In his National Journal article, Ron Brownstein, in commenting on President Obama’s State of the Union address, wrote this:
Especially striking was how much of it seemed targeted directly at the massive and diverse millennial generation, born between 1981 and 2002. Obama addressed them repeatedly: by insisting that entitlement spending on the old must face some limits to prevent it from crowding out investment in the young; by framing climate change as a generational challenge; by pledging to provide young people with more training and to confront rising college costs; and by closing with a paean to citizenship that reflected their civic impulses. “They are the leading edge of where the country is headed ideologically as well as demographically,” one senior White House aide said.
Brownstein, a master of political data, points out that Obama won re-election by a comfortable margin despite “historically weak numbers among the older and blue-collar whites who traditionally anchored the conservative end of the Democratic coalition.” The president won because of his strong support from what Brownstein calls “the Democrats’ new national coalition” – including, importantly, the millennials.
I don’t doubt that in 2012 Obama won in part by his appeal to younger votes and that he’ll spend his second term trying to lock them in for future elections. But there is a substantive point that needs to be made regarding Obama’s appeal to millennial voters, and it goes something like this: the Democratic Party, because of it’s dogmatic resistance to serious entitlement reform, poses a tremendous risk to the millennial generation.
Here’s why. The refusal by Democrats to reform entitlement programs in general, and Medicare in particular, means that we will continue to take money from poorer younger people to give it to wealthier older people. Consider: the Pew Research Center reported that over the past quarter-century, households headed by older adults have made dramatic gains in economic well-being relative to those headed by younger adults. In 2009, the average net worth of households headed by adults aged 65 and older was a record 47 times that of households headed by adults under the age of 35. In 1984, the ratio was 10-to-1. What explains this phenomenon? In part it’s because both Social Security and Medicare are open to virtually all American 65 and older, the programs are not means-tested, and their benefits are accruing to a demographic that is growing both in size and in wealth.
Moreover, if no structural changes to Medicare are made, we will face a debt crisis that will harm the millennial generation above all. They will not have anything like the benefits the older generation has enjoyed. On top of that, our fiscal imbalance is getting worse, not better. The most recent CBO report, for example, predicts the 10-year cumulative deficit is forecast at nearly $7 trillion. This is both generational theft and a factor in our anemic economic growth and job creation, with the younger generation bearing the brunt of it. (The unemployment rate for the millennial generation is over 13 percent, significantly higher than the overall unemployment rate.) As a friend of mine put it, “The millennials are getting by far the worst deal out of Obama and they will suffer the consequences for the rest of their lives; while people over 55 are getting the best deal.”
The challenge the GOP faces, and the opportunity it has, is to explain to younger voters why conservatism is in their best interest; to cut through the Obama cant and demagoguery and obfuscations and explain – in a calm, persuasive, and empirically-grounded manner – why reforming the liberal welfare state is an urgent task, and for the millennial generation more than others.
"The challenge the GOP faces, and the opportunity it has, is to explain to younger voters . . . . "—-I disagree. That would be the challenge were they able to snap out of the trance that the Snake Charmer has put them in. But they are not. The No. 1 mission of the GOP and any other patriotic American is to discredit the Snake Charmer. Arguments are of no use. The arguments have all been made for years. Has anyone heard of the Wall Street Journal? It has been making all of the right arguments for years, and though they are not the same as ABC, CBS and NBC, the arguments are easily found and often circulated around the internet. Yet they do not break the trance. The GOP can explain until they are blue in the face, but the Millennials, the old people, etc. will still listen to Obama when he says the GOP are wrong, hard hearted, whatever. Obama must be deconstructed, proven to be a liar and a cheat. Otherwise, his words will always win no matter how cogent the opposing argument is.
The so-called Millennials have never faced hardship or deprivation severe enough to wake them from their narcissistic dreams, their "reality shows," which are anything but, their pathetic belief that their smart-phone-centric lives, regardless of accomplishments, are, every one of them, "Self Magazine" cover stories in-waiting, deserving of minute attention by the sterile, ersatz, emoticonic, porn-perfumed "communities" they inhabit stereophonically. n nLack of work, low wages, endless idling in bogus "college" classrooms, always with hands out, palms upward, expecting without thinking and almost as their due the ready contributions of family and government—none of that endless adolescence has prepared them for the real thing, the grinding poverty that the political shysters they worship—who will be long gone with the last of the borrow-able cash—are neither concerned with nor any longer capable of averting. That ship has sailed and cannot be called back because—truly condign irony!—the only events that might jolt this useless, self-celebratory generation into awareness of the disasters awaiting them are in fact the disasters awaiting them. What a comfort Facebook will be to them then! In the years to come, when their social security checks, their SSI payments, their this, that, or the other handout turns out to be insufficient to keep gas in their cars, how foolish childish demands for free contraceptives will seem. n nNo one has ever said "No" to them about anything and meant it. Well, the future has on offer one pitiless thumb-down after another, grimy fingers in the eye without respite. The days of the locusts and the little foxes are numbered. They themselves did the numbering.
"The so-called Millennials have never faced hardship or deprivation severe enough to wake them from their narcissistic dreams" n nThe day is coming when they will have to face reality, with no one to protect them from it.
I doubt that anyone on this thread has faced hardship unless you are well into your 70's. The millennials aren't any more naive than their parents and grandparents were at the same age. We have loads of boomers voting to destroy their children's and grandchildren's lives. Ditto the gen-xers for their childrean
I wouldn't claim they're more naive. Certainly no more naive than I was as a boomer hippie. The reality that struck us boomers was not nearly as grim as the millenials future threatens to be. We had to face reality (well, at least some of us did) – but it was a relatively soft landing. n nJust saying that reality will strike, as it always does. I feel bad that millennials (including my kids – I was a late father) will reap the consequences of not only their own naivete but also that of previous generations.
