The Pew Research Center has published a poll showing that Democrats are losing their advantage among millennials:
The "Millennial Generation" of young voters played a big role in the resurgence of the Democratic Party in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but their attachment to the Democratic Party weakened markedly over the course of 2009. The Democratic advantage over the Republicans in party affiliation among young voters, including those who "lean" to a party, reached a whopping 62% to 30% margin in 2008. But by the end of 2009 this 32-point margin had shrunk to just 14 points: 54% Democrat, 40% Republican.
I am one of these people. I'm 22 years old, and the first time I ever voted was for Obama. So, I can explain what is going on here, and give some suggestions about how the Democrats might fix it. I also have a warning about what is likely to happen if Democrats don't get their act together.
Why is this happening?
The reason this is happening is the recession, and the perception that Democrats are not doing enough to fix it. There is a feeling that Democrats tricked people into thinking that they were going to make big changes to the country, and then failed to make those changes.
You might think this is an unreasonable criticism, that the Democrats are doing the best they can, and that they never said they were leftists. I can understand that point of view, and it makes a lot of sense. But let's look at what millennials are dealing with in this economy, and it might not seem so unreasonable.
You might be comfortable with the way things are. You might not be interested in radical changes. You might be okay with incrementalism. But others are different. There are very big problems in the USA, and they are making many people very miserable. It's not wrong for these people to ask that the problems affecting them be fixed.
Now, these are some of the problems that are affecting young people.
The unemployment rate among young people is very high:
The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent -- a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept.
Tons of people are graduating from high school and college, and they are finding that they can't find jobs.
And they have tons of debt that they need to pay:
Student loans outstanding today — both federal and private — total some $829.785 billion, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com.
This is a problem. All my life, I was told that if I did good in school, and went to college, that I would be able to find a good job. That was obviously not true. There don't seem to be any jobs in this economy, let alone good ones.
Instead of telling your kids that they will be able to succeed if they work hard, you might consider telling them that life's a bitch, and then you die. That seems a bit more realistic than the "American Dream".
Speaking of the American Dream, that fairy tale has been destroyed by this recession:
"It's a very insecure world out there," says Trilli, of Kendall Park, N.J., who works in marketing for a non-profit. "It was a little shocking to the system. You think things are going in a certain way, but you can't expect that things are always going to be the same."
The Millennial generation, or Gen Y, ranges from people in their 20s to those still in grade school. But what they all have in common is the knowledge that the recession has in some way shattered the world they thought they knew.
There is also a very large number of uninsured young people:
The age group of people 19 to 24 years old has the highest percentage of uninsured individuals, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Thirty percent of them did not have health insurance in 2007, a number almost certainly driven higher in an arid job market.
The right-wing likes to say the young people don't want insurance. That is a lie. Last winter, my sister got infected with an antibiotic resistant infection called MRSA. She had insurance at the time, but I didn't. I was worried for a few months that I was going to catch it. I had nightmares about huge bloody holes in my back. I didn't know if I could get help if I caught it, so I figured that I would probably die if I caught it. That wasn't a fun experience. I would have loved to have insurance at the time. I would have loved to have insurance when I got a piece of broken glass stuck in my foot. I would love to have insurance at any time, but it just isn't affordable.
Anyways, this situation with the lack of jobs, the low wages, the cost of living, and the student loan debt has made it much harder to reach the milestones which have traditionally defined adulthood:
We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls "the changing timetable for adulthood." Sociologists traditionally define the "transition to adulthood" as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.
Young people are not able to leave home, they are not able to become financially independent, they are not able to have kids. Because there aren't enough jobs, and the jobs that are available are usually low-paying ones.
Not being able to do these things makes us feel like we are failures.
In the meantime, we constantly hear about how we are spoiled little brats who deserve all of this. Don't fall for that. If you think kids these days are worse than you were, it's probably just your brain playing tricks on you.
