WANT TO INCREASE YOUNG VOTER TURNOUT? ADD OPTIONS BEYOND TWO MAJOR PARTIES
Nearly 41 million Gen Zers will be eligible to vote when it comes time for a possible rematch between President Joe Biden, whose advanced age takes the term “elder statesman” to new extremes, and former President Donald Trump, an adjudicated fraudster who might just find himself behind bars for any of the 91 criminal counts pending against him.
Few political rivalries have ever been so unappealing yet consequential. If Trump wins, his schemes to fill the federal bureaucracy with cronies and deploy the military against his detractors, or “vermin” as he calls them, will threaten the future of democracy. Biden isn’t out for his political enemies, despite what right-wing media reports, but Americans have legitimate concerns about his fitness to lead.
As a 19-year-old college student, I’m proud to count myself among the 52 percent of Gen Zers who call themselves independents. Two-party politics have failed to give us the richness and variety that we should be seeing in our candidates. Generation Z is, after all, the least partisan generation of Americans in modern history and certainly the most diverse.
If one characteristic binds us Gen Zers together, it’s that we have come to expect choice in all aspects of life. Forget about three cable channels — we get our news from unlimited sources. That’s why we resent being forced to pick between two of the oldest candidates in history who have made little effort to connect with us.
Disillusioned as usual, about one-third of Gen Zers still haven’t decided who to vote for or if to vote at all in 2024. What we need is a system that reflects us. Looking to countries with the highest young voter turnout gives us a window into a fairer model for choosing national leaders.
Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands have two things in common: multiparty systems and a young voter turnout of more than 75 percent in recent years versus our 50 percent in the 2020 presidential election. That’s no coincidence. In countries with a wider array of candidates, young voters can search out leaders who prioritize issues that we care about.
How 2024’s front-runners have approached environmental policy is telling of how the twoparty system fails to fully acknowledge young voters’ top concerns.
On the one hand, there’s the Biden administration, which claims it’s taking steps to reverse the climate crisis but is pumping out more barrels of crude oil per day than at any point under Trump. On the other hand, Trump has called climate change a “make-believe problem.” At least Biden accepts the reality that humans are radically impacting the environment. But words are insufficient — we want decisive action.
Having more than two parties would also separate the loudmouths from the changemakers, forcing extremists out of the mainstream. Those in the Vivek Ramaswamy and Marjorie Taylor Greene camp belong in a league of their own where they can’t co-opt the GOP platform by peddling lies, as they have been pushing divisive conspiracy theories.
When did the party of Lincoln become a cult that wouldn’t accept the result of a fair election? The two-party system is clearly to blame for amplifying anti-democratic populists.
Most people are more openminded on the issues that matter than our national politics would suggest, especially as the digital age has bridged geographic divides. There are about as many independents as there are Democrats and Republicans combined, so a restructuring of our parties is long overdue.
We young voters want to see an electoral process where candidates who actually look and sound like America are weighed on their policies rather than their tribal adherence to bumpersticker slogans and baseless conspiracy theories.
The factionalism we’re seeing is splitting the nation apart. For goodness’ sake, we have in the speaker’s seat an election denier who doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state and a likely nominee for president who couldn’t care less about the peaceful transition of power or telling the truth.
Nearly half of Republicans want someone other than Trump, but the polls have him leading in another showdown against Biden. Two-party politics isn’t a question of who one supports — it’s about disliking the alternative more. Gen Z is fed up with that paradoxical logic. We realize that everyone should be able to vote for a candidate who they can get behind and who has a real shot at winning.
Two-party politics isn’t a question of who one supports — it’s about disliking the alternative more. That’s a problem.
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