Palin and Boehner. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
My Halloween this year started on a sour note, and I blame the New York Times. Mini potato pancakes at Harris were not enough to assuage the dissatisfaction curdling in my stomach regarding an article by Damien Cave, entitled “Generation O Faults Obama for Lack of Contact: Young voters say they feel abandoned.”
Of course we all remember 2008, back when politics were cool. President Obama was elected into office with 66 percent of the eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-old vote. We were the backbone of the movement, carrying trays of appetizers for Democratic conventions, manning the phones at campaign offices and hanging voter reminders on doorknobs at 5 AM on that historical November morning. We were passionate, we were devoted and we were hopeful.
Once, we were the “young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy,” a feat for which we were praised in our president’s victory speech on election night. Half a term later, we have infuriatingly succumbed to the rampant ambivalence for which we are infamous.
The Times article referenced some of the faults young voters have found with the man they once idolized: why didn’t he appear on The Daily Show earlier than he did? Why are older voters the apparent priority? Why didn’t more happen?
I get that the glamour of the campaign trail is a lot more appealing than policy—slowly grinding through the sputtering machine that is our government. To hear about this crippling bout of indifference that grips our stigmatized generation, however, is nothing short of traumatizing to me.
So, why didn’t the president spend airtime with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show a dozen or so times before his debut? I’m guessing he was busy bustling around Washington bailing a debt-swamped nation out of a recession and pressing historic reform bills through Congress, among other underappreciated things.
And why are older voters a legislative priority?
Why are we even asking this question?
Because of historic health care reform, our generation will reap the benefits of remaining securely under our parents’ insurance until we are twenty-six, which means that while we scrounge for food on entry-level salaries, we don’t have to go without glasses or check-ups. Not to mention millions of previously uninsured children are now covered. (And for those of you about to gripe about the cost: according to the Congressional Budget office, the reform bill will not only pay for itself, but reduce the deficit by 143 billion dollars over the next ten years).
Additionally, Obama’s student loan reform was a remarkable piece of legislation which saves our country more than sixty billion dollars in the next decade by eliminating subsidies to private lenders, while also increasing the Pell Grant so that more kids can go to college. There are students at Conn who would not be here without this loan reform.
Still think we have been abandoned? I’m of course omitting dozens more examples.
And the last, perhaps most prevalent question: “Why didn’t more happen?”
Obama answered that for us, in his victory speech, before all of this even started.
“The road ahead will be long,” he told us. “Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year, or even in one term.”
I acknowledge that we are far from meeting all of our goals as Democrats, and with that the president and I are in agreement. I acknowledge that (in his first two years in office) he did not speak to us as directly as he could have, and that he had a responsibility to publicize the achievements of his party more effectively than he did. And I acknowledge, just as he does, that he is not a perfect president. I refuse, however, to acknowledge that he has been ignoring us; to do so would be to refute incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.
Two years ago, our new leader warned us to avoid the “partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.” If only he saw then what we see now, in our politics and in our people.
It’s too late to point fingers now, but since young and old Democrats alike decided to sit out these midterm elections—because a New Liberalism did not envelop the country to erase the plight of minorities, abolish even the remnants of our two wars and reverse the trends toward a globe in peril—the GOP has saturated the House and gained in the Senate.
If you thought that there has not been enough Democratic triumph midway through Obama’s first term and you abandoned your party out of pettiness or spite, I hope you are looking forward to the reign of Republicans and Tea Partiers in Congress. (Now all your political aspirations are sure to be fulfilled.)
I am disappointed in you, fellow young Democrats, but I do not mean to berate you. What I want is for you to stop brooding, to read newspapers, to remain informed and to stay involved. Failing to care because government, this country, and President Obama are not completely faultless is a cop-out.
Refuse to be ignorant. Recognize all we have achieved, and do not give up the fight before it’s finished. •
