NBC News Exit Poll: Younger voters make up smaller share of midterm electorate http://t.co/ua20O9aSLj#NBCPoliticspic.twitter.com/nctKriEtQ4
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 4, 2014
The midterm electorates have been +17, +20 and +25 points old people versus young people. Old people want their Medicare and Social Security untouched or enriched, and don’t give a fuck about birth control as they are no longer in the childbearing cohort, and have minimal direct stakes in costs that are only incurred in fifteen or twenty years from now. They are making a death bet that the costs of their good times today won’t be borne by them as they’ll be dead when the bill comes due. It is a rational bet.
The younger cohort has been steady in their mobilization. The fascinating and scary thing to me is the increasing mobilization of the post-60 crowd. Some of that is natural demographic growth as the Boomers are steadily adding to that cohort every day, but the percentage of possible voters to actual voters seems to be increasing at a higher rate as well. Throw in the fact that the oldest voters in 2010 were slightly more Democratic leaning than their younger cohorts, and the older Boomers replacing them are more Republican this is a bad sign for the next couple of mid-terms for Democrats.
We have a presidential electorate where the young participate and issues with a 15 year pay-off horizon are on the table, and then we have an off-cycle electorate that assumes that they’ll be dead in 15 years, so let the good times roll.
Alex S.
Après moi, le déluge…
Is it a generational thing or human nature, i.e. will this problem be solved because the Nixon boomers will die or is that the way people are when they’re old?
FlipYrWhig
Do they? Then why do they vote for the “entitlement reform” party? Fuck them. Take it all away and let ’em struggle for scraps on the street. Oh well, gramps, this is what you voted for, think about that with your dying breath.
Matt McIrvin
What I’d like to see eventually is some statistics on what effect the various vote-suppression efforts had. They actually might disproportionately affect the elderly, but it’s likely the poor, minority elderly who don’t turn out for midterms anyway.
JMG
I’m 65. I don’t want my children to curse my generation for its selfishness when they’re my age. And I don’t think I’m alone. But older people (and I count myself) do tend to see change as a threat. It’s not greed, it’s fear.
Matt McIrvin
@Alex S.: “Cohort effect or stage-of-life effect?” is always the big question with these old-versus-young issues. I think there’s some of both. Old people were reliably Democratic for a while, but the cohort died off.
Older generations are also whiter, and white people are far more Republican. In fact, I think you can explain most of the Democratic lean of younger voters by racial/ethnic makeup alone; in 2008 there was a movement of young white non-Hispanics toward Obama, but in 2012 they voted for Romney.
FlipYrWhig
@JMG: When they’re your age? Too late, I’ve already started.
Matt McIrvin
@FlipYrWhig: Younger people can’t screw over the old like that because they know they will eventually become old (unless they concoct some sort of Logan’s Run-style mass suicide pact). Old people will never become young again.
Richard Mayhew
@FlipYrWhig: But the “Entitlement Reform” Party plan has always been the following:
“You keep the good stuff, you EARNED IT…
Those sub-55 year olds are lazy… they’ll get reformed”
That has been the pitch for years now. it is fuck you, I’ve got mine, I’ll take your future as well.
skerry
@JMG: I’m 54. My children and grandchildren will rightly curse the Boomers for our selfishness and short-sightedness. And they will be right.
Here in my state of MD, I’ve seen reports that say one of the big reasons a Republican won the Governor’s race was because of the “rain tax” – in reality, a stormwater management fee to help protect and continue clean up the Chesapeake Bay. Minimal cost to the homeowner in a state that is anchored by the Bay. Selfishness won.
MikeBoyScout
@FlipYrWhig: I’m an old, and I’m with you on my smirking dark side, but that won’t change the calculus.
What will change it is when the youngens start showing up with regularity.
Teach your parents well.
JPL
@Richard Mayhew: but Senator Perdue said he wants to leave the nation better off for his children.
Botsplainer
@JMG:
Mom is 70. Dad 75. He’s conservative but not psychotically so. She’s glued to Fox and the oogity boogity of the day, and refuses to believe me when I tell her what the plans are for my social security and Medicare in the conservative think tanks (I’m 52, and am eagerly awaiting my coupon mailers for a 10% discount on a colonoscopy when my turn comes about). Her mom never worked, is a horrible human being, is turning 99 in a couple of months and has been lavishly receiving medical care and social security on the government for decades, yet people of color are at fault for everything bad in the economy.
You’re goddamned right I’m resentful. The moment I get wind that the Kill Medicare for 55 and Under bill starts making some headway, I’m going full throated for stop it all for every elder.
Let y’all share in the magic of the free market.
Matt McIrvin
@skerry: I think the Boomers actually get something of a bad rap; a lot of the trouble is due to the pre-Boomer Silent Generation, and the cranky government-is-the-problem vulgar-libertarianism of GenXers now in their forties (the Silents’ kids). Those cohorts weren’t as numerous as the Boomers but they are more conservative.
Suffern ACE
@Matt McIrvin: if the government doesn’t pay their medical bills I will have to or I’ll have to just let my parents die. That’s the choice. Someone will pick up their bills regardless and it will be the younger generations regardless.
Matt McIrvin
@Richard Mayhew: The thing is, GenXers have all been convinced by a cabal of financial planners that they’ll never see a dime from Social Security or Medicare, so they’re hanging on misplaced faith in their 401(k)’s, and they don’t much care about preserving Social Security/Medicare, because that’s still a couple decades off and they’ve already swallowed the self-fulfilling prophecy anyway. This is what worries me.
FlipYrWhig
@Richard Mayhew: I know the logic. They deserve to get it good and hard. I’m not going to be moved by these “woe is me, chained CPI will take the food out of grandpa’s mouth” things anymore. Too bad for Grandpa. I’m tired of being the Old People’s Medicine Party if the actual old people aren’t even voting for us. Let the party they like fix their problems. I’ll just be over here whistling nonchalantly.
beltane
If the old people want to screw over my kids, I’m all for screwing them first. They can pull themselves up by their bootstraps just as well as the rest of us.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: As a GenXer that doesn’t want to retire just because I want to keep working, it’s hard not to wish for a major recession around 2030.
Botsplainer
@Suffern ACE:
On the plus side, that would mean fewer members of the 70s-80s lower middle class cohort to stupidly fuck us all by voting prejudice.
beltane
@Suffern ACE: If it comes down to paying my mother’s or my children’s medical bills, my children come first. Family triage will become an unfortunate fact of life but there is nothing that can be done about it.
maye
Cheer up everyone! For the next two years, Mitch McConnell is the face and voice of the Republican Party. That can only help Dem GOTV in 2016. Honest! Plus all their loony ideas will now be showcased in the legislation they will pass. They don’t have the votes to override a veto, so it will just be an ongoing advertisement for their awfulness.
