Younger voters?

[Samof94]

I think the swings toward Trump in non-white areas should serve as a warning sign to Democrats hopes that Millenials and Gen Z will remain loyal to the party. I think the GOP has tapped into a nerve among many younger people of color who feel abandoned by the Democratic Party and cultural liberalism, "wokeness," and "feminism." I personally disagree with these views, but many of my teenage students in these communities really seem bothered by "woke" culture, even when I try to break it down for them. It's obviously very complex, but I think many youth feel left out of the elitism of the cultural liberalism that predominates social media from the Democratic Party.

I can anecdotally confirm this sense of alienation from contemporary cultural liberalism espoused by the Democratic party among some nonwhite Millennials and older iGens I know. That being said, the individuals I have in mind are probably quite different demographically from your high school students- they're almost all Asian and have all attended college at some point- and their overall skepticism of/ambivalence toward woke culture (which I can relate to despite holding "woke" views on many issues) doesn't necessarily indicate support for the GOP.

Meanwhile, real issues like lockdowns, evictions, high costs of college, high cost of living, and poverty loom. I think the pandemic is going to create a sharp class cleavage with Democrats being remembered for trying to keep working class people from earning money, while "work-from-home elites" were able to thrive.

I think education will become a sharper cleavage. I observe a lot of students who struggle to read getting lost in Snapchat and Instagram misinformation about the virus, social issues, and more, while the students who seem more set to go to college and thrive are able to navigate these complexities. I wish I knew how to teach critical thinking of information - but it's hard in the age of constant information!

As long as the Democrats continue to ignore real change in their economic platform, elections will be decided on cultural and social issues - which has the potential to realign many Millenials and Gen Zers to the GOP.

Judging from 2020 exit poll age crosstabs, it looks like a lot of older Millennials voted for 45. I was surprised to see how much more R the 25-29 group was than the 18-24 group in the Edison exit polls (which probably was not the most accurate, but still).

Is it really bad for Democrats to be the party of the eeucated?
That means we could use the lack of education against the GOP base and spread disinformation/suppress their voters.

It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it isn't really a good thing either. An education based realignment could reinforce existing racial/ethnic biases across and within different nonwhite groups, especially if partisanship remains as strong as it is today. Think "fancy asians vs jungle asians", "model minority" vs "the Other", etc. but mapped onto a reverse Dem vs GOP divide. More broadly, I worry that Dems becoming the party of the educated would subvert their nominal goal of being a left-of-center party that stands up for the less privileged and less well-off.

If you subscribe to the coming of age theory, there's a small cohort born between about 1992 and 1997 that would have been too young to be swept up in the "hope and change", but already have been politically aware before Trump.  You can also see it in a somewhat decreased level of activism on college campuses between 2011 and the spring of 2016.  I'll also note that, in 2016, the 18-24 vs. 25-29 polarization was not so apparent.  There was also a Washington Post article claiming that Mitt Romney outright won 18-20 year old voters in 2012, but that's probably impossible to truly know.

I’m in the 25-29 group and I saw the culture change a lot in my senior year when Trump was a candidate in the primary. I also saw it more socially acceptable for people I know to come out as transgender or non-binary and feel happier as a result.