Posted on 08/12/2012 2:43:19 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Young voters are abandoning social issues and focusing on fiscal ones, the New York Times informs us in a hopeful voice. They present scant evidence for this contention, ignoring data from the General Social Survey showing that young voters—who through the 70′s, 80′s, and 90′s were the most pro-choice cohort—became the most pro-life cohort around the year 2000 (even more pro-life than senior citizens).
This difference in opinion is massively amplified by an “intensity gap” between pro-life and pro-choice young people. A 2012 NARAL survey found that 51 percent of pro-life voters age 30 or younger feel abortion is a very important issue in determining their vote while only 26 percent of their pro-choice peers feel the same way. Pro-life young people not only outnumber pro-choice young people in aboslute terms, they overwhelm two-to-one in terms of commitment to the issue, a result so depressing for pro-choice activists that it prompted Nancy Keenan, NARAL’s head, to resign.
The winds are blowing in a different direction on same-sex marriage, to be sure: 37 percent of young Republicans favor gay marriage, up from 28 percent eight years ago (yet still far below the 63 percent support among young people in general). The headline numbers do not tell the full story. Same-sex marriage famously receives less support—about seven points less—at the ballot box than on opinion polls because voters who oppose same-sex marriage are reluctant to admit their opposition to an interviewer. But is support for same-sex marriage uniformly overstated?
If respondents lie because they feel social pressure to support same-sex marriage, those who feel the most social pressure (i.e., young people) are likely to be the cohort in which support is most radically overstated. Same-sex marriage proponents have learned to mistrust opinion polls, but have failed to absorb the lesson that polls of young people are likely to be the least reliable of all.
Gay marriage has its own intensity gap, a fact that underlines how polls systematically overstate same-sex marriage support. An ABC/Langer Research Associates poll found that 65 percent of conservatives reacted in a strongly unfavorable way to Obama’s same-sex marriage announcement while only 52 percent of Democrats responded in a strongly favorable way. Some of those Democrats just don’t feel strongly about the issue; others are the people who really disagree with Obama but won’t admit as much to pollsters.
The 13-point difference reflects a basic imbalance in the debate: opposition to same-sex marriage is much firmer than support for it, and proponents are going to have an increasingly difficult time converting those who have held out this long.
The hope that a national debate on same-sex marriage will inevitably advance its cause is also cast into doubt by the fact that during campaigns on same-sex marriage questions, we haven’t seen a net shift in opinion one way or the other. In short, we should not be surprised to see the increase in youth support stop when the issue leaves the headlines (or when young people move off campuses and into the suburbs where there is less social pressure in favor of the elite consensus).
None of this is reflected in the Times story, which takes favorable polls at face value, ignores unfavorable ones, and interviews non-representative subjects (College Republicans tend to be the résumé-building establishment types who have been losing elections and influence in the party for the last decade). Yet the story still teaches us something, namely, that even if young Republicans care less about social issues (which does not seem to be the case) the Times cares about them more than ever.
The tell here, which is a sort of death knell for liberalism, is how hopefully the Times notes that fiscal issues are displacing social ones. Since when did liberals prefer a Republican party devoted to rolling back healthcare reform and slashing the welfare state to one that argues against killing unborn children and rewriting the definition of marriage? Aren’t these the issues that Kansans are supposed to ignore in favor of “real” economic ones?
One could write a book titled What’s the Matter with the Upper West Side? if this new form of liberalism wasn’t precisely the one most friendly to the class interests of the Times’ readers and editors. This combination of pro-business economics with sexual liberationism—let’s call it Bloombergism—is the new consensus around which the Democratic Party is built. It allows wealthy voters to vote for their own interests on economic matters while still congratulating themselves on their liberal social opinions. It is an ideology that strikes not one but two blows to the working man, ignoring his economic interests while shredding the social fabric on which he particularly relies.
Ok thought you had said your kids agree with it, .
I’ve warned my kids ot never give up their views and if a girl ever tried to say look at me then say something, tell her she doens;t need to do that etc.
