Dear Disillusioned Young Voter,
I hear you and all the others who 'stayed home' on Election Day 2014; I really do. The Democrats have been disappointing to nearly every one of us who voted them in, and watching them being unable to enact any of the policies that the majority of us want to see implemented has been pretty frustrating. Getting upset about all of this is not unreasonable, but handing over the government to the Republicans is quite frankly the stupidest way possible to respond. It's kind of like calling the police because you hear someone breaking into your house, then getting upset that the officers arrived too slowly so you send them away, then let the burglar take all your stuff and beat you up. Hell, you might as well shoot your own dog and then torch your own house just for good measure.
A recent open letter from one of you to the Democrats posits that Democrats didn't communicate how they'd help out young folks enough--didn't show how they'd do things that 'mattered' to the younger generation-- and that Dems can't expect people to vote for the 'lesser of two evils' (good God I am so tired of that trite, meaningless, overused phrase!). People that spout this nonsense haven't really taken a good look at the 'greater evil' in this case, but they need to get their heads out of the sand and take a good long look, because now the Republicans are going to give you all another taste of just how the GOP policies and priorities are going to affect the lives of the millennial generation. Apparently, the disasters of the Iraq War and the economic collapse of 2008 weren’t enough to demonstrate just how badly the GOP screws over the average American whenever they are given the power to do so, even though I hear a whole lot of millennials complaining about the lack of jobs and soaring debt that those debacles created for you. Are you really incapable of making the connection between GOP control of our government in the early 2000’s and the problems you’re facing right now?
And now, thanks to Republican victories in 2014, your generation is going to be facing a whole raft of new and even worse problems. Take Social Security, for example. You tell us how young voters don't care about that, and I remember what it was like to be in my 20's, so I know that it seems like a boring old person's issue...you probably shrug it off and think ‘oh, what does it matter, I’ll never collect anything from that program anyway because it’s going bankrupt’ [Hint: It’s not, and any impending shortfalls in the program could be fixed by getting rid of the taxable income cap--something the Republicans will never do; and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you really ought to do some research]. But guess what, young folks...the GOP's publicly stated policy goal around Social Security is to kill the program--privatize it and turn it into something like today's 401k programs. These are the same types of programs which are currently projected to leave the vast majority of younger boomers and pretty much all of Gen X without enough money to support ourselves in old age. (Most of us were about your age back when Regan and the GOP foisted those Wall Street “make the bankers richer” schemes off on our generation in place of defined benefit pensions. We thought it didn’t matter because it didn’t ‘affect our daily lives’, too.)
But, you know what the Republican drive to end Social Security means for all you disillusioned millennials? Not just that you also will have no guaranteed retirement income (although that’s certainly bad enough), but neither will your parents. So, when you are my age…paying a mortgage, raising kids, and maybe trying to save enough money to help those kids through college if you’re very fortunate...now you're going to have to support your parents, too. Or make the choice to let them go hungry, or to die a decade or two earlier than they otherwise might have because they aren’t able to afford medications, or even to stand by while they get evicted from their homes. Then you’ll have to decide whether to have them to come live with you or to put them out on the streets. Because the GOP that you allowed to be elected back in the 2010's killed the programs that would have kept your parents living independently into old age. And as far as the GOP is concerned, that’s your problem—they and their donors will have already pocketed all the billions they bled out of the system by privatization and they won’t give a shit about how that affects you and your family. Do you really think that this won’t affect your daily life?
And, while you consider that, you should also consider the Republican plans for another not-so-sexy old people’s program—Medicare. Because the Medicare insurance program is another one that Republicans have hated for 50 years and now have squarely in their sights since you all have given them an overwhelming majority in the House and control of the Senate. Recall the Ryan Budget which the Republican House voted for overwhelmingly just a few years ago and which was only stopped because Democrats controlled the Senate & White House? You might recall that that budget killed Medicare for everyone under the age of 55 in this country and 'replaced' it with a laughable voucher program to buy private health insurance policies. Never mind that the vast majority of people over the age of 65 (the Medicare eligibility age) couldn’t buy a private insurance policy for any amount of money because the private insurers wouldn’t cover them. And those few who could qualify for a plan would need to pay many times more than the amount of money supplied by the Ryan vouchers. And that's just for the premiums, not the actual co-payments, co-insurance, prescription costs, and non-covered expenses that go along with private insurance programs.
But wait, you might say, (if you’re paying attention to all these boring policy details about old folks’ issues), wait a minute: insurance companies can no longer refuse to sell insurance to old people or exclude all their ‘pre-existing’ conditions from coverage, or charge them exorbitant premiums. That’s illegal now, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, so maybe this whole Ryan voucher thing might not be so bad. Oh, but wait, what’s the very first thing we can expect out of our new Republican Congress? Repeal of the Affordable Care Act, of course. They say that they're going to replace it with something even better, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. So, just to be clear here, the people that you put in charge of our government fully intend to end the Medicare program while simultaneously repealing the law which might make it possible for older Americans to actually buy some kind of replacement insurance. They are serious about this, they really are. It’s all part of their party platform and they don’t just talk about it and pay it lip service, they have already passed laws which would do all of this and which were only stopped by the Democrats in the Senate. Republicans are now set to pass those very same laws, with no way for the Democrats in Congress to stop them. Sure, President Obama can veto full repeal for now, but the Republicans will do all they can to irretrievably damage the viability of the ACA and set the stage for full repeal....just in time for your parents to be deprived of their Medicare insurance and have no other options.
Once again, young people, if the GOP that you put into control of Congress has their way, this will be the legal system under which you will live the rest of your lives. The end of Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act will not only affect you someday—even though being 65 and needing a lot of healthcare services may seem too distant for you to worry about right now—it will be affecting your parents in the very near future. So, just as you are entering your prime earnings years and trying to set yourselves up for this ‘no support from the government’ retirement that you ‘not-voted’ for last week, you’re going to be faced with the choice of paying for Mom & Dad’s healthcare or just sitting back and letting them die. Do you really think that’s not something that will be relevant to your lives? Or are you just really not able to see what’s coming? Because the Republicans haven’t given up on any of their horrible ideas, and you just handed them near-complete control of your government because the Democrats ‘looked pitiful’ and ‘didn’t seem to stand for anything.’
In fact, if you had taken the time to look past the corporate media echo chamber and pay attention to the barely-mentioned ‘wonk’ stuff that actually went on in your government these past four years, the Democrats stand for a whole lot and have been working against unprecedented obstructionist tactics to try to enact policies that will make your lives better, right now and in the future. That they have been largely unable to do so is a direct result of all the Democratic voters who, like yourselves this year, decided to stay home in 2010. If you were old enough to vote in 2010 and didn’t, then you have only to look in the mirror to find the person responsible for making sure that the things you wanted done—like student loan debt reform—didn’t happen. And if you didn’t vote this year, don’t blame the Democrats for the tsunami of bad laws and policies that are coming your way courtesy of the Republican Party. It’s true that not all of those terrible policies will affect you immediately, but they will have profound and lasting impacts on the rest of your lives . . . . and the lives of your children and grandchildren. Just like climate change, a political disaster that happens slowly over time is no less of a disaster than one which has immediate effects. In fact, it’s often much, much worse.
Meanwhile, all those other issues that you say that you wanted the Democrats to focus on, things like student loan debt reform and climate change and drug policy and minimum wage, what will happen with those issues under the new Congress? The Republicans that you put in charge in order to teach Democrats not to ‘take you for granted’—those Republicans won’t just do nothing on these issues, they will actively work to make things worse. Mitch McConnell has publically stated that his goals as majority leader in the Senate will include doing things like removing regulations that keep our air and water clean and our food safe to eat. Did you think that he didn’t really mean to do that? Because he does, and you’ve pretty much given him everything he needs to accomplish it. In the House, we have a large part of the majority caucus that wants to abolish the minimum wage altogether, who want to outlaw abortion and restrict birth control for women, and who plan to ‘reform’ the tax code by making sure that the corporations and the uber-wealthy pay less while you all pay for more and more.
Maybe you think that Republicans aren’t serious about any of this, or that President Obama’s veto pen will keep all the things that YOU take for granted safe? I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you. Because, you see, the Democrats have a long and unfortunate history of taking the wrong lesson from these ‘teach them all a lesson’ mid-term elections (or from losses in Presidential years, for that matter). They tend to think that they lost, not because you didn’t hear their message or see their efforts to enact all the policies you wanted (most of which were blocked by Republicans in recent years as outlined here), but because younger voters just don’t care about those issues or because the issues aren’t popular enough to motivate voters. All they see from you is that you don’t care enough to get out and vote; you don’t seem to mind all the awful policy proposals that the Republicans stick to so steadfastly, so you allow the GOP to take control of the levers of government and to rig the system in their favor for the foreseeable future (gerrymandering out of the 2010 election and ongoing voter suppression laws). Then you punish the Democrats for not being able to do the things that you want them to do.
It should be no surprise then (with the floods of dark money and corporate influence that the SCOTUS has allowed to swamp our government), that the Democrats are already talking about ‘compromise’ around ‘entitlement reform’ and ‘tax reform’ and the Keystone XL pipeline. Why should they fight for preserving the New Deal programs for you when you can’t be bothered to vote for them? Why shouldn’t the Dems cave in on the Keystone pipeline and provide access to the world’s most polluting source of carbon energy when you apparently don’t think that’s important enough to get out and vote for? You say you care about climate change, but then you sit back and allow Republicans to control the government, even though they’ve told you outright that they will do everything in their power to make climate change impacts as bad as they can possibly get. And you gave them a green light because they had “a unified message” and could “communicate it in a confident way.” Oh, thank goodness….we’ll be listening to a unified and confident message from the thugs who plan to kill the planet and rob us blind while they’re doing it!
Meanwhile, the message that the Democrats got from the 2014 midterm is that people want them to ‘work with’ the Republicans. And, perhaps even more ominously, the message that the Republicans got in 2014 is that no matter how extreme they are, no matter how much they behave alternately like crazed vandals tearing down the institutions of our society and toddlers throwing a temper tantrum…they will face no electoral consequences at all. Because all those ‘disillusioned’ Democratic-leaning voters will once again stay home and turn the country over to the destructive 20% who think the real problems we face in this country have to do with welfare queens and letting gays out of the closet. Think about that . . . . and then think about what the Republican agenda for this country really is. Because when the Republicans say they are ‘willing to find common ground’ what they mean is that they are now in a position to browbeat Democrats into adopting Republican policies. And they are in that position thanks to all of you who stayed home last week. The solution to getting better policies out of Washington has never been, and will never be, electing Republicans. It is in electing more and better Democrats, getting involved in local and state politics as well as national ones, and constantly pushing the party into doing the things that we want them to do. If the Obama presidency has demonstrated nothing else to you, it should have driven home the point that politics is an endless struggle, not a 'victory' you can win with one or two elections, then sit back and enjoy the spoils. You win nothing by pouting and refusing to participate, but this year, you may have just lost everything.
As long as the Democrats are caught in this cycle of mid-term election drubbings, they will remain ineffectual and unable to do more than slow down the Republican juggernaut of economic and civic disaster. If current trends continue, they won’t be able to do even that for much longer, and most of our elected officials look ready to give up the fight altogether. Unfortunately for you, Disillusioned Young Voter, it looks more and more and more like my generation and yours will be the generations that reap all the pain and suffering that is being sowed today. It appears that only by actually allowing the Republicans to have their way and devastate this country to a greater extent than they managed even during the Great Depression, will the American voting public possibly be motivated to take an interest in governance again. I sure hope your children and my grandchildren can recover and build something worthwhile out of the wreckage, because I for one am losing hope that we can avert the catastrophe.