patrick.net

Here's the deal. Sociologists and Demographers make productive, reality-based characterizations of "age-period-cohorts" using statistics like opinion polling, comparing membership of organizations by age group over time, attitudes towards savings, crime rates, church attendance, etc. With peer review. At Universities around the World, from Oxford to Eastern Ohio, to research centers like the Pew Charitable Trusts. It's not some pseudoscientific fad, it's been covered in Sociology 101 textbooks forever.

While there is disagreement about specific influences, their universal conclusion is that conditions people of a certain period cohort experience in Youth (the political environment, affluence or lack thereof, parenting standards, etc.) shape much of a cohort's behavior throughout their lives.

We know that disproportionate age cohorts ("Youth Bulge") are correlated with Crime. Not just in the USA - but also in the UK, Canada, Australia, Sweden, even Argentina and the Middle East. The Crime Rate rises when a large, unbalanced youth cohort reaches peak "Crime Age" - the late teens through early 30s. It falls when they exit their young adulthood. That's a behavior.

On the same tack, we do know that age cohort, wealth, and family stability effects the birth rate - that's also a behavior. Poor people having lots of kids, and the opposite, increasingly well-off people having fewer kids, a behavior.

Obviously there is something to age cohorts. It's been advanced that it explains the boom and now decline in joining individualistic religions (Fundamentalist, Charismatic, Evangelical, New Age Spiritual) that emphasized "Personal Relationships with Jesus" or "Channelling your Chakras" between the 70s and 90s and the decline of mainline churches. That trend is now changing - why? Younger people whose grew up in those churches are choosing atheism, or joining those old, mainline churches their Jesus Freak parents left.

Maybe we should just consider 10 or so different age groups with the number of voters roughly equivalent, based on recent voting percentages per age group. The current age ranges would look something like this:

age 21 - 48, age 26 - 51, age 31 - 54, age 36 - 57, age 41 - 61, age 46 - 65, age 51 - 69, age 56 - 77, age 61 - 86, age 66 - 100.

Is there one of these that's clearly the most selfish, or the most spoiled in certain ways, perhaps the most entitled or the most narcissistic ?

If so, did it change real suddenly ? Are you sure which one is the worst ? Perhaps it didn't change suddenly and people were getting worse for a while, and then they suddenly started getting better ? Or perhaps withint this range there are ups and downs based in part on external factors such as the state of the economy.

Is age really the determining factor ? Or are there confounding variables, such as the amount of money in politics ? And if so, which age groups were reponsible for the cause behind those variables ?

humanity says

Is there one of these that's clearly the most selfish, or the most spoiled in certain ways, perhaps the most entitled or the most narcissistic ?

Not enough data. Age-Period-Cohort studies look at a specific group in a specific time.

It's a long-observed fact that older generations are substantially more conservative, both how they identify themselves, and how they vote.

But that doesn't explain why Depression Survivors are substantially more thrifty than the general population. You have to look at the effects of institutions and conditions when they were in their formative years. That doesn't mean there is no such thing as a spendthrift Depression Survivor, but generally speaking, and when you measure their spending habits and attitudes, there's a difference between how they handle money and how other generations treat money.

It explains why many boomers, who experienced a period of high inflation in their formative years, have a fear of inflation that seems disproportionate to the trends of the post-war period. Some people have advanced this is also the reason why boomers aren't afraid to pursue personal and political borrow-and-spend strategies - because your money might be worth less tomorrow, so you'd better get it today.

It might even explain how credit card usage and private debt exploded when it did, too.

humanity says

OH, okay. Then I would like to assert that you are a child molester. Please provide evidence and reasoning supporting your opposition. Otherwise your contradiction carries no weight.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
- Christopher Hitchens

http://www.youtube.com/embed/rrMyCyZx1zY

You're going to have triple your IQ to be able to construct an argument that even challenges me.

thunderlips11 says

Here's the deal. Sociologists and Demographers make productive, reality-based characterizations of "age-period-cohorts" using statistics like opinion polling, comparing membership of organizations by age group over time, attitudes towards savings, crime rates, church attendance, etc. With peer review.

Exactly. And the statistical attitudes of generations and how they behave, vote, and legislate are both a legitimate and an important subject matter. Those who seek to suppress such discussion are vile.

For example, here is a generational graph of acceptance of marriage equality. It shows a remarkable and important trend.

