“…and each generation must do its part.” This year, I think Gen Z played a huge part in these outcomes in a way that makes me slightly more optimistic about the coming decade.
“…and each generation must do its part.” This year, I think Gen Z played a huge part in these outcomes in a way that makes me slightly more optimistic about the coming decade.
However, both of them are not entirely convinced that Democrats are really all that different from Republicans.
Perhaps their perspective was impacted by Nancy Pelosi's husband doing insider trading in chip companies prior to the CHIPs act passing? They both heard about that.
They both DO like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and we watch her excellent Zoom casts together. It was her passion for her district that swayed them to the Democrat side.
They both feel she is not in the pocket of some big donor (but, we have no evidence for that).
Neither of my kids like Chuck Schumer though. They cannot give me a clear reason why.
So, Gen Z helped in the last election but the vote splits were so close to 50/50 well, we should not be too comfortable.
Plus GenZ overall ambivalence about people in politics, in general, should give us all pause.
My grandchildren, half Gen Z and half Millennial, are very politically engaged and all vote Democratic. Their progressive views echo those you describe for your kids. Mine are impatient with the moderates, Biden and Shumer in particular, whom they see as well meaning but stuck in the past before the Republicans went over to an alternate reality in which they’re fighting an all out war on us and democracy. Our grandkids are frustrated that nobody in power is taking seriously the climate crisis or the insane gun culture they’re inheriting. They feel stuck and rather hopeless about ever affording a house or having a family—despite having good jobs, they can’t afford to buy a house in our high cost area unless they move a long commute away from those jobs. I’m old and feel the same way. Our old politicians need to cultivate and make way for some young, energetic, progressives to appeal to the millions of those coming of age, even in red places, who are eager to make a more equitable, safe world.
I hear you, Judith! My daughters are 39 and 34. They both informed us that they are not having kids because of the state of the world and our country’s chaos. Though disappointed, I get it. Dating for them now iis over the internet, sometimes meeting at a restaurant but ends up each person going their own way. They are hard-working strong women who know what they want and for that, I am grateful. They too, are worried when, if ever, they will own a house because we live in the San Francisco Bay Area where houses are prohibitively expensive. We keep fixing up our nearly 96 year old home so that they could either live in it or sell it so that they could own something.
I have 2 Grandaughters, Ages 9 & 12 here in the Bay Area. Both are vastly more mature than me in those early years. The 12 year old is already making an important Decision. I'm Busy providing them cognitive games, paint brushes & suff; they do the digital repairs. The 9 year old dusted grandpa at a Christmas card game with a knowing smile. Trying out my new salutation: Keep it Free.
My nieces and nephews are a 2/3 ratio of Millennials to Gen Z. The Millennials are strongly Democratic (well, my nephew leans farther left than that, but votes Democrati); birth years 87 and 89 and the Gen Z are also Democratic, although less involved politically (birth years 93, 93, and 97).
Millennial son, wife, their circle voted Democratic. And to think, when signing up for AP Civics, I was on verge of suggesting to him, science, math classes might be more beneficial. Just managed to zip lips; yikes!
Erica Benoit "I think Gen Z played a huge part in these outcomes"
“𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘵 25, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵. 𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘵 35 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯.” So said Winston Churchill. Or US president John Adams. Or perhaps King Oscar II of Sweden. Variations of this aphorism have circulated since the 18th century, underscoring the well-established rule that as people grow older, they tend to become more conservative.
Millennials — born between 1981 and 1996 — started out on the same trajectory, but then something changed.
Could some force be pushing voters of all ages away from the right?
The most likely explanation is a cohort effect — that millennials have developed different values to previous generations, shaped by experiences unique to them, and they do not feel conservatives share these. ... tacking much further to the left on economics than previous generations did, favouring greater redistribution from rich to poor.
Home ownership continues to prove more elusive for millennials than for earlier generations at the same age in both countries. With houses increasingly difficult to afford, a good place to start would be to help more millennials get on to the housing ladder.
