Posted on 08/12/2012 2:43:19 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Young voters are abandoning social issues and focusing on fiscal ones, the New York Times informs us in a hopeful voice. They present scant evidence for this contention, ignoring data from the General Social Survey showing that young voters—who through the 70′s, 80′s, and 90′s were the most pro-choice cohort—became the most pro-life cohort around the year 2000 (even more pro-life than senior citizens).
This difference in opinion is massively amplified by an “intensity gap” between pro-life and pro-choice young people. A 2012 NARAL survey found that 51 percent of pro-life voters age 30 or younger feel abortion is a very important issue in determining their vote while only 26 percent of their pro-choice peers feel the same way. Pro-life young people not only outnumber pro-choice young people in aboslute terms, they overwhelm two-to-one in terms of commitment to the issue, a result so depressing for pro-choice activists that it prompted Nancy Keenan, NARAL’s head, to resign.
The winds are blowing in a different direction on same-sex marriage, to be sure: 37 percent of young Republicans favor gay marriage, up from 28 percent eight years ago (yet still far below the 63 percent support among young people in general). The headline numbers do not tell the full story. Same-sex marriage famously receives less support—about seven points less—at the ballot box than on opinion polls because voters who oppose same-sex marriage are reluctant to admit their opposition to an interviewer. But is support for same-sex marriage uniformly overstated?
If respondents lie because they feel social pressure to support same-sex marriage, those who feel the most social pressure (i.e., young people) are likely to be the cohort in which support is most radically overstated. Same-sex marriage proponents have learned to mistrust opinion polls, but have failed to absorb the lesson that polls of young people are likely to be the least reliable of all.
Gay marriage has its own intensity gap, a fact that underlines how polls systematically overstate same-sex marriage support. An ABC/Langer Research Associates poll found that 65 percent of conservatives reacted in a strongly unfavorable way to Obama’s same-sex marriage announcement while only 52 percent of Democrats responded in a strongly favorable way. Some of those Democrats just don’t feel strongly about the issue; others are the people who really disagree with Obama but won’t admit as much to pollsters.
The 13-point difference reflects a basic imbalance in the debate: opposition to same-sex marriage is much firmer than support for it, and proponents are going to have an increasingly difficult time converting those who have held out this long.
The hope that a national debate on same-sex marriage will inevitably advance its cause is also cast into doubt by the fact that during campaigns on same-sex marriage questions, we haven’t seen a net shift in opinion one way or the other. In short, we should not be surprised to see the increase in youth support stop when the issue leaves the headlines (or when young people move off campuses and into the suburbs where there is less social pressure in favor of the elite consensus).
None of this is reflected in the Times story, which takes favorable polls at face value, ignores unfavorable ones, and interviews non-representative subjects (College Republicans tend to be the résumé-building establishment types who have been losing elections and influence in the party for the last decade). Yet the story still teaches us something, namely, that even if young Republicans care less about social issues (which does not seem to be the case) the Times cares about them more than ever.
The tell here, which is a sort of death knell for liberalism, is how hopefully the Times notes that fiscal issues are displacing social ones. Since when did liberals prefer a Republican party devoted to rolling back healthcare reform and slashing the welfare state to one that argues against killing unborn children and rewriting the definition of marriage? Aren’t these the issues that Kansans are supposed to ignore in favor of “real” economic ones?
One could write a book titled What’s the Matter with the Upper West Side? if this new form of liberalism wasn’t precisely the one most friendly to the class interests of the Times’ readers and editors. This combination of pro-business economics with sexual liberationism—let’s call it Bloombergism—is the new consensus around which the Democratic Party is built. It allows wealthy voters to vote for their own interests on economic matters while still congratulating themselves on their liberal social opinions. It is an ideology that strikes not one but two blows to the working man, ignoring his economic interests while shredding the social fabric on which he particularly relies.
Bottom line: don't trust the polls.
In my own estimation, the youthful polling strength for gay activism is much like youthful support for the Left: "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."
Young people also want to eat a diet of Hershey bars and Captain Crunch and want the workday to begin at 11 and end at 2.
I’ve never understood why inexperience (at best) and ignorance (at worst) is given so much credence.
“Young people also want to eat a diet of Hershey bars and Captain Crunch and want the workday to begin at 11 and end at 2.
“I’ve never understood why inexperience (at best) and ignorance (at worst) is given so much credence.”
Indeed. I have a friend who told his dad back in college after listening to his leftist professors, he might be a liberal. All his dad said to him was: “That’s fine son. You be a liberal as long as you can afford it.”
