According to new polling by right-wing political consultant Frank Luntz, Americans 18 to 26 are extremely liberal — so liberal that “the hostility of young Americans to the underpinnings of the American economy and the American government” should “frighten every business and political leader” and “excite activists for Sanders and, to a lesser degree, Clinton activists.”
Luntz’s poll found that young Americans are optimistic about both the country’s future and their own: 61 percent say the best days of the United States are still ahead of us rather than behind us, and 88 percent are somewhat, very, or extremely optimistic about their economic prospects. But they have concerns, too. Their biggest, in order, are “corruption,” “greed,” and “inequality.”
President Obama is not their favorite political figure — Bernie Sanders is. Indeed, 31 percent said Bernie Sanders is the major political figure they “like and respect the most” — more than Obama (18 percent) and Hillary Clinton (11 percent). Fewer young people like and respect Republican politicians, with just 9 percent choosing Donald Trump, 5 percent George W. Bush, and 5 percent Ted Cruz. Bill Clinton has been nearly forgotten, with only 3 percent choosing him. Elizabeth Warren also has low visibility, chosen by just 2 percent. All in all, 66 percent of young Americans chose a Democratic political figure.
Admiration of Sanders is especially strong among the younger half of respondents, with 40 percent of 18- to 21-year-olds saying he’s the political figure they most like and respect.
Source: LuntzGlobal, February 11-14, 2016
They aren’t nationalistic: 58 percent of respondents said they agreed more with the statement “America isn’t better or worse than most other countries” than with “America is exceptional. It’s better than every other country in the world.” In fact, 35 percent of 18- to 26-year-olds, including 42 percent of 18- to 21-year-olds, said they considered themselves more a citizen of the world than of the U.S.
In response to the question, “Which type of political system do you think is the most compassionate?”, 58 percent said socialism and 9 percent said communism. Just 33 percent chose capitalism. Sixty-six percent of the poll’s respondents said corporate America “embodies everything that is wrong about America.”
Source: LuntzGlobal, February 11-14, 2016
The poll, conducted February 11 to 14, surveyed 1,000 18- to 26-year-olds. In the introduction to his polling memo, Luntz dubs young Americans “the Snapchat Generation,” which indicates that he is very, very old.
…because they’re more educated, more marginalized from upward class mobility due to Conservative/neoliberal policy agendas that have increased wealth inequality…and they have been raised in an age of internet information freedom…
I completely agree Cathie! Well put.
They’ll wise up. Then another crop of dips will take their places.
Yeppers! Even loony leftard college profs are getting scared at the stupidity of their “students.”
Editor Alert:- I arrived here thro a link to a tweet of Greenwald, and now find that this article, posted two hours ago, is MIA or at least gone AWOL from the ‘front page’ of The Intercept, at least in my part of the world. Shame. Do rectify pronto.
I find it depressing that Green Part presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein was apparently overlooked in the poll, in the article, and in the comments below. In recent interviews with Amy Goodman (@ Democracy Now), with Chris Hedges (@ Truthdig & Baltimore’s Real News) and with George Galloway (@ Sputnik on rt.com), Stein has shown herself altogether honorable, principled and articulate; and her program dovetails beautifully with that of Sanders. A POTUS/VP dream-team: Bernie Sanders & Jill Stein.
capitalism is fundamentally flawed, we are a far more ignorant species,without a proper education, than we realize, motivated by the basest of instincts, hate greed, fear, religionThe growth of human population in the last 50 years has created the dystopian nightmare already in asia and africa . Provided science continues to STORM forward and we can really .. REALLY educate our youth, within a system that promotes ALL youth to excel , not just 7 percent or so that exists now to prop up our very fubar economic model , we should be fine.. Right now the world is a gigantic mess for the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants. THat aint the star trek world I grew up thinking should be our future..
Didn’t the SnapChat generation get its start five million years ago in a London subway station?
I believe that should Elizabeth Warren come out backing Mr. Sanders, her own trajectory would swiftly swing upward. Not only would she garner more respect from the young people across the nation, but her projects within Congress would take on new light, new power, a great enthusiastic support from these young people. If she comes out backing HRC, she is going to lose what credibility she has gained in the past. The swell of support for Bernie Sanders is not about his being a guy. It is about ethics. It is about Policy. It is about loyalty to the working class. I hope Elizabeth does not underestimate the need to act.
