PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES IN AMERICA, BUT ABOUT THE GENERAL TREND IN THE UK AND US TOWARDS LOW YOUTH TURNOUT IN ELECTIONS
So yesterday saw another instance where a heavily progressive left-wing political entity failed to gain ground against a more right-leaning one due to, in part, the failure of "young people" to "come out and vote." Since then we've seen many, many examples of people explicitly blaming young people for the outcome, and the same has happened many, many times before and will very likely happen in the future as well. So much of the discussion surrounding Bernie, Corbyn, etc and their respective failures stems from how they "appealed too much to younger people when young people just don't vote." It's almost a guaranteed pattern at this point, and I don't really feel the need to go into it any further because of that.
However, I feel that the conclusions being made are ones that are at best unhelpful and at worst utterly condescending and actively harmful. When otherwise left-wing people state that "young people don't vote" I honestly feel that they've chosen to stand in the way of progress simply because they've decided that people under a certain age are a lost cause. That's something that I feel needs to be called out and (more importantly) rectified by the powers-that-be if we're ever going to see real progress.
Below I'll go through a number of reasons for why I believe that the belief system behind "young people just don't vote," is fundamentally flawed from both a logical and contextual perspective:
1) The notion that young apathy is due to inherent laziness is, itself, an example of laziness
When a candidate or party fails to garner support for practically any other demographic the conclusion from most good people (i.e. not racists who think PoC are 'low information voters' or sexists who think women can't think for themselves) is that they saw some level of failure when it came to reaching that demographic. However when it comes to young people the situation very much seems to be reversed. I have seen many people, including on this site, who can acknowledge systemic factors when it comes to other demographics but fall completely into the line of thinking that paints young people out to be inherently lazy, apathetic and dumb.
I think it's obvious what the problem is here. There is so little discussion as to why young people don't vote because people simply believe that young people are the same as older people at best and worthless at worst. No attention is placed on the many, many things that may factor in to low young voter turnout including, but not limited to:
- The education system not focusing at all on one's duties to their nation, leaving people to learn that over time
- Apathy from a political system that does nothing to help them at best and actively fucks them over at worst (see point 2)
- Logistical problems surrounding how millions of 18-25 year olds can find the time out of their education and low-wage jobs to get out and vote
- The heavy influencing factor of adults who can project their own apathy onto their children
- And likely many more. I don't know, this ain't a University paper so don't @ me
2) For many young people today the entire political system, both left and right-wing, represents an existential threat to their very lives, and this has a heavy potential to create apathy for the options we're given
Yes, this point is dramatic, but honestly this is how a lot of us young folk are feeling this, and that directly leads to voter apathy when presented with the current political system. Unlike practically all of the generations before us we are, by default, living on borrowed time; so much of us know it even if we don't actively acknowledge it. The climate crisis will be the defining event of our lives, and that will be true no matter what kind of person you are. As such, the fact that what the system has given us in the past decade is so exceedingly god-awful when combating this fact of life has, in my eyes, led to an increase in general apathy with the entire system.
To put it into perspective: in the US it has been 8 years since a left-wing political candidate got into power. In the UK it has been even longer. In those two countries alone that represents millions of new potential voters who see a system that has done nothing to help them or their futures. For me personally I've voted 3 times since I turned 18, and those 3 times have seen Brexit, a Tory Majority, and now a Tory majority that will last at least a decade. Before that I became politically conscious at a time where a major left-wing party completely betrayed my generation by hiking up tuition fees when they said they'd never support such a thing. Sure, I could have done more, probably much more, but I'm only one person and I cannot fight systemic issues by myself. It's made it hard for me to get excited about politics any more, so I can imagine that the impact must be ten-fold for those less politically active than me.
And before you say it: Yes, I know this is in part due to young people "just not voting." However you have to consider why this is the case and, more importantly, why the political hegemony of today might not want that to not be the case, and that leads me on to:
3) Young people voting in large numbers is an existential threat to the very establishment that runs our political systems
If the current situation was swapped and young people were the dominant political group then the landscape today would be incredibly different. Trump wouldn't have won, Brexit wouldn't be happening, Corbyn would be Prime Minister and Biden wouldn't be front-runner for the Democratic nomination. There are two commonalities when it comes to young people: They have a low turnout, and they are much more progressive over all than their older counterparts. That extends to most every kind of demographic, with even the typically majority-conservative white vote turning much more liberal the younger one goes.
One has to ask then, whether people actually believe that the currently-dominant establishment that boosts capital over all would ever want young people to "just vote,"? They, like with countless other examples of both overt and covert voter suppression throughout history, see the young demographic as an existential threat to their movement. The right-wing doesn't want PoC to vote, the left-wing would love it if white Christians just decided to stay home, and the leaders of both want nothing more than for young people to "just not vote."
Now I don't expect everyone to agree with me here, but I felt that I had to get my voice out there to at least try and quell some of the rhetoric that I've been seeing on here recently. Frankly I feel that if we ever want to see true progress then we need to consider young people as a demographic that has the potential to be a massive force for change, and instead of condescendingly 'blaming' young people and writing them off as lazy good-for-nothings we need to try and harness that potential and move towards something greater.
