“The beginning of every government starts with the education of our youth.” – Pythagoras
The Great Depression was undeniably an era of extraordinary political innovation. Much of it was expressed in the reforms enacted by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and his administration. FDR attempted to cope with the problems of poverty, unemployment, and the disintegration of the American economy. It brought more people to the Democratic Party than at any time in history.
It was a time when many Americans flirted with Marxist movements and ideas, and the notion that socialism was better than capitalism. Since the economy leveled the playing field, many of those with adequate resourses took all they could get from government, which prolonged the Depression. It brought America decades of cultural, social, economic chaos as well as political ferment.
The Great Depression changed America forever since it gave birth to an underclass society as people grew more dependent on government and less on capitalism for their basic survival.
Just as FDR grew the Democratic Party with handouts and expanding government, Democrats have been following suit since the Depression. By giving low-income and identity groups handouts instead of hand-ups, they have had reliable Democratic voters for years. With a track record like this, many Democratic strategists are still wondering how they lost the last election.
In past years, voters under 30 have proven essential for Democrats. Minimal shifts in support did not decide elections. This was a group Kamala Harris hoped would be her winning coalition this year. But the Democrats miscalculated her snake oil salesman charisma and her campaign went belly up.
We finally found out Gen Z and Millennials aren’t so special after all. They’re not the generation of new progressives to continue America’s move to the far left. Between GOP nominee Donald Trump’s win on Election Day and the ever-growing list of youths joining his MAGA movement, Democrats are realizing as Gen Z and the Millennials get older, they can’t pay bills on promises.
Since 2008, winning Democratic candidates have received at least 60% support from young voters. According to early exit polls, Harris did not meet that threshold, getting only 49%. That was a sign this election was not business as usual. The left knew they’d have to work harder to win this one.
If you keep breaking promises to those you depend on for votes, it will catch up to you. When you promise them a chicken in every pot and all they get is snail soup, you are on borrowed time. This is especially true if you mismanaged the economy every year your party has been in office.
According to economist Jed Kolko, the politics in America’s counties changed. Rural areas moved right, and conservative cities got substantially redder between 2020 and 2024. He said movers wanted to get better aligned with their politics, which made rural areas much more conservative.
According to The Associated Press, “just over 50% of young voters voted for Trump, up from a third in 2020.” They reported the top 10 counties to where Americans aged 25 to 44 moved due to the economy and voted for Trump. All of those top rural counties have under 250,000 residents.
Kolko noted that Kamala Harris’ margins among Gen Z and Millennials shrunk by around 30% from 2024 to 2020. CNN exit polling data shows that age, jobs and social status, not just politics, drove much of this switching of party affiliation this election. For example, Trump took every swing state.
After years of Trump hammering home his agenda, Harris had just over 100 days to present an alternative option, and it’s clear young Americans didn’t buy into it. The final youth-focused poll from the University of Chicago pointed to problems for Democrats. Nearly 62% of the voters under age 40 said they were voting for Donald Trump. And just under 37% committed to backing Harris.
John Della Volpe has been studying youth politics for more than two decades and previously worked for Biden’s 2020 campaign. He argued the election results point to disconnects in how Harris appealed to young people on the economy; most notably her solutions to rebuild it.
Volpe noted from the earliest focus groups he conducted this year, he had an innate sense that younger people expressed their personal finances would do better under Trump. There was much more enthusiasm expressed for a Trump administration than one under Kamala Harris.
Harris made protecting access to abortion a central part of her campaign. This galvanized young voters in past elections. But this election, those views were overshadowed by four years of total mismanagement of the economy that hurt young voters in their pocket books and in the job market.
Although Harris had a student-organizing program and a large social media presence that her handlers used to connect with young Americans, no matter what she did she could not divorce her politics from those of the equally unpopular Joe Biden. This proved fatal as Election Day got closer.
According to the Associated Press, voters under 30 overwhelmingly said the economy and jobs were the most salient issue that influenced their vote, with abortion a distant third or fourth behind illegal immigration, inflation, cost of living, and global safety. They could not foresee another four years of woke politics dictating political, social, and economic policy, which ruined our economy.
Census data revealed this election is part of a trend with a significant number of Millennials and Gen Z voters who feel disconnected from the woke Democratic Party. These young Americans and the middle class continue to be disappointed with the identity and class politics of the Democrats.
Harris’ evangelical feel-good campaign was never sold by media since it was a repeat of liberal falsehoods America didn’t buy. Trying to convince America that avoiding facts and being nice to everybody would make them forget her four years of government mismanagement didn’t work.
This election proved that the structure of American politics is changing. As more voters become educated, they no longer will accept the spoils of woke politics. Following eight years of politics, the middle class and young Americans wanted change they could believe in and elected Trump. Four years under Trump, America’s youth prospered under his economy, which they will not forget.
”The message for America’s youth is this is a great country and we need to make sure we pass on a heritage, a lineage and a legacy of American exceptionalism to each and everyone, so you can enjoy all the great liberties and freedoms that all the previous generations had.” – Allen West
This article was originally published at www.thecentersquare.com
