Letters to the Editor: Gen Z didn’t vote for centrism. It voted against Republicans and Democrats alike
Tuesday
AUGUST 17, 2014 at 8:15 PM
“You may be right, but where is your polling evidence? Maybe they’re just in general like you said.”
The poll by Pew Research Center shows that Gen Z is not only anti-ideological, but actually more likely to identify as conservative than those aged 35-49, those aged 18-29, those who identify as liberal, and non-white Americans.
My point is that these people are still in the same phase as those who voted for Obama in 2008. They don’t identify as Democrats or Republicans, they identify with neither political party.
They are in that phase during which those older than 30, those who are white, and those not in the top 10 percent of the income distribution can’t vote.
But they won’t vote for Democrats for the same reasons that Gen Y, Gen Z, Gen X, and other older generations that rejected the Democrats in the past did. They will never vote for Democrats, if they are told they can’t.
So, like Gen Y never voted for Democrats or Republicans, or never will, my best guess is that Gen Z never will vote for Democrats, either. Like Gen Y, Gen Z isn’t looking for their first political act, when they turn 18.
And like Gen Y, this Gen Z group that you so rudely put in the political box, Gen Z who can’t vote, will be for years and decades at least, a silent minority, in an increasingly divided country.
How ironic (and perhaps even sad) that the very same people who did not want to be part of the American political fray, and who wanted the country to be “postpartisan” are actually anti-system.
You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that the system and its outcomes are so bad — and getting more so by the day — that this particular group of Americans won’t be able to affect