Well Andy, is a high school graduate from Manchester in 1958 the same as a high school graduate from Manchester in 2013?
Same factual information? Same knowledge of American History? Same Arithmetic skills? Same attitude toward law and order? Same religious practices? Same family structure? Are their teachers the same knowledgeable people who guided you toward citizenship?
Carefully avoiding saying who's better or worse, I can answer for Maine. "No." The people are just not the same. The country is spinning toward dysfunctionality. 5 years with no federal budget? Just WTF!
OTOH, how many of your '58 class were tattooed? Pierced? Had had an abortion?
I work with an excellent group of young people (18-30) at a community college ... they certainly have potential. But let's face facts: on a factual knowledge basis, on a skills basis, and in their manners, they are more like 6th and 7th graders would have been in the 50s. They are extremely well schooled in "Self-Esteem," Political correctness, Global Warming, and have never failed a course! Imagine sexually active 6th graders? With cars? With drugs? With illegitimate children? And somehow with disposable income? (95% Obama supporters, BTW)
The Liberal élite certainly does not think the "working and middle classes" whence these kids spring, are to be trusted with important decisions. Some days, I ain't so sure myself! The Progressive's needn't worry as we should. They have these young people ... lock, stock, and barrel. (Sorry, but that metaphor'll cost you in English Comp nowadays, although spelling doesn't count.)
The idea that the mandatory judgments of a handful of "experts" can substitute for those made voluntarily by billions of independent citizens is one that has persisted for over one hundred years.
Our problem is that now a majority has just shown us that they are willing to accept mandatory judgements by your handful of experts. Totally cut off from what used to be our national customs, history,and morals, a majority elected and re-elected the present administration.
Now, how do we "win" in '14?
So, I graduated in 1976, but your analysis still largely applies. There is a great divide in this nation between the Ruling Class elites (many of whom were still in college and graduate schools in the '70s) and the Country Class taxpayers. The elites also benefit from a Client Class of poor and lower middle-class government dependents, largely cut off from what used to be the American Dream by the efforts of their own supposed benefactors.
After all: who was it who set about to take over the schools, the bureaucracies, the foundations, the cultural institutions, the media/entertainment complex? Who spread the Progressive gospel - anti-capitalist, anti-family, secular humanist and globalist claptrap?
And now, they are on to poisoning the minds of another young generation, in preparation for their final assault on what remains of American exceptionalism.
What do we do about it? Well, it would be a lot easier if conservatives still had a functional major political party to depend on, but along the way, many Republican leaders, co-located in Washington, DC and New York, and found that they had much more in common socially and culturally with their left-wing Democrat cohorts than with their own party's base.
I don't know precisely what we need to do in 2014, but I am thinking about it daily. The Tea Party can be a huge factor, but local organization will be absolutely essential to building a true nationwide movement - and that is what will be required. Either the GOP will come with us or split off into a RINO rump. I have no idea which will happen at this time, but the status quo is surely unacceptable because nature abhors a vacuum, and a vacuum is what presently passes for Republican leadership. A really dumb vacuum, at that.