President Donald Trump
Are Young Voters Lazy, Disgusted—Or Just Misunderstood?
Cynical non-voters today can learn from the original Cynics who fought hypocrisy.
Updated October 15, 2024 Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano
It is often said that the young are too cynical about politics to become involved, seeing corruption everywhere and disbelieving any politician or political stand (and not just the young). To the extent that this is true, such cynical withdrawal is a kind of intellectual laziness: One doesn’t have to worry about the corruption or injustice of political life and is spared the cost of taking sides. Underneath expressions of withdrawn cynicism can be a range of feelings from disgust to contempt to outrage.
But is it true that this kind of cynicism is dominant—or even frequent—among the young?
This was suggested by recent polls. A Harvard Kennedy School poll in late 2023 warned that less than half of young Americans planned to vote in 2024 because of “a lack of trust in leaders” on a variety of critical issues such as climate change, the economy, gun violence, and the war in the Middle East. [1] And this July, a UC Berkeley poll found that many were still considering staying home because they didn’t want to vote for either Donald Trump or Joe Biden. [2] When Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate, this began to change, but not without remaining concerns. [3]
The fact that many have considered not voting in this election is particularly alarming because, in the previous two election cycles, youth voter turnout was historically high (39 percent in 2016 and 50 percent in 2020). [4] Young people have also been prominent in progressive social movements, including Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, calls for gun reform, and for addressing climate change.
There is also the important question of perspectives on political time. Young people are in a hurry and often seem to display an impulse to demand immediate change, action “right now.” This sort of demand is given salience by the very real threats we face, most notably global warming. For many young people, slow, incremental processes of change in a democracy may serve as evidence of intolerable compromise and lack of urgency.
To the extent that young people have become cynically withdrawn from political life, one must keep in mind that many have known nothing but an America dominated by Donald Trump, who engages in serial falsehoods with no accountability, demanding even that news organizations not fact-check any claims he makes. Young people have endured Trump undermining government institutions and labeling efforts at truth-telling “fake news.” They have suffered from the ex-president’s grave mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have been subjected to his outright denial of the legitimacy of the 2020 election—that is, from Trump’s embrace of “the Big Lie.” Disgust is understandable.
Many of those in Trump's base are true believers rather than cynics. But others do bring cynicism to their relation to Trump: They know that he lies and threatens violence. They may disapprove of much of what he says and does. But they accept it as part of the MAGA narrative, which they require to retain their own political power. In their most radical cynicism, they express the destructive urge to “bring it all crashing down”—to destroy all of the already battered truth-centered democratic institutions of the American state. (This is suggested in Steve Bannon’s advocacy of “deconstruction of the administrative state” and also in the general Trumpist policy of ungoverning.) [5]
The strong alternative to destructive cynicism and withdrawal is democratic agency.
Here we can derive considerable insight from the original Cynics. They were a philosophical group in ancient Greece that criticized the quest for wealth and power in existing political culture. They sought a more virtuous and meaningful existence in nature as a form of purification, while remaining active in condemning the hypocrisy and cruelty of the dominant social group of their time. In that sense, they were far from intellectually lazy. They were not detached but idealistic. They actively strove for self- and world-improvement. [6]
The early Greek version of an engaged cynicism can inform our present approach to the shortcomings of our own society. The question is whether we are, collectively, able to reach back to the model of the original Cynics in their quest for virtue. In any case, we should take another look at the ways in which we can offer the young programs that call forth their own potential idealism.
That message, at its best, can call upon energy and enthusiasm in the service of positive change—even if it is difficult and less than immediate. The Harris-Walz campaign is embracing that message, and there is evidence of a positive response. The newest Fall 2024 poll from the Harvard Kennedy School shows a dramatic change in youth involvement: With young voters, Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump by 31 points. [7]
A great deal—even beyond the outcome of this election—rests on our capacity to convince all potential voters that it is possible for responsible leaders to emerge who see their duty as serving the American people. These leaders draw on the energy that is derived from a focus on factual truth. Such energy can rise and fall but is always more substantial than succumbing to a would-be dictator. That energy can be shared by those who take the leap to vote, to have a voice in their own future.
References
5. Muirhead, Russell and Nancy L. Rosenblum. Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2024.