Dem
51
GOP
49
When a reporter for The Washington Post asked people at a Donald Trump rally about his plans to govern as a retribution-seeking authoritarian, some of them just brushed it off with "Trump being Trump." Some said his remark about being dictator for a day was a joke. Others said they would actually welcome a strongman who tramples democracy. This is what Liz Cheney referred to as "sleepwalking into dictatorship."
These reports are just anecdotes, but there are also polling data to show these views are not isolated exceptions. While three-quarters of Americans think democracy is the best system of government, one in five in Gen Z and millennials (ages 18-41) say that dictatorship could be good in certain circumstances.
This result is not new, but it is getting worse since the 1990s. Young people have always been less enthusiastic about democracy than older people, but the gap is bigger than ever now. Part of the explanation is that younger people did not live through World War II or the Cold War and do not understand what a real dictatorship is like. Instead they are experiencing perpetual gridlock where government can't do anything to improve their lives. They also observe that they can't get a good job or buy a home as easily as their parents. They also feel the government is powerless to deal with climate change and school shootings. If this form of government is useless and can't help them or solve any problems, then why keep it? Of course, when they fantasize about a dictator, they are envisioning a dictator who does what they want, not the opposite of what they want.
Exit polls in 2020 showed that Joe Biden beat Trump by 20 points among young voters. However, a new NBC poll shows young voters favoring Trump by 4 points. A new Siena College poll shows that the war in the Middle East is having a real toll on Biden's popularity. Among young voters, Trump leads Biden 49% to 43%. These are only two polls with small subsamples, but 4 years ago, Biden had strong double-digit leads over Trump among young voters. Even one poll like this is shocking. In one poll, 70% of voters under 35 disapproved of Biden's handling of the war.
The Biden campaign understands this and is trying to make it more concrete to younger voters by framing the issue as authoritarians trying to take away their rights, for example, the right to an abortion and the right to be safe from gun violence. What the Oct. 7 attack and Israeli response did is cause a huge fracture in the Democratic Party, something no other issue has done. Biden can't suddenly change his stance or it will anger many older voters. Hamas might be happy that Biden might get his ears pinned back as a result of his support for Israel, but it will surely not be happy with what might come next. Trump and Bibi Netanyahu are buddies and if Trump wins, Netanyahu will be completely unleashed and neither Hamas nor the young voters are going to like what they see.
NBC sent reporters out to interview young voters to see how they feel about Biden. Some of them said they would not vote for Biden due to his support for Israel. One 23-year-old man in Wisconsin said: "I genuinely could not live with myself if I voted for someone who's made the decisions that Biden has." The reporter did not ask him what he expected a president Trump to do about the Middle East. That might have been a good follow-up question, but it wasn't asked.
A 24-year-old woman in California said: "It's so complicated, because it almost feels like if I were to give my vote for Biden, I will be showing the Democratic Party that what they are putting out is enough, which is the bare minimum in my opinion." These people are viewing the election as an up-or-down vote of approval for Biden and the Democrats, rather than a choice between two alternatives. Older voters better understand the concept of picking the lesser of two evils rather than voting as a way to make a statement. Biden really needs to frame the election as a choice between two candidates, not a vote to approve/disapprove how he is doing his job.
A 25-year-old man in Colorado bemoaned the fact that Biden made big promises and didn't follow through. He said: "I mean, he could have codified Roe v. Wade, he could have stood up for the rights of people all over the country, he could have done a lot of things, but he didn't." In reality, of course, no president could have codified Roe v. Wade. Only Congress can do that and there wasn't even a majority among Democrats for that, let alone the entire Congress. But the young voter doesn't know that and he is going to punish Biden for it by voting for a third-party candidate.
While the economy is improving on all metrics economists use, a 26-year-old woman in Nevada said she didn't see it, "Not even a little bit, and I'm living it firsthand." Her family of five lives paycheck to paycheck. She is also planning to vote for a third-party candidate.
A number of young voters brought up Biden's promise to cancel student debt. In fact, he tried, but the Supreme Court ruled that he had no authority to do that, and Congress is not interested in doing it. Again, not all young voters follow the news enough to know that Biden did try and another branch of government said: "Nope." Biden has canceled student debt for a limited number of people, but not nearly as many as he promised. Again, young voters, especially those who don't follow the news, don't distinguish between politicians who promise something, actually try to do it, and get swatted down by one of the other branches and politicians who never even try to make good on their promises. (V)