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The young adult population in 30 years will be incredibly red if trends continue, so I doubt that. If there's going to be a red blue civil war it'll be soon because the blue tribe won't fight a war they're unable to win.
Is this actually true? Seems like there are some small indica that the next generation might be a bit redder than the younguns but by and large the young adult population doesn't seem to be trending incredibly red. I'd be fascinated to read a take otherwise.
(I've 100% seen the "only the reds are having kids" take but it doesn't seem clear that that actually results in red kids.)
The main two confounders here are that 1) the young adult population is less white than their elders and 2) the red/blue fertility gap had probably existed prior to that, but it only really opened up with the great recession.
Currently, the AA fertility rate is converging with the blues and hispanics are trending away from the dems. Thus we can expect 1) to be less of a factor going forwards. And the great recession happening 16 years ago, we can expect under 2) that if the fertility gap effects future generations then the trend would accelerate going forwards. And there are indications of political identity becoming more hereditary in the white population over time.
I would say that the growing gender divide on politics is more important than generational shifts. It doesn’t matter much if Gen Y is 50/50 red and blue if Gen Y males skew 80/20 red. Of course young women can fly a drone or shoot a gun in principle, but young men are both more suited to combat and more amenable to it.
This is an interesting point.
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Right-wingers have been doing this cope for decades. Does anybody remember "Generation Zyklon"?
Well, realistically it will take at least a lifetime. Fertility rates between blues and reds weren't all that different until the 90s, but since then they've kept increasing. Blues are well below replacement. They're dependent on converting red children. Can they do this? Yes. Indefinitely? Probably not. They're picking the low hanging fruit right now, but it's like a parasite breeding resiliance in the host. Eventually, it will become harder and harder to convert red children, because they will increasingly be descended from a cultural and genetic lineage that is resistant to that conversion. The easiest converts are currently being sterilized, and so there won't be so many easy converts around in the future.
Will this all happen? I dunno. Perhaps the only way I can see modern blues achieving a sustainable fertility rate is pure technology--growing babies in artificial wombs.
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Well, this time there's actually some evidence (for example, the notable drop in support among the younger generation for gay marriage since 2018) but I'm not sure that translates over to "incredibly red." However doglatine's point re: the gender divide is well taken.
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