As the presidential campaign heats up, the topic of voter tendencies has come to the forefront. Several recent articles have focused, in particular, on the voting habits of those 18-25 years old. As a former high school social studies teacher, this is of great interest to me.
I always started my classes by explaining what I hoped to accomplish during that particular semester, and tried to also show the students the value to them of attaining these goals. This concept of setting goals was particularly true in my Contemporary World Problems class, which was made up of high school seniors. If I were to be confined to one primary goal, I would seek to enlighten these young people sufficiently so that they would be prepared to make good leadership choices within our government, at the local, state and national level.
The voting record of those in the 18-25 group is, in a word, abysmal. It has never been very good, but is currently at a very low level. The pundits, in writing of this trend, have seemed to seek an excuse for this youthful apathy.
The most prevalent of these excuses is that the candidates do not "spark enthusiasm" in the young voter.
This makes me think of my opening-day remarks to my CWP students. Why is it so important that you vote? Why is it so important that you become a well-informed citizen so your vote will have substance? The answer, in a nutshell, is "you had better, because the future is all about you!"
Our leaders make crucial decisions involving military action. Who goes to war? Take a look at the average age of the U.S. soldier in Vietnam … barely over 19 years of age. The modern military has adjusted these figures somewhat, but the military is still a young person’s venue, for the most part. Decisions involving military deployment hit both young men and young women especially hard, including their spouses and loved ones.
How about jobs? When a leader at any level makes decisions that impact employment negatively, who gets hurt the most? Does the old saying "last hired, first fired" ring a bell? High unemployment rates and downsizing affect everyone, but the young, entry-level worker is hardest hit.
High interest rates are often the result of decisions made on the national level, seriously affecting major purchases like homes and property. Young people starting out in life are clearly the most impacted by these high rates, being stalled in their entrance into home ownership.
Environmental decisions are really crucial to the young. As I used to say, "Mr. Burns will be long gone 20 years from now when this environmental decision brings us to the brink of disaster … where will you, my 18-year-old friends, be?"
The list can go on and on. Transportation non-decisions, health care, Social Security, alternative energy sources, all of these are issues that the baby boomers will probably weather. For the next generations the situation could really be a crapshoot.
I can relate to the frustration felt by young people when they consider the candidates before us. We are often reduced to choosing the lesser of two evils, and throwing up our hands in disgust at the antics of the candidates is an easy call. This is, however, a bad call. We must look deeply into the candidates and find the one who is most likely to meet our needs.
Schools, and especially social studies teachers, must work hard to engender this concept in our young people. I used to give extra credit to students who registered to vote. Our school provided voter registration on site. These methods and others can make this age group grow as a political force. A surprisingly low number of Americans eligible to register actually do so. Of those, often fewer than 60 percent of them vote. By the time we elect a president, that candidate has often been voted in by less than 25 percent of the electorate.
Imagine the power young people could wield if they stepped up to the voting booth en masse!
No group is impacted as significantly by the decisions made by our leaders as the 18-25 age group. It is tragic that these young people take such a small part in choosing these leaders, and that we look for excuses as to why, rather than finding ways to encourage greater involvement.
Freelance writer Bruce W. Burns, a retired teacher and coach, lives in Marysville.
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