The Youtes

A lot has been made of Obama's appeal to the youth vote, just as a lot was made of Kerry's appeal to the youth vote. The problem: the "youtes" just don't turn out in big numbers. The implicit idea here is that as these idealistic youtes leave college and start supporting families, they'll turn conservative, just in time to start voting in large numbers.

And in fact, that probably will happen to some degree. But if you think that this means the Democratic youth vote doesn't matter, you're wrong.

As Ezra Klein pointed out (when this graph first came out a few months ago), the current young generation is a lot more Democratic-leaning than previous generations. This means there's a large chance of a "lock-in" effect; as today's youngsters age, they're more likely to think of the Dems as "their" party, just as WW2-generation voters did after voting for Roosevelt and Truman. The increase in conservatism as my generation hits our 30s will therefore be from a much lower base.

Does this mean my generation - today's 20-somethings - are more liberal? Probably not, in fact. The numbers of self-identified liberals and conservatives have been very stable over the past 35 years, in fact - about 20-25% liberal, 25-30% conservative, an the rest in the middle. So if we're not more liberal, why is my generation more likely to vote Democrat?

What's happened is that the Republican Party has shifted farther and farther to the right. In the 80s, President Reagan - once the emblem of conservatism - raised taxes to cut the deficit (after he saw that his tax cuts went too far; thanks jollygreen), sat down for talks with the Soviet Union, signed arms limitation treaties, pulled American troops out of Lebanon (after a Hezbollah bombing), and boosted government funding for R&D and infrastructure. Today, any politician who suggests doing these things is derided by Republicans as a "far leftist." Today, if you don't cut taxes in any and all situations, if you don't refuse to negotiate with any country that doesn't like us already, if you propose any role for government in the economy, or if you even raise the possibility of withdrawing U.S. troops from anywhere, you don't have a seat in the Republican party. I actually don't think I'm exaggerating at all here.

Why did the Republicans go so bonkers since the 90s? I'll leave that question to the political scientists. But what is apparent to me is that, over time, this has driven more and more youtes in to the arms of the Democrats. And in those arms many of them will stay.