The trend toward political independence may be another consequence of iGen’ers’ individualism and reluctance to join groups and follow their rules. As Mike, 22, put it, “When people join political parties they take on some of their views and lose their originality.” iGen’ers seem to take their views and decide where they fit, rather than joining a party based on the influence of family or religion and then deciding on their views. Here’s how Rob, 19, explained how he decided how to label his political views: “In April, I heard two men at a soccer field discussing the intentions of Democrats and found out that I really didn’t know where I stood politically. That night I went home and did a lot of research and took a lot of ‘political quizzes’ and mostly came out as a Libertarian Conservative.”
The rise of political independents is not the only issue for Democrats. As Trump’s win among young white voters helps demonstrate, the Democratic Party has been faltering among young people in the last few years. In the late-2000s Obama era, Democrats dominated Republicans among 18- to 29-year-olds by 16 percentage points. But since then, the number of young adult Democrats has dropped by 9 percentage points.
There’s even worse news for Democrats among high school seniors, the 18-year-olds who are the potential harbingers of what young voters will look like during the next election cycle: the number of 12th graders identifying as Democrats is near an all-time low. Democrats are being siphoned off, with half of the shift coming from more identifying as Republicans and the other half from the growth of independents (see Figure 10.2).
Figure 10.2. 12th graders’ political party identification (excludes “don’t know” and “other party”). Monitoring the Future, 1996–2015.
Maybe that’s not bad news for the Democrats, if most of the independents are liberals. But they are not; nearly half of 12th-grade independents in 2015 described themselves as moderates. Still, liberals did substantially outnumber conservatives among young independents, 38% to 14%.
No matter what their party identification, iGen’ers often cite individualistic reasons for their choice. “I am a Republican and a conservative because I value each individual taking care of themselves. I think that’s absolutely the most fair way—everyone gets out of the system what they’re willing to put into it,” wrote Abby, 18. Even with beliefs at the other end of the political spectrum, Charlie, 21, used similarly individualistic language but toward different ends: “I am a proud liberal Democrat. I don’t believe we should steer people into doing anything. We are free to be whoever we want to be as long as we are not hurting anyone in the process.”
With party affiliations falling by the wayside, it’s increasingly meaningful to look not at party affiliation but instead at whether young people describe themselves as liberal, moderate, or conservative. There is another surprise here: the number of 12th graders identifying as conservative has actually grown since the early 2000s, with more iGen conservatives than there were among Millennials when they were in high school (see Figure 10.2). There are just as many iGen conservatives now as at the height of the Ronald Reagan era, when young GenX conservatives shocked their elders (think Alex P. Keaton on the 1980s TV classic Family Ties, continuously flummoxing his liberal Boomer parents with his support of Reagan’s conservative ideals). In contrast, the number of high school seniors who describe themselves as liberal has barely budged since the early 1990s and even decreased slightly as iGen entered the scene in the 2010s (see Figure 10.3).
Figure 10.3. 12th graders’ political views. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
The definition of a conservative has also shifted, focusing more on economic issues and less on social ones. Mark, the community college student from Texas, describes himself as a conservative Republican. When I ask what that means to him, he says, “Being a conservative means you truly want to help the people, so they can sustain themselves. The welfare system allows people to be lazy and be supported by the government. I think there has to be a system where they eventually give back what they were given.” He’s skeptical of the Democrats’ programs for “free college” because “someone is going to have to pay for that. Taxes are going to be so high that [wealthy people are] going to move out of the country.”
So far, Mark is the picture of a classic conservative—and, as you might remember from chapter 5, a devout evangelical Christian. But when I ask him about same-sex marriage, he says, “I try my best not to bring religion into it and just focus on the conservative viewpoint.” He says same-sex marriage is fine as long as people don’t “riot in the streets.” He also favors legalizing marijuana: “I think it should be left up to the individuals themselves, instead of some state or the government saying it’s legal or illegal.” On gun control, he says, “You can justify either side. If you want to own a firearm, go out and buy a firearm. If you don’t, then sit at home and don’t. Don’t try to force the world to respect your beliefs.” Although his economic conservativism is clear, his stance on social issues would have been unrecognizable to most conservatives just ten years ago. Instead, it’s an individualistic, libertarian view that government should stay out of people’s private business.
Like many iGen’ers, Mark is also concerned about getting a good job in a still challenging economy. That’s one reason why Trump’s idea of keeping out immigrants appeals to him; he thinks the government needs to focus more on its own citizens. “When we have a poverty level of zero and a debt of zero and crime of zero, that’s when I feel like we can go out and help all the other countries out there that need our help,” he says. This is nationalism and isolationism born out of economic fears. In an October 2016 poll of 18- to 29-year-olds, those who believed whites were falling behind economically were more likely to vote for Trump. For all the attention paid to older white working-class voters, as we saw in chapter 7, it’s the young ones who are not working and thus feel even more left behind in the new economy. iGen’ers’ interest in safety and their heightened concerns about their economic prospects have combined to make them more politically conservative than most anticipated and more open to nationalist messages.
