Are the Millennials Reliably Leftist?

American Thinker ^ | Marck 15, 2014 | Janice Shaw Crouse

[neverdem]

According to exit polling data, in both the 2008 and 2012 elections, Millennials (young adults 18 to 33) were a reliably leftist demographic, both in their voting and their views. Now, it appears that – even though they remain decidedly liberal on political and social issues – this influential group of Americans is up for grabs in the 2014 and 2016 elections. That is to say that no specific politician or ideology can count on their support.

The Pew Research Center’s just-released survey reveals that as they move into adulthood, the Millennial generation is “at or near the highest levels of political and religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the quarter-century that the Pew Research Center has been polling on these topics.” In fact, Pew reports that half of that age group claims to be politically independent, and almost a third see very little difference between the two major political parties.

The growth of Millennial independents is disturbing to both parties because only 38 percent were politically independent in 2004, meaning, as NPR puts it, “both parties have lost ground among young people.” So much money spent targeting Millennials by both parties, and yet the voting bloc considered most vulnerable to political advertising and rhetorical manipulation is not falling in line on the issues. The left is losing them on gun control, ObamaCare, and the environment, while the right is losing them on abortion (at least in this Pew survey, in contrast to concessions by the abortion groups and other polls that show Millennials as more pro-life than their parents).

One of the troubling findings in the survey is that “about three-in-ten (29%) say they are not affiliated with any religion.” Coupled with their lack of political affiliation, this rootless generation, with little grounding in historical knowledge or moral...

[x]

According to exit polling data, in both the 2008 and 2012 elections, Millennials (young adults 18 to 33) were a reliably leftist demographic, both in their voting and their views.

If you're 18 you're probably not "reliably" much of anything. They were young. They got caught up in the Obama thing. They knew gay people and tried not to get on their bad side. That's a long way from being Leninists or Maoists.

[Norseman]

>>The reason many Millenials see no difference between the parties is the similarities between Democrats and RINOS.<<

I don’t think it’s that, so much as it’s a fact that Congress isn’t able to get anything done with each party controlling one House. If the difference between Rinos and Dems was as minute as people often state in here, a lot more bills would be being passed and signed by the President.

Instead we have gridlock, which is good from our perspective, but which makes Congress (both parties) look ineffective and meaningless to less attentive voters, including the young.

Add to that the incessant drumbeat about Congress’s poor favorability rating by the MSM and it’s not surprising that young voters see very little difference between the parties.

But if the GOP takes the Senate in November, those same voters will see hundreds of bills sent to Obama’s desk, and will become quite angry when he refuses to sign many (most?) of them. That is when the GOP will have the best chance of attracting younger voters allegiance, an allegiance that could last if enough thought is put into the bills they send up.

[mindburglar]

Let’s hope not.

[RipSawyer]

It would be amazing if they realized what they are losing since very few of them have ever been taught any REAL history. What most of them think they know is mainly propaganda which has been passed off as history. One glaring example which is not by any means restricted to millenials is the belief that Richard Nixon was impeached and William Clinton was not. They are wrong on both counts. Many believe that “capitalism” is a dirty word, even many who are small scale capitalists themselves may believe it. This is of course another trait that is by no means confined to millenials. A lot of people condemn the system which has made the country the greatest economic powerhouse ever known. They don’t realize that while a lot of capitalists are anything but perfect the true capitalist system is nothing more than the free market system, the only economic system that has ever worked for the greatest benefit of all. They look to government for solutions to problems that would not exist except for government having created them in the first place. I consider the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” AKA “Obamacare” to be a supreme example of an absurd government “solution” to a problem which is totally a creation of government. There can be no hope for the recovery of America unless and until this monstrosity is recognized for the abomination that it is and is totally rejected in favor of a free market solution.

[equaviator]

“What most of them think they know is mainly propaganda which has been passed off as history.”

As the old saying goes, “They don’t know that they don’t know” but now it applies to more of them than ever and as time goes by it becomes more obvious to those who are no longer or have never been susceptible to this process of indoctrination. I’m one of those Baby Booomers who naively participated in the counterculture of the 1970’s but now I’m (for all intents and purposes) “all in” as a conscientious adult with a more certain kind of present day counterculture. It’s no wonder that to me and others like me, the big picture has been made to appear upside down AND backwards at the default level, while to others it represents a celebrated “New Normal”.

[RipSawyer]

“It’s no wonder that to me and others like me, the big picture has been made to appear upside down AND backwards at the default level, while to others it represents a celebrated “New Normal”.”
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A very good description of the situation. I am actually a member of the so-called, “Silent Generation”, I was born five days before D-day, the baby boom began in 1946. I
have often said that it is like living on a different planet now when compared to my youth. Everything that was right is now wrong and vice versa. For those who grew up with Superman the shortest description of today is “Bizarro World”.