Oh, I agree, but the damage that the GOP can do in the meantime could be immeasurable.
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Well, all of this is the FUTURE. It is not now. It is now about what just happened: this is still about the Baby Boomer’s, as this election proved…and possibly, the next 8 years will prove?
They (those who are not involved in politics) are not engaged. They are not stupid, and they are not uneducated. They just have not realized that who wins an election determines far more of their future than gossip about their classmates or the phone number of the girl they are going to call for a date.
We were all in their place once. It takes time and experience to understand that the changes they applaud in society come because people care enough to make them happen. and that the evils remaining in society can only be vanquished by determined work on their parts. In time, they will vote, and they will participate in democracy. Hopefully our generation and those before us haven’t fucked it up too much by then leaving them with no democracy to participate in.
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I am a member of Prime and have tried 4 times to sign in so I could read “And Then There Were Nones.” I STILL have not been able to read the entire article. Help!
VZ
I think you are right. Abortion is the great moral fight of our time in their eyes. This issue, which they really do see as a fight against mass murder, clouds their judgement. Never mind that the Bible never mentions abortion. Never mind that it considers forcing a miscarriage to be a property crime or includes rituals involving abortifacients to be used on suspect adulterous women. Never mind that abortion was originally a catholic vs. Protestant issue. Today, christians really believe that god thinks abortion is murder.
They are wrong of course.
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I am not terribly religious but my husband is. He is apolitical, used to vote Republican for the most part but has not since 1996. Probably at least partly because of where we live (a very diverse and blue suburb), his church – since we have been associated with it – has been avowedly apolitical and welcoming of nontraditional groups. They disaffiliated from the Southern Baptist Convention very soon after its ridiculous statement on the role of women. Churches are swimming upstream now in trying to appeal to young people. For his part, my husband believes that the most important thing is to continue doing the work of Christ and hope for the best. My husband is horrified by Trump (so is everyone else in my family). I do not see how evangelicals will ever recover their claim to inhabit some kind of higher moral ground. Even millennials in rural areas are far less religious than their parents. Anyone with a brain has a keen nose for hypocrisy.
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The only issue that Trump has that can be argued is in-line with modern Christianity is his stance on abortion.
This belief, that abortion is murder, has no biblical origin. However, modern christians seem to believe it so strongly, it overrides all other moral concerns.
I have never succeeded in changing a christians approach to abortion, despite numerous biblical arguments. The personification of embryos, the seeming universality of the belief that abortion is murder, and the misconception of god as a gentle Jesus who loves the babies, prevents them from seeing that their opinion on abortion is both arbitrary and sexist.
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It’s an important distinction. Not all believers go to church, and not all those who go to church are believers.
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I found this assumption in the article to be quite humorous…
Raised by Baby Boomers, many Millennials were taught to question authority, think for themselves, and not take institutions at face value.
Well, two outa three ain’t bad, I guess.
Sorry, but a generation in thrall to ‘social media’ has not demonstrated any real ability to “think for themselves”.
The other two they’ve got in spades, whether it makes any sense or not.
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send a direct email to "tech@talkingpointsmemo.com" - I was having issues with comment threads awhile back and Joe Ragazzo was quick to respond and resolve. His direct email is joe@talkingpointsmemo.com but I’d try the general tech email first.
hope this helps!
As President-elect Trump prepares to take office, we might look to the next presidential election, when Millennials will make up nearly 40 percent of all American voters, and ask what effect these young adults will have on religion—and politics—for the generations to come.
I find it very hard to believe that Millennials will make up 40% of voters - 40% of the voting-age population, perhaps, but reporting that this single age group will cast 40% of the votes in 2020 is inaccurate at best.
ETA: All this talk about young people not being “inspired” is overly indulgent and being even more indulgent to people who have been pampered by their parents, their teachers, celebrity culture, etc. is certainly not what they need. People should not have to be inspired to do the right thing. I am not inspired to do a great deal of what I do in my daily life but I do as it is my responsibility.
Voting requires very little of a person, even voting in each and every election. It is not productive to indulge this “but I want to be inspired” view. IMHO, of course.
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Absolutely, It was a one issue vote for the Teavangelicals.
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And they will say trump made the overturning of Roe v Wade possible and then they’ll look to the next freedom they can take away and ride that rocking horse forever.
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The Right/Repigs can’t get rid of Roe v Wade. If they did, they would have nothing to rile up the troops.
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If they’d truly wanted to overturn Roe v Wade, they could have attempted it during W’s term when they held the WH and both houses of congress. But they didn’t because, as you stated, they need to keep that hot wedge issue. Trump may just take away their last carrot by packing the Court with forced-birthers.
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It seems to me the only party the Millennials (or youth vote of any name) has hurt is the Dems, the very party that tries to help them. Either they don’t vote or vote for someone that can’t win or isn’t even on the ballot.
I think we should call it the Bernie Brat Effect.
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Please don’t get into arguments about the role of God if you are trying to convince someone of a political point of view. Whether or not American remains religious or becomes secular like Europe is irrelevant if Medicare on the table. Aside from the nonsense spouted by the religious right there are many church goers who are kind and generous people. And I am sure many atheists, like Trump, who are dirt bags. In my long life I have found that religious beliefs rarely impact the kind of person someone is.
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My Millenial (age 18) daughter made sure she updated her registration (we moved right before she went to college), and we timed a weekend visit home for early voting. She, and my 15 year-old twins, would have voted through live gunfire this election. On the Wednesday after the tragedy, about half the kids were absent from my kids’ high school, and many of the ones who were there openly weeping.
There IS a secular humanist club and a gay/straight alliance at this high school, so it fits with the “less religiously observant” trend. But these kids weren’t apathetic, and it still blows my mind how anyone could be.
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If there is an “almighty” GOD, why is there so much evil (still) in the world today? My mother tried to instill in me, at my young age of six, a belief that there was all powerful GOD. I never could become a true believer. It just never seemed logical!
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And, if the SCOTUS is packed with social conservatives for the next 20 years, its standing in the public eye will plummet, and the push for legislation liberal social agenda will be pushed through a liberalized Congress. Obama favored this approach, preferring the legislative form of change rather than the judicial.
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