Young Voters Keep Moving to the Left on Social Issues

In other good news - unless one is a Christofascist or an older Republican - are findings that among the younger generations, voters are moving to the left on social issues and rejecting the ignorance and bigotry that defines the political and social right.   Better yet, even young Republicans are moving away from the dogma of their elders making it increasingly difficult for Christofascists to inflict their hate and bigotry on society.  The other good news found by the Pew Research survey is that Donald Trump is accelerating the exodus of younger generations from the GOP.  For years I have been arguing that the GOP has placed short term gain ahead of a long term strategy, hoping that disenfranchising voters and gerrymandering districts would compensate for policies viewed as toxic by growing numbers of Americans, especially the younger generations. As the older racists and religious extremist so important to the GOP die off, there simply will not be enough voters to replace them.  Here are highlights from the New York Times on the survey findings:

As a self-described political conservative, Reagan Larson might seem to be a natural fit for the Republican Party. The 19-year-old college student from South Dakota grew up in a Catholic household that objected to same-sex marriage, and she remains firmly opposed to abortion.

But in many ways, that is where the ideological similarities end. Ms. Larson, a dual major in biology and Spanish at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., does not oppose the legalization of marriage equality. She views climate change as undeniable, believes “immigrants make our country richer,” and disagrees with her parents on the need for a border wall.

Ms. Larson is part of Generation Z, one of the most ethnically diverse and progressive age groups in American history. People born after 1996 tend to espouse similar views to the age cohort just ahead of them, the Millennials, but they are far more open to social change than older generations have been, according to the findings of a new report by the Pew Research Center. The findings mark a shift that could substantially reshape the nation’s political and economic landscape. [O]nly 30 percent of Generation Z respondents said they approved of President Trump’s performance; more than half believed humans were fueling climate change; and 70 percent said they wanted the government to do more to solve the nation’s problems. Those views roughly mirror attitudes held by Millennials, and together, the two age groups may add up to a powerful voting bloc at odds with Republican orthodoxy, political scientists say. “This should be an alert to the Republican Party as they think about generational replacement,” said Elizabeth Bennion, a professor of political science at Indiana University South Bend.

Each succeeding generation of Americans tends to be more progressive than those that came before, Ms. Bennion noted, a trend that potentially poses a long-term threat to the Republican Party’s power.

“If there isn’t a will to change within the party,” she said, “it could become permanently in the minority moving forward.”

Democrats of all ages tend to align fairly closely on major social and political issues, but the report highlights a sharp generational divide among Republicans. For example, more than half of the youngest Republicans surveyed said that racial and ethnic diversity was good for American society . . . . Young Republicans are also more likely to approve of same-sex marriage and accept transgender people.

Michael Schaefer, 18, a politically conservative college freshman from Youngstown, Ohio, said he was in the sixth grade when some classmates came out as gay, and had a number of transgender students as friends in high school.  “For over half my life, I’ve been shown the other side of sexuality and gender,” he said. “I don’t care about their sex or gender, I just care about the individual.”

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Americans’ political and social views do not tend to drift to the right as they age, according to Kim Parker, who oversees research into social demographic trends at the Pew Research Center.

“The differences we see across age groups have more to do with the unique historical circumstances in which they come of age,” she said, noting that demographers have not seen a generational pattern of growing more conservative or more Republican over time.

The Republican Party has lost younger Americans like Travis Gaither, though, as it has moved farther to the right on issues like immigration, gun control and climate change.

Mr. Gaither, who grew up in Tennessee, described his parents as “typical southern white Republicans” who belong to two country clubs and are active in the Chamber of Commerce. But Mr. Gaither, 20, was chairman of the High School Democrats of Tennessee during his senior year, a political transformation fueled by his liberal social views and cemented by his outrage over Mr. Trump’s hard-line policies.

The Pew study found that two-thirds of Mr. Gaither’s generation believe, as he does, that black people are treated less fairly than whites in the United States.

“I feel like I’ve moved toward the left, as the Republican Party has shifted toward the right,” he said.

Good!  Let's hope the phenomenon accelerates and that the GOP goes the way of the Whigs sooner as opposed to later.

New Study: Only Two Thirds of Gen Z Is Straight

The findings of a new study ought to have Christofascists and their Republican political whores terrified.  Even as these extremists press their anti-LGBT agenda, the study finds that younger generations are increasingly saying that they are not exclusively heterosexual.  In the case of Generation Z - those born after 1995, a full one-third say that they are not exclusively heterosexual. It goes without saying that as this generation ages and votes more consistently, the news will not be good for the GOP which will also be facing growing numbers of non-white voters. Thanks to the Trump/Pence regime, the GOP is becoming irrevocable linked with racism and homophobia.  A piece in The Advocate.  Here are excerpts:

The youngest generation is proving to be the most tolerant and the most fluid, as same-sex couples and numerous sexual identities are given a platform in newer media and information is becoming increasingly accessible. 

Only 66 percent of young people today identify as exclusively heterosexual - which is the lowest of any generation up until this point,  according to a study from Ipsos Mori.

Baby boomers prove to have the highest percentage, with 88 percent identifying as solely heterosexual, whereas that number drops to 85 percent with Gen X, and 71 percent among millennials, the study says.

"In particular, this generation of young has grown up at a time when gender as a simple binary and fixed identity has been questioned much more widely – this is new, and will affect wider views of gender, sexuality and much broader aspects of identity," Hannah Shrimpton, one of the authors of the report, told the Daily Telegraph.

Shrimpton also said that there is "greater exposure to communications on the variety of lifestyles available to young people today through social technology.”

The study has labeled Gen Z “the liberal generation” and finds that 10 percent of the generation regards prejudice toward the LGBT community as one of the most pressing issues in the world today, as compared to only 2 percent of Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers who believe the same.

Other studies published by Ipsos Mori suggest that over 70 percent of Gen Z is comfortable with homosexual relationships, as compared to the 43 percent of Baby Boomers.

Figures from other organizations confirm Ipsos Mori’s suggestion that younger generations are more likely to either identify as LGBT or be accepting of the LGBT community, and that the percentage of the younger generation is more likely to do either continues to rise over time. 

The Ipsos Mori study also reports that young people are more likely to have a “less binary view of sexuality,” which suggests that younger generations do not feel as strong a pressure to use the label “gay” or “straight” but are comfortable with viewing sexuality as a sliding scale that they can fall somewhere in the middle of.

With popular figures such as Tessa Thompson, who came out as bi at the end of June, and Janelle Monae, who came out as pansexual earlier this year, young people have more popular figures in the media to look up who fall somewhere in between binaries when it comes to sexuality.

The GOP despite the Trump/Pence regime continues its slow moving suicide by alienating the growing and up and coming generations.  Its death cannot come soon enough.