"Millennials are shattering the oldest rule in politics
Western conservatives are at risk from generations of voters who are no
longer moving to the right as they age"
“If you are not a liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 35 you have no brain.” So said Winston Churchill. Or US president John Adams. Or perhaps King Oscar II of Sweden. Variations of
this aphorism have circulated since the 18th century, underscoring the well-established rule that as people grow older, they tend to become
more conservative.
The pattern has held remarkably firm. By my calculations, members of Britain’s “silent generation”, born between 1928 and 1945, were five percentage points less conservative than the national average at age 35,
but around five points more conservative by age 70. The “baby boomer” generation traced the same path, and “Gen X”, born between 1965 and
1980, are now following suit.
Millennials — born between 1981 and 1996 — started out on the same trajectory, but then something changed. The shift has striking
implications for the UK’s Conservatives and US Republicans, who can no
longer simply rely on their base being replenished as the years pass."
"Let’s start with age effects, and the oldest rule in politics: people
become more conservative with age. If millennials’ liberal inclinations
are merely a result of this age effect, then at age 35 they too should
be around five points less conservative than the national average, and
can be relied upon to gradually become more conservative. In fact,
they’re more like 15 points less conservative, and in both Britain and
the US are by far the least conservative 35-year-olds in recorded history."
https://www.ft.com/content/c361e372-769e-45cd-a063-f5c0a7767cf4
TB
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