11-14-2022, 01:50 AM
The GOP as now constituted has a coalition on the fade. Midterm elections usually go strongly against the President's Party and this one didn't The GOP is not seeing its coalition going off to another Party; its elderly voters are dying off without being replenished by newer voters to whom the current GOP pitch can succeed. The generations are all aging in place, and the only generations getting more voters are the two youngest adult generations: Millennials and the Homeland Generation. Millennial adults are starting to get some politicians elected, and as they find politicians tailored to fit their culture as well as their political values, they will really take hold in American political life. Octogenarian and nonagenarian politicians do not have much time in which to stay in office, and new politicians from the Silent and earlier part of the Boomer generation will not be replacing their elderly politicians who die or retire.
It is easy to ignore this basic reality of generational theory when the President, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate Minority Leader are all 80 or older. It is also wrong, because people are still not living into the 100+ category in big numbers. People do not start political careers (aside from one disastrous freak in American political history) in their 70's or later. The Millennial generation is getting more of its potential voters out to vote. The older generations (Silent, Boom, and even X) are starting to lose more voters from death than finding new voters from any source. Do you not believe me about Generation X? Barack Obama turned 61 this year. Sure, lots of people 61 years old can still be active and alert, and they can draw upon experience as an asset in doing many things. On the other side, many X have had bad habits now killing them -- smoking, heavy drinking, drugs, obesity, bad driving,
and sedentary lives. death rates reach a minimum soon after puberty and increase steadily from then on. They are relatively low until age 50, and after that they accelerate.
Figure that the average voter has a voting "career" of sixty years from age 25 to age 85. 1.6% of that electorate dies off each year, almost all of it over 50. Younger voters supplant those older voters who quit voting because they die. (Yes, deceased former voters must be purged from eligibility!) The new voters are about 20% more D than R and the older voters (it is now roughly the same for Silent, Boomers, and early-wave X) are about 5% more R than D. Over four years that is about a 1.6% overall shift from R to D. This explains the difference between the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections even if Trump supporters cry fraud. The demographics fit the result morer than does anything else. This is the opposite of how things went in the 1980's, when the youngest voters (then early-wave X) were about 20% more R than D and the GI voters dying off were about 10% more D than R. Such explains the landslide win of Reagan in 1984 which seems unlikely to be replicated and the older Bush winning in a landslide not since reached for the presidency.
It is easy to ignore this basic reality of generational theory when the President, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate Minority Leader are all 80 or older. It is also wrong, because people are still not living into the 100+ category in big numbers. People do not start political careers (aside from one disastrous freak in American political history) in their 70's or later. The Millennial generation is getting more of its potential voters out to vote. The older generations (Silent, Boom, and even X) are starting to lose more voters from death than finding new voters from any source. Do you not believe me about Generation X? Barack Obama turned 61 this year. Sure, lots of people 61 years old can still be active and alert, and they can draw upon experience as an asset in doing many things. On the other side, many X have had bad habits now killing them -- smoking, heavy drinking, drugs, obesity, bad driving,
and sedentary lives. death rates reach a minimum soon after puberty and increase steadily from then on. They are relatively low until age 50, and after that they accelerate.
Figure that the average voter has a voting "career" of sixty years from age 25 to age 85. 1.6% of that electorate dies off each year, almost all of it over 50. Younger voters supplant those older voters who quit voting because they die. (Yes, deceased former voters must be purged from eligibility!) The new voters are about 20% more D than R and the older voters (it is now roughly the same for Silent, Boomers, and early-wave X) are about 5% more R than D. Over four years that is about a 1.6% overall shift from R to D. This explains the difference between the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections even if Trump supporters cry fraud. The demographics fit the result morer than does anything else. This is the opposite of how things went in the 1980's, when the youngest voters (then early-wave X) were about 20% more R than D and the GI voters dying off were about 10% more D than R. Such explains the landslide win of Reagan in 1984 which seems unlikely to be replicated and the older Bush winning in a landslide not since reached for the presidency.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.