To say that we cannot draw any conclusions from this graph or that we are bigots for trying to do so is disingenuous, wrong, and quite frankly worthy of ridicule. Any mature, reasonable, adult human being can clearly see a marked difference among the generations, and if that person is moral, an improvement from each generation to the next.

Dan8267 says

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

- Christopher Hitchens

Exactly. Thank you for making your own argument.

Your claims about that one particular 18 year age cohort have no more merit than my claim that you are a child molester.

The one sure way to tell Dan is losing an argument is when he resorts to saying saying how samrt he thinks he is, as if that's an argument.

Dan8267 says

You're going to have triple your IQ to be able to construct an argument that even challenges me.

Who argues like this ?

thunderlips11 says

marcus says

Why isn't it people that are born between 1930 and 1950 where the most responsibility lies ? Because the baby boom is bigger ?

Because they were much Smaller in size than the Babyboom - not many people born during the Depression and the war.

Actually it was only about 25% more births happening on average per year over the boomer interval, which is very easy to verify.

So okay make it 1925 - 1950. This is a much different group than the boomers with maybe a 3 or 4 year overlap depending on how you define the boomers.

So this group has (or had) as many people in it as the boomers (actually significantly more), BUT 20 to 50% more of them have been voting for a long time now. THey dominate the FUCK out of the boomers when it comes to voting. So how can you blame boomers for our politics ? The boomers gave us Clinton. GWB wouldn't have even been close if not for the votes of those older than the boomers.

Even if you go back to the Carter Reagan election, Carter carried the vote at least up to at least 31 year olds. Boomers were between 16 and 34 at the time. Do you have any idea how much more influence the people born from 1925 - 1950 had in that election and every election since, all the way up almost to Obama ?

Are you ready to pull your head out of your ass yet ?

your definition of "we" is too narrow.
The "sentient machine" does not exist without the atoms. To exclude the atoms that comprise the sentient being is to exclude the very building blocks of creation.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

We never "leave the world". Our atoms merely are redistributed.

We are not our atoms, but the sentient machines they build. The actual atoms that comprise your body are constantly being exchanged with other atoms in the environment.

As for your sentience, that is created by the operation of your brain and ceases when the brain stops functioning. This is a scientific fact whether or not you are intelligent or mature enough to accept it

and when some millennial fuck comes along and changes those definitions that hordes of humans made life-altering decisions based on, then we are all bastards, borne of the unwed couple, until some gen xyz'er comes along and changes the definition of 'bastard'...

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

no bigotry, just a simple fact.


people born out of wedlock are by definition a "bastard".

And people born in wedlock are by definition a "floppidygoop". Words are whatever we define them to be.

marcus says

Actually it was only about 25% more births happening on average per year over the boomer interval, which is very easy to verify.

Let's verify it.
http://youtu.be/2wN0O06IkNk?t=1m10s

You see the huge gaps on both sides of the boomers, right? I think the graph is pretty poorly titled though. The late 60s, 70s, 80s, and most of the 90s were nowhere near worse than the Great Depression. It's better explained by "increased education and more affluence = lower birth rate"

I'll respond to the next bit shortly.

since the word 'marriage' is a compilation of letters for which the meaning mutates every 4 DNCyears, it becomes impossible to associate any kind of 'movement' with it other then the daily smoked kielbasa expelled out of nancy pelosi's ass.

Dan8267 says

Methinks you missed entirely the point of the marriage equality movement.

SoftShell says

smoked kielbasa expelled out of nancy pelosi's ass.

Howard should have a special: Pelosi Butt Bongo and feature that as the closing.

Okay, back to my response to Marcus...

nothing remarkable here....just history repeating itself....

Dan8267 says

For example, here is a generational graph of acceptance of marriage equality. It shows a remarkable and important trend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boom#mediaviewer/File:US_Birth_Rates.svg

Estimating avg births/1000 1930 to 1950 to be 20 (closer to 21), avg during boom years 24. Give or take that's 25% more.

But 1925 - 1950 is 25 years which is 38% more than 18 years. So not only are their quite a bit more people born between 1925 - 1950, than 1946 to 1964, but they always voted a lot more, as older groups always do.

Roger Ailles, Rupert Murdoch, Newt Gingrich, and all the founding members of the Heritage Foundation were born before the baby boom, as were countless other lapdogs of the people who pull the strings of the American right wing. The Koch brother were born in 1935 and 1940.

Here's the evidence for my thesis: Boomers aren't a Progressive Force.

1980. Carter vs. Reagan

Even split in the younger boomers, and a Regan victory among older boomers and younger Silents.

