Millennials Abandoning Liberalism

Millennials are learning the same hard lessons about liberalism from Barack Obama that Baby Boomers learned from Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, argues Chriss Street in American Thinker. And Stephen Moore's column in the WSJ puts hard numbers to show how bitter those lessons are.

Street writes in The Millennial Generation is Abandoning Liberalism:

On Election Day in 2008, 37.4% of incoming freshman women and 30.5% men identified themselves as liberals or leftists, the most in 35 years. This corresponded four years later to 33% of Millennials describing themselves on Election Day 2012 as liberals. Given that Barack Obama lost a majority of the over 29 year old vote by 50% to 48%, it was his 61% to 36% support among 18-29 year olds that swung the election in his favor. The media proclaimed that Obama's reelection was proof the Millennials would power liberalism to dominate American politics for the many decades.

And now?

...it is the 15% collapse in support by Millennials that is driving Obama's fall. Furthermore, first-year college students self-identifying as liberals has also dropped by five points to 26.4% for men and 32.4% for women.

In "Obama's Economy Hits His Voters Hardest," Steve Moore writes:

Mr. Obama was re-elected with 51% of the vote. Five demographic groups were crucial to his victory: young voters, single women, those with only a high-school diploma or less, blacks and Hispanics. He cleaned up with 60% of the youth vote, 67% of single women, 93% of blacks, 71% of Hispanics, and 64% of those without a high-school diploma, according to exit polls.

Drawing upon a Sentier Research report of median household incomes, Moore shows how those demographic groups have done economically under Obama policies since 2009:

• single women, with and without children, saw their incomes fall by roughly 7% [about $2,300/yr];
• those under 25 experienced an income decline of 9.6%;
• Black heads-of-households saw their income tumble by 10.9% [about $4,000/yr];
• Hispanic heads-of-households' income fell 4.5% [about $2,000/yr]; and
• incomes of workers with high-school diploma or less fell by about 8%.

Hard Lessons Learned—Street argues that Carter won heavy Baby Boomer support because of his promises, "but after 4 years of poor economic growth, high inflation, rising interest rates, continuing energy crises, and the Iran hostage crisis ... Baby Boomers shocked the media by abandoning Carters' well-intentioned liberalism for the blatant conservatism of Ronald Reagan."

Today, only 46% of Millennials approve of Obama's job as president, which Street suggests that like the Baby Boomers before them, "the millennial generation appears to be abandoning liberalism."