Matt McIrvin
@FlipYrWhig: Are you planning on committing suicide at 65?
I don’t want to die at 65 but I won’t say I haven’t pondered the numbers. Kid needs to go to college.
skerry
@Matt McIrvin: This is the stormwater fee (“rain tax”) in my county in MD. My county government went Republican along with the Governor.
This is what drove a loss for Democrats. Selfishness. Ninety fucking dollars a year to protect the Chesapeake Bay.
beltane
@Matt McIrvin: My grandmother is almost 101 years old. The thought of living even close to that long terrifies me because I just don’t have the kind of money necessary and I don’t want to be a burden on my sons.
Suffern ACE
@FlipYrWhig: and then who’ll vote for your party? I suppose you could get by on promising amnesty and birth control. That’ll get you 40% for sure.
JMG
I understand everyone here is very upset. I’ve felt better myself. But let’s be realistic for a minute. “What’s in it for me?” is the super primal issue of all politics. That’s how people of all ages are. You can’t be angry at people for voting their narrow self-interest. The problem here is to convince younger voters to show up to vote THEIR self-interest. The Democratic Party as a whole, Obama included, did a piss poor job there. The first and most important element of GOTV is answering the question “Why V?”
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin: If we’re voting on raw self-interest now, I’ll worry about my old age when I’m old. Grandpa doesn’t worry about me, seems like, so I’m not worried about him. People who aren’t me or my friends harmed by a policy? Hmm, you don’t say, what else is on? I’m not going to be emotionally blackmailed about old people. I have two parents, one spouse, and no children. I don’t have to care about anyone else anymore. It’ll be freeing.
Botsplainer
@beltane:
Free market magic, all the way.
Belafon
@skerry: Did the Chesapeake need protecting?
ellie
What is the Senate breakdown now? I can’t find it.
p.a.
@maye: I think TPM made the point that if you think Boehner had a hard time with his yahoos, watch what happens to Yertle. Cold comfort, but gotta take what we can this a.m.
FlipYrWhig
@Suffern ACE: We can just have a party based on resenting the mooching old people who ruin the economy and gouge the rest of us with their lazy ways. Seems like we already have a party based on resenting the mooching black people who ruin the economy and gouge the rest of us with their lazy ways, and they win elections. Sauce, goose, gander, etc.
Belafon
@JMG: As I said in the previous thread, Wendy Davis had a pretty good GOTV effort here in Texas. And Arkansas put a minimum wage increase on the ballot, which passed, and yet the state sent the candidate that opposed it to the US Senate. Not all of this was a failure to inspire Democrats.
beltane
@Botsplainer: Sounds like a scene from a Michael Moore movie. However, since the elderly couple are Republicans I would put it in the comedy category.
The Thin Black Duke
This fucking country chose Reagan, but the country survived.
This fucking country chose George W. Bush (twice), but the country survived.
This fucking country chose to give the Senate to the GOP, but maybe this time it’s “three strikes, you’re out”?
This fucking country.
Matt McIrvin
@beltane: Seriously speaking, I figure A Change Is Gonna Come sooner or later and this country will once again see the benefit of actual social insurance, not extremely soon but probably before you’re 101.
This will largely be because of the electorate getting less white.
Right now we’re moping around in the immediate aftermath of yet another bad midterm dominated by old white voters and their issues. It’s probably a bad time to look into the crystal ball; this election was about the past.
Botsplainer
@JMG:
The old aren’t even voting self-interest, though. They’re voting nasty, brutish resentment.
That is leading to a sea change.
While I’m at it, I think it is time to deregulate nursing homes and give them some tort reform. The free market should work.
Mr Stagger Lee
As a soon to be 51 year old, I think the first ones to pay a price will be people around my age. In some cases we are paying, first to be laid off, hard to get a job and no way to earn the money we had before. SS eligibility is going to be at 67 . Yet it is people in my age bracket still has F&*CKING belief in Reagan in their eyes(never grew out of their inner Alex Keaton), sadly we are the rump of the Tea Party even as we will end up as Soylent Green
Eric U.
@The Thin Black Duke: this country keeps playing with fire thinking it doesn’t really matter, both sides do it, etc. It’s a dangerous game
@Botsplainer: the republicans have told us, albeit quietly, that they want to gut SS and Medicare. The Dems are too afraid of the propaganda arm of the republican party to point this out. If they somehow get a ruling majority again, these programs are in danger.
skerry
@Belafon:
Only if clean water is important.
ETA: And compliance with EPA regulations. The fee was put into place to avoid having to cut other expenditures.
Marc
Incidentally, Richard’s graph does a much better job of explaining where that 5% GOP overperformance came from than the non sequitur Zandar posted below.
37% sixty or older. 5% worse than 2010. We didn’t stand a chance.
brettvk
This is a class thing more than an age thing, I think. I’m a boomer, lifelong lib and always vote Dem and for infrastructure and most taxes, but I’m poor and that drives my ideology. The other olds who vote against the Chesapeake are the remnants of the middle class whose wealth hasn’t yet been transferred to the Romneys, but they can see what’s coming. They just can’t identify the real enemy.
Alicia
@Matt McIrvin:
Which is why the Republicans are hell bent on Voter ID laws and other voter restriction BS in order to prevent the typical Democratic demographics from voting. They are scared and want to put measures in place in order to try and buy themselves a few decades.
AnneW
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” –H. L. Mencken
Chris
And it drives me fucking insane. Because it’s my demographic.
This election was all about the Medicaid expansion for me. It’s why I made damn sure that the St. Johns County elections office mailed me my absentee ballot, then faxed it back straight-ticked Democrat and made sure they acknowledged receipt. I’m in college. I’m over 26. I’ll be leaving my master’s program along with the school’s health insurance next August, or at the most, December. It’s extremely possible that I won’t have a job when I graduate, and that even if I do it’ll be touch and go, temp work or part time work or both, the kind that don’t provide health benefits – that’s how it was after undergrad. I fucking need to have a Medicaid option there until such time as I have stable work, which in this economy might not be for a bit of time.
And this describes a ton of people in my age cohort, because we’re the ones who’re joining this shit economy without much of a resume to build on and fed a steady diet of unpaid internships and not-full-time work. This is not a me issue – this is an issue for our entire generation. So is the minimum wage. So are a whole passel of other things that depend on the people we elect in midterms. So get out and vote, you motherfuckers. It’s our health care, our wallets, our ability to put a roof over our heads and food on the table.
Tripod
It won’t matter how long, deep and hard they get it.