Right on, Debra! Right on! Would it not be great to see her running as VP under Bernie Sanders when he wins the Presidential race?
But for her acceptance of the freebie trip to Israel she undertook a while back, intended by Bibi & Co. to indoctrinate and induce in her an unconditional love for Israel, I’m all for Elizabeth Warren, but would so much prefer to see Sanders invite Jill Stein as his running mate — and that she’d accept. Both are principled and competent persons, and their respective programs are utterly congruent. Bernie’s embrace of Jill Stein would, overnight, render the whole feminine/inist [pro-Hillary] issue mute, and Sanders would h-u-g-e-l-y benefit from Green Party support — which, if I’m not mistaken, amounted to some million & a half votes in 2012. Of course, Dr. Jill is not a Democrat, and is deeply committed to a third party scenario in US politics. But then what’s to stop Bernie quitting the Democrat party when — by dint of their super-delegates — they seek to install Hillary instead, and standing as an Independent with Jill Stein as his prospective VP?
Yes, let’s hope she doesn’t end up regretting not supporting Sanders while there was still an opportunity to do it, before the rise of Trumpism.
“Luntz dubs young Americans “the Snapchat Generation,” which indicates that he is very, very old” LOL…
Great read, Jon! I emailed it to many professors at the University and to my family. I hope this trend continues and gets better as the future unfolds.
Well if you don’t like it here in Murrca you should just better leave.
We think young people are sick of campaign donations deciding the vote and they want to participate not be told who will lead.
There is hope for the future. The conservatives have hung themselves and their draconian regime is coughing up blood. I feel better facing the days to come with Enlightenment taking charge.
The country is doomed.
Only if people with your attitude are allowed to continue to exist.
only doomed for the greedy, the selfish and the conservatives….
Please move to your socialist paradise of Venezuela to see how you like having to stand in line for hours each day to get your food basics, only to find out once again that all of the “free” products are gone. Bernie is just another snake-oil salesman in the long line of socialist frauds.
Socialism didn’t cause Venezuela problems, corrupt weak politicians , the powerful violent drug gangs , crooked bankers etc , sound familiar.
Please move to Iraq and drop us a line on how George Bush’s Democracy plan is working out there.
the 99% united, we stand… but we’ve been spending 99% of our time working. the 1% may have been spending 99% of their time thinking of how to react…those ticking time bomb nuclear reactors which would probably be detonated by those who love war and winning at any cost… that’s one of many buttons in they’re arsenal…. I wish/pray there was a god to help us…
Agreed.
So proud of our kids!
Knowing they are ‘terrified’ makes me warm and tingly ALL OVER!!!! Feel the Bern and Fell the System!
It’s only “terrifying” to those who hold a worldview of self above all- me, mine and “those people over there.”
Three words: student loan debt. The right doesn’t have an answer for it.
Also, “I attended a public university, am in debt up to my eyeballs, and am taking orders at Mickey D’s or working in a daycare center that pays minimum wage.” Lack of jobs.
I’ve got an answer. The scam that is higher education. The universities and the student loan organizations are in bed together. universities raise their costs and the student loan organizations continue to loan the money. And since the left destroys the job market, there is no vehicle to pay the loan back because there are no good paying jobs for graduates. just the way the leaf likes it so they will have to be dependent on the government and that is how the left gets elected. Out of desperation.
The left destroys the economy? The economy was almost destroyed by Ronnie Reagan’s trickle-down economic policy, not the “left”.
Wrong, the government spends money and that create jobs. Big Businesses consolidate and fire workers and the send jobs over seas and all the profits don’t get spent but go into overseas banks or into the pockets of stock holders who invest in the short term that destabilizes markets and cause more job loss.
Why does the right or the left need to have an answer for it? It was your choice. You signed the loan papers.
Easy answer, hold their appropriations to 2% max increase per year so they have to make decisions on spending. College costs going up 7%+ per year. That means doubling in about 7 years. That’s unsustainable. But that’s OK, Bernie says it’s free. Socialism is totalitarianism with a human face. It wants to control everyone because it knows best for all.
It scares me that even 5% of young people would say they admire George W Bush.
This is not a surprise. The fact is the people of use the I to educate themselves and what’s going on in the world and to communicate with other countries. It’s hard to control the thoughts of individuals that are willing to pay attention to the corporate controlled media.
There may be hope. It is really tragic that Chomsky is so terrifying even to the “Establishment” Left that almost no one knows what he has been saying for decades. I’ve heard him on NPR maybe twice in the past 10 years, and each time the supposedly liberal host has become hysterical in response to his views.
