One of the most inter­est­ing things about the Sanders/​Clinton race is the age divide. Young peo­ple real­ly like Sanders. Old peo­ple real­ly like Clin­ton. Sanders has espe­cial­ly been a hit with young women who favor him by even larg­er mar­gins than young men do.

Normally, the egalitarian impulse is to cheer for the scrappy rude moneyless teen over the wealthy political scion, but in the world of Clinton adoration, this gets flipped on its head. He shouldn’t be so rude to Clinton precisely because she’s his superior. It’s an anti-egalitarian impulse urging deference by the weaker to the stronger.

This age divide has also mate­ri­al­ized in the pun­dit class. Clinton’s biggest boost­ers are old­er folks, while her biggest crit­ics are younger folks. Of course, the old pun­dits who like Clin­ton aren’t par­tic­u­lar­ly hap­py with this divide. Nobody wants to be the old out of touch per­son scream­ing for the youths to get off their lawns. But that’s what it has come to.

Con­sid­er yes­ter­day’s piece from The Nation​’s Joan Walsh, best known for her endorse­ment of cut­ting cash assis­tance to poor women with chil­dren, in peak get-off-my-lawn form:

It came when a young white man — enti­tled, pleased with him­self, bare­ly shav­ing yet — broke the news to Clin­ton that his gen­er­a­tion is with Bernie Sanders. ​“I just don’t see the same enthu­si­asm from younger peo­ple for you. In fact, I’ve heard from quite a few peo­ple my age that they think you’re dis­hon­est. But I’d like to hear from you on why you feel the enthu­si­asm isn’t there.” I’m not sure I can unpack all the con­de­scen­sion in that ques­tion. I heard a dis­turb­ing echo of the infa­mous 2008 New Hamp­shire debate moment when a mod­er­a­tor asked Clin­ton: ​“What can you say to the vot­ers of New Hamp­shire on this stage tonight, who see a resume and like it, but are hes­i­tat­ing on the lik­a­bil­i­ty issue?” Yes, the ​“lik­a­bil­i­ty” issue. I found myself think­ing: Not again. Why the hell does she have to put up with this again? My prob­lem wasn’t mere­ly with the insult­ing per­son­al tone of the ques­tion. It was also the way the young man anoint­ed him­self the voice of his gen­er­a­tion, and declared it the Sanders gen­er­a­tion. Now, I know Bernie is lead­ing among mil­len­ni­als by a lot right now in the polls. Nonethe­less, mil­lions of mil­len­ni­als, includ­ing mil­lions of young women, are sup­port­ing Hillary Clinton.

Walsh tries to give this gen­er­a­tional divide a gen­der gloss, as all the old­er pun­dits have done (recall Aman­da Marcotte’s failed attempt to say Sanders had more young male sup­port than young female sup­port even though the very data she relied upon showed no such thing). But you’d have to be blind not to see an old per­son mad at a rude, ​“bare­ly shav­ing,” teen for not prop­er­ly respect­ing his elder.

As a fac­tu­al mat­ter, every­thing the rude teen said was cor­rect. Young peo­ple are not enthu­si­as­tic about Clin­ton. They love Sanders, espe­cial­ly young women. And his friends are right that Clin­ton is very dis­hon­est. Even Joan Walsh would prob­a­bly admit that Clinton’s attacks on Bernie’s sin­gle-pay­er plan a cou­ple of weeks ago were deeply dishonest.

What she’s mad about, then, is not the facts in the ques­tion but that this damn rude teen spoke to Clin­ton as if he was her equal and as if he was vet­ting her for a job as his rep­re­sen­ta­tive. She said as much in her elab­o­ra­tion on the point on Twitter:

The ​“most admired woman” line is, of course, mean­ing­less. Walsh is rely­ing upon a Gallup poll that asks this ques­tion every year and gets rather unen­light­en­ing respons­es. The most admired man is basi­cal­ly who­ev­er the U.S. pres­i­dent is, and the most admired woman is typ­i­cal­ly a present or for­mer First Lady, with a few notable excep­tions like Mar­garet Thatch­er and Moth­er Teresa:

But putting aside the throw­away ​“most admired woman” line, this has got to be the most ​“get off my lawn” tweet I have ever seen in my life. How dare this young per­son come into here and speak this way to the queen her­self. Has he no respeto? Does he think he can speak such sass to Hillary Clin­ton, his better?

What’s so inter­est­ing about this par­tic­u­lar brand of com­plaint is that it implic­it­ly relies upon the claim that Clin­ton is the strongest per­son in the inter­ac­tion. Her and Bill have $100 mil­lion and she’s been at the levers of state pow­er for decades. This is a rude teen with far less pow­er, fame, and mon­ey. Nor­mal­ly, the egal­i­tar­i­an impulse is to cheer for the scrap­py rude money­less teen over the wealthy polit­i­cal scion, but in the world of Clin­ton ado­ra­tion, this gets flipped on its head. He shouldn’t be so rude to Clin­ton pre­cise­ly because she’s his supe­ri­or. It’s an anti-egal­i­tar­i­an impulse urg­ing def­er­ence by the weak­er to the stronger.

For as long as the age demo­graph­ic divide per­sists, I expect this kind of get-off-my-lawnism to inten­si­fy. ​“Shut up them rude kids,” old pun­dits who are sim­ply reflect­ing the can­di­date pref­er­ences of their age demo­graph­ic will say. It will always come obscured in oth­er hand-wav­ing because the last thing you want to do is come off so lame. But it’ll be there. And it’ll be fun to watch.

This post first appeared at Mat​tBru​enig​.com.