WHAT WILL our country be like in 30 or 40 years? Our generation will be in control of all levels of government, businesses ranging from the mega-corporations to the Mom & Pop shops, and dealing with all of the issues that may come to bear. Despite the natural fear that accompanies the future, there are reassuring signs that our age group holds the kind of forward-thinking values and ideas that will construct a more progressive society down the road.
Based on recent polling, there are obvious signs that the current crop of twenty-somethings is fairly different from their parents. Electorally, around two-thirds of the eighteen to twenty-nine age group voted for Barack Obama, who is clearly the most liberal Democrat to win his party’s nomination in some time. While 40 percent of the American populace calls itself moderate, and from anecdotal evidence it seems that huge swaths of college students say that about themselves, that term no longer signals a center-right nature as being equivalent to moderate. A 2007 New York Times poll of young people found that a whopping 62 percent of them felt a government-run health insurance program would be better for the country than the current system. Considering the struggles of the uninsured because of high private insurance costs and the known efficiency of Medicare, creating an at least partially government-run system would go a long way towards reducing healthcare expenditures. More generally, exit polling in November showed that a majority of all Americans felt the government “should do more,” indicating a shift towards viewing the government as a viable option for solving problems like healthcare, an issue where young people are ahead of the curve in wanting to engender progress.
The most exciting numbers in these polls lie in the telling nature of responses to questions of race, gender and equality. For one thing, the overwhelming diversity of the Democratic vote, much of which is younger than the traditional white vote in this country, gave Obama his victory as he won huge majorities within various minority groups. It is no fluke that our generation was energized by the Obama campaign as well as Hillary Clinton’s because young Americans generally were more open to the idea of having an African-American or female president compared to the rest of the population. On issues like the acceptance of homosexuality, young people are clearly more tolerant than their elders as forty-four percent would allow gay marriage and nearly seventy percent would agree to at least civil unions. The only age group in California to not favor Proposition 8 was the 18 to 29-year-old demographic: two-thirds of them voted against it. As this country becomes even more diverse, the fact that the numbers demonstrate that our generation is more accepting of differences bodes well for creating more equality among citizens in the United States.
It would be inaccurate to say that our generation is completely distinct from our forebears as there is one hot-button issue where young Americans poll similarly to other age groups: abortion. The question of its legitimacy is not so much at stake as three-fourths of young Americans support the right but are divided equally on whether or not it should be more restricted than it is now. The academics at a recent Miller Center forum pointed out that if abortion were a pressing issue, young people might not be supporting Obama with equivalent fervor considering his stout pro-choice record. Yet in the discussions at the forum it was apparent that our generation is more interested in forward-thinking solutions that can reduce the number of abortions. Backing measures to bring about universal awareness of contraceptives and diseases as well as augmenting programs that reduce teen pregnancy and teach sexual education are enlightened policy maneuvers that young people support and which can help make abortions far more rare.
Young Americans voted for Barack Obama by large margins because they feel like he can bring change to Washington. No matter how his administration turns out, young people will fashion a more progressive society in the future as they generally hold enlightened positions on most of the pressing issues of the day. When our generation is running this country, it is likely that, in the words of R&B legend Sam Cooke, “a change is gonna come,” whether it be on questions of healthcare or gay rights. I’m proud that this is my generation.
Geoff Skelley’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at g.skelley@cavalierdaily.com.
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