I was talking to a couple of white trade union members last week – they were out of work for years during the Bush disaster. Yet they were still gonna vote to put those n*ggers and gun grabbing bitches in their place.
Rob in CT
@Botsplainer:
The GOP has been quite successful at framing young, non-whites voting for their self-interest as “politicians buying votes with YOUR MONEY.” Older, white people voting their self-interest, of course, is totally different because shut up, that’s why.
One of the many things the Dems need to do is dent that particular formulation.
Botsplainer
@Eric U.:
Serious danger. Cruz and his nihilists could go ahead and pull that trigger right after the new year, frankly.
That has been the value of Texas secession whispers. We’re on the cusp of a legislative coup, where they gamble that Obama wouldn’t want to be the guy who presided over the breakup of the US.
gene108
What scares me about this election is all the far reaching excess Republicans did that we figured would result in electoral blow-back in 2014 never fully materialized.
There were some races that were closer than one might expect, but at the end of the day Republicans have been rewarded for their far right-wing agendas and obstructionism in Congress.
As long as people feel government can never work functionally the Republicans have the advantage, as people have grown accustomed to governmental negligence as being the default state of things and are too young to remember anything different.
Gen X’ers, my age cohort, really only remember the Reagan and subsequent years, where government has been demonized. We’ve heard from our elders that there was an era when the government saved their bacon via the New Deal and Great Society, to a lesser extent, so some of us internalized those lessons, but younger voters have known nothing but the scandal mongering of the Clinton years, the bumbling of the Bush, Jr. era and the obstructionism of the modern era.
I’m not sure how you convince someone that things can be better, when there’s no evidence that has happened in their lifetimes.
JMG
@Botsplainer: Was 2005 that long ago that people forget that when the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress AND the White House Bush’s proposal to privatize Social Security never even came up for a vote? Things will be bad enough without wallowing in doomsday scenarios.
Chris
@gene108:
As I said yesterday: if the Space Program, interstate highway system, Marshall Plan or WW2 era war effort were proposed today, mainstream opinion would say that it simply couldn’t be done. And most of the public would believe it.
gene108
@Eric U.:
Jesus Fucking H. Christ, Obama and the Democrats spent damn near all of 2012 saying the Ryan Budget was going to turn Medicare into a voucher program and destroy it for future generations.
Democrats have been pointing this out.
At some point fatigue sets in, while the moneyed interests that want to gut these programs have the resources to keep at it, until they win.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris:
You mean “welfare roads”? I hear it’s all part of a secret plan to let black thugs and illegals zip around the country on crime sprees. Classic Cloward-Piven.
Botsplainer
@JMG:
I hate to say this, but this is a MUCH stupider Congress than existed in 2005. They were bumblers being led by grifters, but weren’t so beholden to the nasty id of Conservatism. Nowadays, the freak flag is out and proudly waving.
By February 2015, you’ll be looking at the 2005 Congress as a golden era of good governance.
rikyrah
Folks about to find out just how much of the crazy Harry Reid kept at bay.
beltane
@gene108: I’m 46 and my first political memory of any kind is of Watergate and the Nixon resignation. All I have ever experienced is a steady march rightward and gradual downward mobility. I grew up hearing about the GI bill and the wonderful, and free, education provided by public universities to my mother’s generation, but my own personal experience has been of working ever and ever harder just to stay afloat. Virtually all the people I grew up with, except for the people who went the Wall St. route, has a lower standard of living then their parents did at our age. The middle class has mostly withered away at this point.
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
They’re on their way to rallies organized according to Alinski’s Rules.
I read it on WND, so it has to be true.
gene108
@Chris:
I agree.
But those programs favored the Democratic idea of good governance through responsible government.
The right-wing has been working, tirelessly, for 50 years to make sure government cannot do those things.
What you pointed out about your job situation is something that favors Republicans.
I saw this in 2010 and 2012. As long as people are discouraged, because their job prospects suck, their life situation is not dramatically improving, and they generally feel things will not be getting better they do not see what difference their vote will make. I know people, who sat out in 2010 and were about to sit out in 2012, until they realized how much of a jerk Romney is, because the last four years had been brutal and there was not any material benefits created by Obama & Co quickly enough.
As much as liberals hate the Clintons, for whatever reason, I really do think Democrats need someone, with the name power of Hillary Clinton to stand a chance in 2016, because the media is going to be in the tank for whoever the Republicans nominate, so all the crazy-ass stuff the Republican candidate has said or the corrupt stuff he has done, will be swept under the rug the same way it was when Bush, Jr. ran in 2000, while they will belittle any other Democrat as being too much of a light-weight.
gene108
@rikyrah:
Most of the people, who vote, seem to like the crazy.
gene108
@beltane:
But what are you going to do to make things better?
Tax people, who have been successful and redistribute their hard earned money to welfare queens?
We’re really running into a situation that is reviling the pre-New Deal, with regards to the imbalance of power between the haves and have nots.
I just hope we can muster the courage to fight as hard as those people did for change.
rikyrah
I am not vengeful, but I’m getting close to it. So, I gotta step back and remember the lessons my parents taught me. But, it’s hard this morning.
Botsplainer
If a tree falls in a forest and there is no conservative around to witness it, is it still some random black person’s fault?
Tripod
@FlipYrWhig:
Hey, I’ve read a bit of Jane Jacobs – we can teleport all that shit to my big box store, right?
HRA
My “baby boomer” relatives are the ones who’s Dad served in WWII, got educated on the GI bill and made a very successful living and life for his family. IOW the kids are at the top wealthy boomers and Republicans.
My older than boomer relatives were middle class who worked at back breaking jobs and are Democrats.
Nevertheless there were some of the boomers who voted for President Obama in both of his elections.
I have to yet read all of the above comments. I hope there is no spewing of hatred as I read earlier this morning about Republicans. In our home , we are one of each party and the Republican votes often for the Democrat.
I see the problem of yesterday’s results as the absence of the DNC. Who is running it now?
rikyrah
You know, and I know the length of the utter crazy of the GOP. But, now, they will have to vote on their crazy.
1. taking away Obamacare subsidies for millions – they gotta vote on it. put it on the record.
2. voucherizing Medicaire – they gotta vote on it
3. personhood – they gotta vote on it.
when I say that Harry Reid kept a lid on the crazy, I mean it.
there comes a time when you actually have to explain the insanity. a feritlized egg and taking away women’s birth control – there’s no glossing over that.
taking away the ability to have healthcare for your family – there’s no glossing over that.
and, I can’t wait for them to bring up the ‘ charges’ for Impeachment – what they will come up with, and force them to vote on it.
Botsplainer
@gene108:
Donating to the Weathermen and the New Black Panthers would probably be a good start.
