The Good News for Conservatives in That Poll of Young Americans

Yesterday, I wrote about Harvard University’s Institute of Politics poll of young adults (between the ages of 18 and 29), the toplines of which are, for the most part, not encouraging for conservatives staring down the barrel of generational change.

The press around this poll emphasizes to a conspicuous degree the finding that a minority of young adults are beset by crippling anxiety over the menacing world outside their doors. It’s hard to avoid the impression that this emphasis advances the dominant American political culture’s preferences: It promotes a fashionable anxiety that relies on government programs to file down life’s sharper edges.