A poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Democracy Corps, surveying us folks in the 18-29 age group, show that 50-60% of us believe the Democrats are better on any given issue than the Republicans. It’s a portrait of a generation that grew up under conservative rule – and by witnessing its effects and costs firsthand, has utterly rejected it.
But in the first traditional media article on this quite significant poll, Carla Marinucci tells a rather odd story about this. To her, the only story here is that young voters dislike the Republican Party. Which we do, no doubt about it. But her article is filled with quotes from Republicans young and old about why we’ve abandoned them.
Nowhere does she ask the more obvious question: why are we so strongly identifying with Democrats? If it was just alienation from Republicans why don’t we become apathetic? Why aren’t we identifying as independents?
I’ve got more to say, but before the flip, I want to cut to the chase: we have a lot of people here age 18-29. In the comments, do what Marinucci refused to do: explain why you don’t just reject the Republicans, but also why you so strongly embrace the Democrats. Why are you a proud Democrat?
Some examples of Marinucci’s rather odd framing of these poll results:
Young Americans have become so profoundly alienated from Republican ideals…The startling collapse of GOP support among young voters…The anti-GOP shift for this generation…
The only Democrat quoted is our old buddy Garry South, who has this to say:
Schwarzenegger’s success at the polls won’t translate to other Republican candidates.
South pointed toward the recent state budget battle, which pitted Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislators against conservative GOP senators who delayed the $145 billion budget for almost two months to pressure for more cuts and protections for businesses against environmental lawsuits.
The demands of the state senators, South said, were so far to the right of the average voter that “the Republican brand in California now is so tainted and toxic that the only way you’re going to win is to buy yourself out of the brand.”
Here, South is absolutely right about the suicide pact that is the California Senate Republican caucus. But wouldn’t it have made sense to give readers some other sense of why we young folks are flocking to the Democrats? Couldn’t Marinucci have spoken to some young Democrats as well as young Republicans, young conservatives?
Consider it a kind of political migration. Demographers and historians have long understood that in any migration, there are two factors that must be explained if you are to understand that migration: push factors, and pull factors. Marinucci explains the push factor, but has nothing at all to say of the pull factor. In framing the story as she does, she misses a chance to educate her readers about what is actually behind this phenomenon.
The number of young voters is rising, both in raw numbers as well as our percentage turnout. And we’re voting for Democrats, in large numbers. If Marinucci really does believe this could have an effect on electoral politics for “generations to come” then shouldn’t she explain why we are embracing the Democrats?
I’m 28 years old, still in the age group this study showed had turned so far left. Why do I vote for Democrats? Why do I favor them on the issues? Why do I believe they are better for California and America than the Republicans?
I did not always support the Democrats. Although I abandoned my youthful, immature conservatism in high school, when I first registered to vote in 1997 I registered as a Green. I was an active campaigner for Ralph Nader in 2000, believing the Democrats to be too close to the Republicans on most major isuses.
When I moved to Washington State in 2001 I learned that one does not declare a party affiliation at registration. Which suited me fine, I considered myself a left-wing independent, still alienated from the Democrats, although I still rejected the Republicans utterly.
But when I returned to California in June, I did indeed register as a Democrat. What changed?
While I still find myself in passionate – and sometimes bitter – disagreement with the actions of elected Democrats, I believe they represent my own values far more than any Republican ever can or will.
Republicans have destroyed California, I’ve seen it happen over the course of my life. They call themselves a political party but are in truth little more than a protection racket for a minority of residents: white suburban homeowners over the age of 40. Although not all in that group are Republican – many in fact are Dems – it is that group that Republican policies and rhetoric are designed to aid. (Even if, in fact, those white suburban homeowners don’t benefit from Republican government – the only consistent beneficiaries are the wealthy, and large businesses).
Republicans have destroyed our infrastructure, our schools, our health care system, our public services. Their zealotry on tax cuts has saddled us young folks with huge loan debts and yet their tax cuts have also failed to create jobs or earning power for us, as a California Budget Project study revealed last week. And they insist on attacking us, or our friends. When we see attacks on gays or on Latinos or on African Americans, we see not scapegoating of outsiders, but vicious assaults on ourselves, or on people we have always been close to.
But we don’t just reject the policies that have screwed us younger folks. We actively embrace the Democrats. In stark contrast to the Republicans, the Dems offer actual solutions. These solutions aren’t always good enough – but it’s the promise that the Democrats can be convinced to embrace our agenda, the belief that the old Democratic Party of the mid-20th century – liberals of the New Deal – can be reborn.
Many of us young people lack health care, or find that what coverage we do have leaves our wallets empty. Democrats, led by Senator Sheila Kuehl, offer us a single-payer universal health care program. Dems fight for more funding for schools, so that we can get an affordable education. They fight for more infrastructure projects, especially mass transit, so we can get around safely, without having to rely on a car (thus saving us money). Led by Rep. Hilda Solis, they want to create green jobs, so that all of us can have a better economic future in the 21st century.
And Democrats embrace us. They aren’t a protection racket for well-off middle-aged white folks, the Dems instead welcome and support young voters, and their rich diversity.
It is because we believe the Democrats can offer us a better future that we embrace them. All the Republicans have to offer is a continuous extension of the 20th century, a model that has failed for most Californians. But as I’ve argued, it’s not just that we reject Republicanism. We embrace the Democrats. And as long as Carla Marinucci refuses to recognize that fact, the changing nature of California and American politics will escape her.