How to Start a Revolution: Young People and the Future of American Politics by Lauren Duca

Author:Lauren Duca [Duca, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Civics & Citizenship, Social Science, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Self-Help, Motivational & Inspirational
ISBN: 9781501181658
Google: JguUDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1501181637
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2019-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION

According to a July 2017 report from the Pew Research Center, young people now comprise the nation’s largest voting bloc. Millennials and Gen Z cast 69.6 million votes in the 2016 election. That was a narrow majority of the 137.5 million total votes, but our numbers are only growing. Nielsen data published in July 2017 reported that Gen Z, or those born between 1997 and 2015, now comprises 26 percent of the population. Every year, more of that demographic is eligible to vote.

That’s particularly significant because of something called political socialization, or the process by which we form political beliefs. It is a dynamic process, although much of our ideology tends to be set in youth, between ages fourteen and twenty-four. Usually, beliefs formed during this period are shaped by major events on the national stage while we’re growing up. What’s the state of the economy? Is there a war going on? Which party is in power during most of it? Sometimes, the answers to those questions cause huge numbers of voters to shift their stance all at once, and often the shift is cemented for years to come. That’s called a realigning election. Typically, realigning elections refer to voters altering their voter behavior by forming a party allegiance. Most scholars believe there was one in 1896, when the Republican Party became dominant following the economic crisis known as the Panic of 1893, and another in 1932, when the Democratic Party rose to prominence amid the Great Depression.

Looking at overall trends of political socialization in the population at large raises the question of whether a major shift is possible now given how many young people are coming of age in this moment of cultural change. What if the impact of the 2016 election had less to do with forming a party allegiance and more to do with our overall approach to democratic participation? What if Trump’s presidency inspires future generations to break through political alienation to insist on political agency? What if we are on the precipice of forever rethinking what it means to be a citizen?

We are coming of age in a definitive political moment, one that could forever redemocratize America. Now we just have to do the damn thing.

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