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Daniel McGraw writes that based on their demographic characteristics the Democratic and Republican parties face two very different futures. There’s been much written about how millennials are becoming a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, but there’s been much less attention paid to one of the biggest get-out-the-vote challenges for the Republican Party heading into the next presidential election: The Republican Party voter is old—and getting older and far more Republicans than Democrats have died since the 2012 elections. By combining presidential election exit polls with mortality rates per age group from the U.S. Census Bureau, McGraw calculated that, of the 61 million who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, about 2.75 million will be dead by the 2016 election. About 2.3 million of President Barack Obama’s voters have died too but that leaves a big gap in between, a difference of roughly 453,000 in favor of the Democrats. “I’ve never seen anyone doing any studies on how many dead people can’t vote,” laughs William Frey, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in demographic studies. “I’ve seen studies on how many dead people do vote. The old Daley Administration in Chicago was very good at that.”
Frey points out that, since Republicans are getting whiter and older, replacing the voters that leave this earth with young ones is essential for them to be competitive in presidential elections. "Millennials (born 1981 to 1997) now are larger in numbers than baby boomers ([born] 1946 to 1964), and how they vote will make the big difference. And the data says that if Republicans focus on economic issues and stay away from social ones like gay marriage, they can make serious inroads with millennials.” Exit polling indicates that millennials have split about 65-35 in favor of the Dems in the past two elections. If that split holds true in 2016, Democrats will have picked up a two million vote advantage among first-time voters. These numbers combined with the voter death data puts Republicans at an almost 2.5 million voter disadvantage going into 2016.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 20 2015, @04:02PM
The citizens of the Middle East who stone suspected adulterers to death are quite religious, and expressing their public morality, a morality that is completely supported in their religion and local culture. Does that mean we should imitate them? After all, our dominant religion also has that practice as part of its moral laws, and if we're going to return to the days of religious morality that would strongly suggest we should be doing so. Also relevant to this discussion is that according to those same set of religious laws any married woman who is raped in an urban setting is to be treated like an adulterer and stoned to death.
Americans are more educated now than they ever have been: A century ago, a large percentage of the population couldn't even read. In 1950, 2 out of every 5 American adults had not completed high school. The overall trend in educational attainment [wikimedia.org] is very very clear.
As far as engagement goes, what exactly are you looking for? Voter turnout? Public protest? Jury service? And how much of that would you encourage among those who disagree with you about what ails this nation?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:08PM
Does that mean we should imitate them?
One should hope not. As an Agnostic I find I can live among Post Enlightenment Christians pretty well, after all they had a few among their number who helped found our country. Islam is pretty much a perverted fork of pre-enlightenment thinking. No way I'm bending my neck for chopping to a bunch of primitive savages worshiping a deranged child molester.
Americans are more educated now than they ever have been
Screw the numbers, walk down a street. They have diplomas they can't read. And even if a child attends government school and learns what they teach they are still woefully ignorant compared to an 8th grader of the turn of the 20th Century. They are taught diversity, worship of the Earth and self esteem, they used to be taught critical thinking, challenged by real literature and given civics education so they could be responsible Citizens of a self governing Republic.
Find a copy (probably on Netflix) of Ken Burn's Civil War documentary and watch it. Observe the letters ordinary enlisted men were writing, mostly with 'elementary school' level educations. Do you think more than one in a thousand modern eighth grade students could write (or even read) on that level? Do you think one in a hundred could even tell you a one paragraph summary of the causes of that War? With luck they might be able to be regurgitate the government line of "to end slavery" but forget any additional details. And that is only the single bloodiest war in American history.
Now go read the accounts of ordinary citizens in shops, bars and churches meeting and discussing the Federalist Papers during the debates over ratification of the Constitution. Do you think one in ten now would be capable of mental function on a level to read, understand and debate that work? Go find the 'modern translation' Glenn Beck sponsored a few years back, that solves the problem of reading 18th century prose, but doesn't really solve the problem. It isn't just the language barrier, it isn't even just a litteracy problem. Most modern Americans lack the education and the practice of thinking to process the questions a debate like that requires.
Yet we pretend that such are capable of self government? Of course not, they will be ruled; the only remaining question is who shall rule them. The problem is the progressives, by building a political movement that created these idiots by preaching a creed of envy and hate against ability, are truly the vanguard; they are the marching morons. They won't be ruling long, somebody with ability and ambition will be ruling, they probably won't be American.
And how much of that would you encourage among those who disagree with you about what ails this nation?
I'd love a good debate on prog policy in a re-enlightened America. You wouldn't. Facts and reason argue against you, which is why your side discouraged it in favor of emotion and raw envy/hate. Probably too late though, now we get the Kaboom!
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday May 20 2015, @06:18PM
Find a copy (probably on Netflix) of Ken Burn's Civil War documentary and watch it. Observe the letters ordinary enlisted men were writing, mostly with 'elementary school' level educations. Do you think more than one in a thousand modern eighth grade students could write (or even read) on that level?
That's an interesting point, but I wonder how representative the soldiers who wrote those letters were of their demographics. I'm wondering if what we see in The Civil War is more like what a documentarian in 100 years might find on Soylent today or the old site 15 years ago. Twitter and Reddit would never make it into a documentary unless it were about the banality of the web 2.0 period.
(Also last I checked, The Civil War among other interesting Ken Burns documentaries like The Dust Bowl and Prohibition are on Netflix.)
That being said, I've noticed there are many, many people who are simply allergic to written communication or discussing anything in the abstract. I think I may have some Googling to do to see if I can find out what the demographics of your point may be and compare to present. I'm tempted to dismiss things that sound too much like accounts of the Men of Númenor of the Second Age, but the more frustrated I become with people who are functionally illiterate and incapable of engaging their higher mental faculties the easier it is to be tempted to believe there actually was a Second Age.
Of course not, they will be ruled; the only remaining question is who shall rule them.
This is one thing that drives me nuts about Americans, and from what I've been hearing, it's not just a flyover country problem. It shocks me how people avoid jury duty for example. Voter turnout! Don't even get me started! Utter failure to understand the underpinnings of the federal republic form of government specified in the US Constitution. I'll bet if I asked the average person off the street about the Articles of Confederation they'd think I was talking about the subject of that documentary we were just talking about! It's rah rah freedoms rah democracy but the people seem to have no chops for it.
Indeed, a republic if you can keep it, and there seem to be very few interested in even doing the basics to keep it.