This chart shows the cumulative adult years an American would have lived under a Democratic or Republican president, starting with a 22-year-old born on January 20, 2003—who has only 4 adult years, all under Biden—and extending to a 98-year-old born on January 20, 1927—who has experienced 40 adult years under both Democratic and Republican presidents. The cumulative years are calculated as the sum of each individual’s adult years, divided according to the years when either a Democrat or Republican was president.
Fun fact: Depending on their birthdate during the year, some people may have an equal complement of Democrat and Republican years if they are 26, 42, 66, 82, or 98.
Data was scraped and massaged in R from the Wikipedia page for the [United States presidential inauguration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_inauguration). Preliminary visualizations were done with ggplot, then exported into an SVG for finesse and annotations in Adobe Illustrator.
I think if you need a ton of annotations explaining the chart, it’s not /r/dataisbeautiful
This chart breaks my head
That’s a very confusing graph. Labeling Age by 2 years and moving back and forth makes it seem more confusing.
Knee-jerk is that this can’t be the best way to have displayed this information
It’s probaby correct, also graphically well made, but I don’t really see the point.
This is interesting but on this chart the presidents that were in office during my lifetime doesn’t match up with my age *at all*. Obviously because I wasn’t born in 2003. You need to flip the data and use the presidential years as the fixed date since picking 2003 as the data point for age dramatically restricts your sample set, making the general assumptions of your chart incorrect at face value.
Think a line plot would’ve worked okay
No wonder Gen X and Millenials are struggling so much.
I’m going to go against the grain to say I like this. But I have a science / data visualisation background. It’s fun to see something original, and I don’t find it hard to interpret (follow the bold yellow numbers in the middle, see which side and colour they are in. If you want to know more, look more closely)
This does not need a chart.
This chart isn’t that hard to read either
“Mostly” is doing a lot of work here
Most people’s minds don’t think of time as a staircase btw.
Sort of a disconnect between the time and data. Data is showing adult years (18+) not total life span. Seems like a distinction that just makes things confusing and unhelpful, total life span would be more insightful or relevant.
Baby boomers (1946-1964) are all 59 or older this year. I wonder if that was the point or just a coincidence. Either way, it does explain some voting tendencies.
Only a few people alive have lived under 3 or more consecutive Democratic terms.
A simpler way to explain this is that the country had a Republican president for 20 out of 24 years between 1969 and 1993.
At 51, I’ve lived under more Republicans administrations then Democrat ones.
George h bush was also a ” four and out” president
I find this comparison intriguing. It compels me to look at the differences between modern presidents and parties and their predecessors. While I believe the overall discourse has shifted to the right, Democrats have been less affected than Republicans. It’s hard to imagine Trump ever becoming the GOP’s nominee before the 90s. On the other hand, a slightly younger Biden might have performed well against Carter.
nice colors here, but this chart can easily be decomplexified.
Tough chart to read, but interesting. If you do the same with control of Congress are the conclusions swapped around, with older people having more Democrat-controlled and younger more Republican?
While interesting, it is quite complex. I wonder what showing a simple percentage of adult life under blue vs red would look like. That or don’t split the blue vs red by an unnecessary left/right axis and just stack them. Just my thoughts.
For me, the most depressing thing is seeing Republicans in office about half the time since the 1992 election despite only winning the popular vote once.
This sub is just r/imlearninghowtomakegraphs
If you’re under 58 you were spending any of your life under Truman or Kennedy. What kind of dumbass plot is this?
![[OC] Americans under 58 have had mostly Democratic presidents, while older Americans have had mostly Republicans](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/bkv8oxqr75rd1-1920x1024.png)
27 comments
This chart shows the cumulative adult years an American would have lived under a Democratic or Republican president, starting with a 22-year-old born on January 20, 2003—who has only 4 adult years, all under Biden—and extending to a 98-year-old born on January 20, 1927—who has experienced 40 adult years under both Democratic and Republican presidents. The cumulative years are calculated as the sum of each individual’s adult years, divided according to the years when either a Democrat or Republican was president.
Fun fact: Depending on their birthdate during the year, some people may have an equal complement of Democrat and Republican years if they are 26, 42, 66, 82, or 98.
Data was scraped and massaged in R from the Wikipedia page for the [United States presidential inauguration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_inauguration). Preliminary visualizations were done with ggplot, then exported into an SVG for finesse and annotations in Adobe Illustrator.
The chart shows even ages only (for the sake of legibility), but [full final data for all ages is shared here in a Google Sheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n7v2P2pb07DSVhYmJuQec04FdoN1qyxscbFETQQo43s/edit?usp=sharing).
I think if you need a ton of annotations explaining the chart, it’s not /r/dataisbeautiful
This chart breaks my head
That’s a very confusing graph. Labeling Age by 2 years and moving back and forth makes it seem more confusing.
Knee-jerk is that this can’t be the best way to have displayed this information
It’s probaby correct, also graphically well made, but I don’t really see the point.
This is interesting but on this chart the presidents that were in office during my lifetime doesn’t match up with my age *at all*. Obviously because I wasn’t born in 2003. You need to flip the data and use the presidential years as the fixed date since picking 2003 as the data point for age dramatically restricts your sample set, making the general assumptions of your chart incorrect at face value.
Think a line plot would’ve worked okay
No wonder Gen X and Millenials are struggling so much.
I’m going to go against the grain to say I like this. But I have a science / data visualisation background. It’s fun to see something original, and I don’t find it hard to interpret (follow the bold yellow numbers in the middle, see which side and colour they are in. If you want to know more, look more closely)
This does not need a chart.
This chart isn’t that hard to read either
“Mostly” is doing a lot of work here
Most people’s minds don’t think of time as a staircase btw.
Sort of a disconnect between the time and data. Data is showing adult years (18+) not total life span. Seems like a distinction that just makes things confusing and unhelpful, total life span would be more insightful or relevant.
Baby boomers (1946-1964) are all 59 or older this year. I wonder if that was the point or just a coincidence. Either way, it does explain some voting tendencies.
Only a few people alive have lived under 3 or more consecutive Democratic terms.
A simpler way to explain this is that the country had a Republican president for 20 out of 24 years between 1969 and 1993.
At 51, I’ve lived under more Republicans administrations then Democrat ones.
George h bush was also a ” four and out” president
I find this comparison intriguing. It compels me to look at the differences between modern presidents and parties and their predecessors. While I believe the overall discourse has shifted to the right, Democrats have been less affected than Republicans. It’s hard to imagine Trump ever becoming the GOP’s nominee before the 90s. On the other hand, a slightly younger Biden might have performed well against Carter.
nice colors here, but this chart can easily be decomplexified.
Tough chart to read, but interesting. If you do the same with control of Congress are the conclusions swapped around, with older people having more Democrat-controlled and younger more Republican?
While interesting, it is quite complex. I wonder what showing a simple percentage of adult life under blue vs red would look like. That or don’t split the blue vs red by an unnecessary left/right axis and just stack them. Just my thoughts.
For me, the most depressing thing is seeing Republicans in office about half the time since the 1992 election despite only winning the popular vote once.
This sub is just r/imlearninghowtomakegraphs
If you’re under 58 you were spending any of your life under Truman or Kennedy. What kind of dumbass plot is this?