There’s another trend afoot: the decline of the moderate. Among both high school and college students, fewer and fewer say they are moderate in their political views, with the number of moderates reaching an all-time low in the college survey in 2016 (see Figure 10.3, and Appendix I). Increasingly, young people agree with the old joke about what happens to someone with middle-of-the-road views: he gets run over. That is just the first sign that compromise, for all intents and purposes, is dead.
The Poles of Politics
How would you feel if you found out that your son or daughter was going to marry someone of the other political party? In 1960, just 5% of Republicans and 4% of Democrats said they would be upset. In 2010, 49% of Republicans and 33% of Democrats expressed displeasure. Few care anymore about cross-racial marriages; the new concern is cross-party marriages.
For all of iGen’s lifetime, Democrats and Republicans have been deadlocked over issues from Bill Clinton’s impeachment to war funding to health care. Everyone has retreated into their corners, and that is true of young people as well. Among high school seniors, those who described themselves as either “very” liberal or “very” conservative increased from 13% in 1976 to 20% in 2015, an all-time high. The number describing themselves as “very conservative” was the highest in the forty years of the survey—higher than in the Reagan-era 1980s and higher than in the post-9/11 George W. Bush 2000s (see Figure 10.4). Similar trends appear among entering college students and young adults—the number of college students describing themselves as “far left” reached an all-time high in 2016. The numbers in both categories are very small in an absolute sense, but these are the students who get involved in politics on campus—who take part in demonstrations, advocate for change, and argue with fellow students over issues. With more students at the extremes, we can expect more divisiveness and more protests.
Figure 10.4. Extreme political views among 12th g
raders. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
A few days before the 2016 election, CBS News gathered about twenty-five young voters for a group interview. One exchange in particular captured the deep divisions in the country’s political and social beliefs. A young white woman, apparently responding to another voter’s comment about race relations, spoke with barely controlled anger. “Trump hasn’t been in the White House, so to say that Trump tore our country apart at the seams and created this racial divisiveness, no way,” she said. “President Obama is the one who was in the White House for eight years, and race relations have been worse than ever in this country. Let’s look at who was in office—an African American man who has torn apart this country.” A young black man named Richard Lucas III spoke next. “To say that race relations have gotten as bad as they’ve ever been under President Obama shows a lack of historical depth. America is built on racial division, and Donald Trump’s rhetoric, this other-ism built into that narrative—that has long been the narrative of American society,” he said, his eyes moving to the side and his jaw set.
Those divisions only became more stark after the election, when many iGen’ers—especially racial minorities—felt betrayed by the white young voters who favored Trump. For some, his election was a body blow to their view of their generation as tolerant and welcoming of those who are different. Tiffany Onyejiaka, the daughter of African immigrants and an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins, wrote an open letter in the Huffington Post that began, “Dear White Millennials Who Voted for Trump . . . I wanted to thank you for voting for this monster. Not because I like him, but because you have helped reveal to me that I was so mistaken as to think the majority of white youth were socially progressive.” She went on, “. . . In my naïve little brain, I never imagined that 48 percent of white people aged 18–29 would vote for a man who based his platform on racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and so much more.” She signed the letter “A black millennial who has to now be aware that nearly 50 percent of white people my age don’t believe I deserve basic human rights.”
The polarization goes beyond just the extremes: the political parties as a whole have become more ideologically split. While there were once conservatives and liberals in each party, now there are just conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. Some have speculated that this was true only for “political elites”—elected politicians who have to toe the party line. But it’s now true of a general sample of US adults (in the General Social Survey) and even of high school seniors, who might have less definite views. The correlation between political party choice and political ideology (liberal, conservative, moderate) has grown stronger with nearly every passing year, even among high school students (see Appendix I). Whereas the link between political party and political ideology was once weak, it’s now strong. I remember hearing a joke in the 1980s: “A liberal Republican is like a unicorn: it doesn’t exist.” That wasn’t entirely true then, but it is now.
In a 2016 poll, the Pew Research Center found that animosity between the political parties had reached unprecedented levels. Whereas only 21% of Republicans and 17% of Democrats had seen the other party as “very unfavorable” in 1994, 58% of Republicans and 55% viewed the other party with hatred in 2016. Seventy percent of Democrats describe Republicans as “close-minded,” and 52% of Republicans say the same thing about Democrats. Nearly half of Republicans say that Democrats are “immoral.” More than 40% of those in each party believe that the other party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being.” We are a nation divided, and iGen reaps what we sow.
