Young Voters Want Benefits, Not Catchwords

Commentary

On Nov. 7, the White House issued a proclamation in honor of Anti-Communism Week, reminding Americans of the bloody record of “one of history’s most destructive ideologies.” One sentence in the statement explains why such a proclamation was necessary: “New voices now repeat old lies, cloaking them in the language of ‘social justice’ and ‘democratic socialism.’”

It is clear from recent elections that many Americans are listening to those voices.

I mean primarily young voters, the ones who lined up strongly behind then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008, Bernie Sanders in 2016, and New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani a few months ago. Each figure urged the expansion of state control over ever-larger parts of the economy and public affairs in one way or another. Those efforts had a common goal: protection of citizens from the rigors and uncertainties of free markets.

My generation can’t understand the headlong admiration. Even my liberal peers are wary of grand designs of state power, though they tend to keep their criticisms soft. We’ve seen enough experiments in social engineering—from forced busing of K–12 students and price freezes in the ’70s to diversity, equity, and inclusion pressures on businesses and boondoggles such as the California bullet train in recent years—to maintain a skeptical eye.

We wonder how young Americans can flock to leaders who push pie-in-the-sky policies such as the Green New Deal, which, according to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, would by law “decarbonize the entire nation’s public housing stock” in 10 years. In 2020, Sanders pushed for Medicare-for-all, national rent control, and free tuition at public colleges and universities, and the young applauded while the elders said to themselves, “It’ll never happen.” President Joe Biden canceled more than a million student loans, and Mamdani promised city-owned grocery stores and “fast, free fare buses,” and my son’s friends lined up accordingly.

Of course, common sense says that a free service isn’t free—it’s just paid by someone else. But to the inexperienced youth, more taxes on the rich to pay for services for the poor sounds too good not to be true. It doesn’t bother him that demands for equity (that is, for equal outcomes, not equal opportunity) might end up punishing people who’ve succeeded by hard work and sacrifice, because too many of his friends have worked hard and not succeeded.

My generation remembers the millions who died under Stalin and Mao, but theirs doesn’t. In fact, because the cellphone has made them the center of the social universe, they don’t know much about anything beyond their own lives—little history, politics, civics, social science, arts, and literature fill their heads. (Scores on civics and U.S. history tests consistently prove this dismaying point.) For 18- to 29-year-olds, the Berlin Wall is as distant as Hadrian’s Wall. That socialism has been tried many times and found impracticable doesn’t sway them. Ideology isn’t their thing, nor is political philosophy. They liked the socialist proposal for another reason.

An event involving Mamdani during the Democratic primary in New York City illustrates why the candidate took the youth vote by three-to-one. It was one of those quasi-debates in which the nine candidates assembled to face the moderators. Because the first visit by a new mayor of the city to a foreign country “is always considered significant,” the host asked, “Where would you go first?”

Candidate 1 replied, “the Holy Land.” Andrew Cuomo agreed, as did the next candidate, who said he would add Ukraine to his itinerary, as both countries are nobly fighting the “global war on terror.” Then it was Mamdani’s turn.

“I would stay in New York City,” he stated. “My plans are to address New Yorkers across the five boroughs and focus on that.”

This was an astute reply. I’ll bet many young New Yorkers groaned at the first answer and cheered for Mamdani’s. The others tried to pin him to an anti-Israel position, but that concern went nowhere. The average 25-year-old heard the very question itself as a problem. Who the heck cares about a junket by the mayor across the ocean—what about us?! We pile into a two-bedroom apartment because rent is so high, an ordinary meal in a restaurant runs $60, and we’re supposed to care about our mayor glad-handing abroad?

The episode set Mamdani apart, just as the pledges of other socialist-oriented candidates drew youth enthusiasm previously. Young voters are uninterested in global affairs and ideological battles. Those issues strike them as abstract and irrelevant. I remember the speech John McCain gave at the 2008 Republican convention, much of which recounted his experience in Vietnam. I found it inspiring, the best moment in an otherwise lackluster pursuit of the White House. But Gen Z voters don’t want to hear life stories or debate ideologies. If the election of a socialist means a lower monthly premium for health care, that’s great.

This is a reality that veterans of political combat find hard to understand. Talk of free markets and free speech, limited government and lower taxes, are just catchwords to young voters. Socialists are concrete and specific. If conservatives don’t speak the same way, the midterms are going to be a solid rebuke.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.