comment #1

renorambler says ...

I see too much of this in my high school students as well. I often tell kids that voting is their ticket to complain but if they really want to do more they need to be demonstrating, writing letters to congress, getting involved with a campaign, whatever. It's hard not to get disheartened. I'm fearful that an overreliance on the "youth vote" will doom the Obama campaign. Past elections have seen lots of talk but little follow through from the younger set. I'd like to believe Obama really has inspired more activism amongst the youth but I'm a little cynical. Hope I'm wrong.

comment #2

Geoff says ...

This is why, as someone who is their age, I'm still sticking to my belief that Obama can't count on the youth vote. No one can.

I hope I'll be proven wrong.

comment #3

js1 says ...

Yeah, I'm a couple years older than them, but it's not that surprising. I don't think it matters much about where they're from. I remember getting into a heated argument (closer to me shouting at a blank slate) with one of my wife's college roommates in 2004 when she told me, a week prior to the election, that she threw out her absentee ballot because she didn't want to vote. People my age of all types will be just as bored about the process now.

And, Geoff, though I'm somewhat cynical, I hope you're proven wrong, too.

comment #4

lazespud says ...

Honestly Jeff, I wouldn't make too big of a deal of it. Kids always say stuff for a variety of reasons. They may be telling you the exact truth. They may have made a quiet compact to not talk politics to any reporter for fear of screwing up the publicity of the movie. They may have very specific opinions by don't want to share it with an "adult" for fear that someone might challenge their thoughts and they won't be able to defend them.

I found a lot of college students fall into two camps; fantastically, outwardly opinionated, and outward opinionless. The interesting thing is that often their outward stand is entirely unreflective of what they are thinking inside. Often its just a stance to mask either a deep ambivalence or a deep conviction.

And often the most overtly politically outspoken college students morph into quieter selves later on, and vice versa for the non-verbalizing students. I doubt these kids you talked to are particularly representative of any greater trends.

comment #5

breadlymoore says ...

"That's the Midwest for you. The politically active kids are all from the cities and the city suburbs. It's who they are. I would just let it go."

I cudda swore Indiana had a city or two. One of them could make L.A. its bitch if push comes to shove.

comment #6

Edward says ...

seems like Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri have some big cities too.

comment #7

gruver1 says ...

Wells to edward, breadly moore: My friend's point is that these kids are from Warsaw, Indiana. Not a big city. Lacking big-city urbanity. Not even a suburb. Small townish, northern Indiana, Grover's Corners.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw,_Indiana

comment #8

Jack Price says ...

The problem is much bigger than youth apathy.

This post reminded me of an anecdote Matt Taibbi shared for the AV Club a while ago.

AVC: Behar was talking about some US Magazine cover where they explore Michelle Obama's relationship with her husband. It's even called something like "Why Barack Loves Her." And Behar was saying, "Well, not everyone reads The New York Times or watches the news, so this might be the only way they get to know about the Obamas." Are we that hopeless?

Matt Taibbi: Oh, man. That's terrifying. I'm out there on the campaign trail all the time talking to people who are going to vote in this election. I was talking to this woman in Louisiana last week, and she's standing at a McCain rally, she's actually there supporting the candidate in person, and I say, "What is it about Barack Obama that you don't like?" She turns to her friend and says, "What was that thing about his wife? That anti-American thing?" The other one says, "I don't know. Which thing do you mean?" And she's like, "That thing, where she's anti-American." And the other one is like, "Oh, I don't know. I don't know what you mean." And so she says to me, "Well, I heard this thing about her being anti-American." That was as specific as she could be about why she didn't like Barack Obama, because she heard a thing somewhere about his wife. People are voting on the basis of shit like that. [Laughs.] How we're not back in the Stone Age already with this situation, the way it's going, is beyond me.

comment #9

broadstreetbully says ...

Ironically, Ambrose Bierce grew up in Warsaw.

comment #10

broadstreetbully says ...

It's also common practice for supporters of conservative and/or Republican politicians (especially younger, more timid ones, and especially those from small towns) to keep shtum when asked about their political preferences by a big-city journalist.

They probably really don't have any interest, but the above happens often.

comment #11

chappiesan says ...

Sadly, it's probably a side-effect of growing up in a small town like that. Having spent some time in homey little dead-ends in southeast Minnesota, I can say that a lot of them are nice, clean, orderly, and they certainly don't give you a sense of the problems facing the world. There's no immigration onslaught, poverty is limited or pushed out of sight, the middle clas family still exists and there are enough food and resources to go around. So, you just go about your business.

And for teens, focused on college, who don't pay for their own gas, or visit large cities and see the negatives of reaganomics, or yet witness friends go off to fight a war and get killed, they might not have formed the necessary fervor to get really excited about voting.

comment #12

JHRussell says ...

Jeff, when you were their age, were you totally locked in on the presidential election in July, pre-conventions?

