Are young people unenthusiastic about politics?

No change = no support (0.00 / 0)

Jay, can't see why you're having a hard time figuring this one out.  The "change and hope" we were promised isn't happening.  Young people will now be FORCED to buy insurance under the theory that more people in the insurance pool will somehow bring costs for everyone down. Meanwhile, the Dems are going BACKWARD on women's rights with their Stupak amendment to ensure those young(er) people who may want to have an abortion cannot get one under their mandated insurance plans.  Great.  Obama radically escalates the Afghanistan War using Bush-era reasoning and platitudes while continuing the Bush-era policies of placing banks and Wall St. ahead of people.

Duh!  You can probably remember that Democrats USED to be known as the party of the people.  Well, you can only wait so long to see the real proof of that now that they are totally in charge of the nation and, after so many steps backward, you have to wonder when or if they'll ever take a step forward.  Still waiting.

And Bacino right about one thing for sure, it isn't just young people that are leaving the Demo/Obama bus in droves.  You wrote the post on the Independents and the enormous percentage of Democrats who are likely to NOT VOTE in the next election.

Betrayals, sell-outs, and phony "compromises" are the trade-mark of the Demos and Obama now, and it's so blatant that not even the excuse-makers and game theory people can cover it up any longer.  Bacino is a good guy whom I've known since he was a kid.  But he's got his work cut out for him and, as the old saying goes, "nothing wins like winning."  Until the Dems start winning (or passing) progressive policies, John has a hard sell in front of him if he's gonna try and convince people that Dems are the party of their future.  And that's really sad.

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by: ochenski @ Fri Dec 04, 2009 at 17:31:39 PM UTC

It's not the speed, but the direction that's wrong. (4.00 / 1)

The old "government moves slowly" pitch won't work when the campaign promises that brought Democrats higher than usual turnout in 2006 and 2008 have been ignored.  Voters young and old remember, politicians seem to forget.  Congressional corruption, lobbyists, wars, universal health care, privacy from government snooping,  renditions, national debt, corporate subsidies, bailouts, why continue?  It's all about performance.  Democrats are failing to deliver on their promises. Enthusiastic voters are empowered voters, not political roadkill.

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by: steve kelly @ Fri Dec 04, 2009 at 18:07:24 PM UTC

A different approach (0.00 / 0)

those with a radical perspective predicted each of these failures and each of these outcomes using an analysis that goes deeper than candidates or legislation. But being consistently correct seems to do nothing to persuade progressives to look seriously at these alternative analyses. From single-payer to EFCA to war to economic meltdown to_ insert here_ it is clear the problems are systemic, our politics, our "democracy" our civil society, media, cultural production, all are spectacles that an increasingly cynical, apathetic populace feels powerless to affect( rightly) through parliamentary means.

Our question is: at what point in climate change, at what point in militarism, at what point in the insane swings of a bubble economy, at what stage of degradation in the public discourse do progressives admit your opponent isn't conservatism but capitalism? Not corporations , not neoliberalism, but capitalism itself? Just curious.

Economic liberalism cannot be reconciled with political liberalism. Obama, a believer in Market ideology, assured all those young people it could be and now,once again ( think Clinton and NAFTA or welfare) it is proven to be a lie. This is why they are disaffected, cynical, retreating back into themselves.

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by: troutsky @ Fri Dec 04, 2009 at 18:26:41 PM UTC

Has "enthusiasm for politics waned'? (0.00 / 0)

Well, if you put the question that way, there is an easy answer. Yes.

But enthusiasm for politics ≠ enthusiasm for policy.

And I'd say that as our youth get a look at how ugly politics has become, they will lose interest in fighting the policy battles. Because in order to affect good policy, you have to wage the political battles.

And it seems that republicans are winning this round, as they have turned politics into an ugly and irrational battlefield that chases away young and potentially progressive policy advocates. And of course, they are doing it intentionally, much as they work to suppress the minority vote, as those young voters didn't turn out for them in recent elections.

Dems, on the other hand, are squandering their sought-after generation of new young dem voters by refusing to denounce republican and conservative political shenanigans, and have refused to live up to their progressive and/or populist campaign rhetoric.

I look to what appears to be a growing apathy among youth voters as a sign of our times: high unemployment; war; congressional inaction; stalled social movements. Why get involved when modern political progressivism has devolved into nothing more than a staunching of the bleeding in the movement? Where is the energy of the Civil Rights and Women's movement? The environmental movement's Wilderness, Clean Air and Endangered Species Acts?

The health care reform movement has been whittled down to one of how much we want to prop up and bribe the private health insurance industry into being a marginally better corporate overlord of our health security needs. Cap and trade is a non-starter, and will fall by the wayside as any kind of meaningful reform. Education & immigration? Nowhere to be seen.

Why get involved when "Change and Hope" are hollow platitudes more closely equated with "we're really not as bad as those other guys." Which really means that the status quo rules in D.C., and that takes the wind out of the sails of any budding movement politics among the youth. When the dem party is more in tune with bailing out Wall St. than in helping Main St.

If Afghanistan goes awry, and most likely it will if only due to crisis in Iran and Pakistan fueling wider unrest and war, look to the next decade to closely resemble the 60's, with a whole generation turning on the status quo, and "don't trust anyone over 30 (especially if they're a politician)" becomes retro.

But don't listen to me. I'm just feeling rather sour about politics right now. Watch the youth vote in the next election. And the margin by which Rehberg beats whatever dem opponent the party throws at him  in the off-year election will show how active young voters are in Montana, and the success of dem party leaders and youth outfits like FM to pull them to the left.

And then listen to the apologists and explainers try and spin the decline in youth enthusiasm, activism, and voting into something less than what it really is: total disaffection and disgust with the current political landscape.

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by: JC @ Fri Dec 04, 2009 at 18:46:38 PM UTC

Listen to yourself (0.00 / 0)

 Yes the status quo prevails. Now look deep and answer Why? The Dems stand for regulation and reform but where is the inspiration in that? They took part in dismantling the welfare state, crippling unions, waging imperialist wars, supporting tyrants and young people especially smell hypocrisy from a mile away. They yearn at this critical historical juncture for a utopian imaginary, they have heard that a new world is possible and know that politics aren't "ugly" , they are hollow.

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by: troutsky @ Fri Dec 04, 2009 at 20:55:58 PM UTC

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