Generation Gap

By the 2030 census, the percentage of adults over 60 years old is projected to be 33 percent. Because older people are more likely to vote, it's likely more than 40 percent of voters over 60 years old. And consider the major party nominees for presidentsince 1999. Only Barack Obama (1961) and John McCain (1936) were born outside of a six-year range from 1943 to 1948. 'Age identification,' according to political scientists, is a potent force in the organization of citizens and the mobilization of political activity." In The Silver Vote , Kevin Munger examines the confluence of trends that made the Baby Boomer generation the most powerful and consequential in American history, and the emergence of age-based political and cultural cleavages. He argues that "cohort consciousness" glues Boomer voters together, and their unique aspects will have outsize influence on our elections, media, and economy for years to come. Age cohorts lie at the intersection of class, partisanship, race, rural identity, and gender. The "Boomer" cohort is whiter, straighter, richer, more rural, and more Republican than younger cohorts. The implications of this intersection for the future of descriptive representation in Congress are clear, and significant. The "Boomer" story is awhite story. The age pyramid looks radically different when divided by race, and only whites were able to fully take advantage of the broad-based economic growth and wealth accumulation in the postwar period. Older people have also experienced specific changes (some might call losses) that have been theorized to be politically relevant. 'Status threat' among rural whites has been shown to be a significant predictor of support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Older voters are also less 'digitally literate,' and are thus worse at finding, vetting and sharing information. Today, the fastest growing population of Facebook users is adults over sixty-five years old. The evidence of a generational gap in vote choice is growing; beginning in 2008, Democrats have enjoyed a considerable advantage with young voters, and Republicans with older voters. Using new survey data, political experiments, and with historical cases, Munger explores how our electoral politics are at the mercy of the silver vote for the immediate future-and what, if anything, we can do about it"--