To be (right and/or left) or not to be...

Youth culture in America is inherently more on the liberal side. This feels so obvious, and so undisputed, that there’s little need to offer evidence or examples. I think we all know at least a handful of raging secularist liberals who’s parents are a part of the religious right, but how often do progressive atheists end up with a little bible-wielding conservative? Personally, I don’t know of any cases. Still, it may be a bit of an exaggeration to make young Republicans out to be some kind of endangered species. The country may be shifting steadily towards the left, at least on many issues (see: gay marriage), and the 18-29 voters have consistently cast their ballots for Democratic candidates over the past decade. But clearly more than a handful of people in this category are voting Republican: in 2012 it was 37%, and in 2014 it was 43% (not to make too much of the rise; it isn’t surprising, given the typical midterm blues of a second-term President).

I think it would have been interesting if John had described a bit more clearly in his post where he falls on social issues, since there was almost a hint of apology for the religion-based, moralistic social policies. The implication seemed to be that youth siding with Democrats do so solely on the basis of social policies, in spite of the party’s economic policy, while people who realize the economy is important know to set these matters aside; same opinions, different priority. The logical extension of this argument seems to be that Republicans don’t necessarily agree with the party’s own social positions, and are just swallowing the anti-immigration, anti-climate anti-choice, anti-gay pill for the sake of our financial security. I’m not sure either side would find this portrait flattering, or particularly accurate.

Anyway, the idea that the right is better suited to handle money, and that the left is too emotional in all its idealism and compassion to be trusted with the keys to the economy, seems to be a perception founded on the most lazily simplified of rhetoric. The only four years of government surplus in the past forty-five years were all under Bill Clinton, and the notion that Barack Obama’s tenure has been an economic disaster isn’t based much on fact. Unemployment is below what it was when Obama took office, GDP is growing at a good rate, the stock market is at record heights, and on the whole the United States did a much better job at recovering after the 2008’s recession than most countries. The negative economic narrative seems so deeply ingrained in the public conscious that most people don’t stop to question it, even a large portion of Democrats. And Obama, for whatever reason, hasn’t shown much willingness to stand up and explain to America why he’s doing a better job than people give him credit for. I think he considers it beneath him… Of course, I’m sure there are fair and reasonable criticisms to be made of him, but sadly I’ve seen very few people take the time to make them.

You know, I’d be curious, actually, to see some comprehensive data on where Furman’s student body falls on the political spectrum. I’d agree that the right probably constitutes a majority at Furman (maybe not so much amongst the faculty), and the atmosphere certainly seems more conservative than at the average liberal-arts college. But I don’t know. The school might be more diverse than people give it credit for, and even among the general conservative camp the traditional values don’t run so deep.

The problem in judging, of course, is how vague, varied, and overlapping ideas of “conservative” and “liberal” can be, to the extent that it’s hard to know if we should put a great deal stock in them—even within this post I’m not sure that I’ve kept my usage consistent. If we could survey each and every student to discover which of the two terms they preferred, it might not tell us much about the specific beliefs they held on various topics. For a lot of people who choose one of these sides maybe intellectual reasons aren’t so important; it’s a social and cultural identity as much as anything else, and they’ve decided it feels right. So good luck reasoning them out of it.

P.S. Apparently Obama won Furman's informal student polls in both 2008 and 2012—take that for what it’s worth.