How can younger Americans\u2019 21st century ideals survive a powerful elder generation clinging to 19th<\/sup> century tribalism and prejudice?<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n For thousands of years, elders embodying unchanging wisdoms served as the leaders and icons of their cultures. But in rapidly changing societies like modern America\u2019s, anthropologist Margaret Mead warned 40 years ago, \u201cthe alienation of the old\u201d clinging to traditional fears and prejudices menace young people and the viability of diversifying multicultures<\/strong>. Those who harbor nostalgic illusions of restoring elder values should take a hard, unsentimental look at what today\u2019s aging Americans actually believe.<\/p>\n A wealth of polls, surveys and voting studies reveal an alarming reality: today\u2019s elderly no longer resemble the image of sweetly indulgent grandparents doting on their grandchildren and guarding their well-being. On issue after issue, tens of millions\u2014and often outright majorities\u2014of older and middle-aged Americans embrace dangerously primitive racial, sexual, and religious bigotries, selfish fiscal hypocrisy, and paranoid hallucinations that drive increasingly reactionary \u201cTea Party\u201d politics.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s elder meltdown appears centered in intense fear and anger toward the rising visibility of minorities, the increasing interconnection of global subcultures, and refusal to adapt to today\u2019s multiracial, multicultural America. How can senior citizens and middle-aged Baby Boomers contribute to resolving the complex issues facing today’s diversifying society\u2014in which half of Americans under age 25 will be minorities by 2025\u2014when a majority of those age 50 and older still opposeinterracial marriage<\/em>? When most Boomers reject not just illegal, but all legal<\/i> immigration as well? When majorities of older Americans support arch-reactionary candidates<\/strong>, repressive laws, and tax cuts transferring massive wealth to millionaires, most of them among their number? <\/strong>When half the elderly dismiss not just the science surrounding such issues as <\/strong>climate change and evolution, but scientific inquiry itself?<\/p>\n Today\u2019s old-young chasms far exceed those of the Sixties\u2019 famous \u201cgeneration gap.\u201d If Republicans, including Tea Party extremists like Sharron Angle of Nevada and Carly Fiorina in California gain power in November\u2019s election, the reason will be the fear-inflamed aged outvoting the more tolerant young. The same seniors (even Tea Party<\/a> anti-taxers) who overwhelmingly support taxpayer-provided welfare subsidies<\/strong> are staunchly opposed to even modest public support for health care, education, and social programs for younger Americans\u2014and are even willing to impoverish future seniors<\/em> Today\u2019s old are the strongest backers of far-right candidates who advocate abolishing or privatizing Social Security and Medicare for later retirees.<\/p>\n Summarized below are just a few of the issues on which younger Americans preparing for the transition to America\u2019s diverse, global multiculture with more progressive ideals on the economy, the environment, tolerance, and community responsibility are being sabotaged by elders\u2019 antiquated tribal fears.<\/p>\n Widespread bigotries emerge in survey after survey documenting the reactionary, elder-dominated panics against President Barack Obama and retreat from all things modern. Racist, anti-immigrant, homophobic, and religiously intolerant attitudes among middle-aged and senior citizens remain entrenched even as they are rapidly diminishing among the young. Archaic bigotries remain so bafflingly persistent among the elderly, the Chicago Tribune<\/a> and Science Daily<\/a><\/i> reported, that some neuroscientists now propose the demeaning excuse that \u201cmany older citizens may be unable to suppress their prejudicial impulses\u201d due to \u201cbrain atrophy.\u201d<\/p>\n Elder racism is indeed appalling. One would think, half a century after the Civil Rights era, that Americans at least would have put ancient Jim-Crow revulsion against \u201crace mixing\u201d and \u201cmiscegenation\u201d behind us. Not true. While \u201calmost all Millennials [those born after 1980] accept interracial marriage<\/strong>,\u201d a 2010 Pew Research Center poll<\/a>found, just 36% of whites and 59% of blacks age 65 and older (and equally shocking, just 52% of white Baby Boomers age 50-64, supposedly a “post civil rights” generation) \u201cwould be fine with a family member\u2019s marriage to someone of any other race\/ethnicity.\u201d That survey found just one-third of the elderly report having any<\/i> friends of other races, compared to majorities of supposedly more sheltered young people.<\/p>\n Elder xenophobia also is rampant. Few old-young divisions are as gaping as the \u201cgeneration gap on immigration,\u201d a May 2010 New York Times\/CBS News poll<\/a> found. Baby Boomer and elderly respondents\u2019 harsh \u201cno newcomers\u201d stance is in stark \u201cgenerational conflict\u201d with younger ones\u2019 \u201cwelcome all\u201d attitudes. CNN\u2019s national poll<\/a> in August 2010 found majorities of voters over age 35, led by 57% of those over 65, support curbing the 14th<\/sup> amendment to strip citizenship status from children of illegal immigrants, a hostility strongly opposed by the young.