Young voters turned out in big numbers in 2008 and then stayed home in record numbers in 2014. There are many explanations for this, but one that’s not talked about is their attitude toward democracy itself.
Research recently presented by Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk shows growing disillusionment with democracy—not just with politics or campaigns, but with democracy itself.
This growth is worldwide, but it is especially strong among young Americans. Fewer than 30 percent of Americans born since 1980 say that living in a democracy is essential. For those born since 1970, more than one in five describe our democratic system as “bad or very bad.” That’s almost twice is the rate for people born between 1950 and 1970.
This is hopefully a transient phenomenon. The failure of the Arab Spring and struggles in the European Union probably explain the global downtick, but here at home it’s probably related to the dysfunction, gridlock and non-responsiveness of the federal government, especially Congress.
It’s not clear what young folks think is the better alternative to representative government, but who can blame them for not being enamored with their representation?
So, when we see the outlines of fascism forming on the right, is that really surprising? If you give the people Weimar, someone will step into the breach.
Kinda reminds me of Atrios’s post today:
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2016/01/thats-your-job-professional-democrats.html
Well, as Winston Churchill said in the House of Commons in November of 1947:
“Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time….”
Hmm, this study seems relevant.
Good data here as well.
Basically very wealthy donors set the terms of our political debates.
Young voters represent HOPE in a future, THEIR future.
Youth also represent IDEALS in human endeavor.
In the US the low favorability rating of U.S. Congress and politics in general is quite indicative. The article also lists the reasons democracy is undermined … the measures taken by political parties to make it tougher to cast one’s vote or be represented. We the People should be what elections and politics should be about. The SCOTUS has discounted the importance of the citizens by favoring corporatism. People are not fooled!
Obama and change has evaporated, young voters have become anti-establishment. In truth, that was the same for the generation of the sixties and the underlying cause of the anti-war demonstrations in 1968. So we got Nixon and a pack of lies. The Watergate break-in turned out to be a game-changer for one’s trust and believe in the office of the presidency. To become cynical is just a small step.
This line caught my attention:
Among voters under 45, Sanders holds a more
than two-to-one lead over Hillary Clinton.
Call me young … I still have the ideals of youth!
“Pragmatism” is for those that a economically, culturally, socially, and ethically/morally/religiously comfy with the status quo. Captures most of those as they age. Explains why in 2005 Clinton was speaking from the floor of the Senate on the “sacred bond of a marriage between a man and a woman.” (Double cringe worthy for me.)
Maybe hit has something to do with a capacity for authentic empathy. Those with that change little with age. Those with not much or none, move right.
What, exactly, is wrong with the status quo?
When I compare my country – Canada, by Sanders lights, a democratic socialist country – to the United States, I simply do not understand the American angst. Yes, my country has a significantly stronger safety net which certainly makes it harder to be poor in the United States. But a relatively small number of people in the United States use that safety net.
If we exclude the poor the typical American has a much lower unemployment rate, a much higher income, and lower taxes. The Canadian economy is really struggling these days. Our dollar has tanked so food bills are exploding.
Otherwise, we pretty much struggle with the same problems. The same corporate world dominates our economy. Income inequality, the hollowing out of the middle class, and climate change all the same. A world scraping up against the limits to growth.
Still Canadians are pretty cheerful lot. We were angry enough to toss out a tired government but that is normal. For all the things we complain about, most of us figure we have it pretty good. Americans, we are told, are so angry that both the left and the right have given up on the status quo and are gathering with pitchforks.
The status quo has given Americans the most resilient economy and the highest standard of living in the world. Why are Americans so angry? “It isn’t fair. The average guy deserves more” is probably true, but hardly seems cause for revolution or to throw away democracy.
pimping my diary
Don’t know about Canada, but the joke here is that Canadians have no idea what the good life is.
