Generational Polarization and the Shaping of the American Political Landscape

• In Event: Demographic Divides in the Electorate

Abstract

Generational polarization in American politics today is unprecedented. Demographically, politically, economically, socially, and technologically the generations are more different from each other now than at any time in living memory. To a significant degree, this polarization of the generations helps to define American politics.

The idea of generational personality is based on the idea of individual personalities that share the same worldview. The political environment experienced by successive generations as they become adults influences political attitudes throughout one’s life. The result is that different generations can have distinct political leanings that they will maintain over their lifetimes. A political generation gap is not inevitable, and in the latter part of the twentieth century the political differences among the generations were not especially notable. Studies from the latter part of the twentieth century found that period effects—from election to election, and in terms of longer trends—had been more important drivers of change than generation. This lack of an age divide in American politics lead the field of political science to generally focus on other demographic gaps in American politics other than generational differences.

To ignore the intense generational divides in American politics today, however, would be an immense mistake. The last half century has seen dramatic demographic, social, and technological changes and different generations of Americans have their own distinct reactions to these changes. The racial and ethnic makeup of the country has been transformed. In general, older generations are having a harder time processing these changes, while younger generations are more likely to take them in stride. Among older Americans, there is a tension between their belief that America is the greatest country in the world and a sense of pessimism about the country’s future. Younger Americans are less convinced about America’s greatness but more comfortable with the path the country is currently on. These dissimilar attitudes among older and younger Americans are an important catalyst for the polarization in today’s political landscape.

The lack of mutual understanding and collaboration in American politics, therefore, is substantially generational in nature. Generational differences in attitudes, behaviors, partisanship, ideology, and issues ranging from social policy to foreign policy, magnify political polarization. Due to the nation’s demographic changes, some sort of generational polarization in the country’s politics may have been inevitable. Magnifying the consequences of generational replacement, however, is the fact that younger Americans have become politically socialized in an extremely polarized era in which people are discouraged from changing their partisan and ideological preferences.

Utilizing data primarily from the American National Election Studies (ANES), my paper will apply cohort analysis to compare differences in generational political behavior over time to show the degree by which contemporary generational polarization is unprecedented. This political polarization on generational lines has weakened the forces of cohesion in American society. Critically, however, this polarization is not a permanent feature of American politics. As new generations of Americans enter the political realm, generational replacement will mitigate the worst of the petty polarization plaguing the United States.

The paper will address several important research questions on the dynamics of generational polarization in the United States. These research questions include: 1) How exactly are the generations polarized and how has this changed over time? 2) What are the consequences of this lack of mutual understanding and collaboration among younger and older Americans? 3) How do demographic divides among the generations help us to understand contemporary political polarization? 4) How do American political institutions intensify generational polarization? and 5) What is going to be the impact of generational replacement on the future of political polarization?

The research for this paper will make important contributions to the field of generational polarization. Generational politics research in general has been remarkably understudied and generational divisions are an underappreciated component of contemporary American political polarization. Though there is a considerable amount of literature on the polarization of American politics among other demographic groups, relatively little of it focuses on the age or generational dynamics of polarization. This paper, therefore, represents an original approach to the study of political polarization.

Author

• Patrick I. Fisher, Seton Hall University