By now, you’ve seen the poll that says Trump is leading Biden by 20 points among young voters.
This is, of course, ludicrous. Trump isn’t leading by 20 points in any demographic other than geriatric religious zealots with a penchant for authoritarianism, bigotry, and conspiracy theories.
Aside: watch for the mainstream media’s think pieces on how that demographic could sway the election.
In any case, young voters are not turning to Republicans, and conservatives know it. Why else do you think the GOP wants to raise the voting age and make it harder for Gen Z to vote?
The truth is that “Republicans are losing across the country, even in historically red areas [because] abortion bans, climate denial, gun idolatry, anti-democratic behavior, and extremism has lost them entire generations of Americans.”
And that is especially true of the younger generation. But it’s not just college kids that are anti-GOP. It’s entire college towns and whole counties.
A recent study revealed that the “growing population in America’s highly educated enclaves has led to huge gains for the Democratic Party.”
For example, my alma mater — the University of Wisconsin-Madison — is located in Dane County, which has such a high percentage of liberal voters that it “has become a Republican-killing Death Star.”
That fact alone is enough to make me shout, “On Wisconsin!”
And my old school is not an outlier, unlike those idiotic polls that Sunday morning commentators are drooling over. You see, research shows that “in state after state, fast-growing, traditionally liberal college counties like Dane are flexing their muscles, generating higher turnout and ever greater Democratic margins.”
One supposes that Republicans might try to reverse this trend by appealing to students and young people. In true GOP fashion, however, they are instead “targeting students’ voting rights, creating additional barriers to voter access, or redrawing maps to dilute or limit the power of college communities.”
Basically, if you can’t beat ‘em, block ‘em.
Republicans are confused about why their demonization of ethnic minorities would bother the most racially diverse generation in American history. They are perplexed over why young people are annoyed that Baby Boomers have hoarded the wealth and now lecture them regularly and vociferously about how ignorant, spoiled, and lazy they are. The GOP is irked that those darned kids aren’t willing to get gunned down in their classrooms in the name of the Second Amendment. Conservatives are flummoxed over why theocracy isn’t popular with people who are the least religious group in the country. MAGA types are befuddled over why Gen Z might be angry about inheriting an unlivable planet and a wrecked democracy.
Yeah, it’s a real puzzler.
