The first time Americans under 21 were able to vote in a presidential election was when George McGovern challenged President Nixon in 1972, and conventional wisdom gave McGovern the advantage with this new segment of the electorate. After all, McGovern was a Democrat who opposed the Vietnam War when college campuses were abuzz with protests, the draft was still in effect, and youth rebellion was having a moment.
And yet, on Election Day, Nixon won surprising support from nearly half of first-time voters on his way to a landslide victory. Anti-war sentiment may have been widespread, but it had no electoral consequences.
Today, as campus activism against US support for Israel in its fight with Hamas in Gaza continues, young voters, who typically support Democrats, are threatening to deny their votes to President Biden in protest. History can repeat itself. Their activism may amount to little when votes are counted in November. But if the conflict generates key votes, it could not only put Biden's re-election at risk, but also herald a turning point. This generation and this issue can greatly expand the perception of what matters most to emerging voters.
“Unlike other foreign policy issues, young people may be viewing this conflict through a different lens that is informed by their generational experiences and, especially, their concerns about racial justice,” Alberto Medina. wrote in a report for CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.
Although Foreign affairs rarely influence voters. In this country, young people may not view domestic and foreign issues in separate silos, but rather see them as deeply interconnected.
Polls already indicate a significant generation gap in how Americans view the conflict between Israel and Hamas; a Pew research center survey A study published in March shows that young people between the ages of 18 and 29 were much more critical of Israel and its government, and much more sympathetic to Hamas, than their elders. Here is just one fact among many: only 38% of the younger cohort said that Israel's reason for fighting Hamas was valid. Among those over 65, it was 78%.
That same poll showed that more than a third of voters under 30 believed Biden is favoring the Israelis too much in this conflict, far more than any other age group and a figure that polls show is rising over time. time.
Those who maintain, or perhaps hope, that this antipathy will not significantly affect voting behavior in November can point to abundant evidence beyond the historical anomaly it would represent. Surveys show that fewer and fewer young people are following the conflict closely and, consequently, less informed about it than their elders. And while college protesters, especially at elite universities, have dominated media coverage, they still represent a fraction of potential voters under 30. This was also true in the Vietnam era: a 1969 study found that only 22% of college freshmen participated in a protest against the US government the previous year.
“There is a very small percentage of young people who identify as activists in a deep and sustained way,” Jerusha Conner, an education professor at Villanova University who studies student engagement, told me.
However, driven by the ubiquity of social media, the focus on identity politics and the consequences of globalization, many young people clearly see the war between Israel and Hamas not as a distant problem but rather as a heartfelt outrage. personally.
This broader perspective may partly reflect the way they have come to understand other issues that are distinctly both local and global. There is a strong argument that policies addressing climate change, for example, cannot be seen simply as internal issues for those who are inheriting a warmer, more dangerous and less hospitable world. In an April survey, Pew found that 59% of voters under 30 in the United States ranked climate change as their top concern. international priority, placing it well above more conventional foreign issues, such as relations with China, Russia, NATO or North Korea.
Framing the conflict between Israel and Hamas in identity-related moral terms also brings it closer to home. Many American Jews have long considered Israel's well-being central to their identity; A growing number of Americans, especially young people of color, connect what they see as oppressive Palestinian suffering with the racial injustice they observe and experience in this country.
Looking at these trends, Conner is still unsure how, or even if, this broader framework will directly affect voting behavior in November, even among voters active in campus protests. In 2020, he notes, “many activists were not enthusiastic about Biden, but they held their noses and voted for him as a strategic option. This time we could see some of the same. “They are deeply disappointed in him, but they are smart enough to understand what is at stake.”
Still, he sees an underlying challenge to conventional wisdom about how the external ramifications of foreign affairs and issues could affect an American election. In the broadest version of it, climate, immigration, reproductive rights, human rights (and the war in Gaza) represent “existential threats to this generation,” he said. “They see the connections. “It’s all in one piece.”
Jane Eisner is the former editor-in-chief of Forward, a national Jewish news outlet, and former director of academic affairs at the Columbia Journalism School.