Those are just the problems that young people are dealing with right now. It's worse when you look at the long term, and you see that climate change and peak oil are not being dealt with, and that the USA being divided into haves and have-nots, and that the government is owned and operated by mega-corporations. It seems like things will just get worse and worse, the longer time goes on.
This all adds up, and creates a lot of stress and disillusionment. It makes you want to ignore politics completely. Because it seems like neither party is making any serious effort to solve all of these problems.
What are people likely to do when they think the Democrats are unable to solve problems? They will either stay home, or vote for the other party...
What happens if Democrats keep failing to address these issues?
My fear is that the Republicans will take advantage of it. The NY Times wrote an article about this poll, and here's what one person said about it:
Philip Stricker, 21, a biology major who voted for Mr. Obama but says he has not been paying much attention to politics lately, uses a nontechnical term to describe the phenomenon.
"There’s a vibe," he said on a recent afternoon, while pumping weights at the gym. "Right now it seems like Republicans just care a lot more than Democrats."
I really doubt that, but the truth has never stopped people from voting for Republicans in the past, has it?
Imagine this. Republicans manage to get elected by telling people that government spending, taxes, and regulation are the causes of our economic problems. The economy recovers on its own shortly after the republicans get control of Congress.
This could make young people think that Republicans were right. It could make them think that Republicans are better at managing the economy. It could convert millions of people to conservatism.
There are other, more specific ways that they could target young people.
A lot of my friends are mad about this health care bill. They are not happy about the fact that they are going to have to buy insurance, because it's expensive, and many of the policies are virtually useless.
Most young people don't like payroll taxes. Because at the rate things are going, it seems like social security will be gone by the time we're old enough to receive it. Both parties are trying to cut it right now, and they both steal the surplus whenever they can.
A few of my friends are fans of Ron Paul. They think his wacky theories about the Federal Reserve explain why the economy is so screwed up, and think that with a "truly free market" things would get better. His opposition to the wars, and strong support of civil liberties are also selling points for many people.
I disagree with all of that, and would never ever vote for a republican. But they could run on a platform based on those things, and would be able to attract tons of young voters.
I think libertarian republicans are very dangerous for this reason. The "family values" types aren't going to attract many young voters. But the libertarians could easily steal Generation Y from the Democratic Party. I'll explain this point more thoroughly in a minute.
What are the political attitudes of millennials?
They are very liberal. Much more so than any other generation. The subtitle of this poll is "A Pro-Government, Socially Liberal Generation".
From the article about the Pew poll:
While the Republican Party picked up support from Millennials during 2009, this age group continues to favor the Democratic Party more than do other generations. And the underlying political values of this new generation continue to be significantly more liberal than those of other generations on many measures.
And another quote from a USA Today story:
The virtues of simple living now coming into vogue especially strike a chord with Millennials, whom pollster John Zogby describes as more socially conscious, environmentally aware and demanding as consumers than previous generations.
I think this is mostly because we have liberal morals. Fairness, compassion, freedom and equality are more important to us than tradition and conformity. I'm not sure why. Maybe because the morals are based more on humanism, rather than religion. We are much less religious than previous generations.
Did you notice how the person interviewed by the NY Times said he isn't paying much attention to politics lately? Most young people don't pay attention. But they have these liberal morals, and Obama tapped into that.
This ignorance is both a good thing and a bad thing for Democrats. It makes them blank slates, sort of. They are not set in a certain way of thinking like older people are. They can be influenced easily by liberal ideas. I was. But on the other hand, they are also susceptible to right-wing ideas. Especially about the economy.
That is one thing that I haven't mentioned so far. Millenials don't have strong views about businesses and the economy. They are not really right-wing or left-wing when it comes to economic policies.
On other important dimensions, however, such as attitudes and values about business and about the social safety net, young people today are not particularly distinctive.
This is the danger of libertarians. They are socially liberal, but economically conservative. That combination could be very appealing to young voters.