Sadly this isn't broken down into generations, and the age categories overlap a bit, but it's what I got to work with for this one. I'm calling this even-steven.

But anyway, okay, Carter was very unpopular at the time. It's a fluke. Doesn't prove anything. Let's move on.

1984. Mondale vs. Reagan

Well this time there is no ambiguity whatsoever. BOTH the Younger Boomers and the Older Boomer-Silent Gen cohort went STRONGLY for Reagan. It was a BLOWOUT.

The Younger Adults weren't creamed by the Old Farts, they voted right alongside them for a total Reagan Victory.

1988. Dukakis vs. Bush the First

As you can see, the 30-44 group is a full 35% of the voters in this exit poll - outclassing by almost DOUBLE any other age group - making them "The Deciders."

The Victory Margin among Boomer Cohorts for this Greatest Generation President is around 6-8%. Remember this for the next election.

1992: Clinton vs. Bush the Elder vs. Perot

Boomers go for Clinton - but barely.

Now keep in mind: He's a Boomer, He's Charismatic, and 1992 is a recession year. But, most importantly, Perot worried Republicans - but not Democrats - for being a "Spoiler Candidate".

So while the Boomers went for Clinton, how many did Perot take who would have instead gone with Bush I. Perot was most popular with the under 50s, and much less popular with the Silents and Greatests.

Compare also how the Boomers went for the first Boomer President, relative to how they went for not only Reagan in 1984, but Bush in 1988. This time, Boomers only go for Clinton by about 3 or 4%. They go 6 to 8% for Bush in his first term.

The Media has always been underestimating the conservative advantage among babyboomers. An article from 1984 - Reagan wasn't even expecting to win with them. He won huge among them - a 57% vote is a blowout in US politics.
http://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0608/060825.html

I'm getting to the rest of the 90s and 2000s in a moment.

(Edited to add 1992 chart to post)

I hope you're drinking, because you are full of shit.

thunderlips11 says

Even split in the younger boomers, and a Regan victory among older boomers and younger Silents.

The boomers born between 1960 and 1964 were too young to vote. The boomers born between 1951 and 1960 favored Carter slightly. As for the ones older (the oldest 5 years), they were in the next 15 year group, which is dominated by people older than boomers.

thunderlips11 says

As you can see, the 30-44 group is a full 35% of the voters in this exit poll - outclassing by DOUBLE any other voting group - making them "The Deciders."

Yes it's an exit poll. Obviously skewed, because that was obviously not the percentage of people that voted in that age range. I've already been in this discussion far too much, considering that you haven't learned anything.

Maybe in years down the road, when you aren't aware that you learned it from me, you will understand that the boomers aren't quite as big a segment of the population, or of the voters as you used to think they were.

I never argued that the boomers were espcially progressive. THere are just as many idiots among the boomers as there are in any of these other 10 similar sized current age groups:

humanity says

age 21 - 48, age 26 - 51, age 31 - 54, age 36 - 57, age 41 - 61, age 46 - 65, age 51 - 69, age 56 - 77, age 61 - 86, age 66 - 100.

But you haven't just been saying the boomers aren't progressive, you've been assigning blame, like somehow they are worse than other age groups or like you really dont have a good feeling for proportion and numbers.

I still say your an asshole. If it was just mean sprited, or emotionally clouded, that would be one thing. But it's actually outright retarded. You belong with your buddy Dan. Two arrogant prick peas in a pod.

humanity says

Exactly. Thank you for making your own argument.

Then your argument does not apply. I have provided ample evidence of the wrongdoings of the Boomers. Half the world's wildlife didn't kill itself during the Boomer's reign. Just because you choose to ignore the evidence doesn't make it go away.

humanity says

The one sure way to tell Dan is losing an argument is when he resorts to saying saying how samrt he thinks he is, as if that's an argument.

Actually, I was illustrating how stupid and childish you are.

humanity says

Who argues like this ?

Someone who is tired of the disingenuous arguments of village idiots.

The first dozen times you make lame Straw Men arguments I may politely point out the fallacy, but there are limits to even my patience for fools.

SoftShell says

your definition of "we" is too narrow.

The "sentient machine" does not exist without the atoms. To exclude the atoms that comprise the sentient being is to exclude the very building blocks of creation.

SoftShell trying metaphysics? That's like a baboon trying metaphysics.