I’ll tap “for C4 and ammo” in the comments box.
Paul Gottlieb
Ridiculous overgeneralizing. I’m in my seventies, as are all my friends, and we care passionately about access to birth control,and abortion, the future of the environment, civil rights, and all the things that you claim we don’t. Almost all of us have children and grandchildren that we love. The idea that we are willing to make a bargain that included ruining their world is stupid and insulting. There are reasons why older people tend to vote republican (although not the older people I know), but your simple-minded “Marx for Dummies” analysis doesn’t come close to explaining them
beltane
@gene108: Those pre-New Deal days were pretty volatile in terms of anarchist agitation, etc. The bed-wetters who voted GOP because of ISIS fears may just have helped contribute to the type of economic conditions that help such groups thrive. Change is inevitable, but I fear the opportunity for peaceful, civilized change has passed us by. God only knows what the coming decades will bring, but there’s no way it will be pretty.
Howard Beale IV
@Botsplainer: Let those whispers come out into the open-then it will put them out into the open and show just how batshit crazy they are and show there’s consequnces to such actions. Lets face it-do you really believe that the majority of Texas residents want to lose their US citienship, and their Social Security just because old Calgary Ted thinks it’s a good idea to do so?
Eric U.
some random guy on the internet spouting nonsense about old people isn’t going to change anything. Ok, so it probably will make the evening national news, but hey, it’s not nutpicking if a Dem says something stupid
@JMG: the republicans have gotten considerably crazier since 2005. And Bush actually went on a publicity tour to promote SS privatization. That was stupid, if he railroaded it through it would have had much better chances. Hard to believe he’s looking like a moderate these days
beltane
@rikyrah: Right now I am full of venom and spite. It is vastly preferable to hand-wringing and despair. The hatred I feel towards Republican voters is heartfelt and sincere. To deny it would be dishonest.
NotMax
Congratulations, you win the Earl Butz award for simplistic, insulting stereotyping.
JPL
@rikyrah: They won’t vote on those items until they have the Presidency. They’ll vote on several items that can hurt ACA but are popular, i.e. the ones Richard posted about earlier. They’ll vote on tax fairness, aka, tax cuts for the wealthy. They’ll vote on school choice because every community of 5,000 needs a dozen schools. They’ll vote on prayer in school and of course they’ll vote on saving the fetuses and killing the children.
demz taters
@maye: I hate to piss all over your optimism but the last 15 years have been an advertisement for their awfulness and look where we are today.
Botsplainer
@Paul Gottlieb:
“Tend?”
LOL
You’d best be putting those over-generous benefits you get (courtesy of me) to work saving mine and the rest of the just shy of 55 cohort. They go, I’m agitating for yours to go too, so you can participate in all the glorious freedom of the markets that I’ve been relegated to my entire fucking life.
Rob in CT
My town:
2012 turnout: 80.7%
2014 turnout: 67.2%
And my town is no doubt older, definitely whiter, and more affluent than many.
So even with that sort of demographics, there’s a big drop off. It just seems that the dropoff in other demographics are even worse.
If the Dems want to win more elections, that’s the nut they have to crack. So far, no success.
Tommy
@beltane: For me it was Carter getting elected. As a kid growing up we didn’t have a TV much in my house. So to turn on the election night for Carter was like a cool thing. I recall it like it was yesterday. People have slammed me for saying I got moderate Republicans in my life. Just what it was. Funny thing, became a liberal!
Botsplainer
@Howard Beale IV:
To stick it to that boy in the White Hut, yes. They’re conservatives, that’s how they roll.
beltane
@demz taters: The media will provide cover for their awfulness and make it appear palatable for the average dumbass.
Eric U.
@Howard Beale IV: didn’t Perry publicly mention seccession? Or was it some other Texas Republican? And then talk about patriotism
gogol's wife
@FlipYrWhig:
Are you aware that you are going to be old some day?
Botsplainer
@beltane:
Both sides!
gogol's wife
@beltane:
You should hope that your children don’t have the same attitude.
The ageism on this blog is really nauseating.
gogol's wife
@maye:
The picture of him smiling on the front page of the New York Times is amazing. How could any sentient being vote for that face?????
Botsplainer
@gogol’s wife:
Probably not, since his health care in a true free market paradise will suck donkey balls from about age 50 forward.
reality-based
@The Thin Black Duke:
um, no they didn’t . There was a judicial coup d’etat in 2000, and vote-counting hankey-pankey in 2004.
We should have been out in the streets, banging our pots and pans in 2000. When we let a bunch of Texas oil guys steal the presidency – and because we are all well-brought-up liberals, we meekly acquiesced – that right then, folks, is when the oligarchs knew we would never fight back.
And then we elected a cool-headed, elegant professor – an admirable temperament, to be sure, but Goddamn it, we needed a bare-knuckled streetfighter. Why the F^%%$ weren’t the Democrats spending every nickel trumpeting a national hike in the Minimum wage?
Piss on the entire electorate. Piss on the greedy geezers, and the shallow young who weren’t paying enough attention in govt. class to realize that the house and the senate are, like, IMPORTANT, dude. We have reached a critical mass of stupid people
Fine. Break the country. After the inevitable GOP presidential win in 2016, I’m giving up. We’ve still got 500 acres of land up here in NoDak – I’m gonna get me some plow oxen, some chickens, build the old barn back up and get some pigs. So I can have a refuge for my nieces and nephews, when people get hungry enough so there’s blood in the streets.
seriously. there is no hope .
gogol's wife
@Chris:
I could be on here spouting vitriol about the shiftless, lazy young people who didn’t get off their asses to vote. But I’m above all that.
But it’s true.
Botsplainer
@gogol’s wife:
Thing is, none of us are exactly young. We’re reacting to undeniable voting patterns.
beltane
@gogol’s wife: I already defer medical treatment to pay for their needs. I would be very disappointed in them if they took food out of their children’s mouths to pay for my medical bills.
Gene108
@Matt McIrvin:
How do you unite Latinos, who come from a bunch of different countries and do not view themselves as a monolithic block, blacks, Asians, who also come from different countries and are not a monolithic block?
The country maybe less white, but to fight the power you need a cohesive organization and I do not see that as being easily done in multi-ethnic groups that have their own differing priorities.
Howard Beale IV
@Botsplainer: OK-for the sake of argument, let’s go down that road. First thing is that the new Republic of Texas has to sign a treaty with the United States regarding travel and trade. Second is that we now have to set up border checkpoints between Texas and the other remaining states. Third, Texas will now have to issue passports to their residents to enter the United States (side benefit-since the Republic of Texas is now its very own nice shiny sovereign nation, they’re the ones who have to deal with the illegals on THEIR borders…oops!)