I hope the young can discover him…. his writings are easy to find with work and will not ever disappear.
Pessimism of the intellect. Optimism of the will.
“each time the supposedly liberal host has become hysterical in response to [Chomsky’s] views.”
This sounds hilarious, please link examples for entertainment purposes.
I can only speak for myself and the peers I have in my life but ‘we’ have already discovered Chomsky. I think I admire him more than any other living person.
As a baby Boomer, I say Thank God for the Milennials. We might at last have a geberation that will save us all from Armageddon. The sad fat guy needs to get a life.
Agreed. Thank heaven for this hopeful, honest and thoughtful generation.
I’m 23 and I lean to the right, but damn, why does the republican party do it’s best to push me to the left. They only seem to care about protecting discriminatory policy, resisting any needed change, and shutting down the government like a toddler throwing a tantrum in a toystore.
I will most likely vote Bernie and if it’s Hilary vs. Trump then I don’t know whether to choose the snake in the grass or the raging bull. I guess at least the bull is easy to see coming…
take the snake. the koch brothers already own all the republicans in congress. if trump wins, that’ll give them control of all 3 branches of the federal government. unless democrats take back the senate, the republicans will be free to turn our country into a full fledged theological corporatocracy.
plus, millennials need to realize, the president is just one person and without a congress that will be willing to work with him or her, nothing will change. Also, in order for the revolution to work, they need to vote in every election. not just in presidential. young people stayed home in 2010 and that allowed the koch brothers to elect their puppets to the majority in the house and reducing dems majority in senate, killing obama’s chances of getting anything done. they stayed home again in 2014.
presidents come and go but congress can stay a lifetime.
Mike…you’ve hit the nail on the head.
Whoops…meant David…YOU’VE hit the nail on the head.
There is a serious need for a sane rightish party that represents economic conservatism, political pragmatism, and is socially liberal, or at least agnostic. There needs to be a right wing progressivism, like Teddy R or Eisenhower, not regressivism.
Key sentence – Today’s youth feel “the best days of the United States are still ahead of us rather than behind us.” Their lives have seen constant and significant change – landlines to cell phones; calculators to laptops to smart phones. It’s hard under this zeitgeist to NOT feel that the best is yet to come.
Those who DON’T know history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who know history are doomed to strive improve it.
Those maxims are why the youth of today are so optimistic – they have a good and balanced understanding of the bad, the good and the not-so good things that have occurred throughout America history. They Google and Bing! They verify and then trust.
They’re NOT jingoistic – they reject “My Country right or wrong” in favor of correcting the wrongs.
Bernie Sanders has been telling it like it is for several decades. He’s reliable and trustworthy – unlike every other candidate. His popularity is thus a naturally organic. phenomenon!
ps. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s stature among millennials can only improve as more of them “discover” her, just as they’ve discovered the BERN.
So much truth
Truth…except the Bing! part…nobody uses Bing????
Given the technology available today, much that was once scarce will be more freely available as robots come into production. The problems are more about distribution rather than manufacturing.
There are no really well thought out theories about how to form an economy in that situation. Some look at BIG, Basic Income Guarantee. Others call it NIT, Negative Income Tax.
We could be entering a severe, prolonged economic downturn. Which will cause a re-thinking of some of our basic economic views.
I agree there is an imminent and existential threat to some of the fundamental tenets of our global economic system- perhaps I am a bit more sanguine about the possible outcomes.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, a decade ago one might imagine that the continual upward creep of the cost of oil would provide the necessary economic incentive to return agricultural and some manufacturing to a more local scale and scope. However, with news that fuel is so cheap that ships are taking the long route around Africa instead of paying the Suez fees, it seems that might have been a bit optimistic.
A hope that I still maintain is coincidental to some market trends in the US, and that is a preference for craftsmanship and customization over price. Many of the local craftsmen were driven out of business starting as early as the Sears catalogue which provided bulk goods for cheap prices. The appetite for well-made bespoke goods (clothing, furniture, etc) still exists, but, up until recently, most of these craftsmen didn’t live in areas with a sufficient enough population to support their business. Etsy and other entries into marketplace style startups could provide a glimpse at the future that includes a return to craftsmanship as a viable profession and valuable addition to the economy.
Similarly, the return to labor intensive agricultural methods (and their accompanying value-added proportion) seems to promise, once again, that local ag industry is feasible and another avenue for employment.