Sentience is an emergency property of the complex arrangement of atoms, not a function of specific instances of the elements. Swapping one hydrogen atom for another makes no difference to the system. A person is not the particular atoms that make up his body, but rather the effects of complex electrical and chemical reactions resulting from the organization of atoms into far more complex structures.

marcus says

Yes it's an exit poll. Obviously skewed, because that was obviously not the percentage of people that voted in that age range. I've already been in this discussion far too much, considering that you haven't learned anything.

Marcus, what do you think it is theat Exit Polls do?

They ask people how they voted, how much money they made, etc.

I neglected to source my screenshots:
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_88.html

It has vote totals for all the Presidential Elections. It has the relative age percentages of the random samples of voters from all over the country, so you can see how the bullshit claim of being swamped by Old Fucks is.

If they had 35% of respondents Boomers, that's what the percentage of Boomers was walking out the Schoolhouse/Post Office/Armory Door, hence, they voted. These aren't guesses. You do realize this is the primary tool Jimmah Carter and the OECD and others use to verify fair elections, right?

Why do Progressive Boomers feel the need to fight the reality about the voting record of Boomers overall?

Do you really think the miniscule sized Silents/Luckies are the ones to blame for every election in the past 32 years and Babyboomers were totally AWOL with no agency?

Last post for the night. 1994 Elections.

Contract with America: Attack of the "Angry White Man". Congress shifts for first time in almost half a century*.

Republicans take House for the first time since 1954, gain in Senate and State Governors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1994

I tried to find the original NYT source but they don't have the graphics in the archives.

Look at those Whites, age 30-44. Peak, prime adulthood for the Boomers. Just the people in a 14-year band were 28% of the electorate, too.

This is just 2 years after Clinton's narrow win among Boomers in 1992, even with spoiler Perot in the race.

* When those evil racist Old Silents and Greatests voted out the Republicans in 1954, and landed them a bigger defeat in 1958. This off-year election will confirm Boomers as Right-leaning as a group, and represents the biggest defeat for a party since the aforementioned 1958 elections.

I know what an exit poll is. In fact I know a lot about statistics.

Exit polls are not only subject to a margin of error, they also can be conducted with methodologies that don't accurately represent the overall population. IF that's not a misprint, then they knowingly made 35% of the people in their exit poll in that 14 year age group, after concluding that percentage was was representative for that age range in the overall population, and that makes little sense to me. Maybe it has to do with the low turnout for that election being low and that age group turning out way more. They probably got out the family values crowd in the bible belt out in record numbers.

35% of the voters in that election were between 30 and 44 sounds high to me. But it's irrelevant, say it is 35%. It's probably not that far off.

So say that the boomers were 35%. THat doesn't make them the deciders. What kind of twisted logic, makes them the deciders ? IF you had 3 people voting, would one person be the decider ? Here we have I don't know, maybe 90 million people voting, and way more than that not voting, because they don't even care enough to vote, and you think that because (maybe)35% of the (less than half who voted) being baby boomers makes them responsible for the out come ? I mean we all are responsible, including the many that didn't vote. But this just makes no sense.

IF we believe the exit polls, boomers were way better about voting than other age groups.

I'm done here. I honestly don't begin to comprehend the blame you assign. THat is I honestly do not see that you have a legitimate point of view here. Often when I'm arguing with someone, I at least understand what it is they think and or why.

In this case this is total blind hate and extreme stupidity that allows you to reach such a bizarre conclusion.

Dan8267 says

Half the world's wildlife didn't kill itself during the Boomer's reign.

"The boomers reign." Unbelievable.

marcus says

So say that the boomers were 35%. THat doesn't make them the deciders. What kind of twisted logic, makes them the deciders ? IF you had 3 people voting, would one person be the decider ? Here we have I don't know, maybe 90 million people voting, and way more than that not voting, because they don't even care enough to vote, and you think that because (maybe)35% of the (less than half who voted) being baby boomers makes them responsible for the out come ? I mean we all are responsible, including the many that didn't vote. But this just makes no sense.

35% of the electorate isn't a huge chunk?

Your idea is that the old fucks keep taking all the elections and overpowering the Boomers by votes. Look at 1988. If you add up the boomers - with only one year of Silents overlapping in the 30-44 group to the youngest cohort - in this case the last of the boomers and the first Gen X'ers, you got 55% of the vote. That's a majority.

No age group in 1988, like in 1984, went Democrat.

