There was no 18-year-old vote in 1964, but I've voted in every general and mid-term election since 1968--and I've never yet voted for a Republican--for anything.
Is everybody here a straight ticket voter like myself or do some of you split tickets?
I used to vote straight Republican until about 1990, and then straight Democratic Party, or sometimes Green Party, since then. My basic philosophy is to vote for the most viable liberal candidate.
The most reliable predictor for how someone will vote on issues - civil rights, minimum wage, infrastructure, social welfare, environmental issues, reproductive rights, gay rights, labor - is party affiliation. Period, end of story.
The days when the Republican Party had progressives like Lowell Weicker, John Anderson, or even true centrists like Lincoln Chaffe and Arlen Specter are long gone.
What America has these days is a center-left party, and an extremist rightwing, proto-fascist party. I heard a lot of Republicans who claimed to oppose Trump (with cries of "Trump is a Democrat!"), but when it comes right down to it, they got in line to march behind Trump, and defend him with ever fiber of their being.
Remarkable, when you think about it. Supposedly principled conservatives, pushing each other out of the way to be the first to defend a bigoted, dim witted, sexist, arrogant, vindictive Reality TV entertainer.
