The people who are becoming seniors used to be younger people. That's always been true, of course. Every generation that's ever grown old was once young. But if the youth of each generation push for slightly more social freedom, I don't think that trend is entirely dulled by age. I don't think that every young person who supports more freedoms and rights turns into a cynical old person who would automatically support a conservative outlook. Obviously there's a general trend whereby older people are typically more conservative relative to younger people, but in my mind the key is the word relative. The people who will be 65 in 2016 are 61 right now. The people who will be 65 in 2024 are 53 right now. And so on. I think the idea that the parties have to shift with the electorate will in small ways be affected by that.

The people who are seniors right now were raised in the 30s and 40s, when there were different values than today, and some of those are the values the Republican Party attempts to speak to. But the seniors of tomorrow will have been raised in the 50s. And the seniors after that will have been raised in the 60s. Values were shifting throughout that time, and I think that any political party that wants to have broad appeal will need to in some ways anticipate and shift with that. And of course, at some point the top-heavy population graph will shift and seniors of any generation will be a smaller relative proportion of the total electorate again than they are today, so even if somehow all seniors continue to be more religious and conservative (which may be the case, but my instincts tell me it will be a diminishing trend), there will be fewer of them once the baby boomers pass through seniority and out the other side. That's probably 30 years out still, but I think it speaks to the idea that the Republican Party can't continue to endorse hard-line religous values because they will be going out of favor with older people as well as younger people in due time.

Damn, I wrote way too much about that, and I'm not even that attached to the idea. Sorry if I sort of Joeled it up on you.