A question I posed in this 2009 thread, based partly on the 2005 version of the Pew Political Typology. The [makes the picture even clearer.
Typology group profiles on [url=Typology Group Profiles | Pew Research Center]this page.](]2011 version[/url) The Staunch Conservatives – 9% of adult population, 10% of registered voters –
– are the Tea Party’s base. Presumably the Tea Party, with its anti-tax, starve-the-beast rhetoric, also gets some support from the Libertarians (meaning, not the Libertarian Party, but a socially liberal Republican-leaning typology group, 9% of population, 10% of voters); but the Staunch Conservatives are their base — in fact, they’re really the base of the whole of post-Goldwater movement conservatism.
Andy they are also the oldest typology group – see the page on demographics and news sources. 28% of them are over 65, 33% are 50-64. I contend that this is a generational-culture thing, not a stage-of-life thing – that is, the Staunch Conservatives, as they die off, will not be replaced by comparable numbers of Staunch Conservatives from younger generations, because younger generations, whatever social environment they were raised in, simply do not share their world-view. The Staunch Conservatives will leave the GOP to the Main Street Republicans or some equivalent, eventually. And that will shift the political center-of-gravity in America perceptibly leftward. (Not dramatically leftward – the Staunch Conservatives have no analogue on the LW side, not in America. The nearest equivalent would be the Solid Liberals, but not even they are what Europeans would call “leftist”.)
Although the study does not address this directly, I would speculate that the Staunch Conservative group also encompasses America’s remaining hardcore white racists. At any rate, it is the only group that gives a highly unfavorable rating to Michelle Obama.
The youngest typology group, BTW, is the Post Moderns – 13% of adult population, 14% of registered voters –
Their strikingly commonsensical world-view would seem to be the, or at least a, wave of the future.
All movements are generationally time limited. And you’re making the assumption that these “Post Moderns” will stay “Post Moderns” as they age. The Pew Political typology is one way to categorize what the political spectrum is now. It’s less useful in determining future trends.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We won’t see meaningful change in this country until the entire WWII generation has died off. So another election cycle or so of total craziness, and then they will have no choice but to focus on the emerging retirees, who are far more likely to be physically active and socially more liberal. This will cause an inevitable shift to the center from the right, and likely drive the left farther as gen x’ers, millenials, and whatever we are calling today’s teens come of age and enter the workforce and politics. We are already seeing a little bit of that with extremely young (compared to previous generations) people being elected to local positions. That’s a good thing for society overall. Policy determines the future, and that belongs to younger folks, not the seniors who had their time already.
True, but most people do not undergo a radical shift in social ideologies as they age. It’s more common to shift fiscal perspective, but that will simply mean that the current far right will have to drop the religious nuts if they want to play at all in the future. I may not like the Dem fiscal platform, but I’ll be damned if I’ll vote in someone from the right who wants to inhibit civil liberties, strip funding from education and libraries, teach veiled or outright religious program in public schools, and favors cuts for the wealthy who don’t need them.
We do need the WW2 and much of the Boomer generation to die off before we implement the complete realm of social changes we need (equal rights for homosexuals, drug reform). The Teabaggers, despite their protestations, are deeply socially conservative in a way that those born later are not.
On the other hand, the fiscal policy issues probably won’t change too much in the big picture, since, unlike social questions, it’s more of a zero-sum game. It’s just the actors and roles that will change a bit. You’ll always have people wanting to limit government (except those programs that personally benefit them, of course,) and those trying to use government to help their friends, along with a couple of fiscally sane people thrown in for a change of pace.
There are a couple reasons why these typologies don’t seem to be so hot:
[ol]
[li]The group of registered voters are very demographically different from the people who actually vote.[/li][li]Voting occurs at the state level, and there’s going to be significant variation from state to state.[/li][/ol]
Anything that doesn’t take into account these facts is bad for making predictions.
The Tea Party movement may be generationally time-limited. Unfortunately, during the Great Depression it can do a lot of harm by standing in the way of efforts by the government to reduce the unemployment rate, and help the unemployed.
The WWII generation is not the Boomers. The Boomers are their selfish children (I wonder how they got that way :rolleyes:). After their enormous contribution to winning the Big One, they set out to rob their grandchildren of a future by racking up debts to pay for their retirements, medical care, political goals, and covering up inconvenient societal problems. They certainly have to go, and they are rapidly. The Boomers are going to live well off the unfunded largesse of their parents, while their children pay the bills. I was born in 1956 at the end of the major part of the Boom. My friends of similar age agree that we will be the last to locusts to reach the field. Oh, goodie :rolleyes:
That has been my belief, as the tea party dies off and is replaced by millennials, you will see political changes all across the US. However it will take a decade or so before the effects are really seen.
I don’t know if millennials will keep up their more left wing politics. But in 2004 they gave Kerry about a 10-11 point margin. By 2006 they gave dems a 22 point margin. By 2008 it was about a 33 point margin. I think in 2010 it shrunk back to about 20 points.
But if 5% of the electorate that gives conservatives a 30 point margin dies and is replaced by 5% who give liberals a 30 point margin, that will have big effects in swing states and close races.
I have no idea though if latinos or millennials will keep margins in favor of left of center political ideals and voting habits. If so, the next 20 years should be interesting for how the country changes.
There are a couple reasons why these typologies don’t seem to be so hot:
[list=1]
[li]The group of registered voters are very demographically different from the people who actually vote.[/li][/quote]
Cite?
How?
Why? . . . Sorry. Why, Opal?
See this page, scroll down to second section, “Where They Live.”
Maybe sooner than that – it all depends on whether the Tea Party, which was largely responsible for the GOP wins in 2010, can sustain its momentum, its “intensity advantage”. If not . . .
American post-Goldwater movement conservatism was always a coalition of social-cultural paleocons (with wings emphasizing religious and racial issues respectively), foreign-policy-hawk neocons, and economic libertarians. It was always unstable. Being out of power always forces a party’s or movement’s factions to close ranks, but the divisions remain visible.
