How do you blame Trump on the age group least likely to vote for Trump?
Blaming Millennials is 2016’s hottest media trend. Thus far Millennials have been blamed for killing the movie business, credit, the hangout sitcom, online shopping, Macy’s, napkins, vacations, trees, the McWrap and much much more.
In the context of the 2016 election, discussing Millennials—a wholly arbitrary, marketing distinction, referring more or less to people born between 1980 and 2000—is mostly a way for writers to create tension in a piece of political commentary without the messy enterprise of dissecting sexism, white supremacy or class conflict. It’s a safe, evergreen way to generate traffic; vague enough to not offend anyone, but specific enough to appear meaningful.
One of the sleazier versions of this trend is an attempt by some pundits to blame Millennials for the rise of Trump, bending logic and basic social science in the process. These attempts come in different forms, but one recent gambit is to point the finger for Trumpism on the falling standards of civic education, a thesis that either implicitly or explicitly indicts younger voters:
- Trump’s Rise, Civic Education’s Fall (Kevin Mahken, Daily News, 1/6/16)
- As American Education Collapses, Democracy’s Foundation Shakes (Sol Stern, Daily Beast, 9/25/16)
- America Is Turning Into a Confederacy of Dunces (Max Boot, Foreign Policy, 10/6/16)
Mahken, Stern and Boot all argue that declining civic education standards—a popular target of neoliberal criticism—gave rise to the ignorant population that bred Trump. There’s one basic problem with this premise: It doesn’t make any sense.
If Trump’s support were tethered to declining education standards, the younger someone is (e.g. the more recently they were educated), the more likely they would be to vote Trump. But Trump’s voters trend overwhelmingly older: He’s most popular with voters 65 and over, least popular with those under 30.
The two most recent examples of this argument, by Stern and Boot, are textbook think piece sophistry: They begin with a superficially appealing premise designed to flatter the reader (people are dumber, therefore Trump; but not you, you’re smart) and throw out some data points, pivot to a conclusion that doesn’t follow and hope no one notices. While Boot doesn’t use the word Millennial, it’s the logical implication of what’s he’s advancing. (His examples supporting his claim that people are getting more stupid are all relatively recent.)
And the source Boot heavily cites, Stern’s Daily Beast piece, does come right out and blame “kids these days”:
The book’s title is no mere epithet. The Dumbest Generation is a thoroughly researched examination of the intellectual habits and tastes of the Millennials, revealing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the country’s education collapse has reached a new and even more dangerous level. According to a host of objective national surveys, these young people have not only been shortchanged of essential cultural literacy in the schools, like previous generations, but they now disdain intellectual curiosity and the culture of books altogether.
Stern’s logic glaringly contradicts itself. How can “the dumbest generation” be blamed for Trump, when only 12 percent of this generation supports him? It’s never really explained.
Boot dressed up Stern’s thesis and added a Bernie-bashing spin to it, lumping the right-wing racist billionaire and the grandfatherly socialist as two sides of the same coin:
What are the results of this dismaying lack of knowledge? The most obvious consequence is the extent to which Trump and Bernie Sanders — the fascist and the socialist — have transfixed the electorate this year in spite of their complete absence of workable policy proposals.
This boilerplate centrist equivalency, which we identified as 2016’s laziest take (FAIR.org, 4/16/16), is here used to gloss over the fact that declining educational standards do not correlate to support for Trump. But by treating Sanders and Trump as part of the same phenomenon, Boot debunks his own thesis: How can Sanders and Trump, whose supporters are generational opposites, be part of the same downward trend? Unless Trump’s base pulled a Billy Madison and attended high school in their 50s along with the Bernie Bros, this makes no sense.
The broader problem with this line of reasoning, aside from (again) blaming Millennials for something the cohorts of Boot (born in 1969) and Stern (1935) are much more responsible for, is that it also assumes that a vague idea of miseducation—rather than white supremacy, sexism and anti-immigrant sentiment—are what draws people to Trump. By smugly blaming schools for “dumbing down,” corporate media—with its decades of far-right normalizing, NBC propping up Trump’s brand for years, the billions of dollars in free media they’ve given him—are left off the hook.
“What are the results of this dismaying lack of knowledge? The most obvious consequence is the extent to which Trump and Bernie Sanders — the fascist and the socialist — have transfixed the electorate this year in spite of their complete absence of workable policy proposals.”
Almost got it.
Both Sanders and Trump have been fueled by folks who are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Folks who know they’re getting screwed by the bi-partisan neoliberal wet dream posing as an economy and “trade”.