<\/p>\n Foretelling even more political turbulence, racial and anti-immigrant tensions are highest in states such as Arizona and Florida with the widest \u201ccultural generation gap\u201d\u2014an aging population most dominated by whites amid a young one with high proportions of minorities\u2014NYT\/CBS<\/a> and Brooking Institutions<\/a> surveys reported. A July 2010 Arizona Republic poll<\/a><\/i> found 18-34 year-olds oppose that state\u2019s draconian anti-immigrant law by a 16-point margin, while older voters support repressive crackdowns on Latino immigrants by a crushing 35 points.<\/p>\n Older Americans\u2019 religious prejudices appear to be growing even as the young are more tolerant. Though all ages show much room for improvement, over-30 ages\u2014again led by seniors\u2014are staunchly opposed to having an Islamic cultural center built near New York City\u2019s \u201cGround Zero\u201d while young respondents are evenly split. Typical polls bySienna Research Institute<\/a> and CNN<\/a> found two-thirds to three-fourths of those 65 and older against building the Islamic center; more than one-third think Muslims have no constitutional right to build the center.<\/p>\n Gay rights generates such massive old-young division that \u201c18-29 year-olds in Alabama [the most anti-gay state overall] \u2026 are more supportive of gay marriage than people 65 and older in Massachusetts [the most pro-gay state], a detailed sociological study<\/a> found. Recent national polling by CNN<\/a> similarly reported 64% of those over 65 as well as a majority of middle-agers are opposed to gay marriage while younger ages are strongly supportive, echoed in a 2010Pew Research Center report<\/a> and many other studies. CNN\u2019s 2008 National Exit poll<\/a> found every older group, led by seniors\u2019 61% support, backed California\u2019s ban-gay-marriage Proposition 8, countering voters age 18-29 who rejected Proposition 8 by 39-61% landslide. White, Latino, and other young voters of every race voted to affirm gay marriage by 20 to 30-point landslides while their elders of the same races endorsed homophobia by equally stunning margins.<\/p>\n Older Americans\u2019 deep-seated bigotries translate into reactionary candidate voting as well. CNN\u2019s 2008 National Exit Poll<\/a> found voters 65 and older were more anxious about Obama\u2019s race, endorsed conservative Republican policies, and were the only age group to vote for John McCain. Obama is president (and Sarah Palin<\/a><\/b> is not<\/i> vice president) only because voters under age 30 strongly overruled the Republican surge among senior citizens. Voters age 18-29 supported Obama\/Biden by a 66-32% margin, while those 65 and older endorsed McCain\/Palin by 53-45%, with ages 30-64 evenly split.<\/p>\n Analysis by Rock the Vote<\/a> of CNN exit polls<\/a> estimate that voters under age 30 would have carried 46 of the 50 states (plus Washington, D.C. for Obama, a 455-57 electoral vote margin. The National Student Mock Election<\/a>showed middle and high school students even more liberal, supporting Obama by a 68% landslide that would have carried 49 states\u2014including such staunchly Republican-elder states as Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, and West Virginia. These generational splits of 40 points or more in state after state now exceed those found by gender and are far greater than found in past presidential elections.<\/p>\n Similarly, in 2004<\/a>, voters under age 30 would have elected Democrat John Kerry over President George Bush by a 375-163 electoral beatdown and, in 2006<\/a>, favored Democrats for Congress more than any older age group. A 2010 Gallup Poll<\/a>, consistent with other surveys<\/a>, reported that while voters under 30 favor 2010 Democratic congressional candidates by a 12-point margin, all older ages support Republicans, led by a 9-point margin among voter 65 and older.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s atavistic \u201cTea Party\u201d is overwhelmingly an older White movement. An April 2010 New York Times\/CBS News<\/a> poll found three-fourths of its adherents are 45 and older; just 7% are under age 30 and 8% identify as Black or other nonwhite races. A Public Policy poll<\/a> found that those over 65 (with ages 45-64 close behind) are the only age group to rate ultra-conservative Republicans like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin favorably and would vote overwhelmingly for them as president over Obama, while young people disfavor Republicans (especially Palin<\/a>) by large margins. SurveyUSA tracking polls<\/a> show that with a few local nuances, younger voters are the most likely (and often the only) age group to oppose reactionary candidates like Sharon Angle in Nevada and Carly Fiorina in California (support for Kentucky\u2019s Rand Paul show sharp fluctuations), while middle-aged and elderly voters threaten to hand far-right extremists Senate and statehouse seats.