    41

    fund

    American voters who labeled themselves conservatives shot up to an

    astonishing 39%.97  Conservative support was particularly high among, of all

    people, the young.98  And in 1993, when some thought that the election of Bill

    Clinton had dampened the conservative trend, The New Republic's Fred

    Barnes declared that reaction against the Arkansas Democrat had actually

    "revived the conservative movement beyond its wildest dreams."99

    There was a reason.  The mid-'80s generation of college kids had

    experienced the decline of America since they were toddlers.  They were in

    their early days of grammar school when the U.S. suffered pecking order

    defeats in Viet Nam and the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973.  These students had

    spent their growing years in families battered by downward mobility.  A

    huge percentage were "latch-key children" who saw both of their parents go

    to work100 or, even worse, were raised by a single mother or father.

    From 1949 to 1973, American wages had moved upward in a

    seemingly unstoppable surge.101  But when the mid-'80s crop of college kids

    were still in day-care, all that started to change.  In 1971, America

    experienced its first two months in a row of balance of payments deficits.102

    In 1973, real wages began to fall.103   When the mid-'80s college kids entered

    junior high, the older students ahead of them were already showing the first

    response to the new American realities: an increase in suicide, alcoholism

    and drug addiction.104  To make matters worse, by 1986 when the new

    collegians were still getting used to dormitory life, real US wages had

    tumbled back to 1962 levels.105  And when the ex-students were beginning

    careers in 1991, salaries had shrunk even further, moving a full 20% below

    where they'd been two decades earlier.106

    No wonder the youth of the '80s recreated the attitudes of the '50s,

    when college students were more interested in getting an MBA than

    exploring life and philosophy.  No wonder even young bohemians returned

    to the traditions of the American ancients, dressing like Woodstock dropouts

    and reveling in the music of a quintessential '60s band--the Grateful Dead.

    Like birds on an empty stomach, they were edging away from the unfamiliar

      amentalism increased 43% from 1978 to 1985.96  In 1986, the number of

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