ONCE again, the youth vote went firmly Democratic in last week’s election — but the actual numbers, combined with some telling survey results, indicate that the party’s grip on the young may be loosening. …
When it comes to young voters, liberal politicians are victims of their culture-war success. They have pressed a laissez-faire posture in moral and private matters, and have won. But millennials have adopted not the posture of their liberal elders that fostered group identity (be it “union member,” “disenfranchised minority” or “F.D.R. Democrat”), but a soft libertarianism that makes individual preference king.
That pose carries over to politics and blunts lasting commitments to any political organization. CONT.
Mark Bauerlein (Emory), New York Times