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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPolitical polarisation has grown most among the old
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/04/not-going-gentle"SNIP...............
IN THE aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, much blame was heaped on social media for fuelling partisan rancour. Even Mark Zuckerburg, the boss of Facebook, considered the idea that social media may have enabled the spread of "fake news" and helped exacerbate political polarisation. But recent analysis suggests that the part of the electorate that has become more polarised is not one commonly associated with social media platforms, but old people. And social media may provide a partial solution.
The authors of the report, Levi Boxell, Matthew Gentzkow at Stanford University and Jesse Shapiro at Brown University, accept there is strong evidence of growing polarisation in terms of measures like "straight-ticket" voting: selecting one partys candidates for every race on the ballot. But they argue that demographic evidence points away from social media as a cause. Social media use is concentrated amongst young peoplearound four out of five adults under the age of 40 used applications like Facebook and Twitter in 2012 compared to one in five of those above 65. The polarisation problem is concentrated amongst older voters. For adults under the age of 40, there is very little evidence of growing polarisation between 1996 and 2012 while there is a dramatic increase amongst those 75 and older. The polarisation amongst the old will have been skewed towards the right: 55% of voters above the age of 65 voted for Donald Trump compared to 31% of those aged 18 to 29.
Between 2010 and 2050, the proportion of America's population that is over 65 will increase from 13% to 21%. That will leave the whole country looking like Florida does today. And it will have a dramatic impact on health-care costs, social security spending and economic performance. Population ageing is linked to lower labour productivity and labour force participation. Nicole Maestas, Kathleen J. Mullen and David Powell, writing for the National Bureau of Economis Research, estimate that America's annual GDP growth will slow by 1.2 percentage points this decade and 0.6 percentage points next because of it.
And yet, older voters are likely to stand in the way of bipartisan fixes to the economic problems that an aging population helps to exacerbate. For example, older people are among the groups most opposed to health-care reform. It is hardly surprising that older voters are also considerably less likely to think that social security and Medicare spending might be too much of a financial burden on younger generations according to Pew polling. Old people are also opposed to perhaps the most straightforward fix to aging populations and low growth: importing young working-age people with comparatively high fertility rates.
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sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)But the real problem is old white Christians. They got theirs and to hell with anyone else. And I am old and white.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)Old white people are profitable because they watch Fox religiously and donate to right wing crazy foundations.
On average.
Not you. Or me.
Blech.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Their churches. I grew up baptist. I know what I am talking about.
Me.
(35,454 posts)for all the problems in the country lately
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Older people backed Trump overwhelmingly more than any other group.
Refraining from mentioning it does not make that fact go away. It is the truth. Had people 60 plus voted like other demographics Trump would not be president.
As a upper middle class WASP over 50 I am a rareity not having voted from Trump.
Me.
(35,454 posts)Not to mention at least one book blaming seniors for all the problems in this country.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)I don't necessarily blame this statistic strictly on their age. The fact is the older demographics are much higher percentage white. A whole lot of old white folks are really afraid that the nation no longer looks like their ideal. If a majority of the old folks in this country were minorities, Trump would have lost their vote.
Arazi
(6,829 posts)Anything out of their old Dem paradigm really rattles the status quo.
We must reach everyone, especially millennials and Independents. It's time to unify against Trump!
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Considering that Bernie is older than most of us here. If seniors are going to be the new whipping boys (and girls), I think we'll have to lump him into that category as well. I mean, 75 is no spring chicken.
But wait, there's another angle to this story. Maybe the old folks aren't to "blame" after all. Maybe they just vote more. I couldn't find statistics for this past election yet, but in 2016 a Pew Study found that millennials have been crappy voters: they just don't show up as much as the older folks:
Millennials are now as large of a political force as Baby Boomers according to an analysis of U.S. census data from the Pew Research Center, which defines millennials as people between the ages of 18-35. Both generations are roughly 31 percent of the overall electorate.
...
But, as the Pew analysis points out this all refers to potential, not actual political clout. In the 2012 election, voters between the ages of 18-29 made up just 19 percent of the electorate that's HALF the share of the Baby Boomer voting bloc (who were 38 percent of the electorate).
In fact, millennials continue to have the lowest voter turnout of any age group. Only about 46 percent voted in the last presidential election; compared to 72 percent of the Silent Generation, who habitually punch above their weight.
http://www.npr.org/2016/05/16/478237882/millennials-now-rival-boomers-as-a-political-force-but-will-they-actually-vote