LOL Maybe it is time to get out of MI, sad though isn;t it that we have to tell kids about the dangers and the agenda of the homostapo at this age.
My oldest and his pals have just gone out playing basketball, and I heard them talking about this and they were all saying , it’s sick dude etc.
Good luck and if all fails, then I75 south is always there, LOL
oh sorry for misunderstanding too
Thanks so much for posting this piece: I had long believed - and hoped - that youth support of same-sex marriage was exaggerated. Now this confirms that.
Huh? This writer Matthew Schmitz seems awfully confused on this point.
Some may think of, at least crudely, a "combination of pro-business economics with sexual liberationism" as being a "libertarian" notion. But to associate "a combination of pro-business economics with sexual liberationism" with Michael Bloomberg and/or today's 'Rat Party is simply absurd. "Sexual liberationism" may fit there but certainly not "pro-business economics."
Since when does nanny-statism, Bloomberg's trademark, belong as part of "pro-business economics"? The two shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath!!!
Having once been in that age group, I wholeheartedly agree. It's just natural. The left continuously engages in various forms of social engineering that defy nature, much to the detriment of society as a whole.
“... we should not be surprised to see the increase in youth support stop when the issue leaves the headlines (or when young people move off campuses and into the suburbs where there is less social pressure in favor of the elite consensus).”
Another excellent point the author makes.
>>Good luck and if all fails, then I75 south is always there, LOL<<
Funny you should say that! I was just speaking to my niece. Her husband is a Sheriff in Ohio and is applying for a job in Orlando.
She has our Godson. I told her we would follow if he was hired.
We leave the house with nothing out of it. No one is buying at all. But I think we’ll be a whole lot happier out of MI.
Some businesses have an obvious connectionto sexual liberation --- prostitution, pornography, the "reproductive health" industry (which supports neither reproduction nor health), the selling of masturbatory entertainment etc. ---- but I suspect that's not quite what he's talking about.
I've read that in some medieval homiletic collections, the connection between "sodomy, luxury and usury" was a staple, but I never quite understood that, either. I doubt it would be a popular topic around here.
I;m in St Augustine St Johns county and we one of the most republican counties and areas in the state of FL, hell we don't even a Dem on the county commissioners Love it here and your girls won't be finding pro homosexual agenda here anywhere near as what you sound like you're getting. Pkus we need some good conservatives down here to outmatch the left with votes
Well, as they say, great minds think alike - or at least similarly. (LOL!!!)
New York has high taxes, a large and corrupt government establishment, and crippling regulation. That’s not “pro-business,” unless you’re in the dictator’s clique. Is the Obama administration “pro-business”? Sure, if you’re Solyndra or GE or an ethanol producer or a favored financial institution ... but for most people, the taxes, regulation, and threats of persecution if you offend someone are anti-business.
I saw your post when I came back!
The author has confused Bloomberg’s (and other dictators’) practice of rewarding some businesspeople, with the structural factors that are really “pro-business,” such as a simple and reasonable tax code, limited and equally applied regulation, security of life and property, freedom of contract, and so on.
If you want to determine whether a polity is pro-business, look at how long it takes to open a new business, how many licenses or approvals it takes, how much it costs to secure the licenses and approvals, and how many decisions the owner can make for himself vs. having them dicatated to him. Then look at the ongoing “compliance” costs of keeping the business going, in both time and money. New York “pro-business”? Fugeddaboutit.
Well-said. Maybe instead of “pro-business” he should have said “pro-eco-swindlers, government contract fraudsters, and crooked bankers.”
Exactly. I don’t know who, precisely, has the easy ride in New York, but it’s not Tranh wanted to open a tailor shop, Jerzy hoping to do some plumbing, Jasmine wanting to braid hair and paint nails, or anyone hoping to rent out an ordinary apartment at a profit.
My mom refused to do tax returns if the customer had any business in New York, because she didn’t have time to take the courses that would give her a chance of being in compliance at the state, county, township, city, borough, and block level - and she was a specialist in multi-state returns.
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