You are right, which makes the behavior of the alleged adults responsible for this mess (especially Obama) all the more galling. Young people are being brainwashed with liberal dogma, making it even more difficult for them to think for themselves than it was for previous generations. nAs for the boomers – they may be the most facile, repulsive generation in the history of western civilization, for the reason you state.
Exactly right. Brilliant post. n n
Liberals want to be lied to. They know, in their heart of hearts, that Obama and the Democrats are misleading them, but to admit that would cause two major problems. First, they'd have to do something, and as anadessma points out above, that ain't gonna happen. Second, and more importantly, their whole world view would collapse in a moment. That world view is, I am more and more convinced, a true house of cards. For example, how many people really believe that affirmative action is a good thing? Anyone? I work in a very liberal school district, in a very white community. Almost without exception, every minority recruited for employment at any level in my district is incompetent. And everyone knows it, and knows why – all of my liberal colleagues get it. But to really "get it" would mean admitting that their whole philosophy is questionable, so somehow – and I don't understand how – they rationalize the evidence away. Other examples abound. nUnder these circumstances who can explain anything to these people? They aren't looking for explanations. They are attracted to those, like Obama, who reaffirm what they so desperately want to believe. Iran not dangerous with nukes? If their leaders on the left tell them Ahmadinejad can be contained, they believe it. Climategates I and II? Dismissed as right-wing machinations. Out of control deficits? Somehow W's fault – you know, Iraq and Afghanistan. And don't bother me with facts and such. nI don't know the solution. In fact, I fear there may be no solution.
". . . so somehow – and I don't understand how – they rationalize the evidence away. Other examples abound." n nThey certainly do, and as I have been shouting for some time now the reasons are always the same. In fact there is only one reason: anti-religious bigotry. No matter the issue, it takes about 15 minutes for your average left-of-center citizen to point to the "Religious Right" as the most frightening collection of maniacs to roam the earth since the Visigoths, who are also to be resisted unthinkingly, a prescription followed to the letter it hardly needs pointing out. n nNo damage to the Constitution, no affront to common sense as regards law nor insult to the lessons of experience with respect to responsible government, not the catastrophes arising out of avoidance of personal responsibility for one's welfare nor the welfare of one's children, not the disfigurement of middle-class culture, now an overflowing pornographic sewer, neither the reckless availability of drugs nor civic bankruptcy, not 50-million abortions and counting—Somehow, via an emotive process—one shrinks from calling it thinking—that defies reason, absolutely none of those disasters, which are occurring here and now and are, as the saying goes, as serious as heart attacks, is remotely as threatening to an anti-religious bigot as the "Religious Right." Who are so only hypothetically! n nYou do not have to go all the way to, say, The Nation to read their unhinged opinions on the subject. We have several garden-variety examples of the type of knee-jerk-rabid religion haters I am describing who contribute here on a regular basis. It is a matter of pride to them.
I don't know who you are, anadessma, but you should be writing for Commentary, not just posting comments! Well said, as usual.
"In 2009, the average net worth of households headed by adults aged 65 and older was a record 47 times that of households headed by adults under the age of 35." n nThe "blue model" (described by Walter Russell Mead) inherently favors the middle aged and old over the young. When pressed, unions, for example, hold fast to unsustainable pension plans for existing retirees and cadillac insurance benefits and inflated wages for workers with seniority while agreeing to far less generous terms for new hires and future retirees. Republicans should shine a bright spotlight on this pattern everywhere it exists.
Unfortunately, the republican base is heavily populated with older white voters. They don't want to hear that the benefits they were promised and that they "earned" and "paid for" with a lifetime of work and SSI taxes are all a fraud. They don't beleive that money for their benefits is just extracted from the younger generation and transferred to their pockets. They beleive that somewhere in Washington there is a gigantic piggy bank that has their money safely stored away and earning interest. They are like children who beleive in Santa Claus and no one has the heart to tell them the truth.
Being "politically correct" has an emotional attachment aspect to it that is hard for most liberals to shake off.
I am disabled and receive Medicare. Even so, or perhaps I mean to say, especially because of this, I am very worried about the future – not mine, the future for my great-grand-children. MY parents both fought Fascism, went under heavy fire to save wounded GI's, and generally did all in their power to leave for me and my siblings a world of seemingly unlimited possibility. I have tried in life to pay this debt forwards as best I can.__e really must take up arms as it were in defense of our country and our children’s futures. We ought not to dispute who ought to be left out or thrown out of the boat. There needs to be invention, efficiency, choice, incentives, and a more prosperous future for all who would participate in building it.__The Republican Party was founded to stand for freedom, for progress, for working people, for small business people, and for the development and prosperity of this great land. I say, Back to the Future!
"The Democratic Party, because of it’s dogmatic resistance to serious entitlement reform, poses a tremendous risk to the millennial generation." Other comments have pointed out that Millenials have not had to face serious hardship, and are in for a shock. But there is, I believe, a widespread subconscious fear of what's ahead. You find this sort of inchoate anxiety often expressed through art, and that is why we have so many books and movies about vampires and zombies. The political class that engineered this crime preys upon us now. The entitlement class –long after they have died– will continue to feed off the Millenials in the future.
Dream on. Reality will hit, sooner or later.