GOP pols have coalesced around an idea that young parents are more conservative, wanting to protect children from all that’s “woke,” but as is per usual, they never looked at the numbers, the science that exists proving them wrong.
Parents, especially parents of younger children, are more progressive than older people with grown children.
Indeed, they are majority progressive or lean Democratic.
Additionally, single people — many of whom also have concerns about education policy as a national imperative — are even more majority progressive.
Simply put, “Moms for Liberty,” and Casey DeSantis’s “Mamas for DeSantis” assume that “moms are conservative,” and it’s simply not true.
Not on a national level.
According to The Washington Post’s report, the issue recently came to a head when Elon Musk agreed that democracies cannot survive long and that only parents have a sufficient stake in the nation to vote.
The childless have little stake in the future
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 1, 2023
Yup
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 2, 2023
Musk tweeted out a one-word statement, “Yup.”
Most fixate on Musk’s “parental suffrage” point but don’t look past that Musk agreed that democracy is probably “unworkable long term” without changes.
Democracy being “unworkable” is another theme floating around the Right these days with CPAC openly befriending fascists in Hungary and Brazil, oh — and Trump.
But again, The Washington Post reports:
“More than half of those without any kids identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents. (From here on, I’ll just lump independents who lean toward a party in with the party itself.) More than a third of that group identify as liberal Democrats. Among those with children who are all under the age of 18, just under half identify as Democrats, nearly double the percentage that identifies as Republicans.”
The Post’s report points to recent developments in social media which make the movement “seem” stronger than it is.
We live in a time when we’ve seen “parents” become celebrity influencers by opining on TikTok or Twitter, with millions of people who lack a formal education believing that their online research is equivalent to years of education.
The dynamic makes these people exploitable, especially the less-educated, more conspiracy theory-based MAGA or “America First Movement.”
They convince themselves and then others that they’re smarter for adopting counterintuitive, counter-science, counter-establishment theories, and next thing you know, they know more about infectious disease than 50 year-experienced, first in his class at Cornell Medicine, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
But the point is that they are greater in “appearance” than they are in actual numbers.
In the same way that there are many MAGA flags and not a single Biden flag, there are big names on the net that make the movement seem bigger than it is.
Frighteningly, they are also easily swayed by the powerful who offer to give them what they want.
They convince people pre-disposed to hating all things “woke” (Anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigration, anti-CRT even though they don’t know what it is), that they are right to take these positions.
They end up disciples of people like Musk, DeSantis, Trump, and even Putin.
It is why it is often called a cult but could just as easily be called a religion.
But again, thankfully, the Republicans make up these same people and have not done their own research.
People like Ron DeSantis have set off on this quixotic quest without first establishing that it is what the majority wants. Studies now show that the reflexive belief that young parents are the perfect target group is way off.
Indeed, according to the Post, the only group in which the right has a majority are parents whose kids have grown.
Social media is, of course, a powerful tool. It got Trump elected in 2016 — at least, through the manipulation of it with proven Russian help.
But it has not worked in the three elections since, though no one should make any assumptions about 2024.
One might consider again Musk’s statement agreeing that democracies cannot survive “long” without manipulating the vote to align it with your own personal views.
Manipulating the vote and disenfranchising hundreds of millions is, well, not democracy, so, in a circular manner, Musk is right, just for the wrong reasons.
The preservation of democracy is most certainly not the Right’s number one priority. Indeed, it’s likely not in the top five.
Unfortunately, one of the top five priorities is more likely to be weakening democracy to the point it’s meaningless.
The fact is, they kinda do know the numbers. They can’t win elections in a modern, complex, and heterogenous country.
That is why they manipulate who is “in the majority.” It is a necessary element in establishing minority rule, fascism, if you will.
Convince the minority, perhaps 75 million of them, that they are the “majority,” and it’s that much easier to preserve the autocracy that they know they need to maintain power.
This column is based on original reporting and analysis by Phillip Bump of The Washington Post.
I can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com and on Twitter at @JasonMiciak
Editor’s note: This is an opinion column that solely reflects the opinions of the author
