The Tragedy Of The American Youth

Americans love to vote: we vote on reality shows, we vote on new fast food items and new flavors of chips. Come to think of it, the only thing we don’t vote on is politics. Compared to the rest of the democratic world, Americans are put to shame with most European and Latin American countries having higher voter turnout rates.

This is especially true of the youth including my generation. We constantly complain about injustice in politics and not having a true political say, yet when it comes down to it, we don’t even use our constitutional right to vote. What good is it to complain when we don’t even seek remedy through our democratic system. Some might blame lobbyists and say things such as “our votes don’t count so it doesn’t matter,” but if all 60 million of America’s youth vote then they would make up the biggest demographic in the country, all of whom could unite to combat relevant issues in our lives.

To make matters worse, politicians are well aware that the youth do not vote so they don’t focus on youth issues such as education because it would be an incredible waste of their time and campaign funds. Instead they focus on social security and other issues that would receive the attention of individuals who actually turn up on election day. It has turned into a viscous cycle in which we don’t vote because the politicians don’t care and the politicians don’t care because we don’t vote.

While I feel both parties are to blame, I do also understand youth frustration. We are constantly being put down by older generations such as being too tech savvy or not interpersonal enough. We are looked at as lazy and ignorant of how the country works yet are expected to vote intelligently; doing this may require educating ourselves with higher education which would ultimately lead to heavy amounts of debt. It is a thin sheet of ice we tread on with every social issue we bring up cracking it ever so slightly.

Yet amidst all the confusion and struggle we endure; there is still hope. With the 2016 presidential election here, we can finally show older generations we actually do have a voice, that we do have opinions on social issues and that we are willing to work to progress this country in the right direction. The bottom line is the United States in 30 years will not be the older generation’s country, it will be the present youth’s and if we want it to be in an image we can be satisfied with, then we must vote.