I do believe this.
My kids are 18 and 20. Males of this age range are the most ‘homophobic’ of any other group that I’ve encountered. ‘Gay’ is an insult and they look on homosexual males with disgust.
“Tolerant” is truly the word that describes them. They tolerate that which they detest.
The girls, on the other hand, try to be compassionate with their gay peers, but they are still uncomfortable.
These kids (15-21) are just becoming comfortable with their own sexuality. They find things which are outside of the norm to be very disagreeable.
Perception is not alway reality, but the spin-doctors always try to create the perception.
Of course, they want you to think there’s something wrong with you if you don’t accept gay marriage. No one wants to think there’s something wrong with them, do they? Especially young people.
Oh, please...
The teen craze is to proclaim themselves “bi-curious”. Hot girl-on-girl action is all over social media. Their favorite bands are all androgynous gender-bending hipsters.
Just last week, I was verbally assaulted by a fellow FReeper’s homosexual family members. Teens who think themselves better than everyone older than 25.
My own stepdaughter is a male-bashing, atheistic emo-goth who will probably get snapped up by her white-trash biological father and good riddance to her.
Kids today are beyond redemption. Write them off.
I think the author is mistaken about "pro-business economics," unless one specifies that only certain businesses, those which are hand-in-glove with the government, can expect to benefit, and these businesses need not do anything that benefits the public, such as producing a product or providing a service that people would freely choose to purchase.
Not too surprising - in support of their atheist, Social Utopianist agenda, the media misreport pretty much everything.
My kids are 12 and 14.
Kids this age are VERY accepting of gays.
One of my girls’ friends has nothing but gay friends in Public School.
Gay is the new “witch”.
Has it been explained to them in disgusting detail what “gay” really means? My teenage boys became a lot less tolerant when I had their dad tell them what “gays” actually DO.
Maybe it’s because we’re from a rural area. The school doesn’t indoctrinate the kids with liberal BS. The teachers actively supported conservative ideas.
Homosexuality wasn’t ‘taught’ one way or the other, but the teachers did emphasize marriage as the ideal relationship.
I know that the young people in our neck of the woods are NOT ok with it.
>>I know that the young people in our neck of the woods are NOT ok with it.<<
You’re lucky!
Luck had nothing to do with it! lol!
I homeschooled for 7 years until we found a school district with old fashioned values and my husband could manage to get stationed there.
>>I homeschooled for 7 years until we found a school district with old fashioned values and my husband could manage to get stationed there.<<
ok
You’re smart!!! :)
well someone frgot to tell the yoyng ones down here as my oldest has pals over right now and not one of them agree with the homo’s nor do any of their pals , maybe if this writer and others got out of the north east and parts on the west coast then they might understand that the country is very different.
my oldest right now has pals over, all around 15 to 13 and all of them are disgusted about homosexuals, plus they have all said that they know no one who agrees with the homosexuals
In fact their reply when asked was”no man man that is disgusting and not right” they then all made jokes and said it’s grossing them out , then they carried on watching sport.
I have kids around that age and have you explained to them that it’s sick and disgusting and they should not listen to their teachers or the media?
I ask because as I said in another post a few monents ago I have boys and girls and none of them agree with homosexuals, they all think it is disgusting and my oldest has his pals over and when I asked them they all said it is disgusting and that none of them agree with queers and they have just said they know of no one at school who agress with homosexuals , what they do or even their agenda
maybe you need to explain about fecal matter on their penis, about wearing strap ons, and the diseases they get.
Put the picture in their mind on what these queers do and how they cannot reproduce and how they want special rights and you’ll find any teen will find homosexuals not normal.
I am guessing seeing as you are a conservative and on here with all the info about that you have sat your kids down and explained this right?
BTW I am down south, we don’t let them watch MTV De grassi and other liberal B/S, we have warned our kids for years even as young as 5 that the left wil try all sorts for you to feel left out f you have a different view to them but be strong and stand for your views and you know what , it’s worked.
There is no excuse at all today for any of us conservatives to let our kids acept the lefts agenda or the homostapo ‘s agenda.
Good luck
>>I have kids around that age and have you explained to them that it’s sick and disgusting and they should not listen to their teachers or the media?<<
My girls are homeschooled. They know the biology of the whole situation and do NOT agree with it.
However, they are also exposed to kids from Public School. My kids actually pity those friends, because they are brainwashed.
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