And last, but not least-Texas will not be allowed under any circumstances to use the US dollar-they must issue their own currency. The US dollar will under no circumstances be allowed to be EURO-ized.
Eric U.
@reality-based: I felt like that in 2004, only since I live in the east I’m going to be overrun by New Yorkers when TSHTF, so there really is no plan that works for me. But we did survive that low point.
I never really thought Bush cheated in 2004. Enough people are morons about voting for incumbents that it put him over the top
beltane
@Gene108: Some demagogue will eventually come along making the case that rural white Americans are the Great Satan whom everyone should unite against. It is almost inevitable though it probably won’t happen in my lifetime. Hate is a powerful force.
Shalimar
@JMG:
What I learned from all of the 2011 radicalism on the state level is that Republicans don’t bring these things up for debate anymore. They rush them through quickly and then accept the blowback for a year or two. Three years of pretend moderation afterwards and all but Corbett even got re-elected.
I don’t think there are the votes yet for overriding an Obama veto so we’re unlikely to see any major changes to Social Security or Medicare in 2015. Still, when they do find enough votes through quiet backroom dealing, we won’t get much notice of what is about to happen. A week or two of “debate” while reform passes, and then the changes will already be done before most people are even aware anything was happening.
hoodie
@Botsplainer: My guess is they’ll try to turn these into defined contribution programs like 401(k)’s, and they’ll be just as dismal a failure, i.e., a nice scam for the Romneys of the world (who can play sleazy accounting games and park millions in their 401(k)s), and varying degrees of ripoff for everyone else, who get bled dry by fund managers. What will all these 40 and 50 year old exurban strivers in their overvalued sheetrock palaces in a sea of strip malls do in their 70’s when the 401(k) bomb explodes and SS and Medicare are not there to bail them out? A lot of these folks were unwitting beneficiaries of the Great Society, and took it all for granted. Many of them secretly hate their kids and grandkids because they’ve invested so much in them in the process of fulfilling their own psychic needs, and are disappointed when they don’t turn out the way they fantasized, even though they themselves would have ended up in much the same place under the same circumstances.
FlipYrWhig
@gogol’s wife: It IS true, that too. Still, my reaction is that I don’t care to be blackmailed about how Democrats have to stand up for the well-being of the elderly, seeing as the elderly overwhelmingly prefer the other guys. So let the other guys take care of their well-being. Let it be their problem. Let them have to do some constituent service and solve some problems for a change. Democrats don’t have to make themselves suckers trying to help ingrates.
Eric U.
having grown up and lived around rural white Americans, they scare the hell out of me. Not all, obviously, but they are probably one of the most dangerous demographics. It’s just that the dangerous ones are spread out and not concentrated into cities. Historically, cities were the safest place to be. The NRA and republicans are trying to make this true again, look at Cliven Bundy
JMV Pyro
@beltane:
Don’t deny it, channel it. Feel free to let it all out as far as night goes, because it was a shitty night and their will be big harmful consequences for it, but after all that get back up and try again.
I mean you could try and do a Weather Underground type thing I guess, but that would require you going out and making bombs and planting them places. As angry as everyone here is, I think all those threats I’ve heard here about bombing people or killing the elderly amount to nothing but hot air. I’d be concerned if I actually thought anyone was going to act on these thoughts, but that isn’t going to happen.
FlipYrWhig
@Shalimar: Co-signed. The worst stuff is going to happen soon, and then they’ll try to ride it out with smiling contentlessness, and by stoking resentment.
Alicia
@Eric U.:
I don’t think there was cheating in 2004 either. 2000, absolutely. 2004? Not so much
The media hated Kerry, hated his wife, mocked him for parasailing, etc.. All that added up, plus he wasn’t the most enthusiastic campaigner and had a horrible election strategy. Plus the Swift Boating and the anti-gay measures that were on several state ballots brought the crazies and the morons to the polls.
9/11 still preyed on people’s minds and people voted scared. It took Katrina and an increasingly unpopular war for people to finally see the real Bush and vote accordingly in the 2006 midterms.
kd bart
Hatred of Obama trumps all other factors. Those who truly hate him made sure they got to the polls and took it out on any candidate they could associate with him. Ballots initiatives, like the minimum wage, that Obama would support passed in red states easil but candidates who supported such positions did not.. I bet if you had added the phrase “Supported by President Obama” to the language on the ballot initiative, they would’ve failed.
Bobby Thomson
@demz taters:
Try last 35 years.
Never trust any white people over 40.
Botsplainer
@Howard Beale IV:
Your problem is that you are a rational soul, and thus believe that there should be some sort of orderly, considered plan.
These are conservative Texans we’re talking about. Planning is communistical socialism, and to be disdained if there is a short term buck to be made or a dick-waggling posture to assume.
PIGL
@FlipYrWhig: I agree. Rick Scott was reelected. The prosecution rests.
El Caganer
@rikyrah: That’s why the Republicans are hoping that Obama will veto all the insane bullshit they’ll propose – they know the news media won’t report what the insane bullshit actually is, just that ‘the President is an obstructionist.’ King Yertle and the Orange Guy have it made.
PIGL
@maye: you’re assuming something about the consciousness of the American electorate for which there is no evidence whatsoever.
Tommy
@Eric U.: I get it. I live in rural America. A 5,000 acre corn field a few feet from where I post this. But I find people more progressive than you might think. My district just elected a Republican. That is a first in 70 years. We do NOT electe Republicans here. I can’t imagine what it will be like. I like to be honest, to think I am kind of special. That we grow the shit you eat. Will be interesting to see if he can tow the line.
Elizabelle
I guess this was (1) a “triumph” of Citizens United spending: so many toxic ads; voters turned off and absorbed the negative even if they weren’t trying; (2) economic anxiety by the formerly middle class, rewarding the wrong party; (3) traditional GOP voters, some mean as snakes; some not realizing their party has become mean as snakes, but all with a jones to vote that we Democrats cannot instill in our supporters; (4) corporate-owned media with a thumb on scale for GOP; it’s hard for Obama and Democrats to get a message out beyond the “both sides, both sides” filter, (5) racism among some voters and (6) piss poor apathy by American voters with very little sense of history.
I have mixed feelings about Mark Warner in Virginia getting such a scare, because I am tired of a gazillionaire making noise about trimming entitlements and working across the aisle [to trim even more of the social safety net].
Dispiriting night and morning after.
PIGL
@The Thin Black Duke: you’re wrong about the part where the country is surviving it’s not it’s a death spiral.
mai naem mobile
We are fucked. So fucked. All you can do is hope and pray that we have a Dem prez to nominate liberals to the USSC to replace Scalia/Thomas/Kennedy/Ginsburg/Breyer and deal with the Voter ID stuff.