Now in 1992 just the main part (not even the entire generational cohort) of the Boomer vote alone is 46% of the entire electorate, Marcus. 46% of the population in just one 14 year cohort consisting solely of boomers.

You might say, "Yeah, well, Clinton won." He did - with a Spoiler in the race.

But then there's the 1994 Off-Year election, Whites Aged 30-44 reported that 51% of them voted Republican in 1992. So while a good chunk of Boomers voted for Perot - about 20% - how many of them would have voted Clinton over Bush?

Back to the rest of the voting history.

Marcus, enjoy this. This is the only election in the past 30 years, when Boomers, along with every other age Cohort in America, chose the Democrat by a comfortable margin. They voted for Clinton right along with the evil old people.

Perot's still a spoiler, but he only got about 9% of the Boomer vote this time instead of 20%.

Just something to keep in mind - The "Comeback Kid", between 1994 and 1996, worked with the Republicans to balance the budget. It was done so, how? By Clinton moving to the Right, slashing education, of course the famous welfare limit "Workfare". Dick Morris? Triangulation? Robert Rubin? Bank Deregulation?

What else did Clinton do? Renew MFN with China in 1994.
http://tech.mit.edu/V114/N27/china.27w.html

Clinton was a Neoliberal, Economically Conservative, not a Progressive.

You'll also note that Boomers are about half the entire electorate now.

But I won't harp on this too much. Because in the next few elections will cinch my argument about Boomers leaning Republican as a group.

2000: Bush vs. Gore

The 30 - 49 cohort, mostly boomers with the first few years of Gen X - goes for Doubya

And the Oldest Fucks go for Al Gore by a comfortable margin.

The older boomers and silents go for Gore, but it's not broken down any further so we can't tell much from these exit polls.

2004: Bush vs. Kerry

Boomers vote for Bush again by a larger margin than they did in 2000.

Both age-ranges that encompass the boomers - and you can tell where most of them are by looking at the voter group size - go strongly for Bush. More strongly than in 2000. A little more than those evil old people did, actually.

The two Cohorts consisting only of Gen Xers go for Kerry - they're the only groups to do so.

Another reason the old fuck argument doesn't fly because the under 50s have almost 60% of the vote power.

2008: Obama vs. McCain

Obama barely squeaks by to a victory with the Boomers - by 1%

That's one whole percent - after the disastrous Bush years, when the exiting President was highly unpopular, from the events in his second term from Katrina to the beginning of the Great Recession. And of course, Sarah Palin. Also keep in mind McCain had serious trouble in the primaries, and made an ass of himself by kissing ultra-right ass, Liberty University, Pat Robertson, and abandoning all his stances on torture and the radical right. It think it also demotivated republican voters.

Among the younger age groups, including the no-longer-so-young Gen X'ers approaching middle age, Obama wins handsomely, by a comfortable margin of several points.

The Greatests and Silents are now only 16% of the electorate. Boomers alone are 37% of the electorate in this election - more than double the "Evil Old People".

NEXT: THE ELECTION THAT PROVES EVERYTHING

Okay, I've looked at some numbers in more detail, and see that I've been a little bit wrong on parts of this. A lot of my analysis was based on this graph.

marcus says

I now see based on this report,
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p20-542.pdf

that I'm wrong. Even in the year 2000 when boomers (defined as born 1946 to 1964), voted a little more than those older than them.

I was thinking that they wouldn't over take the older voters until after that. Maybe more people die between say 60 and 75 than I was thinking.

So yeah, in 2000 there were about 44 million boomers that voted and about 38 million older folks that voted. Obviously those older voters have a lot of people in the Fox News crowd (these are very accurate numbers).

I never said the boomers aren't a huge number of people. I just said that generalizing about them as you do, and assigning blame to them as you do, makes no sense.

You could cite other groups, such as men, or white men, or Christians, or democrats, or capitalists, or tax payers, or working folks, or college educated, or women, or married, or parents....

These are all large groups, and they are all comprised of nearly half idiots who are apathetic about a lot of important issues. In many elections half or so don't even bother to vote.

So the boomers didn't save us from ourselves ? The boomers aren't enough different from other groups. Although they are more progressive than the group older than them. Turns out the boomers get manipulated and played just like everyone else.

If just doesn't make any sense. I haven't seen a shred of evidence indicating that the boomers are worse than other age groups. Yes, they are bigger than other age groups, especially if you limit the time intervals to be the same length. Notably, the boomers are especially bigger than younger groups. You and Dan seem to have retarded reasoning that goes something like this.