It takes up so much strength to survive the shivering nights without hope of finding shelter. For young adults to care they must have help coming back indoors. To those buying out affordable housing to flush out their portfolios I say choke on your greed. Sorry Joan but you hit a chord as my daughter starts the new year in a camper trailer switching propane bottles every other night. This is a crises getting too big now.
Agreed. My twenty year old daughter would surely prefer to have her own place, alone or with friends. She and her friends all live with parents rather than spend every penny on rent.
That makes good cents Joan. My older sister and her 4 roommates put me up under the kitchen table for my first week. But by the weekend I had rustled up an old army tent and went independently to the woods. That was then and well. With real estate having again reached a boom cycle young families out of college are competing with half assed investors using rentals as cash flow vacation rentals. Surprising how many attorneys are becoming slum lords. With contracts their specialty rentals of any kind are impossible now and new construction is unreachable. If you have a hiccup like a divorce single women with children pay the price for this “new” investment stream. If you fall through the cracks today you will be back in my old moldy tent. As passers by we see the camper cities growing exponentially, but do we really see them? Along side of our glowing economy we have this growing poverty paralleling us. I don’t know what that portends but I am uneasy. This is the working class.
Long ago, I rented a walk-in closet for $35/month in a 2 bedroom apartment in San Francisco with 4 residents. It wasn't bad - overhead light, room for a narrow bed, excellent shelving. When I got tired of that and still couldn’t find work, I moved back east, found a series of low-paying jobs, and easily afforded living in a decent shared apartment. And that’s the catch - those low-end jobs no longer produce enough to live on, not for rent and not for groceries.
It’s a disgrace and a scandal, not least because a lot of the price increases for housing are directly tied to “investors” buying up lots of housing for profit. There should be laws against it. Some federal laws have been proposed, but no way is the new Congress going to do anything so useful. So the question is what can be done on the local and state levels. I don’t know the answer to that. I do know it’s a critically important question.
The problem with “well-established rules” is they can never be universally applied. Many of us here violate the more-conservative-with-age rule, my 67 year old self included. My millennial daughter has always leaned left but her twin brother has been overtaken by anger and conspiracies. Counter examples can be found for any blanket rule. Except the ones Nature presents!
Too true! Can’t imagine the difference in mindset between us and them. I KNEW I would go to college and become a teacher. And thanks to my great aunts, my father and relatively cheap tuition, it happened. Neither of my kids is working in the field of their degrees. They are both self-sufficient, but uncertain about their career paths. And both are working their butts off!
Santosis: a condition of split personality resulting from having one's mother die on two separate occasions. (Please note that I am not making light of his mother's death, assuming that she's actually dead, but of his inability to keep track of his, um, assertions about when it happened.)
I don't know if you recall, Mike, the kerfuffle when the columnist Dan Savage, in response to then-candidate Rick Santorum's homophobic rants, encouraged the use of Santorum as a neologism for a particularly, um, graphic product of a certain kind of congress. It was a defining moment for me and is still something that makes me smile when I think about it. Santos is destined for the same kind of "greatness" as Santorum, I suspect. https://chicagoreader.com/columns-opinion/dan-savage-sticks-it-to-rick-santorum/
Thank you Professor Richardson. I look forward to more conversations in our local markets and post office parking lot. Your efforts continue to help many of us expand our understanding and our commitment to using our best efforts to actively support the gift of democracy in our daily lives!
“…and each generation must do its part.” This year, I think Gen Z played a huge part in these outcomes in a way that makes me slightly more optimistic about the coming decade.
Erica,
Both of my Gen Z kids did their part.
The voted straight Democrat, both of them.
However, both of them are not entirely convinced that Democrats are really all that different from Republicans.
Perhaps their perspective was impacted by Nancy Pelosi's husband doing insider trading in chip companies prior to the CHIPs act passing? They both heard about that.
