There’s an old saw, attributed to everyone from Winston Churchill to John Adams, that says, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.”
Americans love to say this as a way of dismissing younger people’s idealism while attributing wisdom and experience to conservatism. We love to break politics down into age cohorts, but I’m not sure that was so much the case before the massive post-war baby boom introduced a youth culture that basically took over American society, for both good and ill. Ever since, we’ve been obsessed with what various age demographics are thinking and doing as if it’s the key to understanding America.
I’ve always been a bit skeptical of “generation theory” simply because it seems like a pretty crude measure, and it rarely takes into account the large differences within the specific cohorts, which often blows up many of the stereotypes. But there have to be some ways to politically target groups of people, so age is as useful a gauge as anything. And that old saw has always been a fairly decent shorthand, if only because older people tend to be the most reliable voters. If they are more conservative, the Republican Party benefits — and that has indeed been the case for decades.
From the moment Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act in 1935 to the day Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid Act 30 years later, the right has been trying to destroy them.
That’s why it’s always been a mystery to me why Republicans have always been so bent on destroying the safety net that brought the elderly out of poverty and assured them a baseline level of subsistence and medical care. From the moment Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act in 1935 to the day Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid Act 30 years later, the right has been trying to destroy them. In the early days, it sprang from their obsession with anti-communism, arguments that the country couldn’t afford it, and that individuals and their families are rightfully responsible for their own care in old age. In a 1961 radio address — 20 years before he became president — Ronald Reagan said, “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine.” From there, he said, “it’s a short step to all the rest of socialism — to determining [a man’s] pay, and pretty soon your son won’t decide when he’s in school, where he will go, or what they will do for a living.”
Before Medicare was created, only 54% of elderly people had health insurance, and that could be cancelled without cause when they got sick, which, as you know, tends to happen when you get old. Three years after it was enacted, 96% of people over 65 had hospital insurance. It was literally a life saver. Over the years Medicaid, created at the same time to assist people living below the poverty line, came to cover many of the health expenses that Medicare didn’t for elderly people, most importantly for nursing homes and caregivers.
The GOP has been hacking away at these vital programs ever since, and yet senior citizens have been voting for them in greater numbers than any other age cohort. But Republicans have been canny — and careful, appeasing seniors by pledging the cuts will only affect their children and grandchildren. Conservatives have also couched their plans in vague terms like “private accounts,” promising that allowing people to gamble away their Social Security benefits is a path to greater benefits and more secure golden years.
Now the Trump administration has adopted a new ruse, declaring that the programs are rife with fraud and withholding money from states that didn’t vote for the president. On Tuesday, the White House announced it would be withholding $1 billion in Medicaid funding to California and Minnesota, accusing both states of fraud and non-compliance. This move will affect everyone who participated in the programs in those states, including Republicans who will be voting for congressional candidates this fall.
In another example of shooting themselves in the foot, on Monday the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rescinded federal guidance reminding nursing homes that residents have the right to vote “without interference, coercion, discrimination, or reprisal” from their long-term care facilities. This includes assisting patients with mail-in ballots and making sure they have transportation to the polls or ballot drop-boxes. Independent journalist Brian Beutler noted that this has been a fixation of Trump’s since 2020, when he claimed that he lost Wisconsin because of fraudulent nursing home votes.
The Republican war on the elderly has taken an even darker — and potentially painful and even deadly — turn, and not just for seniors below the poverty line. Trump’s immigration policies are drastically shrinking the pool of workers who care for the elderly in assisted-living facilities and in their own homes. In particular, the planned expulsion of Haitians who have been legally working here for decades will present a crushing blow to this industry and the people it serves. According to the New York Times, many people will be losing the caregivers who have been with them for years, and there is no one to replace them.
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The Times article interviews some of the residents of Channing House, an assisted-living facility in Palo Alto, California, many of whom are well aware of what’s going on, and they are not happy. These seniors are former high-level workers in government and scientific fields who have an excellent understanding of the politics driving the administration’s agenda, and they are organizing to protest it.
This could well be an issue that cuts across party lines. Any older person who is told that their caregiver is being deported because of Trump’s policies could likewise be angry and appalled.
There has also been a lot of talk about the advanced age of many attendees at the No Kings protests, and there is indeed a lot of gray hair in those crowds. MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow, for instance, was shocked that little old ladies were often the ones carrying crude and profane signs. But many, if not most, of these are baby boomers, some of whom have been swearing and protesting their whole lives. These grandmas and grandpas aren’t like their own grandmas and grandpas.
According to Pew Research, fewer seniors voted for Trump during the 2024 election than before. Sure, senior voters remain more conservative than the general population, but the differences are becoming much less stark. In fact, those who were born in the 1950s, which comprises the majority of the baby boom generation, have shifted to the Democrats, especially the women. That group is now in their 60s and 70s, and they are still generally youthful and healthy enough to advocate for themselves.
For some, their lives are being bookended by protest. Many of them started off marching against the Vietnam War, which was taking them or someone they knew halfway around the world to fight in an unjust conflict. Large numbers are now fighting back against the creeping authoritarianism that is purging the people who are taking care of them in their old age.
There are a lot of seniors, and they vote. Republicans should think long and hard about making these people their adversaries.
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