1) America is pretty messed up. Politically our priorities are skewed towards the interests of the rich and away from the interests of the people or the planet for that matter.

2) Boomers are a very significant chunk of the electorate, and yet they are a lot like everyone else in the country. Maybe a little wiser on average than those older than their group, but not enough to matter.

3) Hell, the game has become even more rigged during the period when they were a big chunk of the electorate, and the boomers didn't prevent that.

Therefore you blame them. It's their fault.

For the 10th time,...this is assinine.

2012. Obama vs. Gordon Gecko Mitt Romney.

No way those forward thinking, eternally young boomers were gonna vote for---

Oh Shit!

That's right folks, on the heels of the Great Recession, those Progressive Baby Boomers pulled for the Republican, the emptiest suit ever to run in US politics, by a solid margin.

Note also they are about 40% of the electorate - a huge chunk.

And you'll also notice that what saved Obama was the Xs and Ys, who went for Obama very strongly, and that was what won the election.

Now that the Y's are on board, we'll see more and more democrat victories as they are sizable enough to match and eventually outmatch, their conservative Boomer parents' voting.

Americans (and I guess humans in general) in their arrogance often seem to spend way to much time in life comparing ourselves to others.

I find this a pathetic human attribute, but I understand it.

After thinking about it, I get what the real issue is. And I don't mean that you feel inferior to boomers when you compare yourself. But you feel like we had it easier in some ways, better in some ways. And then in some twisted way, you blame us that things aren't the same for you.

I can tell you, that this is less true than you think, except with respect to housing (and that is mostly with the aid of hindsight). At least not if you have reasonable intelligence and skills (and experience)

I would say that times are more noticeably worse for low income and or low skills folks now than 30 years ago.

But the fact that you blame boomers for what you feel when you get all wrapped up in those ego based comparisons is sad.

So I do finally understand now. I've shifted from anger on this to sympathy. I would say empathy, but I don't know. I'd like to think I would do better job of framing your circumstances in a more honest and healthy way than you do (that is if I were in your shoes).

marcus says

that I'm wrong. Even in the year 2000 when boomers (defined as born 1946 to 1964), voted a little more than those older than them.

I was thinking that they wouldn't over take the older voters until after that. Maybe more people die between say 60 and 70 than I was thinking.

Marcus, only very recently did I believe this. Before if you asked me, I would have said the same as you. It wasn't until I saw all the current Millenial-Baby Boomer arguments did I begin to suspect that the conservative element in the boomers was higher than thought - or the media presents.

marcus says

I was thinking that they wouldn't over take the older voters until after that. Maybe more people die between say 60 and 70 than I was thinking.

Yep, A good reason not to raise Soc Sec age. And of course, just because somebody lives to 68, doesn't mean they won't break a hip at 70 and end up with only 2 years of retirement enjoyment that doesn't involve getting bed sores in a nursing home until they die.

marcus says

I never said the boomers aren't a huge number of people. I just said that generalizing about them as you do, and assigning blame to them as you do, makes no sense.

You could cite other groups, such as men, or white men, or Christians, or democrats, or capitalists, or tax payers, or working folks, or college educated, or women, or married, or parents....

These are all large groups, and they are all comprised of nearly half idiots who are apathetic about a lot of important issues. In many elections half or so don't even bother to vote.

First of all, I'm not looking at those groups, I'm looking at Age Cohorts.

If it's okay to ask how Millenials will vote, how Whites vote, how Blacks vote, how Women votes, etc. why can't we ask how Boomers vote and investigate that over time?

Who complains when somebody points out "Blacks go for the democrats in every election?"

If you look at Boomer voting record, you do not see a pattern of left, center-left, or even moderate tendency.

This is true NO MATTER how big or small they are, even though they are a huge chunk of the electorate - although now they are offset by Generation Y, which is why Democrats are starting to win again.

Another bullshit media claim is that GenX is "more conservative". Not based on their voting record, they ain't.

When the Boomers voted to the right, they generally did by strong margins. The few times they did vote left, there were either spoilers (Perot), or the margin was puny, around 2% more than not. A handful more for Obama than against in 2008.

Again, this is not blaming every individual because of the group they are a member of.

It is about overturning incorrect orthodoxy and a misleading narrative.

Yes, I have been all about overturning misleading narrative.

It's fine to take note of the voting record of an age cohort, where a few percentage points more republicans is significant in elections, and nearly half not even voting is significant in elections too.

