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Gen Xs voting apathy

Gen Xs voting apathy When walking to any class on the University of Oregon campus I can almost promise that you will be asked to sign some petition, support some group, or register to vote in your current county. In fact, the University of Oregon campus makes political involvement look alive and well amongst Generation Xers. Does the U of O reflect what most of Generation X feel about American politics, or if you were to go to a different university would you see another side of Generation X’s political involvement? If political activism is alive in all of “Gen Xers” then why is it that during the 1992 elections, exit-poll data revealed that only 25 percent of people between the ages of 18-24 voted, the lowest voting rate of any age group. Unfortunately, most students could care less. This “I don’t care” attitude is rooted in the “I have my opinion, you have your opinion, and that’s all” principle that is so common among students. When truth is relative to your own tastes, there’s no reason to try to find the right policy that is objectively best for all of us. The first thing that pops into my mind when I think of Generation X is the omnipresent negative descriptions of Gen X as superficial, stupid, lazy, and amoral presented throughout the popular media (as documented by Howe and Strauss 1993; Holtz 1995; Rushkoff 1994). How do these descriptions of our “generation with a PR problem” (Howe an Strauss 1993: 9) impact our individual experiences and how do our experiences/interactions with these ideas about Gen X help form social/political rules, roles, and structures? As someone born in 1979, I can’t help but consider, when reading about Generation X, whether or not these descriptions, evaluations and statistics about my generation resemble my experiences and those of my peers. In situating myself in terms of these analyses I cannot simply accept or reject this label. Even if I completely distance myself from, for instance, the slacker ethic, the utter materialism, or political apathy associated with Gen X, my interactions with others—and as a result my identity—are shaped by the assumptions others may make about me because of my status as a member of this cohort. The truth remains that our generation’s political apathy hurts us all. When an entire age group fails to exercise its political power by not voting, politicians will take note and ignore issues that affect us. In 1997 not a single one of the eleven states that called their citizens to the polls managed to get a majority vote. The best turnout occurred right here in Oregon, when the heated campaign debate had taken place on the question of whether to repeal the state’s “right to die” law. The worst turn out last year was a shockingly low five- percent, for a special election in Texas (The Atlantic Monthly; December 1997). Turnout is now greatly related to experience in life. Turnout rates have always been lowest among young people; perhaps this is why there was relatively little opposition in the early 1970s to lowering the voting age to eighteen. But not even the most pessimistic analysts could have foreseen the record-low participation rates of Generation X, as shown in the following census findings on the age turnout (The Atlantic Monthly; November 1998): After looking at this graph, it’s no surprise to me that in the 1994 congressional election turnout was 37 percent. As the statistics are usually presented, this rate averages from 10 to 40 points lower than in the democratic nations of Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Commonwealth (Ranney1998; 64) The low turnout among young voters today is paradoxical given that they are one of the best-educated generations in American history. Even those who have made it to college are expressing remarkably little concern for politics (Ray, Axtell, and Mickelson 1993). The class of 2001 recently set a new record for political apathy among college freshmen: only 27 percent said that keeping up with politics was an important priority for them, as opposed to 58 percent of the class of 1970, with whom some of our parents attended college. Of course, the class of 2001 has not seen government encroach on their lives as it did on the lives of their parents—through the Vietnam War and the draft. Nor has any policy affected them as directly as Medicare has affected their grandparents. It is noteworthy that senior citizens are actually voting at a higher rate today than when Medicare was first starting up. A salient factor in analyzing the shifts of education and motivation is the drop in the value of education. Ray and Mickleson (1993) found that often high school dropouts make more money than those who have completed high school, that, depressing as it may seem “possibly non-college bound students do make the connection between a high school diploma and job opportunities and what they frequently observe fails to encourage them to be disciplined or motivated in school or at work”(11). These examples are only a few among many that could be cited. Another question would be: what are the connections between Gen Xers individualism and lack of social integration and the huge amounts of individual responsibility placed on them at a young age as demographic patters shift and create latch-key children, more and more children of divorced parents, and more emphasis on beginning work at a younger age? These transformations of family structure, the economy and education have transformed social structure but also have very personal effects on individual’s quality of life, social and political beliefs and career opportunities and personal identity. Are Gen Xers really as selfish and self centered as many of the previous generations see us as? Or could Gen Xers just be giving up on a lot of important factors of life? I sense a lot of the “nothing I can do will help” attitude showing up in the lifestyles of so many in my generation. I believe that the majority of Generation Xers feel this need to be believed in. When we don’t receive the “kudos” that we feel we deserve than we have a tendency to follow exactly what is expected of us. In short, if no one believes in Generation X, then the 20-somethings would rather not participate or be a part of whatever it is that makes them feel inadequate. I am forced to wonder whether all Generation X needs is a true cause that effects them directly to force them out of political apathy into political activism. Where many of Gen Xers look to causes such as the environment or student rights to excite them politically, I think that if there was a situation that would effect all social groups of Generation X then we would see a higher level of political interest. It’s hard to persuade people who have channel surfed all their lives that politics really does matter. Generation X is the first in the age of television to grow up with narrowcasting rather than broadcasting. “When CBS, NBC, and ABC dominated the airwaves, their blanket coverage of presidential debates sometimes left little else to watch on TV. But as channels have proliferated, it has become much easier to avoid exposure to politics altogether. Whereas President Richard Nixon got an average rating of 50 for his televised addresses to the nation, President Clinton averaged only about 30 in his first term. Political conventions, which once received more TV coverage than the Summer Olympics, have been relegated to an hour per night and draw abysmal ratings. In sum, young people today have never known a time when most citizens paid attention to major political events. As a result, most of them have yet to get into the habit of voting.” (The Atlantic Monthly; October 1998) Some commentators welcome, rather than fear, the decline in turnout rates in America. If people do not vote, they say, citizens must be satisfied with the government. There is certain logic to this view, because if nonvoters were extremely disgruntled with our leaders, they would undoubtedly take some take some political action. However, to argue that nonvoters are content with government just because they aren’t actively opposing it stretches the logic too far. When the 1996 National Election Study asked people to rate their satisfaction with how democracy works in the United States, nonvoters were less positive than voters were. Furthermore, young people were more than twice as likely as senior citizens to be dissatisfied with American democracy. Why should young adults be satisfied with government, given how few benefits we receive from it in comparison with our grandparents? But until we start showing up in greater numbers at the polls, there will be little incentive for politicians to focus on programs that will help us. Why should politicians worry about nonvoters any more than the rap industry would target people like out grandparents? It is probably more than coincidental that Clinton’s two most visible policy failures—the 1993 economic-stimulus package and the 1994 effort to establish universal health care—had their strongest backing from people who were not even registered to vote. The political apathy amongst 20-somethings is truly sad. Maybe the boomers are correct in calling us superficial, stupid, lazy, and amoral. After all, it’s not long until this country will be solely in the hands of Generation Xers, and honestly I am afraid when that day comes. Would you hand over the future of a country to people who are on the whole more interested in watching MTV and playing Sega rather than taking time to vote or even educate themselves about the issues that are facing the country everyday? I wouldn’t. What would it take to get Generation X to the poles? If the largest excuse for not voting is no time then perhaps the best way to get Gen X to vote would be to declare Election Day a national holiday. Due to the resistance that would probably come about due to the cost of the whole procedure, maybe we should combine Election Day with Veterans’ Day. This would send a strong signal about the importance our country attaches to voting. Besides, what better way could there be to honor those who fought for democratic rights than for Americans to vote on what could perhaps become known as Veterans’ Democracy Day? Bibliography:

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