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[Frumple]

... everything else aside, I just want to state for the record that, as an american less than an hour away from the coast, I approve of the wording of Mississippi's preemptive response to the possibility of a full voter record request.

[Playergamer]

so i was asleep for the conversation but the party experiencing the fastest growth is currently the NSDAP.

but seriously, i highly suspect whoever said the democrats are growing faster is suffering from a serious case of confirmation bias. yes, the dems generally have a higher number of first time voters every election than republicans, but remember that people become more conservative over time. also, not every young person is a democrat; some of us would rather goosestep with white males wearing Boss than dumbass SJWs in fedoras.

finally, remember that populism is currently a republican thing, and we have no way of knowing for sure if it'll swing back for the next election. since nobody actually studies this shit for some reason, i don't think we can really make a call.

[milo christiansen]

... everything else aside, I just want to state for the record that, as an american less than an hour away from the coast, I approve of the wording of Mississippi's preemptive response to the possibility of a full voter record request.

I don't live in Mississippi, but if I did I would be really proud of that guy.

[Reelya]

The "aging makes conservatives" argument doesn't actually have much good data to back it up. Someone who's 20 now and supports gay marriage isn't going to magically turn into a 50 year old who opposes gay marriage. The same for e.g. abortion rights and many other issues. At least for social liberal/conservative issues, it would seem to be more about the generation or social group you grew up in that dictates how you're going to feel about these things.

There's some mixed evidence that older people tend to be more invested in the status quo, but the status quo changes. e.g. if you look here:

theconversation.com/hard-evidence-do-we-become-more-conservative-with-age-47910

In 1964 51% of UK 70 year olds voted Conservative Party, and 37% of 30 year olds voted Conservative Party. But 40 years later, the 70 year old cohort (who were the 30 year olds in 1964) voted 38% Conservative Party. So yes maybe their views became more conservative over time, but that in no way automatically meant people switched parties. The parties gradually evolved their beliefs to fit the generational changes in their pre-existing supporters.

Also looking at the USA, there's no evidence that generations switch to being Republicans. Some generations are more pro-Democrat or pro-Republican, and they tend to stay that way. It's actually unusual for people to "drift" to the conservative party as they get older. Age-based conservatism makes such political "drift" unlikely, since the main mechanism is being "stuck in your ways". And if that "way" is being a Democrat voter, becoming elderly means you're just more likely to just double-down on being a Democrat than switch to the other team.

http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/30/a-different-look-at-generations-and-partisanship/

So there's no magic mantra "with great age comes great Republicanism". If you can't get the young generation, you're fucked.

[Playergamer]

yeah I really don't buy that. even if the number of voters doesn't change (which implies people do become more conservative as they get older because yknow, people die, and there needs to be a replacement rate) the turnout rate almost certainly does. even if people don't actually become more conservative as they get older, they certainly become more likely to vote, which is essentially the same.

[smjjames]

@Reelya, you mean 1977, according to the way you put it. 1964 would be 53 years ago, but yes, you've made your point.

Political parties also change over time, both parties definetly aren't the exact same as they were 40 years ago, or even 50 years ago for that matter. Though arguably the parties have changed to reflect the electorate rather than the other way around.

[Reelya]

@Smjames, i cited the 1964 figures. And the 2010 figures. That is 46 years apart, which I glossed as "40 years".

@playergamer:

But party affiliation generally doesn't change. Which still means the Republicans are fucked if they can't get the youth vote.

When those currently pro-democrat generations become the aging majority, they're not going to "magically" switch to the Republicans. There's just no guaranteed mechanism by which that happens.

And if you're correct that voter turnout of older people tips the balance, then it's going to swing Hard Democrat one of these years because of that. The younger cohorts have a large excess of Democrat voters. That is a new thing. Previous generations were evenly split, or pro-Republican right from a young age.

[sluissa]

The "aging makes conservatives" argument doesn't actually have much good data to back it up. Someone who's 20 now and supports gay marriage isn't going to magically turn into a 50 year old who opposes gay marriage. The same for e.g. abortion rights and many other issues. At least for social liberal/conservative issues, it would seem to be more about the generation or social group you grew up in that dictates how you're going to feel about these things.

There's some mixed evidence that older people tend to be more invested in the status quo, but the status quo changes. e.g. if you look here:

theconversation.com/hard-evidence-do-we-become-more-conservative-with-age-47910

The percentage of of 30 year old Conservative voters in the UK in 1964 is equal to the percentage of 70 year old Conservative voters in 2010. That cohort got a lot older, and became measurably more "conservative" but taken as a whole, their voting patterns didn't change one fucking inch. What happened is that the parties evolved to match the zeitgeist, because, hey, the members of the party are the same cohort that are getting older at the same rate as the population.

This seems to be pretty much it.

Young people progress to the limits of their comfort. Often pushing past their parents limits. (Leading to "Kids these days...") By their 20s or 30s, they've generally found that limit, but the world doesn't necessarily stop for them. By the time they're in their 40s or 50s the "Kids these days..." are their own kids and have pushed past their own limits.

Anecdotally I grew up feeling pretty liberal. I still feel liberal, and I'll be the first to argue for gay marriage(and other basic rights) and basic welfare and universal health care. But I also feel like I'm being pushed to be more conservative because I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of 50+ genders and asking for pronouns before addressing someone. I don't necessarily agree with unbridled multiculturalism. I find myself thinking, and often outright saying "Kids these days..." myself. I grew up feeling pretty liberal. I now feel like I don't really fit in to either wing, so for lack of a better term I label myself a moderate non-partisan. By the time I'm 50 will I be a registered republican campaigning for a 60+ year old Marco Rubio running on a platform of "He and She not Xir or Xe"?