I was a political junkie as a kid, but even I did not pay much attention to the campaigns until the conventions...ask these kids again in October, after the first debate, if they have a candidate...they may still give an empty vapid response, but July is too early to pass damning judgment...

I do think that there is a ton of apathy out there among the young people that Obama is counting on to push him over the top in November, and I think he may be sorely disappointed...older people vote in droves...young people have the attention span of a fruit fly...

comment #13

ryanv says ...

there's so much else being thrown at young people thanks to our ridiculously overmarketed, sliced up into demographics society that it's amazing there's the level of involvement this year that there is.

Seriously, how can politics compete with the pressures of being 21? Small town, big city, Midwest, East Coast, you're constantly being told to buy this and that, have fun with this or that, get laid, etc. there's only so much time and energy available for something like politics that for young people especially seems so far out of reach, never directly touching their lives.

they'll go up to be the adults who votes irregularly. remember, an astronomical turnout in this country is 60%.

Like being black, poor, working class, the socio-economic system has disenfranchised you. No money=no power=a big fuck you from the US of A...unless you want to join the Army.

comment #14

Chase Kahn says ...

Okay, Im 20, just like these kids, and I can't say I know enough about the election TO vote. I would just be voting on a general hunch or perception. I'd rather leave it up to people who follow the thing.

In my opinion, the campaigning is just politicians saying what they WANT you to hear, not necessarily what they believe in.

I'm more interested in the OSCAR campaign than the presidential campaign, it's just the way I am. I wasn't raised in a politcally active family and politcs just give me tired-head...

comment #15

Woods7 says ...

"That's the Midwest for you. The politically active kids are all from the cities and the city suburbs. It's who they are. I would just let it go."



I grew up in Northern Indiana in a city larger the Warsaw called Elkhart, IN. I think blaming the midwest for these kids apathy is a cop-out. I am very politically aware and I know more kids from the Bay Area that don't care about politics then kids from the mid-west.



It is our culture, our media culture to be specific. The media does such a horrible job covering the current president, votes in the house and senate and the presidential race it is no wonder young people tune out. I get upset when people tell me they don't care or when I force my friends (from California) to register for their first time at the age of 28 or 30. I remind them about the people all over the world that would die for the right to vote in their country.



It is sad - I agree. Blaming it on the mid-west is an easy way out of the larger problem.



Just for the record Warsaw is only 2 hours outside of Chicago.

comment #16

Howlingman says ...

Jeff, come on ... you've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.

comment #17

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Chase Kahn: You just wrote you "[don't] know enough about the election to vote." I'm sorry, dude, but that's not reflective of the potential of the human brain pan as I know it. I mean, you're not even coming from the level of shitkickers who voted for Bush in '00 and '04 because they felt he was a better guy to have a beer with than Gore or Kerry. Even low information voters can look at Obama making those two shots on the basketball court in Kuwait and say, "Hey, I'm gonna vote for that guy because he shoots good hoops!" That's a very primitive way of deciding a Presidential preference, but at least that person is talking about voting. You aren't. You're throwing up your hands and saying it's too hard to figure things out, and that you'd rather not vote based on "a general hunch or perception" and that you'd "rather leave it up to people who follow the thing." I don't know which is worse -- the low-information boobs or guys like yourself. I'm thinking the boobs have an edge because at least they're intending to vote.

comment #18

Midwest Doug says ...

Your vote does not count. Except in the most extraordinary, Costnerian circumstances, your vote won't matter... to the outcome of the election. But where the vote should matter is to you, the voter. What the AT kids say is true -- politics is a game, votes don't count, etc. But it's cynicism passing for wisdom.

At some point, hopefully, they'll realize that you have to speak up, do your part, say your piece, whatever. And if you don't vote, the world doesn't care, but you will.

Chase Kahn, your vote doesn't have to be 'right' -- it just has to be you.

A question for Jeff: would you be happier if they said something along the lines of "I don't know much, but it seems like Obama doesn't have America's best interests at heart, so I'm voting for McCain". Based on this post, I think you would, rather than not voting/following the election at all.

comment #19

T. S. Idiot says ...

A friend who taught freshman English at LSU told me about how in 1980 he offered as a topic whether Reagan should run for reelection, and a girl wrote that Dutch was a much better president than those democrats Carter, Ford, and Nixon. When my friend pointed out that two of these three were republicans, she replied, "I live in my own little world." Since that brief burst of political activity in the 60s, American youth has been immune to politics.

comment #20

Howlingman says ...

No, your vote does not count -- what does count is that you got off your ass, marched yourself over to the polling station and cast your ballot. What counts is that you're informed about shit that matters and at least make the attempt to do something about it. I don't think people are naturally stupid, but if we devoted the same brainpower to the things that matter than the shit that doesn't (movies, TV, gossip, sports) maybe we'd have a system that looked out for our best interests, rather than the interests of those running it.

comment #21

D.Z. says ...

Let's face it. If those kids had to actually work for a living, instead of getting some quick cash for a shoot, then they'd care. But they got a break, so they have no reason to care.