Of course, many will complain that increasing the price of staple goods will act, effectively, as a regressive tax on the lowest earners in an economy. This might be the case in the short term (only the upper middle-class and above seem to care about eating organic- is that values difference or an economic decision?), but chance are that the effects will be net-positive in much the same way that increasing the minimum wages function. Somewhat counter-intuitive to prevailing neoliberal thoughts on the affects of the costs of staple goods on the poor, a properly structured economy would actually find those costs absorbed by the highest class at not the lowest.
It is clear that there is a need to formalize what we as civilized and empathetic humans consider a minimum basic standard of living. This isn’t new. Adam Smith proposed that the perfect distribution of labor capital involved providing an environment where 8 hours of work per day provided all the necessary means for survival, and allowed for 8 hours of leisure, and 8 hours of sleep.
By aggressively maintaining whatever metric we adopt, we can insure that inflation doesn’t hit the lowest and progressively affects the top-level capital gains distribution and doesn’t hit the people who are still selling their labor.
What this means or even what that looks like is a difficult proposition. Keynesian style thought would lead us to the “Brazil” or “The Castle” style dystopia where people are compelled to arrive at some civil service job designed expressly to occupy time with meaningless bureaucracy.
The real question remains: what do people do when there is no more work? The current system seems to point us directly back at some sort of feudal state- but there is no doubt that the bulk of people will resist this outcome. What will the result be?
I posted a story on my blog today of young Swedish liberals calling for the legalisation of incest and necrophilia (yes, it’s true!). These people clearly do not understand the difference between liberal and amoral.
I suspect university staff have a lot to do with inculcating the idea that there should be no boundaries to the instant gratification of impulses.
Unfortunalely without a common moral foundation we can no longer consider ourselves civilised.
http://edbutt.blogspot.com/2016/02/guess-which-political-grouping-wants-to.html
“Unfortunalely without a common moral foundation we can no longer consider ourselves civilised.”
We threw away a common moral foundation the moment we exempted ourselves from the Geneva Convention on torture, the moment we let corrupt bankers collapse a world economy and walk away with bonuses.
Focusing on something as fringe as ‘some Swedish liberals calling for the legalization of incest or necrophilia’ while ignoring the routine immorality of everyday corporate malfeasance, outrageous social inequity, and the laughable repetition of the lie of meritocracy is exactly WHY millennials find so very little to admire in mainstream politics.
You’ve cut yourself abominable swaths of slack. You’ve indulged and indulged to your own benefit for decades. You’ve paid lip-service to justice and equality and equal opportunity and done little but line your own nest with borrowed money that millennials will inherit as debt.
Your hysteria over a handful of liberal Swedes is a joke. You’ve shat in your own nest for years. Now it’s time to face the music.
Well put.
We seem to have forgotten that the economy is supposed to work for society and not the other way around.
It never ceases to amaze me how some folks can decry the erosion of the moral foundation of this country in one breath and then champion deregulated capitalism in the next.
We are willing to dump obscene amounts of money on the military-industrial-intelligence complex, institutions that wreck havoc around the world, moving from one foreign policy blunder to the next, and yet we can’t seem to afford things that would directly benefit our people at home. Like fixing our infrastructure, financing research and education, or perhaps a single payer health care system. Military spending is the biggest government handout there is and yet it remains politically untouchable.
Your post implies that The Liberal Party (SE: Liberalerna) has an ideological match-up with Sens. Sanders and Warren, when that is not the case at all. Your confusion most likely arises due to a common misunderstanding; you assumed that the term “liberal” represents the same political ideology in its European and North American contests, when in fact that could not be further from the truth.
In European politics, “liberal” refers to political parties which trace their ideological roots back to what’s known as “classical liberalism” – the Enlightenment-era political philosophy that emphasized individualism, representative democracy, and economic freedom; notable classical liberal philosophers include John Locke, Adam Smith, and Montesquieu.
Today, with their general support for lowered taxes limited government interference with the free-market capitalist economy, Europe’s liberal parties are generally closer ideologically to what is known in the United States as “libertarianism.”
One caveat, while American libertarianism is overwhelmingly economically right-wing, European liberal parties have a wider range of economic attitudes, and many occupy the political center and center-left.
The ideologies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are closer to what’s known as “social democracy,” the ideology most major European left/center-left parties fall under. Social democracy supports a large welfare state within a highly regulated economy, but a capitalist economy nonetheless.
