The Great Divide in the Democratic Primary
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/the-great-divide-in-the-d_b_9660146.html
The generational divide in the Democratic primary is phenomenal. If it weren’t for voters over 49, and their higher participation rates, Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have much of a chance. “Age seems to be the most significant factor,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York.
The conventional wisdom is that younger voters are idealistic and impractical, and don’t know enough about how the world works, and what can feasibly be accomplished in politics.
Leaving aside that “younger” in this case includes a majority of voters under 50 that support Sanders , there is an alternative explanation that makes more sense. There are times in almost any country’s history when important narratives lose credibility, and this expands the range of political possibilities. Younger people are often quicker to recognize these changes and the options that they present.
The Vietnam War is a classic example. Its legitimacy was premised on a deeply entrenched, Cold War narrative that the United States was engaged in an existential battle against communism, which threatened to take over the world. Vietnamese communists were part of this alleged existential threat, and therefore had to be defeated — even at the cost of more than 58,000 American soldiers’ lives, millions of Vietnamese, and many more casualties, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars.
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