Elizabelle
@Alicia: I really and truly have my doubts about Ohio in 2004.
Alicia
@El Caganer:
McConnell was already talking about that today – telling the media that the Republicans want to “work” with the President to get bills passed. They are already setting it up so that they will propose the most inane crap and if Obama vetoes it they will use that as their mantra that Obama is an “obstructionist.” As you stated, the media (with a few exceptions) will not be calling them on it.
d58826
It may be rational but it is certainly not moral or ‘family values’ oriented. Basically they are sticking their kids and grandkids with the bill and leaving a more rundown and poorer country then they inherited from their parents and grandparents.
I use the word ‘they’ since even though I’m in that age group I don’t subscribe to the greedy short sighted philosophy. I’ve apologized to my 20 something nieces for the mess that my generation has left them. It didn’t have to be this way.
Alicia
@Elizabelle:
I vaguely remember Ohio being controversial (I was 18 and it was my first Presidential election to vote in so my memory is a bit hazy) – something about votes not getting counted? If I’m remembering correctly, weren’t there still long lines of people waiting to vote at 9PM when the polls normally closed?
Also, if Kerry had won Ohio, he would have won the Presidency, correct? Sorry, my brain is a little fried today.
Maybe there were shenanigans after all.
maye
@demz taters: they took advantage of the information vacuum on the Dem side with negative messaging about their opponents. Now they will need to put forth their own ideas. And we all know how crazy they are. They now get their turn in the spotlight. This election looks like flip side of 2006. Difference is Dems had good record to run on, and instead they cowered in the corner.
tobie
@skerry: I spend half my time in Baltimore and half my time in deep, deep red Cecil County. My neighbors constantly rail against government expenditures but every single one of them who’s installed a new septic system has done so with funds provided by the state through the stormwater management program. Go figure. The hypocrisy never ceases to amaze.
Robert Waldmann
The argument makes sense, but the votes of US adults over 60 don’t. The Republican policy stance (except during campaigns) is the opposite of “let the good times role”. They fight for reduced deficits and, in particular, demand entitlement reform.
In particular, Arkansans over 60 voted for Tom Cotton who voted to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 70. This is a “death bet” only if to death they say “you betcha”.
Cotton’s vote is on a roll call and the Republican Study Group budget is public, so I think it is OK to link to a partisan source
http://pryorforsenate.com/cottonfunders/
“Cotton Was the Only Member Of The Arkansas Delegation To Vote for Republican Study Committee Budget That Transformed Medicare Into Voucher System, Raised the Eligibility Age For Medicare To 70 And Cut Social Security Benefits.”
One can not use rational self interest to explain why people aged over 60 vote for Republicans who demand that Democrats accept entitlement reform and then denounce the Democrats for accepting some of the Republican demands.
Iowa Old Lady
I think perhaps I’ll take a little BJ vacation until folks stop wishing I’ll die in the streets.
Consider blaming the people who didn’t vote rather than those who did. It’s possible to do constructive things that way.
d58826
@Alicia: The exit polls indicated a Kerry win in Ohio but the final results went for Bush. Kerry chose not to challenge the results. Ohio would have given Kerry the necessarily votes in the Electoral College to become president even though Bush won the national popular vote. Kind of the reverse of 2000.
There have been stories and lawsuits over the vote count but I have never seen any final resolution. It does provide the left with a nice conspiracy theory though.
Elizabelle
@Alicia: Welcome, young ‘un.
I’m in my mid-50s. Being a young voter does not seem that long ago, but I guess it is …
d58826
@tobie: In my family there are the 4 conservatives getting military pensions. Two nieces working for Uncle Sam. One niece is a teacher in texas. The navy paid for my sisters masters degree in nursing and for her brother-in-laws medical degree.
They are all tax and spend hating small government cut taxes Reagen republicans. To which I say fine – retuirn the d****mn checks then
maye
@gogol’s wife: being old, white and southern will contribute to his alienating every growing demographic.
Elizabelle
@Iowa Old Lady:
Well said. Hear, hear.
And you might as well stay here or at least lurk. You’re in more danger of encountering rejoicing lunatics in your daily travels IRL than most of us.
Do keep us posted on any schaudenfreude you can find.
El Caganer
I was thinking of waiting until I’m 66 to go for my Railroad Retirement. That doesn’t seem like such a good idea now; I’m going to go ahead and sign up, even though it will be a lot less than if I waited. At least it’s still there….for the moment.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: Yeah. Many moons ago I worked in Reston, VA. I lived on Captial Hill. Only person at the ad agency that lived in DC that was a liberal. Had Republicans come talk to us. Tom Davis was one of them. I was told to sit down and shut the fuck up. I did not. Went right after the man, asking why as a DC resident I didn’t have rights. He was on the committee that decided things in DC ….
He took me out to lunch later and treated me like an adult. Davis stopped running for office, and I think it was because he was an honest man and couldn’t handle the BS of elected office.
maye
@PIGL: im assuming old white southern men will not help GOP prospects in 2016.
Linnaeus
I think a useful question to ask is why younger voters didn’t turn out.
ETA: And I don’t mean that facetiously. If younger voters tend to be Democratic, then the Democrats need to find a way to get them to the polls.
Tommy
@d58826: My father worked for the DoD for 30+ years. My brother’s wife works for the Air Force, civil service. So does her sister. Her father worked for the DoD. They are all Republicans. It does make me wonder what world they live in. They have good jobs. Healthcare. Heck they have child care. I often want to yell at them, “what the fuck, isn’t it kind of nice what you have, don’t you wish others had the same?”
gogol's wife
@Linnaeus:
I think they’re hypnotized by their little screens and they don’t notice the surrounding world.
Tommy
@Linnaeus:
Agreed. I work out of my house and on many days I can look like a slob in how I dress. I got a little dressed up to vote today, as I always do. I can’t tell you how good it felt to vote.
Pee Cee
@Linnaeus:
Some possibilities:
– They work, much more than previous generations ever did. And they don’t have time off (and may risk losing a job) to go stand in long lines to vote in the “smaller” elections.
– Alternatives to waiting in line to vote aren’t widely publicized or aren’t available.
– Those voter-suppression laws actually work.
Chris
@d58826:
@Tommy:
Ah, but they earned it. They earned their paychecks working in the one and only government department that’s good. It’s all those other government programs that are wasteful and bad, and if all these people were men they’d either join the military or go earn the same deal by working hard enough for a private company that the boss could see they deserved it…
Linnaeus
@gogol’s wife:
My guess is that younger voters didn’t find enough that was compelling in Democratic candidates.