For a number of reasons it doesn't feel that will happen, but I also never thought I'd be saying some of the things I'm thinking now when I was a kid either. It's a fact that people do change, but the world sometimes changes around them a lot faster.

[smjjames]

Only thing though, is that the young cohort are primarily clustered around urban areas, at least currently, so the Republicans will still have the rural areas for some time.

[EnigmaticHat]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The 2016 electoral college map if only people 18-34 had voted.

I saw a different map right after the election which was cherry picked as 18-29 and Trump won nothing, he just tied two states.

[Greiger]

So if I'm reading this right we're pretty much waiting for all the old folks to die off before we can go back to stopping out of date technologies that do more harm than good, going back to trying* to fix this planet we basically fucked up royally, and stop assholes from getting their fix of being assholes because some writer from 2000 years ago says it's ok, and added 'trust me, I'm God so I'm right.' and people took his word for it.

[EnigmaticHat]

I don't think its Christians TBH.  I think that Boomers became complacent in their stability (hence why they "took a chance on Trump"), and they also have refused to allow the younger generation room.  Boomers have this idea that most people are about the same and everyone is on the same page.  They (or at least white boomers) tend to have this idea that there's a script, you go to school and get a degree and get a job and get married and pay your taxes and don't commit crimes and everything will turn out ok.  Everyone drinks, maybe smokes, but no other drugs, everyone male watches football, everyone is either a Reagan Republican or a Clinton Democrat (aka moderate).  None of those are sins at all, its simply a worldview, but the problem is that Millenials tried it on and it didn't work.  Either they couldn't follow the script because they were different somehow (for example gay), or they did follow the script and things didn't work out.  Millennials have a more fluid attitude towards personal identity and relationships (not necessarily talking about identity politics here, its a lot wider than that) and a more pessimistic/realistic worldview.  The sin is that due to population numbers beyond anyone's control, Boomers had the power to shut down the younger generations politically, and they chose to use this power instead of giving us space.  For example both the economic and environmental effects of climate change denial or reform, for example, are going to have *relatively* small effects in the time it takes Boomers to die off.  Yet they've chosen to make this decision that isn't important to them and is vitally important to us, in our place.  I guess because they know best or something.

As for the older generation dying off being a good thing, I would have said that but like... Republicans seem to want that as well.

My locally connected friend said that his grandfather went to a meeting at the old folks home where they discussed what would happen if the medicare cuts go through.  Apparently my friend's grandpa, who was pretty well off for most of his life mind you, might get kicked out of his nursing home because he can't afford it without medicare.

I've complained before about how stressful repeal and replace is for me in particular because I'm mentally ill and nearing 26.  However... as much as it'll suck I could theoretically muddle through without insurance and just pray that I get a good job within the next few years.  What I didn't expect from the law or at least the Senate's most recent version is how incredibly brutal it is to the elderly.  It could very literally be a death sentence for many retirees that lowers the life expectancy for white people especially and makes the die off that was already coming, happen 5-10 years earlier.

A month ago I would have said "serves you fucks right for saying you'd burn the system to the ground when you've all paid off half your mortgages and my generation is going to be paying rent for the rest of our lives."  But honestly... now that I've actually seen the Senate healthcare bill and thought about it, I take no pleasure in this.  If the bill passed it would be horrifying, full stop.  I guess its one thing to want a population to die off naturally when they would have anyway, and another to see that same population actively discriminated against.

[Frumple]

Also difference between wanting it to happen and being bluntly aware it's pretty much the only way you're going to see significant political shift. Been very few times and never long ones in my life I really wanted the elderly rat bastards voting to screw everyone younger than them in particular to keel over dead, it's just I've tried alternatives before and it's straight up bloody impossible to convince them of a different path* -- and getting folks that aren't retired or sitting on a comfortable nest egg out and invested is a magnitude or two more difficult, especially when our goddamn election system has parts of it designed intentionally or not to depress turnout among demographics that have to do something besides sit on their ass to survive the next year. If there was literally any other way besides them dying that worked, I'd be all for it. But there just sorta' ain't on the net. Sometimes you can manage it on specific issues but all the crap that screws the rest of us over involve a lot more than those issues.

* This isn't actually entirely true, but the caveat is it takes years of persistent effort. It's shit that, if you set yourself to do, by the time you may be seeing metaphorical payoff for your efforts they're starting to die off from sheer age anyway. Investment per voter is basically not worth it, and will get you at most some benefit over the course of an election or three. Meanwhile it may take two or three decades before a younger cohort gets things in line enough to become a kingmaker, but once it happens whoever they're aligned with gets to be crowning kings for a good long while.

[EnigmaticHat]

Just making election day a national holiday where everyone has to get off work would do so much.  Or maybe if you want retail and hospitals to keep working that day require employers to provide pre-paid mail in ballots for anyone working that day.  Fill in your ID information, toss it in the mail.  Government posts pictures of the ballot and envelope on the internet and in the local DMV so employers can't pull shenanigans like addressing the envelope to the wrong address or whatever.

[Frumple]

More ease of mail-in or whathaveyou'd be pretty great, yeah. Ballots are usually already available online, from what I'm aware of it, but there also tends to be a hoop or two to jump through for that. Get rid of the hoops, make it easier to find and access, do something to make it easier to vote in absentee. Maybe make it opt-out instead of opt-in, with no-postage returnable (which I want to say they already are, but it's been long enough since I've seen one of the things to recall) ballots sent out to everyone registered that doesn't specifically refuse it (there'd be some costs, there, but hell, put a tenth of a percent or something tax on political TV/internet ads or superPAC spending or whatev' and you'd probably be able to fund it with barely any effort). Plenty places already send a sample ballot out, just make the ruddy thing a real one. Bunch of etc. and so forths.