What we know for certain, here in America (the real America of the US, of course, not where you live, or Mexico, or South America either), is that the good life absolutely means a life that’s good and shared by all of us more-or-less equally. So, you know, it’d be nice if we all could not have to worry about what’re we going to do to survive if we get seriously sick or injured. It’d be great to be able to get some real time off to have a baby or take a vacation, and, good life, you know, have some funds on hand to be able to enjoy those couple of weeks a year, those couple of special months of our lives. Or, like me at age 58 now, not especially looking forward to retirement after working my ass off for the past forty years to try to make ends meet without a dime in the bank saved up, it’d be some good life to look forward to something like a little financial security in my old age.
Nothing wrong with the status quo if you’re satisfied with being exceptional for the sake of being exceptional. Forget about getting back the thousands upon thousands our system has stolen from us in our exceptional lifetimes. Me, I’d so much rather enjoy that kind of status that comes from not being scared most of the time about how I’m going to be able to pay the bills, keep my home, protect my family, and enjoy a little peace and quiet before I die.
We’re bred, conditioned, and trained in the US now to accept a status quo that broadly deadens us while we live, and kills more of us faster and more surely than at any time since before our parents were born. We’re so tired, so defeated, most of us don’t have the will to even vote for a change. This is a terrible status qoe.
I don’t think America has ever been a place where the good life was shared more or less equally. I don’t imagine it ever will be.
I appreciate that you find yourself in an unhappy situation. How do you expect that electing Bernie will change things for you? What do you think government should do to make sure everyone gets a more or less an equal share of the good life?
Before I answer your questions, please answer one of mine.
How sad do you really feel about my unhappy situation? From your own point of view, compare and contrast, relative happiness of situations. Be honest if possible and provide examples from your own experience.
I would say that I am happier than you. I did not say I was sad for you, but I am sympathetic. I have lived through some tough times and I understand what it is like to worry about money.
I am 65 years old and just qualified for what you call social security. Good health. My wife is younger and still works. Two kids out of the nest. We’ve never been rich. About the median Canadian income, below the American median income.
After I lost a mid level government job in the 90’s I freelanced as a technical writer, did some teaching and tutoring, and worked part time at the library. We rent a house on acreage in a small town. We have a large vegetable garden and we sell the surplus at a local farmer’s market.
I drive a truck that is nearly 20 years old. No debt. We don’t travel. Some savings, enough to supplement our pensions and sustain our lifestyle when my wife retires unless we do something stupid like live too long. If my wife gets seriously sick or hurt in the next few years, we’ll struggle financially until her pension kicks in.
My social issue is the disgraceful way Canadians treated (and still treat) our indigenous people. (Google Truth and Reconciliation Commission). Now there is a group that has been ill served by the society.
I vote NDP, Liberal, or Green.
○ lower unemployment rate,
○ a much higher income,
○ and lower taxes.
I can’t quite grasp your definition of life, work and income. Hey, if you are well educated, have a job, career, car and home … you’re doing great. Yeah, let’s exclude the poor! Present status quo: inequality and opportunity to succeed in the U.S. is defined grosso modo by birth. Exceptionalism is for the top tier or 1% max., the American Dream had become part of folklore. After the devastation of Europe in WWII, the opportunities in the social-democratic states (Old-Europe or the original six EEC states) equalled or surpassed North America.
Paying a living wage in European countries – International Labor Comparisons. The United States and the working poor.
○ OECD: minimum wages after the crisis: making them pay
Greater than the population of Canada.
But but but…
Ahem.
Then there’s this . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CRSK0HItoI
Remember, this is a state that’s been targeted by the Kochtopus.
Rand Paul will address that segment with his laser-like focus on dope, drones, and domestic surveillance, and ride it to the GOP nomination.
Bet on it.
In 2008, you saw a lot of activism by students. But what did Obama do? KICK THEM IN THE TEETH:
Obama is the worst thing that has ever happened to the American STEM worker. He owes a lot to students, and his every action has been to kick them in the balls. Fuck him, honestly. I regret ever sending him a single cent.
Temporary workers turn permanent easily. Especially if their wives are here. You get her pregnant. The baby is a native born US citizen. You apply for a permanent green card on the grounds that you are the sole support of this American citizen. I wouldn’t change any part of the process, except the original visa.
