not die out, now that they are skilfully-curated and managed by people who aren't dysfunctional cranks; and Nazis - the real thing, Swastikas and explicit approval for insitutional racism and organised inter-communal violence - are now well-established in the political mainstream.
So the demise of the mortality effect is no longer a thing, because because people can and do change their minds: and that's turning out to be a two-edged sword.
Well!
Date: 2020-11-07 02:57 pm (UTC)My grandparents were all of the Roosevelt era Democrats that became radicalized during the Great Depression. They remained there on the political left, but most/many/some fell into the welfare, racial, and sexual orientation snares that would be the Faux Newz drumbeat. None, however, became Republicans, although some of their children did.
Re: Well!
Date: 2020-11-07 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 04:02 pm (UTC)Maybe that's true. It might also be a little because you care less what others think as you get older so some may become more vocal.
My mom came from a very conservative, religious background. She's the only one who ended up liberal and a Democrat. Her siblings are conservative. One married a man from Detroit and he's racist. I had to mute him in 2016 because of the crap he was reposting and commenting on. His kids are Trump voters. The other sibling moved to Tennessee and they're all Trumpers/conservatives. My mom and I had to tell his wife to stop emailing us crap years ago. So well before Trump.
My mom points out that she's the only one who finished college.
My dad was conservative and became more so as he aged. Also became more racist. So frustrating as he was happy to talk to individuals and pronounce them great people.
Although I miss him terribly, I'm glad he died in 2013 and I didn't have to deal with his political crap through these 2 elections.
I realized I was Democrat rather than Republican around high school. I think I've become more liberal in a few areas but it's more that others have gone right. Part of my move to the left is that I've become more knowledgeable on issues and more "woke". I freely acknowledge that I have some internal racism/implicit biases that I struggle against.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 07:23 pm (UTC)My response to that is, in that case William Gladstone had neither.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-07 11:33 pm (UTC)One of the -main- reasons I chose the Reps was because I loathe and despise many of the politicians in the GOP and - even at age 18 - I realized that as a registered Republican, I could vote against the worst of the hideous wing-nuts in primary elections - hopefully helping less bad Rep candidates get onto the general ballot.
Plus, it helped me actively vote against some of the people my parents liked to vote for. Amusingly, I know that at least ONCE, my going off to vote gave my parents an excuse to stay home and NOT vote in a local primary since I had gone to do my civic duty. I don't think that they ever figured out that my vote would usually cancel one of theirs.
There is also the fact that, over the years, the Republican party has veered off of a moderate path, into the weeds and then outright off the Cliffs of Insanity. It can be rather lonely, watching this while remaining socially liberal & fiscally moderate.
I really don't know why the racists, know-nothings & fascists cling to the Republican party, but wish they would go form their own evangelical death cult party & leave the GOP alone.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-08 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-08 09:01 pm (UTC)