The reversal could spell a major electoral defeat for Trump and the start of a long term refutation of the party that embraced him
Over the last few months, one of the most concerning developments in U.S. electoral politics has simply vanished. From 1994 to 2017, older voters in the Silent & Baby Boom generations trended toward increasingly conservative ideals. At the same time, younger voters in the Millennial and Generation X categories were drifting toward the left.
Pew Research has an insightful piece on this generational polarization phenomenon, as it existed in 2018:
While these ideological alignments made sense in terms of economic interests, the differences were often most pronounced on social and racial issues. For older Americans, there was a fear that things had changed too much, and too quickly. For Millennials, who grew up in a diverse America, diversity and mutual respect were just the way it had always been. These different experiences created very different outlooks, and the right wing was happy to play on the social and racial fears of older voters:
The net result was an increasingly divided society where partisan fault lines were reinforced by generational identities and the resulting social norms.
It seemed like a situation that couldn’t be solved. So much of each generation’s political identity had been formed with their own personal experiences from very different times.
Then the pandemic hit.
Survival trumps tradition
Silent Generation voters began 2020 as Trump’s biggest supporters. Technically, they still are, but his margin with this group has gone from slightly positive to flat.
Republicans of all age groups have begun turning on the president due to his uniquely poor handling of the pandemic, but there’s an additional factor that is undermining Trump’s support with older voters: Joe Biden.
Even among 65+ Republicans who approve of the job Trump is doing, a significant number still plan to vote for Biden. He’s boring, he’s competent, and perhaps most importantly: he’s a member of the Silent Generation, himself. As is common among members of his age cohort, he tends to value consensus, cooperation, and choices that minimize conflict.
While Biden’s policies are a little closer to what young people want than what Fox News wants, he provides an image of calm stability that older voters value. He might turn the boat sharply, but he’ll go out of his way to make sure it doesn’t rock too much in the process.
That middle ground and promise of a smooth transition isn’t exactly what either end of the extremes was hoping for, but it might be just the kind of acceptable compromise that’s been elusive for so long.