Young people don’t vote. Democrats don’t vote in midterm years.
Curtail your outrage. It’s true; don’t deny it.
Historically speaking, Democrats and kids alike love to get red-faced and shouty about ethics and the future of the country, but when election day rolls around, they prefer not to stand in long, tedious lines that are so not Instagram friendly. These are two well-established facts that typically conspire to allow America’s conservatives a few years of breathing room in between major campaign competitions.
Unfortunately for Republicans in America, the 2018 midterm elections could prove the exception to those rules. For the first time in nearly half a century, the nation’s young people are mobilizing, and their collective destination is the voting booth.
That could spell trouble for the GOP; the 2018 midterm elections are starting to look less like red vs. blue and more like old vs. young.
In order to make this whole endeavor palatable for both the geriatric and the numbers-averse, and since this isn’t school and you don’t need to do homework, I’m going to break up the monotony with some images everyone can appreciate: children getting hit or falling down.
Because these little morons are the next generation, we’ll all come together to ridicule and dismiss one day.
A Look at the Numbers
According to a new survey from MTV, the nation’s youth are pretty disappointed with American politics. Seventy percent of Americans under 34 believe that American politics are widely dysfunctional. Less than 20 percent of that same demographic believe that dysfunction can be healed in the short-term future.
via GIPHY
Rather than respond to the desolate political landscape with apathy, the youth of America are using their anger as jet fuel. In the same poll, an overwhelming majority of the youth of America believed themselves capable of creating a better country. Of those respondents, 63 percent stated that voting in the 2018 midterm elections was crucial to the future of the country. Even more troubling for conservatives, less than 20 percent of young people are willing to vote for a lifelong politician.
Specifically, the youth of the United States are reluctant to vote for an elderly, white politician who is a celebrity. Lord only knows where they developed that bias.
Why Are Young People So Pissed Off Again?
You don’t have to be an active participant in American politics to know the chief slogan behind Donald Trump’s 2016 run: Make America Great Again. The implication being that we, as a nation, need to rewind to a time where things were sunnier, more hopeful, and average Americans could go about their daily lives without having to worry about the entire planet speeding right off a cliff.
That plan sounded hunky dory for a majority of voters 45 and older, who remember being young and carefree back when America was the bomb dropping bombs. Meanwhile, those US citizens under 30 only have bullet-riddled history textbooks as a frame of reference to this time when America was supposedly so great. America’s young are forced to contend not with fond memories of a gilded past, but with the harsh realities they confront on a daily basis.
In a nutshell, that reality goes a little something like this: there’s no chance of success as an adult unless you get a college education, but tuition fees are skyrocketing to the point that four years in any institution will saddle students with decades of debt. If you want to a private college, you’re looking at a lifetime of loan payments. It’s just too bad that the salaries for entry-level jobs are growing slower than ever before. Add to your college debt, the crippling costs of health care and rising home prices, and it’s more challenging than ever before for young people to achieve the same level of success as their parents.
Hell, what’s the point of working hard, anyway, when there’s no guarantee there will be enough money to help support them in old age. Besides, the planet is slowly turning into a boiled-up husk, anyway.
And all that is being a young person on standard difficulty. Factor in the hurdles that women and minorities face and spice things up with the possibility that someone is going to bring a gun to school because they have easy access to guns and an undiagnosed mental problem and you’re getting closer to the world as seen through the eyes of a 20-something in the United States.
Less Griping, More Voting
Let’s be honest, we’ve seen this outrage before. Every time a Republican is about to enter their second term, the youth of America set out to rock the vote or some such thing. There are concerts and comedy sketches, and everyone is excited to participate … until it comes time to actually vote. Then, bupkis.
Leading into the 2018 midterm elections, however, things look different. In Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and other swing states around the country, voters under 25 made up thirty percent or more of new voter registrants. Those numbers appeared to be picking up steam, as well. Of those voters, the vast majority tended to be Democrat or unaffiliated voters.
The message is clear: America’s youth are tired of being led around by a group of people who prefer to ignore the growing issues facing the nation in favor of pretending everything’s just rosy. Now all the youth of America need to do is maintain the momentum for another few months.
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