Despite having identical names, both American and European liberal politics occupy distinct, but somewhat overlapping, segments of the overall political spectrum.
Thank you for this honest article. Very refreshing to read, as opposed to the “Youth Gone Crazy” articles. Respect to the author for leaving out bias!!
True in my two teenage household. I’m not a Bernie fan, though the tests say I agree with him as much as I agree with Hillary. I knew my kids would rebel in some way. Glad they didn’t go the other direction. Yet.
If those polling numbers hold true, then perhaps they are right to be optimistic about the future.
Modern liberalism is occupying the space where the Left should be, confusing and misleading people, steering people away from accurate perceptions and clouding their minds, preventing them from asking the right questions because they think they already have the answers. That is dead wood that needs clearing. If we are willing to kick over the beehive of modern liberalism you will see the true face and the true nature of the ruling class war against the people with crystal clarity. As it is, we can’t even see the enemy now. We are looking out the tent flap watching for the approach of those dreaded right wingers, and the enemy is behind us right in our own tent.
Now I recognize that many people here define themselves as “liberals” or “progressives” and therefore, may reject whatever came before… but it is still important to know what that was.
It is also true that “liberals” and “leftists” may find themselves allied on many issues or tactics and may well need each other under those circumstances.
Finally, it is true that “liberal” or “leftist” may refer to “political labels”, applied by “the right”, by others, or even by oneself, and have no particular relevance to the actual issues which divide “liberals” and “leftists”.
Nonetheless… historically, liberals and leftists are not merely different points in a common spectrum but, in the end, they are implacable enemies. And the issue is precisely joined on the issue of class, as has been mentioned before but now seems to have disappeared from the general lexicon.
If the term “left” has any meaning other than a purely relative one, it is as that group of political ideas, parties, movements, and organizations which believes that politics is driven less by ideas than by interests and that those interests are based on economic class. Radical republicans (Civil War variety), revolutionary democrats, social democrats (including even a sizable chunk of the British Labor Party and the German SDs of today), socialists, utopian socialists, agrarian socialists, communists, anarchists, anarco-syndicalists, and nihilists – if these do not agree on anything else, they agree on the centrality of social classes even before they divide on what to do about them.
In contrast, “Liberals” explicitly reject the centrality of social classes. If such exist at all, they are assumed to be trumped by a common interest (national or otherwise) and any division is based only on transitory political opinion or policy. They are united with “Conservatives” in their agreement on the fundamental norms of society and on their long-term objectives (most importantly in the defense of private property and the projection of “national interest”). Indeed, for them, the current organization of society is the only one conceivable.
To the Liberals, the Left is a competitor for the same political constituency they claim to represent. The Left fosters “national division” and “class hatred” where moderation and “cooler heads” might otherwise prevail. They are often hand-cuffed by the “extreme demands” and “lack of reform mindedness” of the Left. If things come to a head, they can even justify arresting the Left… in the interest of “the greater good”, of course (see Palmer, McCarthy, many more…).
The Left returns this attitude with interest… They regard the Liberals as the reform party of the ruling class. From this standpoint, the Liberals most assuredly need the Left. We are the monsters-beneath-the-bed that they invariably point to as a reason for the Conservatives to negotiate “reform”… “If you don’t deal with us you may have to tackle the great unwashed”. That is what “playing the class card” or “race card” means.
What exactly do we need the Liberals for? If there turns out to have been a misunderstanding of biblical prophesy and all Liberals are suddenly captured by the Rapture and disappear from the face of the earth how much worse off would we be? Would Rove suddenly be “turned loose” ‘cause Bernie was no longer there to protect us?
Aren’t you confusing “Neo-Liberalism” with Progressive Liberalism?
No “Liberals” that I know, including me, can be considered “united with Conservatives” on anything above environmental preservation.
I reject you notion that “Liberals explicitly reject the centrality of social classes.” you offer no example.
And the mere fact that “common interest (national or otherwise)” exists across the political spectrum is NO proof of like-mindedness.
Lastly, looking at the Republican Primaries to date, it is clear that THEY have far too little “agreement on the fundamental norms of society and on their long-term objectives”, whereas Progressive Liberalism does have much more cohesiveness in thoughts,deeds, actions and purpose.
Now if they will go out and vote.
the young Americans haven’t yet experienced dealing with the world, and they like Berni because he is promising every thing for free. Some body has to pay for it. in country’s that operate that way people pay 50% or more of there income in taxes.