Elizabeth Warren gave a very, very important speech on the subversion of our regulatory agencies and institutions through targeted appointments. I will say no more, but that I agree entirely.
I’ve been teaching for two decades, and I have to say – with all the grumpy, get-off-my-lawn crustiness I can muster – that young people are really self-centered. Not in the same way that a self-centered asshole like Ted Cruz is self-centered, but they are basically rooted in their own experiences and little beyond that. And their own experience is very narrow.
So, when Obama comes along, he’s the first ever of his kind, because they didn’t live through Kennedy or Clinton or even Reagan who could light up a room with charisma. I remember telling my students in 2009, “Given what you’ve invested in him, get ready for Obama to disappoint you.” I’ve spent my adult life studying and teaching history and government, so when I come face to face with the institutional constraints of a presidential-congressional system, I’m not disillusioned, because I’ve seen that movie.
When my kid was three, he’d freak out when you cut his hairs and nails, because he thought they would never grow back. Growing up is realizing that what you think are traumas at 16 are just Thursdays when you’re 46. As Phil Connor says in Groundhog Day, “Maybe God’s not omniscient. Maybe he’s just been around so long, nothing surprises him.”
I haven’t been around that long, but I know enough to realize that this song has been played before.
Only if you were born dead, or they killed your spirit by the time you were twenty-five.
I have a 16-year-old daughter. She’s smart and the most reasonable teen I’ve ever met. But she cries several times a week, over some perceived injustice. As an adult, I can point out to her that not everything is about her. If someone is ignoring her, maybe they’re just busy. If a couple breaks up, they will find someone else. Getting only 90% on a test is not the end of the world.
Teenagers are hormonal tempests. They don’t have the experience to know how things will work out. They are passionate and intense and wonderful. But they overreact to just about everything. Your spirit doesn’t have to be killed in order for you to grow up.
In an inverted totalitarian state, this is a major feature.
Get people, especially idealistic young people, to give up on their ideals. Get them more in tune with the social media sewer or American Idol or getting drunk and laid, while faceless, nameless corporations take over the government and pull the levers for the executives and shareholders who run the corporations.
Do it long enough and everyone knows that while there is a man behind the curtain, paying attention to him doesn’t accomplish anything, so fuck it.
“Young voters turned out in big numbers in 2008 and then stayed home in record numbers in 2014.”
Did the Democratic base just go for a short DNC sleep in 2014 or have our young people turned their backs on democracy? Do we even have democracy or is it now an oligarchy or maybe a plutocracy.
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/22/5_signs_america_is_devolving_into_a_plutocracy_partner/
I think it’s time for another round of the blame game because it seems someone has been busy destroying our democracy. The low hanging fruit here of course are the Republicans with their social wedge issue political campaigns, their only real agenda consisting of allowing Big Money to rig the economy in their favor. The other big factor that pushed this thing over top was Al From and the birth of the Clinton Machine. Obama didn’t help with his first term DLC administration. I know some don’t like to hear this but if a person is elected to represent the people and they sell out to the corporatists instead of representing the people’s interest, they are corrupt and don’t deserve to be in office. The best example of the horrors of the Clinton Machine is Debbie Wasserman-Shultz:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/debbie-wasserman-schultz-primary_us_56aa4c4be4b00164892297e7
People sometimes say if you bring up Hitler, you’ve already lost the argument. So here goes since you’ve already brought it up: “If you give the people Weimar, someone will step into the breach.”
There was nothing really wrong with the Weimar parliamentary democracy with their over 200 political parties except what happened to it, just like our democracy. First item was the war reparations at the end of WWI that chocked the German economy, set up so the big international banks could get very rich on fees, same as our .01% is bleeding our economy dry as we speak. Next item was, you guessed it, obstruction. With their parliamentary system of government, with seats won by the minority Nazis Party, Goebbels was able to prevent the formation of a government. After having the government paralyzed for three election cycles (with the Nazis losing ground in each one) Hitler was finally appointed Chancellor with corporatist support (they were going to control him).
