The Atlantic looks at the
generational split in the Democrat party. Author Derek Thompson makes the point that the young have experienced a raw economic deal and have reacted politically by veering leftward. Check out this quote:
Age doesn’t just divide Republicans and Democrats from each other, in other words; age divides young leftists from both Republicans and Democrats. Democrats under 30 have almost no measurable interest in the party’s front-runner (Biden). Democrats over 65 have almost no measurable interest in the favored candidate of the younger generation (Sanders).
This is not a picture of Democrats smoothly transforming into the “party of the young.” It’s evidence that age—perhaps even more than class or race—is now the most important fault line within the Democratic Party. It might be most useful to think about young progressives as a third party trapped in a two-party system.
And yet:
In 2016, voters older than 40 accounted for nearly three-fifths of all primary voters. It is impossible to win a national election by running a campaign of generational warfare that runs counter to, or directly indicts, a majority of the electorate.
Therefore, as in 2016, the young are likely to be disappointed with the 2020 result. I wonder how many such loses will it take to cause political burnout in young Americans?