He promises nothing for free. The inly tax increase he has proposed is about $4/month for people who make $50,000 to pay for all of their health care. This increase in tax is offset because you will no longer pay for health insurance premiums, dedctables, co-pays, or prescriptions. His “free” tuition is paid for by a tax on wall street speculation in return for them having borrowed trillions at 0.075% to save them and out economy from their illegal behavior which crashed the economy and stole our prosperous futures from us. Turn off fox news. Educate yourself at berniesanders.com.
http://youtu.be/7CXxdhlamg8
I don’t see the argument. Sanders never promised anything free without strongly imposing the fact that taxes will raise.
And the other countries you have mentioned, are comfortable with the balance of social democracy. Equal part capitalism and equal socialism. Most citizens in those countries can not fathom the road corporate capitalism in America has taken us to. With nothing to show for it but a battle to our rights, and not the corporate interest.
And just how much do you think its costing for the destruction of our country and the rest of the world?
And just how much do you think it’s costing for the destruction of our country and the rest of the world?
Great news !!! it;s time for a new season ! ‘Summer is coming’
“[M]ore young Americans declared that the “most pressing issue facing America today” is income inequality than anything else. Income inequality was followed by education — specifically its cost.”
Fools! The most pressing issue by far is global warming, as Sanders has said numerous times. Actually, it’s the environment in general, including global warming. Anyone who thinks otherwise can have fun eating, drinking, and breathing their money as humans continue to overpopulate and overconsume, thereby destroying the Earth.
That wasn’t part of the poll’s questionnaire.
I’m sure if it was an option, you would see some what of a percentage.
By the way, the one who started the poll and questions/options is a Republican.
I mention this because you look at the options and the results are overwhelmingly liberal/progressive.
It’s part of the same coin, fool. The only reason nothing gets done on climate change is because of the vast amounts of wealth people are raking in destroying the world. If people had an equal say to those who are stopping action on climate change then it would be addressed. Being myopic can obscure your vision of reality, Jeff. Also, over population is such a Malthusian bullshit argument. That’s a systemic and inequality issue as well that leads to more climate change. The world can handle 9 billion, but the distribution of wealth via the terrible system hurts the poor nations, means companies move there to pollute and exploit, and worsen both issues.
Okay, people, enough with the “fools” nonsense. Jeff, I agree. In fact, I found your post by searching the comments here for “Climate Change” and found Koreine’s reply to you. I searched because I was wondering why nobody praising Bernie here was mentioning this. But I agree with Koreine that it is wrapped up in ALL OF THIS that is resulting from the hegemony of the 1% and their complete disregard for any ill-effects of their relentless pursuit of ever greater wealth. A BIG piece of “inequality” is the outsized, unsustainable share of the earth’s resources our outsized appetites for “comfort” seem to require. It is unsustainable, and we have to learn a whole new way of living.
(Laughs in liberalism)
This terrifies me too…. And I’m a center-right 20 year old.
By today’s standards, liberal = anyone who isn’t a batshit crazy bloodthirsty racist.
Aye!
True.. or simply.. any sane person.
Exactly.
How did they run this poll? The email says it was run in association with snapchat. Is this an online poll? How many people? How were they chosen? Without this information, even though it stokes my confirmation bias, this poll is completely useless.
It’s linked in the article:
1,000 young Americans, aged 18 to 26 conducted February 11-14
Read the article! Did you read the articles?
It answers the how many people question, but all the rest are very important. Are these all students from a Liberal College? Or is it a good spread of young people from all walks of life? Was it online, email, phone?
You have missed understanding the young people. They have inherited a high-debt economic structure without jobs in the United States and they are mad. Bernie Sanders has captured the situating by pointing it out.
the biggest change to be noted here (for those of us living outside the U$A) is that for years we have been under the impression that we are anywhere between 1 and 10 years behind the U$A on everything from political philosophy to fashion … living in a kind of U$A lag … being dragged along the the Empire’s wake.
these results represent, almost to the letter, the views of what is termed Generation X out here in the unfashionable outer edge of the Empire … almost as though we have contemporary U$A 18 – 20’s views … well, apart from the super-parochial stuff like the U$A will be better off bit which none of us expect to be the case.
… so either this is a case of a reversal of the U$A setting the tone and the rest of the world struggling to keep up, or the respondents to the polling are just retro-cool.
