Younger Demographics and Our Political Future

        Florida Democrat Maxwell Frost, 

      the First Z-Gen elected to Congress

Roughly 30% of the US population is under 24, and that same percentage applies to those over 55. The difference: the older group is dying off while the younger group is moving on as new younger voters rise below them. As the planet passes the 8 billion population mark, slated to rise to 8.5 billion by 2030, as climate change reconfigures where food and water will be sufficient, demands on natural resources and living space will trigger migration, conflict and starvation. As 50% of the greenhouse emissions are generated by the richest 10%, the rising pressure to fund the environmental damage in third world countries generated by first world consumers will only increase. Most of the rest of the world is younger and hungrier than is the United States, particularly in developing countries.

While world wars and regional conflicts far from our shores have embroiled the US at varying levels of involvement, we have also gone through our periods of pressured isolationism – most recently under Donald Trump – turning our back on world from which we truly can no longer be separated. We face shortages of sophisticated microchips that, so far, we just do not manufacture. Rare earths for our high-manufacturing sector, particularly car batteries, has only limited supply here… forcing us to buy “there.” While we have generated self-sufficiency in oil and natural gas, that fact only relates to supply, not price. Again, global demand sets the value, and Oklahoma and Texas billionaires slorp up the profits, never for a moment thinking that they should supply Americans with deep local discounts.

This is the world that faces rising American generations. Older workers are staying in the job market longer, exerting a downward pressure on opportunities and advancement and upward pressures on housing and consumer goods. Where does “God” fit in all this? Younger Americans increasingly define themselves as “spiritual” or simply do not actively participate in routine attendance of religious services – generating a consistent pattern of disaffiliation over the years.

A September 13th Pew report tells us that accelerating attitudinal changes vis-à-vis religion will redefine America and its recent tilt towards greater religiosity in political decision making: “Since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of U.S. adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular.’ This accelerating trend is reshaping the U.S. religious landscape, leading many people to wonder what the future of religion in America might look like…

“The Center estimates that in 2020, about 64% of Americans, including children, were Christian. People who are religiously unaffiliated, sometimes called religious ‘nones,’ accounted for 30% of the U.S. population. Adherents of all other religions – including Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists – totaled about 6%... Depending on whether religious switching continues at recent rates, speeds up or stops entirely, the projections show Christians of all ages shrinking from 64% to between a little more than half (54%) and just above one-third (35%) of all Americans by 2070. Over that same period, ‘nones’ would rise from the current 30% to somewhere between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population.”

Confusingly, an October Pew Research report tells us that overall, 45% of all Americans believe we should accept ourselves as a Christian nation, …. but “they hold differing opinions about what that phrase means, and two-thirds of U.S. adults say churches should keep out of politics.” These numbers are fashioning the new Republican Party. And while a predominantly conservative rich minority continues to take advantage of the 2010 Supreme Court decision – in Citizen United vs FEC, which took the cap off campaign expenditures (as long as not directed by a declared candidate) – as extremists realigned themselves with such funders to finance their political ambitions, there is another political vector that is countering this effort: Education levels.

According to a recent analysis from the Atlantic, “61 percent of non-college-educated white voters cast their ballots for Republicans while just 45 percent of college-educated white voters did so. Meanwhile 53 percent of college-educated white voters cast their votes for Democrats compared with 37 percent of those without a degree.” Younger educated voters, particularly from colleges and universities with higher academic rankings, are more tolerant of gender, ethnic and gender diversity and deeply concerned with climate change. Their economic world is defined by unaffordable college tuition and those powerful student loan burdens that their parents never faced – the totality of college loan debt exceeds the aggregation of US credit card debt – and is further slammed by unaffordable housing that greets recent graduates. They are heavily pro-choice and generally disenchanted by both Republicans and Democrats.

Despite those tuition costs, these are younger demographics with better educations than ever before. The private educational research Annie E. Casey Foundation tells us: “Generation Zers are climbing a longer academic ladder. They are more likely to finish high school and pursue college compared to earlier generations, according to the Pew Research Center. Among young adults ages 18 to 21 who were ​‘no longer in high school in 2018, 57% were enrolled in a two- or four-year college.’ This same statistic was five percentage points lower — at 52% — for Millennials in 2003 and 14 percentage points lower — at 43% — for members of Generation X in 1987.

“The… Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Center reports a similar pro-education trend. As Gen Zers made their way through the school system from 2000 to 2019, the share of 16- to 19-year-olds who were not high school students or high school graduates dropped from 11% to just 4%. At the same time, the share of 18- to 24-year-olds who were college students or college graduates jumped from 36% to 49% over these two decades.” Indeed, 59% of millennials have at least some college education, and the younger rising generations will exceed that number.

Interestingly, despite claims that younger voters are disenchanted with elections, 27% of those who cast ballots in the recent midterms were precisely these younger voters. As I have noted before, the turnout and affiliation of these younger demographics defy pollsters at every turn. They tend not to answer calls from numbers they do not recognize, they are beginning to pull away from established social media (like Meta/Facebook and Twitter) where they can easily be tracked and are highly resistant to texts (they don’t use email much) requesting their opinions. So, polls are increasingly inaccurate and less reliable in predicting probably election results… as long as these younger voters participate in elections. But they will define our political future!

I’m Peter Dekom, and the real fear of “they shall not replace us” is an untenable rejection of what is happening without even looking at immigration patterns!