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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/18/florida-senior-citizens-vote-election-2018-218758Generation Pickleball: Welcome to Floridas Political Tomorrowland
Republicans political future looks a lot like this vibrant, fast-growing, Trump-friendly retirement community outside of Orlando.
By MICHAEL GRUNWALD June 18, 2018
The Villages is Americas largest retirement community, a carefully planned, meticulously groomed dreamscape of gated subdivisions, wall-to-wall golf courses, adult-only pools and old-fashioned town squares. Its advertised as Floridas friendliest hometown, and its supposed to evoke a bygone era of traditional values when Americans knew their neighbors, respected their elders and followed the rules. It has the highest concentration of military veterans of any metropolitan area without a military base. It has strict regulations enforcing the uniformity of homes (no second stories, no bright colors, no modern flourishes) as well as the people living in them (no families with children, except to visit). And it is Trump country, a reliably Republican, vocally patriotic, almost entirely white enclave that gave the president nearly 70 percent of the vote.
Older voters are Americas most reliable voters, which is why baby-boomer boomtowns like The Villages represent the most significant threat to a potential Democratic wave in Florida in 2018and the most significant source of Republican optimism for many years to come. Because while the Villages may look like the past, with its retro architecture and gray-haired demographics, it sells like the future. This master-planned paradise an hour northwest of Disney World has been the fastest-growing metro area in the United States in four of the past five years. And as the baby boom generation continues to retire, The Villages is continuing to expand into nearby cattle pastures, luring more pensioners to this fantasyland in the sunshine, gradually swinging Americas largest swing state to the right.
Trump supporters who get the most media attention tend to be economically anxious laborers in economically depressed factory towns. But in Florida, economically secure retirement meccas like The Villages are the real reason Trump won in 2016and why the states Republicans, who have controlled Tallahassee for two decades, think they can avoid a blue wave in 2018 and help reelect Trump in 2020. For all the hype about Puerto Ricans moving to the Sunshine State after Hurricane Maria, or high school students like the Parkland gun control activists turning 18 and registering to vote, any Democratic surge could be offset by the migration of Republican-leaning seniors who like Floridas balmy weather and lack of income tax. If midterm elections typically play out as judgments on the presidency, then Floridas upcoming contests will be a race between the usual laws of political gravity and the states demographic destiny: Trump remains unpopular with younger voters, and Democrats have already flipped four Florida legislative seats in low-profile special elections this year, but the older voters who are most likely to vote in the midterms are increasingly likely to move to Florida and support the president.
It makes sense that theyre coming to The Villages, because this leisure-class Sun Belt oasis is a lot more pleasant than the dying working-class Rust Belt towns that journalists usually visit on Trump-voter safaris. It feels like a 40-square-mile cruise ship, or a college campus without required classes. It has enough golf courses to play a different one every week of the year, and more than 100 miles of golf cart trails that keep traffic congestion to a minimum. Its the pickleball capital of America, appropriate considering that the badminton-meets-tennis-ish paddle game has become Americas fastest-growing sport. It has 3,000 clubs that keep 125,000 Villagers busy doing everything from belly dancing to astrology, water aerobics to water skiing, karaoke to quilting. It isnt exactly luxurious, but its comfortable with a median home price above $250,000; though a new POLITICO/AARP poll finds plenty of concern elsewhere in Florida, the only real economic anxiety for most Villagers is the state of their investment portfolios, which are thriving in the Trump era. At a meeting of the Financial Markets and Investment Club in early June, a speaker announced: NASDAQ just closed at a record high!
Snip.
More at the link.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/18/florida-senior-citizens-vote-election-2018-218758
TeamPooka
(24,248 posts)TheCowsCameHome
(40,168 posts)Just asking for a friend.
littlemissmartypants
(22,735 posts)A speed limit of 20mph...
mcar
(42,371 posts)and one of the largest Democratic Women's Clubs. They are outnumbered but fearless in their activism.
My daughter's in-laws live there (retired educators). They are dem all the way.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)The Villages is around 120,000 people. The Orlando-Tampa-StPete area is millions of people and is becoming bluer by the day. I remember when the I4 corridor was as red as blood, now it is a big and growing source of votes for statewide democratic candidates.
mcar
(42,371 posts)Those of us who live in red FL must remember that.
Another side note: I'm the past president/co-founder of our county's Democratic Women's Club. We've had steady growth since we formed 2 years ago.
The 2 meetings of 2020 have broken all records for attendance and new members! We are fired up!
paleotn
(17,939 posts)From militant HOA's to cookie cutter homogeneity. An air conditioned, unsustainable, one stop shop of all that's wrong with America.
littlemissmartypants
(22,735 posts)I'm too artistic and a nonconformist. Also, a certified loner. Keep in mind however that the article is from a few years back so some things have changed.
I can just imagine the cramped, tiny, inflexible hive-mind of conservatus americanus that live there, and I'm glad there's a continent between me and that place. I'm uncomfortable just being this close to Idaho...
csziggy
(34,137 posts)The residents of places like The Villages are almost all immigrants from the North. Few, if any, are from this state, but they have infested it with their right wing politics. They are the reason we've had governors such as Jeb Bush and Rick Scott. Florida used to have good governors such as LeRoy Collins, Reubin Askew, Bob Graham, and Lawton Chiles.
Boomerproud
(7,963 posts)Die hard Trumpets even though I know a thing or two about their not so pristine pasts.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)S-T-D
One of the highest rates in the state