The Coming Generational Warfare (Narrative)

Two articles caught my eye today. The first, from AFP, was headlined: US Election Shapes Up As Duel of Generations.

About 44 million young people between the age of 19 and 29 will be able to vote in November, according to a recent Gallup opinion poll. Sixty-five percent of them say they plan to vote for Obama, compared to only 31 percent who plan to do so for McCain.

But among those aged 65 and over, McCain and Obama are statistically tied, 44 to 45 percent respectively.

Seniors traditionally have high turnout rates -- 72 percent voted in 2004 -- while young voters are have historically been fickle and unreliable.

The age difference also marks the candidates' style. During the television debates, McCain, 72, quoted Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower, while Obama, 47, referred to Google.

On Sunday former secretary of state and military leader Colin Powell endorsed Obama, calling for the need for "generational" change.

"I think we need a transformational figure, I think we need a generational change. That is why I'm supporting Senator Obama," Powell said in an interview with NBC.

While the story is much more evenhanded than the title (ie - blame the editors, not the reporter), the entire framework of generational warfare is unnecessarily antagonistic and troubling, for numerous reasons. First, I think it is simplistic to the point of being inaccurate. Second, I see it as a potential narrative device for the Right to delegitimize an Obama win, oppose a legislative agenda that conflicts with its own, and it lays the groundwork for driving a wedge between Democrats and young voters. Let's pick this apart a bit.

First, let's deal with the inaccuracy. Here's a look at the actual Gallup data referenced in the story:

Yes, voters under 30 overwhelmingly prefer Obama, but every age demographic in the Gallup data favors Obama, even if within the margin of error. If there was a real generational battle brewing, I would expect seniors to be as lopsidedly for McCain as youth are for Obama. That's not happening. What we are seeing is the growth of a potential electorate-wide mandate, not an inter-generational duel.

I think what this piece also misses is that young voters today don't want anything to do with a generational battle or duel. We're in the middle of two wars with mounting casualties, few indicators of success, and our friends fighting on the front lines; the economy is tanking at a time when good entry level jobs that provide health care and the opportunity to pay off our school debt are already fewer and further between; the planet is getting hotter and our nation's energy policy is the very definition of insanity.

That's a lot to take on, and if we're going to make any progress at all we will need to build intergenerational alliances with Gen Xers, Boomers, and the Silent Generation. Like the AARP says - Divided We Fail.

After all, isn't that what the Obama campaign has been all about? Moving beyond ideology and partisanship. Reaching out to all Americans to roll up our sleeves and Get. Shit. Done. You can argue whether or not Obama, in this respect, represents a new reality or just new rhetoric, but it's hard to argue with the sentiment and expressed intent of the electorate in poll after poll, news story after news story.

Unfortunately, even if young people aren't looking to engage in generational warfare, the narrative is out there, and conservatives are already leaping to take advantage of it. Which brings us to the second point, and the other article I want to reference, this time an op-ed column in today's Washington Post by Robert Samuelson:

Young Voters, Get Mad

By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, October 22, 2008; Page A19

To: Voters Under 35
Subject: Your Future
Recommendation: Get Angry

You're being played for chumps. Barack Obama and John McCain want your votes, but they're ignoring your interests. You face a heavily mortgaged future. You'll pay Social Security and Medicare for aging baby boomers. The needed federal tax increase might total 50 percent over the next 25 years. Pension and health costs for state and local workers have doubtlessly been underestimated. There's the expense of decaying infrastructure -- roads, bridges, water pipes. All this will squeeze other crucial government services: education, defense, police.

Samuelson is a right-of-center pundit who frequently writes about "entitlement" reform - one of the few areas where conservatives perceive they have an "in" with young voters - often under the guise of "helping out" young people. His arguments are very much in line with the work of organizations like Americans for Generational Equality, who stoke intergenerational strife to advance their policy agenda.

At Pushback, Matt Zeitlin gets to the heart of what Samuelson is hoping to achieve:

Robert Samuelson has written one of the most annoying types of column today, one in which he self-righteously exhorts the young to march in lockstep behind his own agenda of cutting benefits and restricting eligibility for Social Security and Medicare. Before he suggests that we young people picket the AARP (seriously), he makes all sorts of misleading claims about how baby boomers are screwing us juveniles:

Conservatives are on the brink of losing big in the upcoming election. Even before the dust settles, one of the first things they will realize is that the electoral math has changed, and they are going to need to appeal to a greater segment of youth to blunt the Democratic advantage. This intergenerational warfare narrative - focusing on "entitlement reform" - will be the wedge they try to drive between moderate Millennials and the Democratic Party. Barring radical shifts to the left in their policy proposals on the environment, military spending, and health care, it's pretty much the only card they've got.

In the coming days and months - probably as soon as exit polls are released on November 4th - this is a narrative against which we are going to have to push back hard.