They both DO like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and we watch her excellent Zoom casts together. It was her passion for her district that swayed them to the Democrat side.
They both feel she is not in the pocket of some big donor (but, we have no evidence for that).
Neither of my kids like Chuck Schumer though. They cannot give me a clear reason why.
So, Gen Z helped in the last election but the vote splits were so close to 50/50 well, we should not be too comfortable.
Plus GenZ overall ambivalence about people in politics, in general, should give us all pause.
My grandchildren, half Gen Z and half Millennial, are very politically engaged and all vote Democratic. Their progressive views echo those you describe for your kids. Mine are impatient with the moderates, Biden and Shumer in particular, whom they see as well meaning but stuck in the past before the Republicans went over to an alternate reality in which they’re fighting an all out war on us and democracy. Our grandkids are frustrated that nobody in power is taking seriously the climate crisis or the insane gun culture they’re inheriting. They feel stuck and rather hopeless about ever affording a house or having a family—despite having good jobs, they can’t afford to buy a house in our high cost area unless they move a long commute away from those jobs. I’m old and feel the same way. Our old politicians need to cultivate and make way for some young, energetic, progressives to appeal to the millions of those coming of age, even in red places, who are eager to make a more equitable, safe world.
I hear you, Judith! My daughters are 39 and 34. They both informed us that they are not having kids because of the state of the world and our country’s chaos. Though disappointed, I get it. Dating for them now iis over the internet, sometimes meeting at a restaurant but ends up each person going their own way. They are hard-working strong women who know what they want and for that, I am grateful. They too, are worried when, if ever, they will own a house because we live in the San Francisco Bay Area where houses are prohibitively expensive. We keep fixing up our nearly 96 year old home so that they could either live in it or sell it so that they could own something.
I have 2 Grandaughters, Ages 9 & 12 here in the Bay Area. Both are vastly more mature than me in those early years. The 12 year old is already making an important Decision. I'm Busy providing them cognitive games, paint brushes & suff; they do the digital repairs. The 9 year old dusted grandpa at a Christmas card game with a knowing smile. Trying out my new salutation: Keep it Free.
My nieces and nephews are a 2/3 ratio of Millennials to Gen Z. The Millennials are strongly Democratic (well, my nephew leans farther left than that, but votes Democrati); birth years 87 and 89 and the Gen Z are also Democratic, although less involved politically (birth years 93, 93, and 97).
Millennial son, wife, their circle voted Democratic. And to think, when signing up for AP Civics, I was on verge of suggesting to him, science, math classes might be more beneficial. Just managed to zip lips; yikes!
Morning, Ally! Many happy returns to you and your team!
Happy New Year Ally!
Give your kids a high five for me, Mike!
Can do and happy New Year!
Erica Benoit "I think Gen Z played a huge part in these outcomes"
“𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘵 25, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵. 𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘵 35 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯.” So said Winston Churchill. Or US president John Adams. Or perhaps King Oscar II of Sweden. Variations of this aphorism have circulated since the 18th century, underscoring the well-established rule that as people grow older, they tend to become more conservative.
Millennials — born between 1981 and 1996 — started out on the same trajectory, but then something changed.
Could some force be pushing voters of all ages away from the right?
The most likely explanation is a cohort effect — that millennials have developed different values to previous generations, shaped by experiences unique to them, and they do not feel conservatives share these. ... tacking much further to the left on economics than previous generations did, favouring greater redistribution from rich to poor.
Home ownership continues to prove more elusive for millennials than for earlier generations at the same age in both countries. With houses increasingly difficult to afford, a good place to start would be to help more millennials get on to the housing ladder.
https://www.ft.com/content/c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767cf4
Even renting an apartment is out of reach to many young voters. Half of adults under 25 are living with their parents.
