Has Bush ruined the GOP among an entire generation?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yes most likely. Our generation will be one of the most Democratic-voting ever just because of our formative years being spent under Bush.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Young people have always been overwhelmingly Democrat. Just because you'll never grow up doesn't mean a whole generation won't.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Young people have always been overwhelmingly Democrat.

False. Youth were plurality Republican in the early 90s for the example.

[Keystone Phil]

Oh, the drama.

Remember when Nixon ruined the entire GOP forever? Six years later...

[bgwah]

George W. Bush has a very selfish "F**k the next generation" attitude. He's leaving a pretty big mess for young and future Americans. So I think he's done a bit of damage, yes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Oh, the drama.

Remember when Nixon ruined the entire GOP forever? Six years later...

I'm talking about one generation of voters. People in our generation will forever associate the GOP with Bush.

[Keystone Phil]

Oh, the drama.

Remember when Nixon ruined the entire GOP forever? Six years later...

I'm talking about one generation of voters. People in our generation will forever associate the GOP with Bush.

The thing I love about you is how sure you are of yourself all the time. You're so confident that they will "forever" associate the GOP with Bush and just Bush. That cockiness never ceases to amaze.

By the way, did my parents associate the GOP just with Nixon? No, not really.

[Sbane]

The answer is obvious. This is one extremely democratic generation. Of course if Obama's presidency is a failed one.....

[??????????]

The answer is obvious. This is one extremely democratic generation. Of course if Obama's presidency is a failed one.....

Yeah and we never had a Republican for 40 years after Hoover or Nixon.

[opebo]

He has definitely had a negative effect in this respect, but 'ruined' is, alas, too strong a word.  As we can see from this forum there are still a lot of brainwashed youth...

[Ban my account ffs!]

I wouldn't say ruined... but he has seen the rise of the most Democratic generation in a very long time.

Statistics show that in the early '90s, when the X Gen. was coming of age, they were nearly half and half for the Republicans and now they are the most conservative group of voters.

My generation is giving a huge margin to the Democrats... sure, it'll moderate some but we will still give a healthy margin to the Democrats.

While the verdict is still out on what we will do as a generation to the political establishment, we are very different from our baby boomer parents... the most important one being that we're less individualistic (read:  less selfish).

I think it says a lot that volunteering has surged among young people... we want to get involved and make a difference...

In the 4-part cycle of generations, we are the next civic generation.  We will place significantly more trust in government and various institutions than the previous generation and we will be more involved in the community, rather than just in our families like the reactive gen. Xers.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

For now, yes (as much as it's possible to do such a thing). But there's no way of telling if this sort of thing holds. If Obama were to be a disappointment as President, for example.

[Brittain33]

There's an article from 2006 or 2007 I can't find right now showing that who was President when a given voter is age 20 has a lasting impact on that age cohort's voting patterns into the future. Consequently, people who were 20 in the 1950s and early 80s are disproportionately Republican, while people were 20 in the Depresssion (duh) and FDR era and the mid-1970s are more Democratic. The numbers start to go through the roof for Democrats in the mid-1990s and later. People both support popular presidents and reject unpopular presidents.

Someone will find this. Yes, Bush's damage to the Republican brand among people born in the 1980s will be durable. Some of them will become Republican as they get older, but proportionately fewer than from my generation, and much less so than people who came of age 10 years before me.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

He's ruined it until the next time the Dems F up.......that's all.

[opebo]

...we are very different from our baby boomer parents... the most important one being that we're less individualistic (read:  less selfish).

Also a lot poorer.  But then Gen-X was already poorer as well, and they licked the boots of those that did it to them.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I hope my generation neither licks the boots nor reacts and rebels against those that have hurt the country for personal gain... rather, I hope we can collectively say "get the f**k out of my way!"

[J. J.]

He's ruined it until the next time the Dems F up.......that's all.

Remember Jimmy Carter. 

[perdedor]

I don't know about the entire generation. Certainly for the next couple of election cycles, though.

[dead0man]

I hope my generation neither licks the boots nor reacts and rebels against those that have hurt the country for personal gain... rather, I hope we can collectively say "get the f**k out of my way!"

But you wont because the ones that hurt you were your Baby Boomer parents.  But at the end of the day we have to blame the "greatest" generation for raising a bunch of selfish jerks.  In hindsight maybe we should have been harder on the hippies.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I think the issue is the focus on social politics and foreign policy -

Who are the strongest supporters of choice and same-sex marriage?

Who are the strongest opponents of the Bush foreign policy?

There are some young conservatives, but overall the under 35s are a very liberal bunch on social and foreign policy.

The GOP as personified by Bush and his ilk has shifted too far to the right for most young people.

[Ban my account ffs!]

It is very much a love-hate thing with baby boomer parents.  But nobody knows better than us how to get around their shenanigans and see right through their bullsh**t...  It's kind of a "mom, I love you, and you're a really great friend to me... but you can be such a freaking idiot sometimes" thing...

My parents really let me have independence though...

But I guess we'll see if any of this confirms on election day.  It would be really great to see the youth vote balloon to a record regardless of which candidate they support.

[NDN]

In the 4-part cycle of generations, we are the next civic generation.  We will place significantly more trust in government and various institutions than the previous generation and we will be more involved in the community, rather than just in our families like the reactive gen. Xers.

I haven't seen any evidence of this other than that the media keeps repeating it. If you have any polls or anything like that, I'd like to see them. The most I've seen though is a majority not rejecting business regulation or supporting the view that the government is 'not almost always inefficient' (which IMO defies reality but whatever). But even then polls conducted by the same sources (e.g. Pew) have also shown that more young people support conservative policies like school vouchers and social security privatization by greater margins than older generations.

[NDN]

I think the issue is the focus on social politics and foreign policy -

Who are the strongest supporters of choice and same-sex marriage?

Actually many polls have shown that young people are marginally less supportive of legal abortion than their parents. In general though young people tend to be more in the middle than previous generations. Which is pretty reflective of the current consensus (i.e. keep abortion legal, but with some restrictions).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Who are the strongest supporters of choice

Euphemisms are fascinating things.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Roe vs. Wade was the defining social issue for the baby boom generation.  Support is going to be strong because they remember the fight well.

On a totally weird tangent... my grandma was tlaking about baking fruited applesauce cake... and how she heats up the wet ingredients in the microwave...

My grandmother has embraced the microwave in ways that I never would, despite her having lived 50+ years of her life without one and me having had one all of my life... but she has also been known to bake cookies in a toaster oven.  I love my grandma.

But the same principle can be applied.