But then to talk about blame or agency ? Why can't boomers own up to what ?

Yeah, I think I'll go back to fuck you. Fuck you.

marcus says

Americans (and I guess humans in general) in their arrogance often seem to spend way to much time in life comparing ourselves to others.

I find this a pathetic human attribute, but I understand it.

After thinking about it, I get what the real issue is. And I don't mean that you feel inferior to boomers when you compare yourself. But you feel like we had it easier in some ways, better in some ways. And then in some twisted way, you blame us that things aren't the same for you.

I can tell you, that this is less true than you think, except with respect to housing (and that is mostly with the aid of hindsight). At least not if you have reasonable intelligence and skills (and experience)

I would say that times are more noticeably worse for low income and or low skills folks now than 30 years ago.

But the fact that you blame boomers for what you feel when you get all wrapped up in those ego based comparisons is sad.

Look, Marcus.

When demographers and historians write the legacy of the boomers, it won't be "Oh they were victims of conditions".

Your age group - not all of you, but the people in your age cohort generally - voted for Republicans and Neoliberals over and over again. What destroyed America wasn't "Competition" that "Nobody could control for". In the first half of the 20th Century, you think American goods didn't compete with German, French, and British products? They did, but thank fuck there was an average Tariff of around 30%.

Who cut the taxes on the 1%? Who "Freed us from the cold dead hand of government" and the Boomers brought him back a second time by big margins amongst themselves? Most Favored Nation trading status for Communist China? H1-Bs and outsourcing? Who got rid of those tariffs? Who really opened the floodgates and declared the first amnesty so that even poor Americans had a race to the bottom with wages and broke the unions, particularly in meat packing and other low-value added industries? Who fired all the ATCs? Who made a stink about Rock Music and Lyrics that poisoned kid's minds? Who joined all the evangelical churches over the past 40 years and turned the Religious Right into a powerful voting block, that in previous decades was a bunch of marginal snake handlers nobody cared about winning votes from? Who started demanding "Law and Order" and building the Prison Industrial Complex?

Why did democrats shift to the right, and the Progressive Wing lose all power? Why is it that most Democrats today are to the right of Liberal Republicans like Eisenhower on economic issues?

If Boomers repeatedly voted against - even by a small margin - the people who propose these things, but the old fucks swung the vote anyway, one could make the claim that they are innocent of responsibility for the current mess.

thunderlips11 says

If Boomers repeatedly voted against - even by a small margin - the people who propose these things, but the old fucks swung the vote anyway, one could make the claim that they are innocent of responsibility for the current mess.

If boomers who voted, making up roughly a third of the half or so of the people who voted, voted for these things by a small margin, it says absolutely NOTHING about boomers, other than that they were like everyone else:

1) Just like everyone else, they are susceptible to big money advertising
and the effect of big money in general in politics.

2) Just like every other age group, there are plenty of fundamental Christianists and others who are either highly gullible or below average intelligence or education level or all three.

3) Just like every other age group, they are especially vulnerable to propaganda about taxes and government spending and war and race, and "family values" and guns, just like so many people in other groupings are manipulated in politics.

But bottom line: if it's a total of 53% or something like that that ended up on the conservative (fuck you I've got mine) side of the spectrum, there is no generalization that particularly makes sense or is interesting about this age group. Were talking about a handful of people out of 100 being a reason to generalize about the 100**, when there are all kinds of factors influencing the people, 30% or more of whom are idiots.

(**and really we're talking about a handful of people out of 200 and generalizing about the 200 based on that, since half didn't vote. Sure that says something about the group too, but it's not different than any other group.)

If I had to guess, you majored in history or social sciences of some sort. You definitely aren't a science, math or logic person.

thunderlips11 says

one could make the claim that they are innocent of responsibility for the current mess.

One could make that claim anyway because the older group put leaders into power that gave us the circumstances causing slightly over 50% of the boomers to vote republican.

thunderlips11 says

Why did democrats shift to the right, and the Progressive Wing lose all power?

The biggest reasons I can think of:

1) The middle became more and more important politically (it always is), as claims that the left were soft on defense and that they were all about "tax and spend."

2)The lies about welfare (welfare queens), but also the justified perception that welfare was not totally good in the way that it impacts communities, and individuals. Welfare was and is necessary, but there were some negatives that come with it.

3) The "starve the beast" strategy of running up deficits (Reagan lowering taxes while increasing spending (esp military)) based on the machiavellian plan that this would preempt liberals from being able to bring home the bacon so to speak, and that the resulting high debt could be used to argue against "tax and spend" liberals.