The majority of Know-Nothing RW radio listeners are opting for Trump, the Progressive, pro-active humane wing of the Popular Movement backlash to neoliberal social and economic crimes fueled Bernie’s insurgency and many are now supporting Dr. Stein…
May the backlash continue to grow and the Humane wing emerge the winner…
As for absence of “workable policy proposals” – that’s the province of the execrable Mr. Boot…
If the backlash continues to grow as you are hoping, we may have a race war. Millenials know nothing about the past and Trumpsters live in a fictional one but other older Americans have been down this road before. Those who say we’ve never been so divided were clearly not around during the war with Asia or the civil rights movement. It’s almost over for the GOP per se. Time for more political parties.
It sounds like this “fair.org” is a bunch of crap, I thought you were supposed to be fair and unbiased? you obvious are hating on everyone but the elite liberal media owned by the Obama administration… wake up people are smart and see through all of this anymore and are tired of the mud slinging.
obviously you’re not very familiar with FAIR’s work if you’re castigating them with the tiresome “liberal media in service to obama” trope.
I hope Millennials turn out for Jill Stein in November.
Of course the corporate media is trying to mislead us through their contrived narrative but I don’t think it’s owned by the Obama Administration, lol. Then we have that army of paid sockpuppets as witnessed by the nonsense above.
The argument that millennials are “less educated” false on it’s face. Let’s assume that it is true. Who would be responsible for that? The students? Or the teachers? How can students be responsible for the education system? It’s ridiculous.
@michelle hidns did you bother searching for said “libural” media like CNN, CNBC, etcetera here.
The candidates in this election cycle that younger voters can be legitimately “blamed” for:
– Bernie Sanders: Without those enthusiastic kids, Sanders never even gets within striking distance of the Democratic nomination.
– Gary Johnson: Voters aged 18-29 are actually somewhat more likely to back Johnson than Trump.
– Jill Stein: Younger voters are significantly more likely to back Jill Stein over Hillary Clinton than their elders are.
In a two-way race between Trump and Clinton, they back Clinton more heavily than any other age group.
The Johnson-over-Trump number is really the most interesting to me. It suggests that conservative-minded youngsters are largely accepting of social liberalism (racial equality, GLBT rights, women’s rights, etc), even if they aren’t economically liberal.
But yes, the numbers make it abundantly clear: Trump is the least liked candidate among younger voters, and younger voters are the smallest segment of his backing. If you want to find Trump supporters, talk to the elderly.
Trump “most popular with voters 65 and over” Why?
Because we have been around long enough to see the complete corruption of our culture, politics, and journalism. Trumps an ugly messenger for reform, but the only candidate for reform that has a chance to win in my lifetime. We have a chance to begin to right things here, but we got to get past our thin skinned and hyper-sensitive politically correct nature. It was a brash, crude, but strong people that built this nation and fine tuned it of its wrongs. It allowed the daffodil class to flourish and speak their minds. To opine on the ying and the yang. Like our history, our nation is still not perfect. Our task here is to continue to be a strong and righteous people in navigating from the present to the future. So don’t be afraid of the rough, the crude, and the brash strength that Trump represents. If you can believe him to be true and good at heart, albeit not pretty or pleasant, then there isn’t any other choice in this election. Enjoin the reform, and be part of the change that will move this country along towards its greatness. Our choice, reform now, or rebellion later. Fear change and be sheep, while allowing a powerful and manipulative elite to rule is the precursor to an anarchy and slaughter that will surely sweep away all the noble causes of the nice and weak when the gangsters step in. I’m old enough to know better, and will hold my nose and vote for Trump.
This is a poor opinion in that it begs two questions; first, that any change from the current establishment is good change. This necessarily false unless you believe that this country, right now, is the worst iteration of itself possible. I refuse to believe that, given “American refugees” are not a thing. Second, it assumes that you can believe “Trump is good at heart.” I don’t believe that. He may not be corrupted but he has already advocated for outright war crimes and autocratic policies. You cannot have the best interests of the people at heart with these policies.
A vote for trump is a vote for changing the United States for the worse and I cannot abide by that.
If you are voting, please watch this. Why are you on this site in the first place?
They only polled students in the dumb states. What do you expect?
I have read out the second presidential debate between Trump and Clinton It was really amazing and we can’t say that who won this debate. Both candidates trying to explain their future policies and criticizing on each others.
Neither candidate is deserving of our vote. Vote for Stein or Johnson. I much prefer Stein as the Green Platform is very much like that of Bernie Sanders.Jill Stein also seems to be a good hearted, honest candidate.
Stein’s platform is far superior to Sanders’ – he is pretty much a standard issue imperialist, and she breaks sharply with current practice. Stein is what Sanders supporters were deceived into believing he is. If Sanders didn’t exist, the Clintons would have invented one (instead of hiring one) because they understood they need to prevent progressives from organising.