New Broderism: Apathetic Youngsters Face Barriers at the Voting Booth

In the Sunday Washington Post, David Broder - the Dean of political journalism and purveyor of Beltway conventional wisdom - put pen to paper and produced this utterly useless column about young voters: Breaking Through to Voters. I wish that my tongue-in-cheek title for this post were a joke, but sadly, this seems to be the conclusion reached by Broder, who is widely regarded as on of the most influential and knowledgeable pundits in the Beltway.

Within the space of 700 words, Broder manages to repeat the false meme that young voters are apathetic, contradictorily claim that young voters face barriers to participation (without really describing what those are or how to remove them), and claim that young voters "distrust government" without exploring what that distrust entails or how far it actually goes. The only redeeming factor of the column is Broder's (correct) conclusion: "Young Voters respond when treated seriously." It's ironic, because his own column fails to give young voters the credit and respect they deserve.

Addressing Broder's points one by one:

• Youth are not apathetic. Youth turnout is up in the past three elections. In Iowa in 2004, youth participation in the primaries quadrupled (pdf). Since 2003, literally dozens of nonprofit organizations have been started by young people for the sole purpose of engaging their peers in political action. These are trends, not blips and you will see them again soon.
• Young voters face barriers to participation. This is true, but beyond the few anecdotes provided, I would recommend you look into reports of voter suppression in college communities, the lack of voting booths on campuses, and harsh identification rules that disadvantage young voters. The Brennan Center has an excellent primer on the subject. I would also suggest that Broder look at potential solutions like Same Day Registration and Voting By Mail. Demos, a public policy groups is a wealth of information on potential solutions to these barriers and this would be an excellent issue for Broder to throw his weight behind.
• Young voters distrust government. Also true, in so far as government officials lie to us, and engage in corrupt practices or work to obfuscate the truth about their policies. That's what makes programs like The Daily Show and Colbert Report so popular. However we are also believers in the power of government to do good. This is one of the motivating factors behind our increasing rates of participation.

If David Broder wishes to write about young voters, I'm all for it. As the Dean of political journalism, he has more power than anyone to alter conventional wisdom with a few taps to his keyboard. And to be sure, conventional wisdom on the role of young voters in our political system still needs changing, as many campaign hacks and beltway pundits are still running around repeating the same tired ideas that Broder uses to open his Sunday column.

When the [dot]org Boom in progressive youth organizing occurred in '03 and '04, barely any pundits from inside the beltway reported on it. When youth turnout spiked hard in 2004, the pundits got the story wrong and said that "the youth vote never materialized for Kerry." Interestingly, that year saw more young voters at the polls (in sheer numbers) than voters over 65 - those old reliables, "seniors" (source: a power point presentation by the Harvard Institute of Politics). In 2006, young voters pushed a number of Democratic candidates over the edge (Tester, Webb, Courtney), and not only did our turnout rise, but it broke almost 2-1 in favor of Democrats, but still, many didn't believe.

Young voters are participating. In the absence of support from the parties or pundits, we started to reach out to each other more than 4 years ago. The only question is, are you going to continue to sit on the story, or will you, on behalf of the political press who got the story so wrong for son long, take the opportunity to give us the respect we deserve?