Voting Democratic seems like the obvious choice to most of us here, myself included. But not everyone is as invested a voter as we are here.
d58826
@Tommy: Yep. My tax hating brother in law even pushed for a tax increase one year. Why? Well without it his daughters public schools would have been gutting due to funding issues. Fortunately the tax increase passed. .
Linnaeus
@Pee Cee:
I think those are very distinct possibilities, in addition to what I offered.
Tommy
@Pee Cee: I say this over an over because my mom runs elections in her district. You can vote from 6 AM until 7PM. We have earlier voting. Mail in is easy. IMHO if you don’t vote it is because you are a lazy fuck!
Tommy
@d58826: Everybody in my family has PhD’s and stuff. I do not have kids. We are all wondering what school my nieces should attend. My dad, me, my brother never went a school that wasn’t public. Both as a kid and later as an adult. I could have gone to Harvard or Yale, but LSU was good enough for me. As was Western Illinois. Just need to say this ….
Matt McIrvin
@Gene108: For now, Republicans are doing that for us by transparently hating on everyone who doesn’t resemble themselves. The only problem is getting them to turn out.
There’s this old American cycle in which new ethnic groups gradually get co-opted into the “white” camp as long as they’re not black, and a lot of people have assumed it will happen again with Mexican-Americans, Asians, maybe some others. I think it’s some way off before a conservatism based on racial resentment can get them, though.
For a while, Republicans were having some success co-opting some of these groups. They did well with Cubans, and East Asians, and in 2000 George W. Bush was even getting a lot of Arab Muslim votes! 9/11 happened, war in the Muslim world happened, Obama and the anti-Obama freakout happened and all that went down the drain. They just threw it away. They could do it again… but they’d have to get less poisonously nuts in the process. They always seem to screw themselves over.
Elizabelle
@Tommy: Interesting story about Tom Davis. He was GOP, but a pragmatic guy and not a culture warrior.
I think you’re right; he saw the writing on the wall early.
Robert Waldmann
@Richard Mayhew: The entitlement reform plan isn’t always “You keep the good stuff, you EARNED IT…
Those sub-55 year olds are lazy” Now senator Cotton voted for the Republican Study group budget which raised Medicare eligibility age to 70 (it balanced the budget within 5 years — this is not Ryan type cuts scheduled to start in 10 years).
As I note in a comment here, the Pryor campaign noted this fact (I link to terrible oppo research which starts with other things). I am quite sure that the vast majority of Cotton voters are quite sure that Cotton never voted to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 70 (as he undeniably did). I am sure many heard the claim made by the Pryor and assumed it was a lie.
it isn’t just that different voters don’t ahve the same interests, they also don’t have the same facts.
Carolinus
@Linnaeus:
One possibility was how the Snowden circus absolutely dominated Left media, social media and blogs. It became a single-issue, all-consuming, often conspiratorial obsession for many, and coincided with a big drop-off in age 18-34 cross-tabs in Dem/Presidential approval ratings. Ironically, one of that constituency’s strongest representatives, who actually worked for reforming and succeeded in changing a number of the programs they claimed to find most objectionable, went down in flames last night.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Just got back from Mexico City last night.
That, right there, is the future that the GOP scum are agitating for, whether they know it or not.
Pee Cee
@Linnaeus:
Now living in a deep red state, I can certainly see that. All our statewide offices are Republicans – and a significant chunk of them run unopposed by any Democrat. And then there’s those uncontested House races John Oliver was on about this week…
Matt McIrvin
@Iowa Old Lady: You can probably tell I’ve personally been doing some thinking about getting old. I think the fact that my parents and remaining grandparent are not Fox News geezers (I certainly don’t always agree with them about politics, but Grandma, who is 95, has been right more often than I’ve been in recent years) also colors my thinking on the subject.
Relying on differential death rates to do the work of changing the electorate is kind of a grim last-ditch thing. It will probably work, but you hope it doesn’t come to that.
I always think of gay rights: there was this stark generational difference that made people realize that things would change just from old homophobes dying off, but in fact national opinion has changed way, way faster than that alone can explain. Old people have been changing their minds on that, not just dying. There’s been a bit of resentment of the gay-rights movement from economic liberals for winning and winning when the left has been losing in so many other ways. Maybe we ought to look into how it happened.
Matt McIrvin
@Linnaeus: Just based on anecdotes here and there, I suspect we’ll find that new vote-suppression laws actually had a significant effect in convincing people who might need to register or not have the right kind of ID that it wasn’t worth the bother.
FlipYrWhig
@Iowa Old Lady: I’ve been one of the worst on this, saying fairly macabre things, but I’m really, truly frustrated that Democrats have gotten stuck being both the party that’s supposed to help old people _and_ the party that old people won’t vote for. Why keep trying to help? Let the people they vote for address their needs. That’s how politics is supposed to work.
gogol's wife
@Carolinus:
To whom are you referring? I’m just curious.
Carolinus
@gogol’s wife:
Sen. Mark Udall. Long before anyone had heard of Snowden he was lobbying for reforming Patriot Act Section 215 bulk metadata collection, and succeeding in getting the e-mail half of the program mothballed. He was the one Senate Intelligence Committee member whose main focus was privacy reforms.
This pretty much sums it up:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/11/05/with-udalls-defeat-nsa-reformers-lose-an-ally-on-the-inside/
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
I wonder if the Democrats do need to consider a greater emphasis on policies that benefit younger voters. Which is not to say that older voters need to be sent to cardboard boxes under a bridge somewhere, but rather try to maximize their appeal to voters that 1) tend to be more inclined to vote for Democrats, 2) are in a relatively large age cohort and 3) will be around for a while.
Social Security and Medicare are popular enough that I don’t think there will be a successful effort to dismantle them and any setbacks that chip away at them can be reversed in an ad hoc manner. Play to your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.
El Caganer
@Linnaeus: There’s a common thread in both the fears of losing benefits by the older generation and the frustration at lack of opportunity by the younger: all the gains in the economy are being funneled up to the 1% and everybody else is getting dick.
AnonPhenom
So then, generational warfare it is.
We’ll just keep morphing from one set of cultural warriors to the next.
The plutocrats must be laughing their asses off.
Linnaeus
@El Caganer:
Agreed. The question for me is how to approach that problem. It’s not a matter of ignoring different people’s priorities, but maybe being more strategic about what you emphasize. Social Security and Medicare, to use those examples again, are Democratic programs. It’s a testament to their popularity that even the Republicans can’t campaign against them, at least not directly. The Democrats, on the whole, are going to defend those programs. So let’s think about how to appeal to more voters who are concerned about other issues.