<\/p>\n Large political divisions by age are only partly due to differing demographics <\/b>(75% of Americans age 45 and older are Whites of European origin, compared to just 57% of those under age 25). Generational attitude fissures also are largewithin<\/i> races. Among voters under age 30, CNN exit polls<\/a> found, just 44% of Whites, 19% of Latinos, and 3% of African Americans voted Republican in 2008, compared to 57% of Whites, 36% of Latinos, and 4% of Blacks ages 30 and older\u2014with Republican support (59% among Whites, 32% among Latinos, 6% among Blacks) even higher among those age 65 and older.<\/p>\n Merely being politically conservative doesn\u2019t prove elder backwardness, of course; the issue is why the old are so reactionary. Today\u2019s elder reaction is cynical and dishonest. In addition to racial, ethnic, and religious prejudices, danger signals of rising elder entitlement and alienation surfaced in the 1994 Third Millennium survey<\/a>, which found nearly six in 10 retirees refusing to accept slower growth in their benefits in order to avoid higher taxes on younger generations\u2014not even if senior welfare spending provoked a \u201cmajor financial crisis.\u201d Cities from Santa Cruz to Oklahoma City and elsewhere increasingly are now forced to bribe seniors with tax exemptions and rebates to deter them from voting down vital school and civic improvement funding measures that their own considerably poorer parents and grandparents supported in past decades.<\/p>\n The bitter irony is that older generations, generously funded in their younger years by massive government subsidies from the GI Bill to Sixties welfare programs and low-cost, tax-supported universities, now angrily guard their record-high incomes (among ages 45-64, average annual household incomes now approach $100,000 and average personal assets top $200,000) even from modest taxation to support today\u2019s young. Yet, young people are not retaliating. TheAARP<\/a> reports that young people strongly support Social Security, even though recent polls<\/a> find large majorities of those under age 35 fearing they\u2019ll never collect it themselves.<\/p>\n Younger Americans support expiration of the Bush tax cuts for those making $250,000 per year or more, while middle-agers and seniors are opposed. The same CNN poll<\/a> reported, younger ages favored the August 2010, $26 billion Congressional appropriation to help states fund Medicaid payments and avoid teacher layoffs, while those over 65 were evenly divided. Likewise, Gallup<\/a>, Quinnipiac<\/a>, and other surveys found young people more supportive of health care reform, including the \u201cpublic option<\/a>\u201d for government-provided insurance while older ages were opposed to any public health care system other than their own Medicare. While all ages generally oppose continuing the war in Afghanistan, the youngest are the most likely, by substantial margins, to reject sending more troops and to favor withdrawal, a typical Quinnipiac Poll<\/a> found.<\/p>\n The widening age splits in Americans\u2019 attitudes may relate to, or perhaps influence, the differing news sources the generations consume. Media analysts<\/a> report the average age of Fox News<\/i> viewers is over 65 (considerably older than even other broadcast news viewers); Rush Limbaugh\u2019s<\/a> average listener is a 67-year-old man. Meanwhile, nearly four in 10 consumers of AlterNet<\/a><\/i>, a smaller liberal-left source, are under age 35, and two-thirds are under age 50.<\/p>\n Middle-aged and older Americans display massive increases in severe personal problems in recent decades. Yet, even as FBI<\/a> and public health reports<\/a> show today\u2019s Americans ages 45 and older are the most drug-abusing, criminally arrested<\/a>,<\/b> family-disarrayed older generation on record, elders indulge harshly moralistic positions on \u201cvalues\u201d issues. The latest Gallup Poll<\/a> reveals support for abortion declines with age, with a majority of those 65 and older now describing themselves as \u201cpro life.\u201d Generational divisions are evident even within races. An August 2010AP-Univision poll<\/a> of Latinos found that as for gay marriage, support for abortion is strongest among age 18-29 and weakest among those 65 and older. Support for marijuana criminalization also rises with age. A majority of those under 35 favor legalization, while 7 in 10 over 65 want to continue arresting pot smokers, a typical CBS poll<\/a> found.<\/p>\n On crackpot notions such as creationism, \u201cbirthers,\u201d and \u201cdeath panels,\u201d many elders have lapsed into disturbing self-indulgence. Americans age 18-34 endorse evolution over creationism<\/a> by a 2.5-1 margin while those 55 and older are evenly split. Just 4% of younger Americans believe Obama was not born in the United States, compared to nearly one-third of those 60 and older, who back \u201c “birther” fanaticism<\/a>. And while no age group seriously believed health care reform included plots to kill people, those over 60 were nearly twice as likely to swallow reactionary \u201cdeath panels\u201d propaganda<\/a> than those under age 30.<\/p>\nAging racism, xenophobia, and religious intolerance<\/h3>\n
The \u201cTea Party\u201d: A senior white backlash<\/h3>\n
Elder dishonesties<\/h3>\n
Aging Americans\u2019 rigid moralizing parallels rising personal troubles<\/h3>\n