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Obama was an outlier and youth numbers didn't push him over the top. Sorry but you youngins just don't vote and don't contribute campaign contributions. Don't take it personally, youngins never have.

I think Millenials and Gen Xers are this angry because I think for the first time in US history, the generation before them has left them worse off with less opportunity.

Before the boomers, the generation before them and before that left the world a better place with more opportunity

By not voting for Clinton, I think America's youth are smarter than some people here on dakka give them credit for.

Yes, turnout could have been higher, but I can predict with a degree of accuracy that millions of Americans made a conscientious decision not to vote at all, based on facts and logic, and the fact both candidates were awful.

Looking back at elections from yesteryear in America, compared to Trump and Clinton, even some of those 'loser' politicians who were smashed or defeated by landslides, Goldwater/Humphrey/Wallace for example, had more ideas, principal, ideology and 'vision' for the USA than what was served up this year.

The quality of politicians in the western world has been declining for decades. It is perfectly rational not to vote for Trump or Clinton, or David Cameron, or that weasel Nick Clegg*

*A British version of Mitt Romney for puzzled American dakka members, whom I envy for never having encountered Clegg.

I detest that man

**Nevermind***

 Frazzled wrote:
Obama was an outlier and youth numbers didn't push him over the top.

Statistically the only demo that has ever held the distinction of being able to push a politician over the top is white males, and that was back when women and black people couldn't vote. These days it's about combinations of voting blocs that can work together, not the one bloc to rule them all. The only way to take Obama as an outlier is to ignore what the Democratic side of the 2016 election revealed about Millennials as a voting bloc. Namely that even a race baiting testament to everything they supposedly dislike wasn't enough to get them out to vote for a card board cut out of a generic Democrat who didn't talk about any of things they're worried about (despite having policy that did).

and don't contribute campaign contributions.

Because the person who gets the most contributions always wins

 LordofHats wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
At some point people will realize the young don't vote because they don't think it matters, not because they're lazy. Given them a reason and they show up (and in this regard they're not really any different from anyone else). I would have thought we'd already reached that point but I really need to learn to stop underestimating how obtuse the rest of the world can manage to be.

I'll just be over here. Probably take a decade or two, but I'll make sure the "Called it" T-Shirts are ready

Alternatively, politicians may start paying attention to the under-35 population when they start coming out to vote more reliably. It's a catch-22 situation.

Not really. Politicians ignore the under 35 population as a specific demographic because in the past there has been no reason to target it. You can draw people in by focusing on just general politics. That changes when age becomes a major marker not just of political leanings, but of any political activity at all. That's a recent development. To which I again point out, in what world does anyone really think no one noticed the importance of that Demographic to Obama, and what happened in the 2016 election? It's not a question of will that bloc vote anymore, but will they vote for X. As a polity the under 35 demo has become increasingly distinct from the rest of the population. They don't care about manufacturing jobs, they don't care about the retirement age, they don't care about "traditional values", and they blame people older than them for mounting problems with debt, a narrwing job market, and taking what little money they have so air conditioner manufacturers can get some corporate welfare. Obama and Bernie have already shown what it takes to get them to vote.

Very good point.

Who's the next "Obama" or "Bernie"??

Also, keep in mind that people's politics changes over time, just because your generation in the <35yo bucket tend to be more liberal... when you get to the "other side", political views can change.

It's almost a rite of passage.

Yeah, but we're talking about a Demographic that starts in 1984-1986 and goes on to 2000 (and by all accounts the generation after them is even more left than they are). Once you hit 30, your politics don't change as much as the political landscape changes around you. Today's conservatives were yesterdays liberals, but it's not that they went from left leaning to right leaning but that the political center shifted over the course of their lives.

Larry Lesig has been contacted by over 20 Republican electors that want to vote for someone other than Trump. Will they? Who knows. But it's coming closer to a reality each day. Fun times.

ender502

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
I think Millenials and Gen Xers are this angry because I think for the first time in US history, the generation before them has left them worse off with less opportunity.

Before the boomers, the generation before them and before that left the world a better place with more opportunity

The Boomers...are certainly their own thing.

Although I think that the Gen X and Millennial generations are (speaking in extremely general terms because we have to) in different places with regards to their feelings. Based on my interactions with other Gen Xers, I think there's a general feeling that Gen Xers had to do a lot of scratching and clawing to get what they got...and Millennials seem much less willing to scratch and claw. Gen X is disaffected, but I think we've also worked through some of those feelings, stopped complaining, and gotten to work because we've had to. Our little generation is the one keeping the machine going, to a large degree.