The “Snapchat Generation”? They sound more like the “Tom Paine Generation” to me.
“In response to the question, “Which type of political system do you think is the most compassionate?”, 58 percent said socialism and 9 percent said communism. Just 33 percent chose capitalism.”
Capitalists always conflate economic systems with political systems, whether intentionally or not. Capitalism and Socialism are economic systems. Democracy, Republicanism, and Despotism are political systems. Conflating the two in the minds of Americans helps to prevent voters from understanding capitalism is a choice–and we can change the choices we make.
Exactly. The confusion is the result of a relentless campaign by big business in the US, working through the republican party, initially designed to counter the New Deal politics of Roosevelt in the 1930s. It was only after World War II, and the initiation of the cold war, that it began to really succeed, when they tied capitalism to religion. That’s where the phrase godless communism was coined. While it is true that Marxism opposes organized religion, the same can really be said of capitalism because at its heart is the monetization of everything, and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. So it is antidemocratic as well.
The so-called conservatives in the US not only exploit the ignorance of the public at large, but actually promote it by their subversion of the education system.
Every 50 years or so we seem to have a huge wave of people power and 1969 is 46 years ago. Before that was FDR… before that the 1910s… before that 1863… goes back further…
My son is in the 10th grade. His history book read likes Howard Zinn and there is not much work available to young adults. I hope that generation can give us what we failed to create on our own: prosperity.
WOW! Amazing polling results! The “Snapchat generation” is speaking for the silent majority imho and that bodes well for the whole humanity!
When you ask whether people prefer capitalism, socialism, or communism, the answer is MU. You have already committed yourself to defeat. Because the hope of the young is not some word invented two centuries ago and shamelessly redefined by zealots for their own ends. Their hope is to invent or discover a brand new “ism” nobody gives them in a poll.
The “ism” I would like them to discover is liberalism, which needs at long last to be invented. We need an economic system that is not based on the someone’s favorite rules of an economic game. We need an economic system that is postulated on the God-given and inalienable rights of humanity, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In this balance, the genuineness of a right to life – not just for prisoners, lunatics, and the feebleminded, but for those who have been dealt out of the economy as well – should come as a revelation from on high. And the right to a pursuit of happiness implies that happiness is not the chained slave of the rich – we have a right to opportunity, even at the cost of not having an unlimited right to property.
We defy the communists and say that people have the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor. But we defy capitalists and say that people have the common right to the Earth’s resources, and those who control the land and its riches owe a portion of these as rent to those who do not. We demand a world where the automation of labor does not mean the extermination of the ex-laborer, because people do not need to labor to have the right to a piece of the Earth.
“that people have the common right to the Earth’s resources, and those who control the land and its riches owe a portion of these as rent to those who do not”
LOL. Tell that to the [Communist] Chinese and the [who the heck knows] Arabs, since they currently own most of the rights to those riches. At least the Chinese paid out money for what they own. the Arabs just keep the money for themselves. Although there are now millionaires and billionaires in China as well.
By the way, what does “MU” mean? Where you going for “moot?” Cause when you go on about “God-given,” I’d say much of what you declare is moot, and you should know what that means.
Yay hope for America.
I think the ways young people get their information is a main reason for this. Gone will be the way MSM manipulates the masses.
The days of establishment ownership over the minds of people are numbered, in part to great independent journalism.
So thanks from all of us, Jon Schwartz.
You have my vote, Mr. Sanders. I’m tired of fighting against my generation. Please reign them all in and lead them off the cliff they so desperately want to jump off, you are definitely the best candidate for this. We’ve spent too many years fighting back against the destruction of the capitalism and squandering of the gifts our fathers and mothers gave us, which gave every Bernie Sander’s supporters the unrivaled economic and political freedom to act as they have. They may or may not drag us down with them, but at least there’s a chance to rise from the ashes and re-create the glory we once had.
Well, polls are just polls and maybe this is a good one but it is just as likely not to be. What is seems to say is what the author and his anticipated audience want to hear.
You don’t get it: this was a REPUBLICAN poll. If anything, it underestimates how progressive today’s young people are.
Of course, this is meaningless unless their politics spur them into action, both in voting and in other things. What one thinks is basically meaningless unless one acts on those thoughts.
It was a republican poll first of all, but here are more polls that seem to be evidence of the same shift.
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10904988/bernie-sanders-political-revolution-poll
This is all well and good, but do they vote? Not just in Presidential elections, but local and state as well? Nothing is going to change until we get better turnout for Congressional elections.
