More Tired Memes and Bad Ideas about the Youth Vote

An Op-Ed from Jane Eisner, "vice president for civic initiatives of the National Constitution Center, a Philadelphia museum, and the author of Taking Back the Vote: Getting American Youth Involved in Our Democracy," takes on the topic of turning out young voters. Eisner gets it right in some respects:

How many times did George W. Bush or John Kerry mention young people in accepting their parties' nomination for president? Bush twice briefly, Kerry not at all.

The electoral process doesn't outright exclude young voters anymore, though some structural obstacles do exist. Instead, the political process ignores them. And a well-documented, 30-year decline in civic education in and outside the classroom has left many in this generation ill-informed about the role and accomplishments of government, and ill-versed in the skills of citizenship.

Eisner is right that the major political parties and the candidates didn't talk to young voters. I remember at one point hearing about Kerry's "college tour." The topics of his speech were medicare and social security. His college appearances weren't about speaking to his audience or young voters nationally, they were short-sightedly about combating the current media cycle. And she's right that many young people don't know what government is good for or what it has done for them. Although I'd argue that this is true of most Americans, and is not so much due to the lack of civics classes as the work of 30 years of conservative framing and the failure of the mainstream media to properly report on the role of government.

As for the rest of her piece; it's terrible. The tone speaks down to her core audience - the young people she is looking to activate - and instead looks to score points with journalists or older activists by repeating old memes about the superficiality and fickleness of young voters. After throwing out the tired stat that more people voted for American Idol than the President (not true - American Idol only received 35 million viewers according to Nielson, and voters were allowed to vote repeatedly - can we please put this idea to rest?), her proposed solution neglects both political reality and the nature of the cultural touchstone around which her piece is based.

More after the jump.

Eisner suggests that the immediacy of American Idol is what makes it successful as a democratic process. Ipso Facto, the American political process is unpopular and not well attended because it is such a drawn out process. But American Idol runs for weeks at a time. Structurally - and in terms of the length of the season - its a model of the American Primary process, where a crowded field is winnowed down as series of contests (debates/auditions) help the audience decide which candidate to choose. And her proposed solution - a single primary day in the spring - is a political impossibility (we can't even get one contest on the same day as the Iowa Caucus, let along 49).

I had never heard of Eisner, despite all my work with young voters in 2003 and 2004, so I decided to look up her book on Amazon. I wasn't wowed by the ideas layed out there either.

But Eisner asserts that this trend of declining voter and political participation can be reversed, and it is up to parents, teachers, coaches, and others to make that happen. Civic education, Eisner feels, is the key to bringing young people back into the voting booths. High schools in particular need to be offering civic education in the same way that they offer music, math, or sports education. Registering to vote needs to be easier. . . Filled with moving stories of kids becoming engaged as citizens as well as information for young people as they begin their civic involvement, Taking Back the Vote an inspiring resource for parents, teachers, community leaders, and all mentors who recognize the importance of empowering new voters.

Coaches, teachers, parents . . . not a lot of faith in a generation she hopes to activate. The older generations aren't going to create the organizations and programs that will get people living liberally. Her idea that reintroducing civics classes into high schools will solve the problem are evidence enough of that. Non Partisan efforts like Rock the Vote - which for all their faults have more cultural cache than a high school civics class - were notriously bad at turning out young voters. And if the best way to convince a person to vote or get involved is to have a peer ask them, than having your 55 year old history teacher, or a gym teacher moonlighting as John Dewey is radioactive poison to youth participation.

I appreciate all that Eisner's done to try to get young voters involved in politics, but next time she picks up the pen to write a piece on behalf of young voters, I hope Eisner will write something that speaks to her constituents, not down to them, and I hope she spends more time outlining successful new strategies and less time repeating tired cliches about the youth vote.