Mind you, I don't think all these generational characterizations are necessarily fair. Gen X was called a generation of slackers back in the day, but now we're looked at quite differently. Some of this is just how older people have viewed younger people since time began. Another piece is how people change as they get older.

However, I'll say this. I was recently told by someone at a consumer products company that they're basically skipping marketing to the Millennials in favor of Gen Z. I didn't get a lot of details, but the basic story seemed to be that they're too hard to figure out and they don't see much upside there anyway. *shrug*

 gorgon wrote:
Although I think that the Gen X and Millennial generations are (speaking in extremely general terms because we have to) in different places with regards to their feelings. Based on my interactions with other Gen Xers, I think there's a general feeling that Gen Xers had to do a lot of scratching and clawing to get what they got...and Millennials seem much less willing to scratch and claw. Gen X is disaffected, but I think we've also worked through some of those feelings, stopped complaining, and gotten to work because we've had to. Our little generation is the one keeping the machine going, to a large degree.

See, for my experience its easy to talk about scratching your own way when the opportunity exists to do so. Manufacturing is gone in most of the US, vocational work is increasingly hard to get into, and the professional world is open to basically anyone but it has an increasingly steep cost of entry. Being dismissed as "complainers" is insulting (as if Gen X never complained about anything which I know for a fact isn't true ), and probably fuels the anger that is felt towards those older than me more than anything. My parents went to college at time when it cost 1/3 what it does now, and the market for emerging work was much broader. I roll my eyes when my parents and their generation talk about how hard they worked, because they seem to operate under a delusion that I'm not. You don't go bald at 27 because you've been having a swell time kicking back and playing video games.

However, I'll say this. I was recently told by someone at a consumer products company that they're basically skipping marketing to the Millennials in favor of Gen Z. I didn't get a lot of details, but the basic story seemed to be that they're too hard to figure out and they don't see much upside there anyway. *shrug*

I don't think the market behaviors of my generation are that different from my parents' honestly. The kind of marketing that works on my parents has always seemed to work equally well for me.

 LordofHats wrote:
At some point people will realize the young don't vote because they don't think it matters, not because they're lazy. Given them a reason and they show up (and in this regard they're not really any different from anyone else). I would have thought we'd already reached that point but I really need to learn to stop underestimating how obtuse the rest of the world can manage to be.

I'll just be over here. Probably take a decade or two, but I'll make sure the "Called it" T-Shirts are ready

Sounds like young people feel like they deserve to be inspired, when in reality elections ate often between two undesirable candidates. I certainly wasn't inspired by either candidate, but I don't view that in the least as an excuse not to vote.

 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah, but we're talking about a Demographic that starts in 1984-1986 and goes on to 2000 (and by all accounts the generation after them is even more left than they are). Once you hit 30, your politics don't change as much as the political landscape changes around you. Today's conservatives were yesterdays liberals, but it's not that they went from left leaning to right leaning but that the political center shifted over the course of their lives.

It's a little bit of both.

I'm sure there are people who claims who haven't moved much and that their 'x' party moved away from them... just as much as their political views actually shift as the older they get.

 jasper76 wrote:
Sounds like young people feel like they deserve to be inspired

Has nothing to do with deserve. It's just basic salesmanship. No one buys what your selling when they see no upside.

I got my sense of civic duty and what not, but I'm about as understanding as I am upset by how few of the people I know voted this November, because I can see why they didn't. Hillary was uninspiring, Trump is already a clown circus and he hasn't even taken his oath yet, and even having voting for a preferred candidate I did so knowing neither of them were ever going to improve my prospects. The best I could do was hedge that Hillary wouldn't make them any worse, but that's not exactly good motivation.

I'm sure there are people who claims who haven't moved much and that their 'x' party moved away from them... just as much as their political views actually shift as the older they get.

I think that's probably only most applicable in economic concerns. Your attitude towards money changes a lot once you start making your own, and then again when you start having kids.

 LordofHats wrote:

I'm sure there are people who claims who haven't moved much and that their 'x' party moved away from them... just as much as their political views actually shift as the older they get.

I think that's probably only most applicable in economic concerns. Your attitude towards money changes a lot once you start making your own, and then again when you start having kids.

Very much so.

That's life.

Note - this isn't me saying that 'the older you get, you're likely more conservative'... which is a myth imo. I've known plenty of people who grew up in a very conservative home, but when they got out on their own/job/family... they're bleeding libbies.

It's just that, your ENVIRONMENT factors into a person's political views... and having kids, or getting a job for the first time making your own scratch can cause those inherent views to change.

 whembly wrote:
Note - this isn't me saying that 'the older you get, you're likely more conservative'... which is a myth imo.

I don't think it's a myth so much as a misleading statement.

