The cossack analogy for Hong Kong

In WWII, the soldiers and weapons manufactured in Siberia have replenished the loss in tghe battlefield for Soviet Russia. This seeminly unlimited supply of new resources has shifted the balance and finally led to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Applying this in 'democratic politics', the young generation is the "cossack" for the candidate who can appeal to the young generation. Every 4 years, some 3% of the populations cross the age of 21 and become eligible to vote. Given the voter base is only around 70-75% of the total population (excluding the under-age), about 4% of the voters are first time voters. Moreover, the newly eligibles are more likely to vote because it is a new right for them. (All these are my rough estimates. I would appreciate if someone knows the actual stats, I am sure such research has been done somewhere).

I have discussed in another post that this has been fuelling the success of DPP in Taiwan, though the trend might have been reversed recently.

In Hong Kong, this is something which has been long ignored as well, especially by the "pan-Dem" and the Nextmedia clan of "old pigeon". It has been more than 10 years since the old colonial masters have left, and more than 20 years since the British government had announced HK residents belong to the second class colonial type. What amused me is that the Nextmedia propaganda machine continue to use the colonial nostalgia reminder to tell us how bad the current government is, and how good the old colonial masters were. It seems that these writers, including the infamous writing hand (写手 aka "才子") and the various editors of Next and AD, are in the belief that such comparison could prove their points that the current bureaucrats are inferior and help them win supporters for pan-Dem. But the more likely case, in my view, is that they are really talking about what they believe and how they feel. What they do not know, or fail to realize, is that the younger generation do not share any of such experience or emotion with them (i.e. even if their ideals are mostly agreeable). Not only are they not the beneficaries of the old colonial masters, they do not have the vaguest idea what they are (well, except for a few). The Nextmedia way is just going to turn people away even if some (or many) of the ideals they preach are agreeable to this generation.

What does this new generation believe? I do not know. What I know is what would not work on them. e.g,

• The anti-mainland card does not work. They grow up in an environment where the HK economy is suported by the growth in China. Many of them are new immigrants from the mainland
• To another extreme, the new voters were too young to remember what happened 19 years ago. The radical approaches by many of the AD preachers do not resonate with them
• They do not know what the hell you are talking about when you tell them what the Brits would have done. (Frankly, in my opinion, many AD articles committed the crime of lying or exaggeration when they made the pre-colonial comparision)

As a result, the defeat of pan-Dem is inevitable, if they are still toeing this party line (i.e. the Martin Lee/Jimmy Lai) line. Because, simply, they are turning away the army of cossacks to their opponents.