Libertarians like Ron Paul give young people a false explanation of why they are suffering in this economy. It can seem very convincing if you haven't heard another explanation. In my experience, the only good counter to their "free market" ideas are Keynesian and Marxist theories. The economy isn't broken because of taxes and regulation. It is broken because overly powerful capitalists and corporations have redistributed the wealth upwards, and this has led to low demand in the economy. If people can't afford to buy things, businesses and the overall economy suffer.
But the Democrats never say that. There is a battle going on for the minds of young voters, and there is only one side fighting. The Democrats don't even try to fight against the right-wing economic philosophy. It seems like they have adopted it. That is why people like Rubin and Summers are so influential in the party.
What can Democrats do to make young people enthusiastic again?
Since the troubles of young voters are mainly related to the economy, the Democrats have to focus on that. Being socially progressive is good, but they need to be economically progressive too.
The Democrats have to provide real explanations for why young people are suffering, and real solutions to these problems I've outlined. They need to learn how to say the c-word, class. They need to start paying attention to the problems affecting the people who live outside their beltway bubble. That is how they can make young voters into enthusiastic supporters of the Democratic Party again.
I know this is hard to do with Republicans blocking everything, but the Democrats don't have much of a choice. If they want young people to vote for them, they have to do something to help solve these problems.
I know they have done some things, like reformed the student loan system, and extended the age you can be on your parents insurance, but I'm not sure if those things are noticeable enough to get them votes. I think they need to make some more wide-reaching reforms. For example:
Student loan forgiveness. They could forgive all student loan debts. Or they could let people get rid of them in bankruptcy. Or they could set the interest rates on all student loans at 0%. It's a shame that people have to start out their lives in debt. Other countries give free college to all citizens.
Medicare for the young. As I pointed out above, young people are the most uninsured group of all. This would not be expensive at all to implement, because young people are generally healthy, and most don't have serious health problems.
WPA style employment programs. This is such a good idea, I don't know how anyone could ever be against it. It helps people pay the bills, makes them feel useful, and helps the USA all at the same time.
A payroll tax cut. If we removed the rule that says only the first $100,000 is taxed, the tax rate itself could be reduced by many percentage points. This would help the average person, wouldn't make social security any less solvent, and would make the tax system more progressive, all at once.
Democratic socialist policies in general. Anything that might increase the pay of the average worker would be a good thing. How about mandatory profit sharing, and converting businesses to co-ops?
I know what you are thinking. These ideas are completely unrealistic. You are probably right. It's virtually impossible to pass them through Congress at this point. Blue Dogs and Republicans make sure of that.
But I think if they did even one of them, they could bring back the enthusiasm of young voters. I think it would be a good use of their efforts to do any of these things. It is well worth the trouble.
But they are not doing anything like that. That's why they are losing support.
Conclusion
Young voters are a powerful force that could be harnessed by the Democrats. They deserve a lot of credit for bringing the Democrats to power in 2006 and 2008. These voters are only going to get more powerful in the future.
The Democrats have a choice here.
They can continue being mediocre, continue being the party of compassionate conservatives, and suffer electorally for it. Or they can act like Democrats, and with the help of young voters, make the republicans into a powerless, irrelevant minority.
I hope they make the right choice.
Update: A lot of the comments have asked questions like this:
Really, what didn't he or the Dems do that they COULD have done? Not what you WANTED them to do, we know those things. What was POSSIBLE that they didn't do?
I'm not mad that they haven't changed everything. I know that the Republicans and Blue Dogs block everything good. The problem is that it doesn't seem like they are trying as hard as they could.
For example, imagine that they introduced a bill that would put interest rates on all student loans at zero percent. Now, the Republicans would obviously block this. But the Democrats could do this in response. They could say to young voters that Republicans are blocking this bill, and that if young people want some relief from these student loans, they have to vote against Republicans in 2010. Why don't they ever do things like that?