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Full disclosure: I am a recovering politician and lapsed Democrat. Today, I have no use for either of the major political parties in the US. They have both been captured by the donor class, abandoning the middle class, working class, and poor folks of every color and persuasion.
Oh sure, they give lip service to “average folks” and each accuses the other side of abandoning them but the fact is that both the Democrats and the Republicans cleverly disguise their disdain for these Americans - of every color, creed, and ideology - who have been systematically abandoned for (at least) the last 50 years. Creating a savage disparity of wealth and opportunity.
Let me be clear though - and I should have said this from the beginning - I’m talking about the leadership of the parties, not rank-and-file people who call themselves Republicans or Democrats. In fact, most of these “real” people yearn for leaders who call us to a future where we embrace the common values we all share and seek ways to resolve our disagreements civilly or respectfully disagree. . . even if we continue to “fight it out.”
In the meantime, neither party offers any meaningful solutions to address the fact that average Americans have seen the real dollar value of their wages decline by an annual average of $15,000 per year since 1980, while billions have flowed into the pockets of the uber-wealthy. The Pandemic only made matters worse.
The three most important and existential threats to our future - the climate crisis, Artificial Intelligence, and the savage disparity of wealth are barely on the radar of either party. They would rather engage in hate-filled culture war diatribes about “the woke mind virus”, and defunding the police as average folks sweat choosing between paying for food or medicine and heating their homes.
Ironically, though all of us pay a price for these unaddressed problems, those who will pay the greatest price are the young people in our country. After all, many of us will be gone before the most ominous reverberations of these problems hit their tipping points. But think for a moment about how they are feeling right now. Faced with the likelihood that our Presidential election may become a choice between a Democrat and a Republican that few want and many are without the franchise to cast a vote for even an independent candidate of their choice.
So what does the one presidential aspirant, who should have some empathy for the young people in our nation, Vivek Ramaswamy suggest? Raising the voting age to 25.
This is the guy who rides his high horse into the national debate, who leans into his “High Tech” expertise and background, arrogantly implying that the other “obso’s” running are not up to the challenges of the 21st century. He’s the data guy right? Well let’s take a look at the data, but let’s start with just a dose of common sense.
The Republican Party has already stolen a Supreme Court that has stripped 50 years of bodily autonomy from more than half the population and now they want to do the same for everyone between the ages of 18 and 25 in a cynical and ill-disguised effort to impose a modern-day version of Jim Crow on our youngest voters. Sure Vivek has all kinds of caveats and free passes for certain privileged classes, though he doesn’t propose to impose those same requirements on those over the age of 25.
Nor should he. It has taken us several generations of neglect to create a civic deficit that today threatens the Republic, this will not be undone easily or quickly.
Ramaswamy doesn’t call for mandatory Civics education for all children, the obvious first step to a long-term solution. Sadly, he does not even suggest how he would use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to lead us back to a recognition of its value.
He’s not alone either. Nikki Haley has jumped on board the bandwagon during the last debate, though like almost everything else she says, in the parlance of Native American people, she speaks with forked-tongue on nearly every subject, searching for that sweet spot that can only be called Trump light.
The leadership of the Federalist Society of late has taken to parroting Vivek’s idea as well. You remember them right? They were the folks that gave us our current Supreme Court, warts and all.
It’s just another thinly disguised effort to suppress the vote. But let’s face it, the Federalist Society and their spiritual godfather Leonard Leo don’t seem to be paying any price for their brazen efforts to remake us all in their craven image.
Even Jordan Peterson has lately taken up the call for the Jim Crow approach to our younger generation, but I remain hopeful that he will, at least, think through his view on this because he is not generally driven by ideology and has proven to be a person who is willing to listen to reason.
Like nearly everything being proposed lately by either the Democrats or the Republicans the agenda is not fixing a broken system, it’s providing succor and lots of cash to the donor class and ultimately to the party's own coffers. It’s about stoking the fires of our discontent, using largely inconsequential issues to pit us against one another while the “masters of the universe” continue to accrue 99 percent of the wealth generated by the other 99 percent of our people.
Of course, anyone who has ever watched a late-night talk/comedy show that features “man or woman on the street” interviews asking basic civics questions - often of individuals well beyond the reach of Vivek’s age constraints - can hardly make the case that average folks would pass a civics quiz if a “colorblind” Jim Crow test were possible - or desirable.
OK, so back to the data.
Many of those who propose to raise, instead of lowering, the voting age try to make the case that the human brain is not fully formed by 16. They say this, making a seemingly “scientific” argument based on data that has been developed over the last two decades. They conveniently fail to acknowledge that the latest research in this area actually distinguishes between “Cold Cognition” and “Hot Cognition”. The most updated state of the art suggests that those between the age of 16 and 18 are just as capable of making rational decisions about for whom they should vote.
Let’s be fair. While I believe that we should expand the voting age to permit 16 and 17 year-olds to vote, reasonable folks can disagree about lowering the voting age. However, the notion of removing this right from those who have had the rights for years is inane.
In 2011 Norway decided to test allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote. They found that participation (voting) among the 16 and 17-year-olds was closer to the average of adults 40-60 and well ahead of the numbers for those between the ages of 18 and 25. They reason that young people are especially cognizant of the ways in which we have failed them and anxious to have their voices heard. They also note that at 16 and 17 their lives are not as disrupted as those who are of college age. They also, convincingly make the case that granting the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds firmly establishes voting as a civic obligation before they enter into the more desultory period between living at home and making a new home.
According to a University of Vienna study, a similar experiment in Austria yielded similar results. Both countries now allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote.
Finally, let me propose what Albert Einstein would have called "Gedankenexperimente" or a “thought experiment.” A thought experiment is a theoretical exercise that explores concepts or scenarios in the mind rather than through practical experimentation.
Imagine, if you will, that we have two teams of people, sequestered in a room for the purposes of the test. Armed only with their wits and a smart phone. One team is composed largely of men and women between the ages of 35 and 60 and a second is composed mostly of individuals between the ages of 16 and 20. Their task is to examine a complex social and scientific question in a limited amount of time and with limited financial resources and to choose between two candidates who would address the problem most effectively, fairly and equitably. Your task is to place a bet on one team or the other. Which team would be able to imagine the most workable solution to the problem in the allotted time limit and which candidate would they trust to deliver the leadership most appropriate to the challenge.
In which team would you place your faith?
Links
Lessons from the March for Our Lives
Meng Reintroduces Legislation To Lower The Voting Age In America To 16 Years Old
Lowering the Voting Age to 16 in Practice: Processes and Outcomes Compared
Jan Eichhorn, Johannes Bergh: Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 74, Issue 3, July 2021, Pages 507–521
About Wayne D. King: Wayne King is an author, speaker, artist, podcaster, and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, he was the 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor and the leader of the Electronic Community Project a Ford Foundation-supported effort to introduce the Civil Society community in West Africa to the Internet to enhance their reach and effectiveness. Most recently CEO of a public company in the environmental cleanup space. He now owns Anamaki Studios in Bath, NH and continues to provide consulting services to a broad range of organizations and businesses. His art is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published four books of his images. His most recent novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high-voltage adventure to stop a private powerline has been published on Amazon.com. He lives in Bath, New Hampshire along the Narrows at the confluence of the Ammonoosuc and Connecticut Rivers where he proudly flies the American, Iroquois and Abenaki Flags. His website is: www.Anamaki.com
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