People misread it as meaning you go from being a liberal with lofty dreams to a "realist" (or rather a progressive to a grumpy grouch) over time, but the idea is just that the line between "liberal" and "conservative" moves. For most of the last century its generally moved left, but I mean that could change but then people on the left will be the conservatives and people on the right the "liberals."

 whembly wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

I'm sure there are people who claims who haven't moved much and that their 'x' party moved away from them... just as much as their political views actually shift as the older they get.

I think that's probably only most applicable in economic concerns. Your attitude towards money changes a lot once you start making your own, and then again when you start having kids.

Very much so.

That's life.

Note - this isn't me saying that 'the older you get, you're likely more conservative'... which is a myth imo. I've known plenty of people who grew up in a very conservative home, but when they got out on their own/job/family... they're bleeding libbies.

It's just that, your ENVIRONMENT factors into a person's political views... and having kids, or getting a job for the first time making your own scratch can cause those inherent views to change.

I've had both happen in my family. The rest of my grandmother's extended family (she was an only child) are very conservative, but she's a long time feminist, and very liberal, same for my mother (her daughter). But my uncle from her is a tea-party republican.



Also, saw this posted on twitter. Don't know how accurate YouGov is, but sort of surprising.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Also, saw this posted on twitter. Don't know how accurate YouGov is, but sort of surprising.

I don't know if it can be considered a general trend, but definitely there's at least a corner of growing support for Putin in the conservative ends of the Western world. No surprising really. Recent events have placed Russian foreign policy and Putin into a broader context of what people think about their own governments.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Also, saw this posted on twitter. Don't know how accurate YouGov is, but sort of surprising.

I don't know if it can be considered a general trend, but definitely there's at least a corner of growing support for Putin in the conservative ends of the Western world. No surprising really. Recent events have placed Russian foreign policy and Putin into a broader context of what people think about their own governments.

As the raging Conservative on this board...

FETH Putin.

'Murrica!

 whembly wrote:

As the raging Conservative on this board...

FETH Putin.

'Murrica!

I'm in complete agreement.

????

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/anthony-scaramucci-global-warming-flat-earth-theory

“Some of the stuff that you're reading and some of the stuff I'm reading is very ideologically-based about the climate. We don't want it to be that way,” he said.

He later added, “I’m saying people have gotten things wrong throughout the 5,500-year history of our planet.”

Well, we have medieval luddites over in Iraq and Syria so....

 Mr. Burning wrote:
????

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/anthony-scaramucci-global-warming-flat-earth-theory

“Some of the stuff that you're reading and some of the stuff I'm reading is very ideologically-based about the climate. We don't want it to be that way,” he said.

He later added, “I’m saying people have gotten things wrong throughout the 5,500-year history of our planet.”

Well, we have medieval luddites over in Iraq and Syria so....

Also, the Earth was proven to be spherical in around the 3rd century BC. Before that it was not science stating that it was flat but mythology and religion.

It's also just kind of a myth. Flat earth cosmology was basically dead from the 9th century on wards until the late Enlightenment revived it for the sole purpose of bashing the Catholic Church. Europeans by and large either recognized the Earth was a sphere from the 3rd century BC onwards, or simply didn't care because a starving farmer in Gaul has bigger problems than the shape of the Earth (like avoiding being enslaved by Romans ). I'd love to know what science was behind this though, given that the scientific method didn't even exist at the same time as flat earth cosmology. There's at least a 500 year gap between those two conceptions XD

The earth is actually flat and riding around space on top of elephants who in turn are on top of a giant turtle

Give me a science advisory position republicans

 Ustrello wrote:
The earth is actually flat and riding around space on top of elephants who in turn are on top of a giant turtle

Give me a science advisory position republicans

What's the sex of the turtle?

Infrequent at best.

Meanwhile in Canada...

 Ahtman wrote:
Meanwhile in Canada...

But are they rich?

 Ahtman wrote:
Meanwhile in Canada...

I'm going to echo the first comment and ask who is in charge of the Department of Witchcraft and Sorcery. Cause it better not be a muggle! That just wouldn't make sense.

 Ahtman wrote:
Meanwhile in Canada...

And meanwhile, our Energy Secretary believes the world is 5000 years old. When did the GOP start accepting stupid as currency?

...remembers why I no longer carry a RNC card.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
[
"... I know this sounds dangerously close to eugenics." Compulsory sterilization doesn't sound "dangerously close" to eugenics, it pretty much is the cornerstone of eugenics. It sounds like a couple of other things I could think of as well.

I never stated that sterilization should be mandatory. I stated that there should be a short-term economic incentive for voluntary sterilization. That's a pretty big difference.