The internet.
Too bad Republicans.
You’re already as obsolete as the stone and chisel and facing the same fate as the wooly mammoth.
Climb in the coffin with your originalist corpse Scalia.
“The internet” is exactly right. Except for the information superhighway hyperbole of the early 90s, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the utterly revolutionary social effects of having a global, instant communication network which everyone participates in.
The Internet brings transparency. Once people, of all ages, see what is really going on then and only then can they take dynamic action. And dynamic action is what is needed to return the governance to the benefit of all instead of just a few.
Is the coffin heavily reinforced so I can wait out the firestorm that is America as it descends to the likes of East Germany? I’m no Republican but I would rather hide away than have a political gun pointed at my head, demanding everything I’ve ever worked for.
Real un-subtle trolling you do ImmDem. Not much challenge seeing your post for what it is but still good for a chuckle.
The model is not East Germany! The model is West Germany or just Germany, France, Italy, and all of the European nations who discovered socialism after all of their fabulous wars exhausted their governments coffers and enabled them without blinders to see that even without imperial conquests and ambitions, their people could thrive and be far better off without the emoluments of conquest.
And it’s always been thus, and nothing ever changes, because a.) people in this age range have a terrible rate of actually voting, and b.) people tend to get more conservative as they get older. So these mostly nonvoting liberal young folks are outnumbered by the mostly voting conservative older ones.
When I was younger I was a conservative Republican. As I grew older, I grew wiser, more loving, more compassionate, and a better observer. Bernie Sanders for positive change!
ME too – I was one of Reagan’s young Republicans I am sorry to have to admit. I am thus partly responsible for the current mess. Let’s hope for Bernie’s success.
You are an exception. Frankie is right, people generally get more conservative as they get older. In the ’60s we used to say, “don’t trust anyone over 30,” and for damn good reason!
Jeff and Sloan:
Who says people generally get more conservative? Is that just a meme repeated endlessly without basis in fact? My husband was a huge Ronnie, aka the “great communicator” fan, and now sees the error of that thinking… we’re both in our mid and late 50’s. The baby boomer generation $old out and it’s about time those of us who will be dead and gone in the coming years had better stand aside and listen to the will of young people. Listening to their will couldn’t possibly make real life for the masses any worse. At least there would be a shred of humanity and concern for others rather than a relentless focus on profits and money as a measure of success.
To paraphrase the words of Sojourner Truth: “these young people together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the powerbrokers better let them.”
“Which type of political system do you think is the most compassionate?”
I wish we could change our thinking about this sort of thing. We spend too much time debating political systems. A political system cannot be “compassionate.” A system is simply a framework for human action. Certainly, the nature of the framework can enhance certain tendencies or inhibit others. Toward that end, it is right to debate which system is “best.” But systems work or fail to the degree that the people running them are honest and true rather than corrupt and selfish. People can be compassionate and people can be corrupt.
This is important to understand because opposing corruption is neither a “liberal” nor a “conservative” thing. It is simply a judgement about people’s behavior, and that behavior, within any system, is what leads to failure.
That’s actually one major reason why Hillary Clinton’s campaign is becoming more and more of a running joke. There is, of course, no sin in getting older and partly, as a consequence of getting older, seeing the world through the eyes of someone who no longer sees it in the same light as they once did. But being delusional about your view on the world, and how important or unimportant your personage and input might be, is a problem. That lack of honest self awareness is especially a problem if you’ve chosen to remain playing a large roll on the world stage.
The fact — according to that poll — that Bill Clinton “has been nearly forgotten” says a lot. Two of the important things that it does say is that Bill Clinton and others in his intimate or wide circle are delusional about their importance to the current world debates, and, since being delusional rather than continuing to learn is the route that he and other people in his circle who have caused so much harm to us all have chosen, it is good news that his and their influence is largely waning.
It is immensely unfair to try to define a generation in terms of what companies they buy products from, or sell themselves to. If you have to sign Terms and Conditions to join a generation, it is one best kept out of.
These young folks have the most skin in the game obviously since they’re the ones who will be dealing in the near future with all the f**k ups made by their parents and grandparents. I sincerely hope this actually motivates them to vote.
Exactly! And I’m agreeing as a parent of this generation.
I too am a parent of 3 of that generation and I’m really hoping they’re able to deal successfully with all of the problems my generation created.