FlipYrWhig
@Linnaeus: I’d be for it. It’s risky because youth, being wasted on the young, means low political involvement: politicians do things that speak to who’s already in the arena. But I’m certainly willing to try most anything to change the conversation. You’re just making yourself a patsy if you keep doing favors and expending capital for people who spit in your eye afterwards.
Full metal Wingnut
@FlipYrWhig: Right. If I ain’t getting no Social Security or Medicare, I don’t want to be fucking paying for it today. I could use the extra money anyway.
Full metal Wingnut
@beltane: That’s a normal feeling. I love my parents, they’re great people (although they have been hypnotized by Fock Snooze). But no matter how much you love them, you just don’t have the same protective instinct towards your parents that you do towards your kids. I’m not a fan of evo psych, but it makes sense.
Full metal Wingnut
@maye: I wish I shared your optimism. Their lunacy has been on display and it hasn’t stopped them. Their retaking of seats is within the historical averages for midterms, but you’d think their bullshit would’ve done something.
And my home state reelected fucking Bat Boy. I don’t care if Crist is slimy or uninspiring. The alternative is fucking Lex Luthor!
You know what, we shouldn’t let the Republicans govern. Do to them what they did to us. There are some wuss Democrats who think that the party who wins deserves to govern.
Bullshit. Republicans deserve to govern if and only if they let the Democrats govern when they had power. Otherwise you get Nongovernment followed by Republican government. Don’t be spineless wusses, it’s time to give the Repukes a taste of their own medicine.
Full metal Wingnut
@FlipYrWhig: Sadly I doubt even that would inspire younger people to the poll. Codgers vote, always have.
Full metal Wingnut
@The Thin Black Duke: Ah yes the 80s. Dark times.
You know I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again. I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone who voted for Reagan and was harmed by what he did to this country. Zip. Zilch. Nada. You reap what you sow.
Ditto for the people who voted for the Repukes this Tuesday.
And especially people who voted for scumfucks like Walker and Scott.
Full metal Wingnut
@JMG: Yeah, I can. I’m in an income bracket where voting Republican would actually be better for my taxes. But I vote Democrat because I’m not a selfish piece of shit.
I can sure as fuck blame people for only considering their narrow self interest.
Don
This is the stormwater fee (“rain tax”) in my county in MD. My county government went Republican along with the Governor.
Ya know, I have some sympathy for the anger at it. I think voting based on it is foolish, but we’re in this situation where being a citizen is like renting a fucking car with the gazillion random fees because we’ve let people erode the tax base and require all this random leak-patching. Why is there this fee at all? Those people pay property taxes, this should just come out of that.
But we eviscerate these taxes because of a combined cultural felliation of property ownership and a cadre of people who never met a tax they didn’t want to kill. And the killers will use any mechanism to do it. I voted no on the VA constitutional amendment to allow the legislature to give war widows a pass on their property taxes. I feel like if you want to do that – and I am agnostic on the point – then create a damned budget line item and own up to what it costs to do it.
That’s the same end result, but it’s honest about the fact that you’re dipping into the coffers. Yet the democratic please-vote-this-way ballot I got in the mail was in favor of it. Because who doesn’t want to help veteran’s families?1?!! So there’s one more slice off the budget that’ll have to be made up somewhere now that almost 90% of the state voted for it.
Perhaps with a shitty little fee that someone can use as a campaign issue in a few years.
Linnaeus
djw over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money has a post that touches on some of the same things that this post does.
Archon
I remember talking to a man before the 2012 election. He was talking about government and spending and how Republicans were gonna cut the waste, the usual blah, blah, blah. I told him one way Republicans wanted to cut “waste” was by turning Medicare into a voucher (he was a white man in his 70’s). I’ll never forget this, he looked at me with a wry smile and almost embarrassed look on his face and said, “Well everyone over 55 will be exempt”.
That is the number one problem with this country we have a “I got mine, fuck everyone else” voter mentality and seniors are the tip of that spear.
InternetDragons
I get so fucking tired of these generalizations about older voters. Full disclosure: I’m an older voter, but I’m quite sure I’m far more left on the political spectrum than many folks here. I’ve been a lefty my entire life, I consistently vote that way, and the same is true of everyone in my social circles.
I spend a fair amount of time time doing part-time work involving online gaming (just because I enjoy it. My actual career is in public health). You know who scares the hell out of me in terms of the future of this country? The hordes of young people I encounter in these communities who are either total bots for the Libertarians or who are extremely, venomously, and hatefully right-wing.
You can spew all you want to about the “olds” – and I am not saying there isn’t truth to those generalizations. But I’m saying they are just that – generalizations. And in the meantime, you’re blinding yourself to the next generations of wingnuts and haters. They are out there.
VFX Lurker
@hoodie:
It’s not the fund managers that I’d worry about. The Republicans could give us access to the federal Thrift Savings Program, which offers ultra-low-cost index funds. Or, they could raise the IRA contribution limit to $18,000/year, and we could all use Vanguard or CDs at a credit union.
I’d be worried that a defined contribution plan would come with these other weaknesses of a 401(k):
– it’s optional, and does not force a worker to save a single penny.
– the risk of outliving one’s savings.
– the requirement to learn investing, which is simple but not easy.
Anything that replaces Social Security should force the worker to pay into it. Otherwise the worker has no guarantee of having any savings for retirement. It should also restrict the worker to low-cost, indexed TSP funds, otherwise the worker risks getting ripped off by the financial industry. Perhaps it could also force an age-appropriate allocation upon the worker, to eliminate the chance of emotional mistakes on the worker’s part.
Frankly, it’s better for this country to keep Social Security in place.
AnonPhenom
@InternetDragons:
Ain’t it the truth.
This place could be mistaken for a Reddit thread today.
Fer’fucks sake, everybody take a deep breath.
Howard Beale IV
@Botsplainer: Oh, yeah, I forgot-while we’re at it, the US yanks our military hardware out of there and they get to buy their own hardware on the open market, and build their own army and Air Force. American can become their flag carrier, and they get to create their own Texas Reserve bank to handle the new Texas currency. Let the good times roll.
notoriousJRT
@AnonPhenom:
This.
I got mine fuck you vs. I wanna keep mine fuck you.
Drive a stake between generations and the basis for Social Security erodes like sand.
AnonPhenom
@notoriousJRT:
I don’t think plutocrats are going to care which groups comprises the ‘them’ and which the ‘us’, or if the working class fools willingly cooperate in their own deception and destruction….more’s the better.
PhilbertDesanex
I am totally an early Boomer and by the gods, we are despicable. Once They get they young people to believe they will get no SS like above, like sand per above.
Yuppie Pricks – Fuck You I’m Rich – YouTube.
AnonPhenom
@PhilbertDesanex:
bqhatevwr