There was no exit sign, no milepost. But in this week’s election, America unmistakably turned onto the road of sustained competition and conflict between the brown and the gray. …
About two-fifths of millennials are nonwhite, and that number rises in the generation born after them. By contrast, the baby boom, and the silent generation that preceded it, is preponderantly white (largely because the United States virtually closed off immigration from the 1920s until 1965). …
On Tuesday, these generations firmly planted themselves across a sharp divide. President Obama won a solid 60 percent of voters under age 30, capturing more than 90 percent of younger African-Americans and nearly three-fourths of younger Hispanics, according to exit polls. Mitt Romney carried a resounding 61 percent both among white seniors and near-retirement whites ages 45-64. [cont.]
Ron Brownstein, National Journal