4) The southern strategy, which was put into motion before the boomers were nearly as big a part of the electorate. But we see the aftermath today: Guns, gays and god.

5) The amazing but believed lie, that if lowering taxes, when taxes are above a certain level can cause tax revenues to increase, because of how stimulative it is to the economy, that therefore even when taxes are relatively low that this effect holds.

A lot of people are selfish enough about their taxes that they don't even want to think this through they just take it on faith. Combine this with #2 and #3 above and you have a powerful issue.

You say that Obama won because of Gen Y. That's partly true. But that's because of the pendulum finally swinging back (not enough), but it's also because democrats finally got on the lowering taxes message. Obama promised to lower taxes, and he did. But this was a little fucked up, because he had to wait a while to finally let the Bush tax cuts expire as intended (after they had finished redistributing the Social Security Tax surplus up to the rich) - further shackling the democrats from having any juice now that they had come to power.

The Professor says

Dan8267 says

sentient machines

Who, or what, created these machines?

Nature

Dan8267 says

The Professor says

Dan8267 says

sentient machines

Who, or what, created these machines?

Nature

It's weird that nature was able to create nano machinery capable of self replication. Order from chaos, neogenesis, just like they believed in the dark ages!

Dan8267 says

Who, or what, created these machines?

Nature

And who created nature?

God.

P N Dr Lo R says

Dan8267 says

Who, or what, created these machines?

Nature

And who created nature?

God.

And who created God?
Man.

marcus says

1) Just like everyone else, they are susceptible to big money advertising

and the effect of big money in general in politics.

Big money and advertising has been with us for more than a century at least.

(Dan Smoot and HL Hunt are very interesting; most of their nonsense is repeated today - But it is more popular than ever before, esp. in the Tea Party contingent, which is most certainly not a Youth Movement by Composition. Needs a thread of it's own)

If anything, this argument would go better for X and Y, because they've lived in the era that epitomizes Soft Money, the end of the Fairness Doctrine, Think Tanks, Fox News, etc. Yet the voting record does not support this.

marcus says

2) Just like every other age group, there are plenty of fundamental Christianists and others who are either highly gullible or below average intelligence or education level or all three.

NOT like every other age group. The rise of Christian Right is a Boomer Story. Sure, there were snake handlers before, but the membership boomed with boomers in the late 60s to early 80s. The Jesus People/Jesus Freaks are the source of voting power (and donation money) for the Christian Right.

This deserves it's own thread sometime.

marcus says

3) Just like every other age group, they are especially vulnerable to propaganda about taxes and government spending and war and race, and "family values" and guns, just like so many people in other groupings are manipulated in politics.

This answer to this is in #1.

marcus says

But bottom line: if it's a total of 53% or something like that that ended up on the conservative (fuck you I've got mine) side of the spectrum, there is no generalization that particularly makes sense or is interesting about this age group. Were talking about a handful of people out of 100 being a reason to generalize about the 100**, when there are all kinds of factors influencing the people, 30% or more of whom are idiots.

marcus says

(**and really we're talking about a handful of people out of 200 and generalizing about the 200 based on that, since half didn't vote. Sure that says something about the group too, but it's not different than any other group.)

It's absolute nonsense to dismiss exit polls on those grounds. As somebody who is a teacher - a math teacher - you should certainly understand that generally speaking, the larger the sample size less the margin of error. You'll see that the source features an average sample number much higher than 100-200 people.

Since personal characteristics including race, gender, age, income, etc. aren't collected from the voter while they are in the booth, this is the only reliable proxy we have. I'll repeat that they are primary tool used to adjudicate the fairness of elections, and I believe that if professionally run exit polls off by more than a small degree, it's a sure sign of voting fraud.

National exit polls consist of presidential and/or congressional vote questions in addition to questions on gubernatorial races, important issues affecting the vote decision, presidential approval and a number of current national issues. With the exception of the 1972 CBS News Exit Poll, all include basic demographic variables such as gender, race, education, income, and age, among others. Sample sizes for these studies usually range from 8,000 to 20,000 voters, with the largest samples coming from the 1986 and 1988 ABC News Exit Polls which consist of over 50,000 interviews.

Please email Data Services at DataServices-RoperCenter@uconn.edu for information concerning fees, other studies, or to answer any questions you may have.

By all means write the University if you have questions or doubts about their methodology.

More later.