It takes up so much strength to survive the shivering nights without hope of finding shelter. For young adults to care they must have help coming back indoors. To those buying out affordable housing to flush out their portfolios I say choke on your greed. Sorry Joan but you hit a chord as my daughter starts the new year in a camper trailer switching propane bottles every other night. This is a crises getting too big now.
Agreed. My twenty year old daughter would surely prefer to have her own place, alone or with friends. She and her friends all live with parents rather than spend every penny on rent.
That makes good cents Joan. My older sister and her 4 roommates put me up under the kitchen table for my first week. But by the weekend I had rustled up an old army tent and went independently to the woods. That was then and well. With real estate having again reached a boom cycle young families out of college are competing with half assed investors using rentals as cash flow vacation rentals. Surprising how many attorneys are becoming slum lords. With contracts their specialty rentals of any kind are impossible now and new construction is unreachable. If you have a hiccup like a divorce single women with children pay the price for this “new” investment stream. If you fall through the cracks today you will be back in my old moldy tent. As passers by we see the camper cities growing exponentially, but do we really see them? Along side of our glowing economy we have this growing poverty paralleling us. I don’t know what that portends but I am uneasy. This is the working class.
Long ago, I rented a walk-in closet for $35/month in a 2 bedroom apartment in San Francisco with 4 residents. It wasn't bad - overhead light, room for a narrow bed, excellent shelving. When I got tired of that and still couldn’t find work, I moved back east, found a series of low-paying jobs, and easily afforded living in a decent shared apartment. And that’s the catch - those low-end jobs no longer produce enough to live on, not for rent and not for groceries.
It’s a disgrace and a scandal, not least because a lot of the price increases for housing are directly tied to “investors” buying up lots of housing for profit. There should be laws against it. Some federal laws have been proposed, but no way is the new Congress going to do anything so useful. So the question is what can be done on the local and state levels. I don’t know the answer to that. I do know it’s a critically important question.
The problem with “well-established rules” is they can never be universally applied. Many of us here violate the more-conservative-with-age rule, my 67 year old self included. My millennial daughter has always leaned left but her twin brother has been overtaken by anger and conspiracies. Counter examples can be found for any blanket rule. Except the ones Nature presents!
Too true! Can’t imagine the difference in mindset between us and them. I KNEW I would go to college and become a teacher. And thanks to my great aunts, my father and relatively cheap tuition, it happened. Neither of my kids is working in the field of their degrees. They are both self-sufficient, but uncertain about their career paths. And both are working their butts off!
"the untalented Mr Santos, basking in the embrace of a weak and silent Housr Republican leadership."
I have started calling all Republicans by the name Santos. It is perfect.
The GreatvWhiteSantosis.
A laugh broke out with '...….Santosis' It rhymes with halitosis, rigor mortis, stenosis, Holy Moses!
What chance for those with republicosis against such perky no(s)es. My face is breaking up.
Add sclerosis.
Santosis: a condition of split personality resulting from having one's mother die on two separate occasions. (Please note that I am not making light of his mother's death, assuming that she's actually dead, but of his inability to keep track of his, um, assertions about when it happened.)
HA! 🤣
🤣😂
😂 Thanks for the laugh.
😅
I don't know if you recall, Mike, the kerfuffle when the columnist Dan Savage, in response to then-candidate Rick Santorum's homophobic rants, encouraged the use of Santorum as a neologism for a particularly, um, graphic product of a certain kind of congress. It was a defining moment for me and is still something that makes me smile when I think about it. Santos is destined for the same kind of "greatness" as Santorum, I suspect. https://chicagoreader.com/columns-opinion/dan-savage-sticks-it-to-rick-santorum/
Thank you Professor Richardson. I look forward to more conversations in our local markets and post office parking lot. Your efforts continue to help many of us expand our understanding and our commitment to using our best efforts to actively support the gift of democracy in our daily lives!
James, You are a shining example of growth at all ages!
I’m right there with you; same age, everything. And you can bet your bippy that I vote!
You are living the life, James! More power to you for your creative endeavors and your liberalism.