Put simply, the social landscape looks much different now than it did just a few years ago. Millennials mostly don’t remember the first election of George W. Bush, which frightened secular liberals into believing that theocratic forces were gathering. And how can they credit a “war on women” when they see women outnumber men in undergraduate enrollments? Students at nonreligious colleges can pass through four years without hearing a word against “marriage equality.”
So, while Lena Dunham warned in an email blast, “The crazy and depressing truth is that there are people running for office right now who could actually affect your life. Particularly your sex life. Particularly if you’re a woman,” many 22-year-olds just don’t see the danger. It’s not that they have become less socially liberal; it’s that social conservatism is a paper tiger. Liberalism has won so handily in the culture and courts that it no longer serves as a rallying cry.
When it comes to young voters, liberal politicians are victims of their culture-war success. They have pressed a laissez-faire posture in moral and private matters, and have won. But millennials have adopted not the posture of their liberal elders that fostered group identity (be it “union member,” “disenfranchised minority” or “F.D.R. Democrat”), but a soft libertarianism that makes individual preference king.
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