Legal Marijuana, Legal Abortion, the Death Penalty, and Gun Control: Do What You Want, Libertarian
A few decades ago, the idea that drugs should be legal was often considered laughable. When I was a teen in the 1980s, TV ads showed frying eggs that proclaimed, “This is your brain on drugs,” and Nancy Reagan advised us to “Just say no.” Things are different now: recreational marijuana is legal in several states, including Massachusetts, Colorado, and California, and medical marijuana is legal in many others.
iGen’ers are a product of our modern and more pot-accepting high times. They are much more likely to believe that pot should be legal than GenX’ers when they were young—and support legal pot even more than the oft-stoned Boomers did in the 1970s. Nearly twice as many 12th graders in 2015 supported the legalization of pot than in the 1980s, as do three times as many iGen college students and young adults. By an October 2016 Gallup poll, 77% of 18- to 34-year-olds believed that pot should be legal.
At first, iGen’ers’ support for legal marijuana may seem to contradict their interest in safety. But as we saw in chapter 6, iGen’ers are more likely to believe that marijuana is safe, and that belief in its safety has moved in lockstep with views on whether pot should be legal (see Figure 10.5).
Figure 10.5. 12th graders’ views on marijuana legality and safety. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
iGen’ers also support legal pot partially because they believe that the government should stay out of personal decisions. One 18-year-old iGen’er told the Pew Research Center in 2015 that marijuana should be legal “because people should be allowed to have control over their body and not have the government intervene in that.” It’s not just pot users who are driving this trend; recall from chapter 6 that fewer iGen’ers use pot than did Boomers at the same age. iGen’ers are willing to extend freedoms to others even if they don’t want to experience those particular freedoms themselves. As the young Millennial singer Kacey Musgraves puts it in one of her songs, “Roll up a joint/Or don’t.”
The belief in personal choice may also be the reason behind the resurgence in support for legal abortion among young people. Half of 18- to 29-year-olds supported legal abortion if “the woman wants it for any reason” (sometimes called “abortion on demand”) in 2014 and 2016, an all-time high. Support for abortion among college students has gradually increased over the last ten years, with iGen’ers more likely to be pro-choice than the Millennials just before them (see Figures 10.6 and 10.7).
Figure 10.6. Entering college students’ views about abortion, legalizing marijuana, the death penalty, and gun control. American Freshman Survey, 1968–2015.
Figure 10.7. Views about abortion, legalizing marijuana, the death penalty, and gun control, 18- to 29-year-olds. General Social Survey, 1972–2016.
When I asked a few iGen’ers if they thought abortion should be legal and under what circumstances, all said “Under all circumstances,” and all mentioned the rights of the individual. “I think abortions should be legal. Ultimately, I think it is all up to the choice of the woman,” wrote Julianna, 21. “It is her life and her decision, and I don’t think others should have a right to dictate her choices, since it is not hurting any of them.” Some also mentioned safety. “Every pregnancy is a risk that no one should be forced to take,” wrote Keely, 19. “It can be a massive financial, social and emotional burden, but it can also be a physical risk, and it’s not anyone’s place to tell someone they MUST endure it.”
More iGen’ers also doubt the usefulness of the death penalty. Twice as many college students and young adults now than in the mid-1990s believe the death penalty should be abolished (see Figures 10.6, and 10.7). “It is a proven fact that the death penalty disproportionately affects poor minorities in this country,” wrote Lilly, 20. “Some of the stories of injustice are shocking and sickening. Plus it is a proven fact that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime.”
So far, iGen’ers’ beliefs seem like a liberal smorgasboard: legal marijuana, legal abortion, no more death penalty. But that’s where it ends. iGen’ers are also more likely to oppose gun control, usually a conservative position. Among 18- to 29-year-olds in the General Social Survey, more than twice as many in 2016 than in 1998 opposed gun permits (see Figure 10.7). Twice as many college students in 2013 than in 1998 disagreed with the statement “The federal government should do more to control the sale of handguns�
� (see Figure 10.6). The Pew Research Center found an even larger shift over time in opposition to gun control, growing from 27% among Millennials in 2004 to 47% among Millennials and iGen in 2015.
Health care provides another surprise in iGen’ers’ political beliefs: the average iGen’er is actually less likely to support national health care than Millennials were. In 2013, 39% of entering college students disagreed that “A national health care plan is needed to cover everybody’s medical costs,” up from 26% in 2007.
What about concern for the environment? Despite the common idea that iGen’ers are uniquely concerned about the environment, they are actually less likely to agree that the government should promote more environmental regulations. Boomers and GenX’ers were more likely to think that solving environmental problems was the government’s job (agreeing that “Government should take action to solve our environmental problems even if it means that some of the products we now use would have to be changed or banned”), while iGen’ers are more likely to think it’s the job of individual people (“People will have to change their buying habits and way of life to correct our environmental problems”; see Figure 10.8).
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