With the government unable to conduct public business and the economy near complete collapse pushed over the edge by our 1929 Wall Street crash, there was ample proof that democracy did not work. Wanting to be led, they chose another way. The result was their brief experiment with democracy had to be put on hold for a while. Hitler was a white supremacist dark side populist who ran on making Germany great again, sound familiar?
Bottom line here is, if you want to make democracy work you must get not only young people but all the people who have given up on democracy to become involved again. This is the very best argument I have for a Bernie style political revolution.
Thanks for your clarification about the demise of the Weimar Republic. So much nonsense is thrown around on the subject. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with it. The overwhelming force of corporate capital—greed by another name—was its undoing just as it is now actively the undoing of the US. Only Sanders give a glimpse of how things might get better. Obama never did, he just played the empty rhetoric of the preacher man to the hilt, a ploy which the unsuspecting called eloquence, rhetorical talent, inspiration: considering the huge expectations he actively and deviously promoted, we can only blame ourselves in the end, we end up holding the bag. And the Clinton machine is bringing us the icing on the cake. The US is now entering a world it has never known before and one for which it is ill-equipped to deal with except with authoritarianism, the multipolar world of power and wealth. HRC won’t be able to cope with the great abroad expect through the application of violence as in Libya. If that was a ‘smart’ war, as she maintains, I would hate to see a stupid one. The war party is ascendant and that’s probably my main fear of her victory. She will not fare well, nor will we. The sisterhood will be jubilant, though, so at least that issue can finally be laid to rest. So what.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, some of the decrease over time in the youth vote can be attributed to the increase in the non-citizen population in that age group. The U.S. Census Bureau analysis of the voting population from 1964-2012 indicates a decrease in voting in all age groups, except for the 65 years and over group. (This group votes the highest at almost 70%. In comparison, the young people (18-24 years) were 38%.) There were a couple of exceptions for all age groups: 1992 and 2004. The 18-24 year olds did increase their numbers in 2008–the Obama factor. Here is the link.
https://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p20-573.pdf
Don’t worry, when have same day voter registration without documentation, they will all vote.
Gosh, why might a whole generation of Americans who grew up with a bought and paid for congress, and a bought and paid for media bleating that Government is bad and Business is good – over and over and over again, not think that voting was important?
when democracy as I learned it in Catholic grade school in the 60s was ever in practice by the time I got to vote in 1976.
No one since then had faith in democracy. But at least back then we’d also learned faith had nothing to do with it. And democracy had nothing to do with how big you were.
Democracy was about what’s left after suffering, defeat, loss of everything, again and again, in doubt and ignorance, unanswered, with dark before and behind it still living, still loving.*
If you give the people Weimar, someone will step into the breach.
Exactly. We’re seeing it now, thanks to the Repub Congress.
The Guardian – Chris Arnade — I worked on Wall Street. I am skeptical Hillary Clinton will rein it in
Arnade focuses on the Mexican bailout, but after that there was LTCM. And before both was the S&L debacle.
This is a MUST read. I remember this happening but was never aware of the details or realized the impact it would have.
In the fine tradition of another Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson. As pointed out by Robert Reich, US banksters were in deep doo-doo for all their loans to France that was getting close to losing WWI. “We” couldn’t let France lose, but objectively, the only US faction that stood to lose were the banks.
2016:
2004:
BernieBros dare to imagine crazy and impossible things, Clintonistas are pragmatic realists that imagined WMD in Iraq and squandered $4 trillion to get them and destroy a countless lives and a country. “Crazy” and sane or “rational” and insane is the choice.
NY Review of Books — The Clinton System. I already knew most of it, but to see it all in one place still nauseated me. If Clinton wins it all, it will be more happy days for the looters.
Not only is The Pantsuit buddy-buddy with the looters, but the incipient onset (already on the horizon) of the 24/7/365 cycle of Whitewater/ BimboEruptions/ Benghazi/ email/ ISIS is just so nauseating. None of this stuff ever goes away – there is a continued increase in the scandal cycle. It’s enough to give me a permanent case of indigestion.
Then Democrats will begin to long for the days of “No Drama Obama.” Overlooking that
Borrowed from Billmon.
I would absolutely accept the position of dictator.