The generation gap on immigration
[rebelmouse-image 24749424 original_size="650x433" expand=1]Part of me found this article about the generation gap on opinions about immigration fascinating, and part of me wondered, "How often are we expected to find it a revelation that the teabaggers are a bunch of cranky old racists whose anger that the world is passing them by boiled over when the country elected a black President?" The article itself is kind of weird; the focus is on young white people resisting older white people and their racism, but what's missing is much discussion of the fact that younger people are also just a lot less likely to be white than older people. Not that there can't be racism across all sorts of lines, but the brutal reality is that the anti-immigration temper tantrum is being thrown by a bunch of older white people that are pissed about the multi-cultural direction this country is going. Perhaps the writer thought caveating his points to death would read poorly. Still, when he says something like, "her generation watched 'Sesame Street' with Hispanic characters", I have to point out that a lot more members of her generation are Hispanic, which is going to influence the polling data on this. True, there are many Hispanic Americans who oppose immigration, but on the whole, I have to point out that these demographic changes will influence the polling data tremendously, at least as much if not more than shifts in opinion amongst white Americans between generations.