American’s Political Priorities

When I look at the political priorities Americans hold I see two distinct sets. You have the internet savvy young generation priorities and then you have everyone else. In my view here are the sets of priorities for each group:

Net Savvy

1. Privacy
2. National Debt
3. Bush’s War Crimes

Everyone Else

1. Economy
2. Gas Prices
3. Iraq

Interestingly you will even see some people list the “Net Savvy” priorities when they are chatting online, but if you talk to them in person they will list the “Everyone Else” priorities. Why is there this difference in priorities and why do people say different things depending on their surroundings?

Part of the reason people use 2 faces when talking about priorities is peer pressure. But I think another part of it is that in an indirect way all of the “Net Savvy” priorities support the “Everyone Else” priorities.

Decreasing the National Debt should increase the value of the dollar which should also improve the economy. Bush’s war crimes and the Iraq war is partially being blamed for high gas prices. Is this the true reason? Not entirely, but the National Debt and the Iraq war have certainly contributed. The privacy priority pertains to Iraq/Terrorism where the government is trying to strip all of our privacy under the name of terrorism. I believe the younger generation has seen through this facade and realized that reducing all risk of a terrorist attack is not worth giving up our privacy.

This is causing an interesting challenge for the presidential candidates having to try to appeal to both sides of the argument. However, in doing this they will eventually end up alienating one group of voters. As much as I wish differently, I believe that one group will be the “net savvy” block of Americans.