So to round things up I'd just like to say:
OK Boomers
So yesterday saw another instance where a heavily progressive left-wing political entity failed to gain ground against a more right-leaning one due to, in part, the failure of "young people" to "come out and vote." Since then we've seen many, many examples of people explicitly blaming young people for the outcome, and the same has happened many, many times before and will very likely happen in the future as well. So much of the discussion surrounding Bernie, Corbyn, etc and their respective failures stems from how they "appealed too much to younger people when young people just don't vote." It's almost a guaranteed pattern at this point, and I don't really feel the need to go into it any further because of that.
However, I feel that the conclusions being made are ones that are at best unhelpful and at worst utterly condescending and actively harmful. When otherwise left-wing people state that "young people don't vote" I honestly feel that they've chosen to stand in the way of progress simply because they've decided that people under a certain age are a lost cause. That's something that I feel needs to be called out and (more importantly) rectified by the powers-that-be if we're ever going to see real progress.
Below I'll go through a number of reasons for why I believe that the belief system behind "young people just don't vote," is fundamentally flawed from both a logical and contextual perspective:
1) The notion that young apathy is due to inherent laziness is, itself, an example of laziness
When a candidate or party fails to garner support for practically any other demographic the conclusion from most good people (i.e. not racists who think PoC are 'low information voters' or sexists who think women can't think for themselves) is that they saw some level of failure when it came to reaching that demographic. However when it comes to young people the situation very much seems to be reversed. I have seen many people, including on this site, who can acknowledge systemic factors when it comes to other demographics but fall completely into the line of thinking that paints young people out to be inherently lazy, apathetic and dumb.
I think it's obvious what the problem is here. There is so little discussion as to why young people don't vote because people simply believe that young people are the same as older people at best and worthless at worst. No attention is placed on the many, many things that may factor in to low young voter turnout including, but not limited to:
- The education system not focusing at all on one's duties to their nation, leaving people to learn that over time
- Apathy from a political system that does nothing to help them at best and actively fucks them over at worst (see point 2)
- Logistical problems surrounding how millions of 18-25 year olds can find the time out of their education and low-wage jobs to get out and vote
- The heavy influencing factor of adults who can project their own apathy onto their children
- And likely many more. I don't know, this ain't a University paper so don't @ me
2) For many young people today the entire political system, both left and right-wing, represents an existential threat to their very lives, and this has a heavy potential to create apathy for the options we're given
Yes, this point is dramatic, but honestly this is how a lot of us young folk are feeling this, and that directly leads to voter apathy when presented with the current political system. Unlike practically all of the generations before us we are, by default, living on borrowed time; so much of us know it even if we don't actively acknowledge it. The climate crisis will be the defining event of our lives, and that will be true no matter what kind of person you are. As such, the fact that what the system has given us in the past decade is so exceedingly god-awful when combating this fact of life has, in my eyes, led to an increase in general apathy with the entire system.
To put it into perspective: in the US it has been 8 years since a left-wing political candidate got into power. In the UK it has been even longer. In those two countries alone that represents millions of new potential voters who see a system that has done nothing to help them or their futures. For me personally I've voted 3 times since I turned 18, and those 3 times have seen Brexit, a Tory Majority, and now a Tory majority that will last at least a decade. Before that I became politically conscious at a time where a major left-wing party completely betrayed my generation by hiking up tuition fees when they said they'd never support such a thing. Sure, I could have done more, probably much more, but I'm only one person and I cannot fight systemic issues by myself. It's made it hard for me to get excited about politics any more, so I can imagine that the impact must be ten-fold for those less politically active than me.
And before you say it: Yes, I know this is in part due to young people "just not voting." However you have to consider why this is the case and, more importantly, why the political hegemony of today might not want that to not be the case, and that leads me on to:
3) Young people voting in large numbers is an existential threat to the very establishment that runs our political systems
If the current situation was swapped and young people were the dominant political group then the landscape today would be incredibly different. Trump wouldn't have won, Brexit wouldn't be happening, Corbyn would be Prime Minister and Biden wouldn't be front-runner for the Democratic nomination. There are two commonalities when it comes to young people: They have a low turnout, and they are much more progressive over all than their older counterparts. That extends to most every kind of demographic, with even the typically majority-conservative white vote turning much more liberal the younger one goes.
One has to ask then, whether people actually believe that the currently-dominant establishment that boosts capital over all would ever want young people to "just vote,"? They, like with countless other examples of both overt and covert voter suppression throughout history, see the young demographic as an existential threat to their movement. The right-wing doesn't want PoC to vote, the left-wing would love it if white Christians just decided to stay home, and the leaders of both want nothing more than for young people to "just not vote."
Now I don't expect everyone to agree with me here, but I felt that I had to get my voice out there to at least try and quell some of the rhetoric that I've been seeing on here recently. Frankly I feel that if we ever want to see true progress then we need to consider young people as a demographic that has the potential to be a massive force for change, and instead of condescendingly 'blaming' young people and writing them off as lazy good-for-nothings we need to try and harness that potential and move towards something greater.
So to round things up I'd just like to say:
OK Boomers
Last edited:
