Revitalizing American Democracy - The Youth Vote
June 22, 2021
By Robert Brown, Mansfield Center Senior Fellow, Politics & Public Affairs
Ambassador Mike Mansfield was a military veteran before he was a Montana Senator. In fact, his life-long trademark was his Marine Corps lapel pin. That deep connection was no doubt powerfully on his mind when, during the Vietnam War, he was an outspoken advocate for lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. For Mansfield, “If you are old enough to fight you are old enough to vote,” was far more than just a slogan. It was the way to right a wrong, and to legitimize the protest against a war that Mansfield felt was “the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”
To the sad surprise of Mansfield and many others of the time, the enormous crowds of war protesters didn't’t portend enormous participation in the 1972 election by the newly enfranchised voters. In fact, only an estimated 55% of 18, 19, and 20-year-olds actually voted. The anti-war candidate George McGovern lost 49 states to “war hawk” Richard Nixon, demonstrating that Nixon certainly got his share of the new voters.
In succeeding years, the lowest age cohort of voters has consistently trailed the older age groups in weighing in on Election Day. In 2016 only 39% of 18-29-year-old voters voted. In 2020, however, carefully courted by Democratic strategists, the youth vote finally cracked 50%, up 11% from four years before.
If this upturn does portend a trend, it may have historic implications for our history.
The trending events of today are as concerning as they have been going back at least to the rise of Hitler and the Great Depression of the 1930s. The existence of FDR’s proclaimed freedoms of speech and worship, and from want and fear, were far from certain. But then there came the “Greatest Generation.”
The arrival of rescuers of the future is not unique in history. Rome survived numerous crises before it couldn't’t rise again. The preservation instinct is perhaps the most powerful one, and the fact that history has proceeded through countless cycles is lasting proof that what we call civilization carries on, and almost always more for the better than the worse.
Now our era of Americans is confronted by the potentially existential challenges of climate, an inescapable national debt, renewed conflicts between nations, conflict over guns, and an upheaval in social structures as manifested in racial conflicts.
Those in my baby boomer generation inherited what our parents and grandparents passed on to us, consumed and depleted this inheritance, and are leaving life with bigger challenges for the next generation to solve.
Will our progeny survive us with the four freedoms we were gifted still in place?
If past is prologue, there is good hope that they will, and they will because the young have already shown us that they can make it happen. The Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics reports that Millennials and Gen Z (essentially those under 40) will soon emerge as the largest voting bloc.
The Harvard Youth Poll (Spring 2021) of 18-29 year olds found “despite the state of our politics, hope for America among young people is rising dramatically . . . . “ “As more young Americans are likely to be politically engaged than they were a decade ago, they … favor progressive policies, and have faith in their fellow Americans.” The positive attitude these young people have is in vivid contrast to the “this world is going to hell” attitude far more typical of their elders who are the ones most responsible for creating the problems in the first place.
Positivism creates confidence and is the key to problem solving.
So, fellow oldsters, the best thing we can do now is the only thing our ages will allow us to do -- stand back and give the kids a chance. Things will have to be different. Thoughts “out of the box” will cast new light. And new times may be brighter than our mess-maker generation could ever imagine.