The generation gap
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On one side are the millennial voters, meaning Americans born after 1980 who have come of age during the Clinton, Bush or Obama presidencies. Having lived through a period of dramatic social and demographic change, these voters harbor strongly liberal-leaning views about society and government. That's partly because the U.S.'s youngest voters represent change: about 40% of them are nonwhite. As a group they lean left on social issues--strongly supporting interracial and same-sex marriages by wide majorities. They believe government has a positive role to play even in seniors' lives. Millennial voters, like so many other Americans, consider themselves economically dissatisfied. And yet they believe, 46% to 27%, that life in the U.S. has improved since the 1960s, in part thanks to the technology revolution they have inherited. "I have an iPhone, and I would die without it," says FAU freshman Lizzie Barnes.
Whiter, less plugged in and feeling much grumpier is the Silent Generation, Americans over 65 who reached adulthood between World War II and the Vietnam War. The Silent Generation was profiled in a November 1951 TIME cover story that described its members as hardworking but docile and detached from political protest. Now in their 60s and 70s, members of this generation are restive, as likely to believe that the country has gone downhill as millennials are to think it has improved. They're more conservative than the so-called Greatest Generation seniors, who are older, remember the New Deal, may have served in World War II and are steadily passing away. "Part of what's going on is generational change," says Andrea Louise Campbell, an MIT professor who studies the senior vote. "Seniors who may have been socialized with memories of FDR and the Depression are being replaced by younger cohorts of seniors for whom Eisenhower and Reagan are more relevant political figures."
Whatever the reason, today's seniors are nearly twice as likely as young voters to say life in the U.S. has changed for the worse, expressing that opinion 50% to 31%. They're particularly unhappy about social change, with only 22% saying a growing immigrant population has been a good thing and just 29% approving of interracial marriage. They're wary of the America that Steve Jobs built, dominated by new gadgets and technologies that many don't understand or use. Fewer than half of Silents--45%--believe the Internet has been a positive development. "You don't see the kids' faces anymore," says Sue Leese, 77, sitting outside a Bagel Works restaurant in Boca Raton. "They're constantly texting!"
Silent Generation members are twice as likely as millennials to call themselves "angry" with the government, and they trust Republicans more than Democrats on nearly every key issue. Obama appears to be a contributing factor in their discontent; they are the most disapproving of the job he's doing. How much of this disdain is a function of Obama's policies and how much is a comment on his background is anyone's guess. But some combination of the change he has championed and the change he actually represents is too much for some of these voters to accept. "There is this sense that comes out of the poll that Obama represents the changing face of America that some older people are uncomfortable with," says Kohut.