THERE'S AN OBVIOUS REASON WHY BIDEN SEEMS TO BE DOING BETTER AMONG OLDER VOTERS

Axios reports that President Biden seems to be doing surprisingly well among older voters.

The most recent New York Times/Siena poll shows that Biden has a 9-point lead in a head-to-head matchup against Trump among likely voters aged 65 or older.

In a Quinnipiac University poll released last month, Biden is beating Trump by 12 points with the 65+ set.

This is unusual.

Republicans have — with the exception of 1992, 1996 and 2000 — won the senior vote in every presidential race for the last half-century, according to exit polls.

Why is it happening? Here's a possible reason:

Preserving democracy has emerged as one of the clearest dividing lines between younger and older voters.

When asked by Quinnipiac to identify "the most urgent issue facing the country today," 10% of registered voters aged 18-34 said democracy.

For those 65 and up, that number rose to 35% — higher than any other single issue including the economy and immigration.

Also:

Biden campaign pollster Geoff Garin pointed to two key factors going for the president with older voters:

"First, older voters strongly support what Biden has done to lower drug costs for seniors on Medicare," he told Axios.

"Second, older voters pay much more attention to the news than any other group, so they are the most aware of any group of how unhinged and extreme Donald Trump has become."

I think there's more to it than this. Older voters who succeeded at attaining middle-class or upper-middle-class status are doing okay financially now. They may have been too young to participate in the remarkable economy of the 1950s and 1960s, with its broad middle class (at least for white people), but their parents did, and some of that wealth was passed on. The economy of the Reagan and post-Reagan eras wasn't quite as good for the middle class, but inflation was low and housing prices weren't as awful as they are now. If you're in this age group and you were able to put a decent amount of money away for retirement, things probably look pretty good for you now. You have the money to do the things you want to do, and you can afford to pay higher prices for groceries and other items.

I'm not saying that this is a generation of "greedy geezers" who are backing Biden because they like their privileged status and don't want anyone to take it away. I think many older voters want the sense of prosperity to be extended to younger Americans, who, after all, include their own children and grandchildren. But these are the voters for whom the economy actually feels strong. That must be helping Biden with voters of this age group.

By contrast, polls suggest that young Americans might vote for the authoritarian-populist candidate, Donald Trump. Albena Azmanova, who teaches political and social theory at the University of Kent, writes in The Guardian that similar things are happening all over Europe, though not, she argues, because young people embrace the ideas of authoritarian populism:

In both European and national elections, voters under 30 have given their support to far-right parties such as Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, Rassemblement National (National Rally) in France, Vox in Spain, the Brothers of Italy, Chega (Enough) in Portugal, Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) in Belgium and the Finns party in Finland.

... In Germany, the ultra-right AfD enjoys unrivalled popularity among the young, gaining the support of 17% of 16- to 24-year-olds who voted.... 32% of the French youth, irrespective of gender, supported National Rally....

Rising support for the far right is all the stranger because surveys indicate that the left’s trademark themes of social and economic justice are now more important for voters than the far-right’s flagship issue: immigration....

What ails the young is ... economic uncertainty, or rather “livelihood insecurity”. If older people are living in fear of job loss, younger generations fear they will never land a job, no matter how many master’s degrees they might invest money, effort and hope in. Authors of the 2024 study Jugend in Deutschland (Youth in Germany) established that fears about future prosperity (rather than cultural chauvinism) were driving a shift to the right....

For now, all we can glean from the populist revolt of the young is that the political mainstream is not providing satisfying answers to their grievances.

I don't know about Europe, but America's authoritarian party won't be able to lower prices, make housing more affordable, or create more good-paying jobs for young people. Unlike the Democratic Party, the GOP doesn't even want to do any of those things. And the GOP will be godawful on every other issue young people care about -- the climate, racism, LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, Israel and Palestine, you name it.

But I'm afraid the only way young people will learn how awful Republicans are is by helping to elect them. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.