Young People in France Are Looking for Political Change But Likely Won’t Get It

 

Results of the first round of the French presidential election show that most young people in France are looking for alternatives to the current political order. 

Results of polling by Ipsos of the first round of the April elections appear below.

 

In the first round, Emmanuel Macron was bested by both Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon among voters under 32 and attracted less than 25 percent support among voters under 60.      

This being France, only Valérie Pécresse from Les Républicans and Éric Zemmour offered free market economic programs.  Zemmour focused on tax cuts while Pécresse planned to cut France’s bloated bureaucracy and regulatory state. 

Macron is a corporatist.  Macron wants more intervention in business with government directing capital to and providing protectionist measures to politically-favored businesses and industrial sectors. 

LePen is also a protectionist and advocates for expansion of entitlement spending by reducing the retirement age from 62 to 60.  She offers a particularly innovative approach to taxation by exempting workers below the age of 30 from the income tax.  This will allow young people to build wealth, buy homes and start families. 

Mélenchon’s economic program is straight out of Bernie sanders playbook—more spending, bigger government and more regulation of the private sector.

Polls show that Macron is ahead of Le Pen in the second round.  Poll show that Macron is favored to win.  That may be the case.  However, a macron victory will not bring about the type of political and economic change that young people in France long for.     

Yet Another Poll Shows Republicans Have a Golden Opportunity To Appeal to Young Voters

 

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Joe Biden’s approval ratings continue to tank among the Millennials and Generation Z.  But will the GOP be able to capitalize on young voter dissatisfaction?

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,462 adults from March 24-28, 2022.

According to the survey, only 27 percent of Americans aged 18-34 approve of the way Joe Biden is handing his job.  This compares to 36 percent for all Americans.

Biden’s overall 36 percent is dismal.  However, for several decades, Democrats have depended on the votes of young voters to offset the Republican edge among voters age 45 and over.  That edge has gone away. 

In the 2020 election, Biden received 60 percent among young voters.  Based on the results of the Quinnipiac survey, half of the young people that voted for Biden in 2020 do not approve of his performance in office. 

Nor do young voters view Biden as a strong leader when it comes to his handling of the crisis in Ukraine.  When asked whether Biden has demonstrated strong leadership in his dealings with other NATO nations in the response to the invasion, only 34 percent of young people view Biden as a strong leader.   

The collapse in youth support for Biden provides the GOP with a golden opportunity to make deep inroads with rising generations.

In 1980 and 1984, Ronald Reagan won the hearts and minds of millions of young Americans.  But since that time, young voters have increasingly favored Democrats. 

Republicans should take a page from the Reagan playbook.  Young voters then were attracted to his message of economic opportunity, growth, optimism and a strong America.  I believe that young people would be attracted to the same message today. 

Harvard Student Blasts School’s Insane COVID Policies, Conformity and Condescension

 

“We may be the future decision makers, but most of us aren’t leaders” writes Julie Hartman in the Wall Street Journal

College students have de minimis risk from COVID.  Yet universities have imposed irrational and draconian mask and vaccination policies on students with harsh consequences for those who do not obey, or even speak up, against administration edicts.

One Yale student likened life on campus to that of a “surveillance state.”  At the University of Chicago students were forced to sign a “Required COVID-19 Attestation” in direct contradiction to the school’s academic freedom policies. 

Hartman writes that all this insanity has infantilized her generation of college students. 

More concerning than the administration’s heavy-handedness has been the zombielike response of the student body. I ask my friends, “Why do young, fully vaccinated students continue to tolerate these irrational Covid restrictions?” While many of my peers acknowledge the excess, they shrug it off. The prevailing mood on campus is resignation, learned helplessness and reluctance to dissent.

These policies have also empowered groups of students to act as self-appointed enforcers who use COVID policies to bludgeon their fellow students.   

There is a smaller group at Harvard that apparently find pleasure in these restrictions. These students will chastise you for not wearing a mask correctly and called one of my brave peers who publicly denounced Harvard’s Covid restrictions a “eugenicist” because he supposedly showed insufficient sensitivity to immunocompromised people. They love Covid for the moral high ground it gives them to condescend to and control others.

Red Guards in training?  Don’t be so quick to dismiss.  The unfortunate truth is that events in early life, including those during the college experience, have an important role in forming our outlook and behaviors in later life. 

For many, that means sheepish, unquestioning adherence to edicts of the elites no matter how silly or irrational. 

For others, that means becoming hectoring, humorless bureaucrats, politicians and bosses. 

What does that mean for America?  As Hartman puts it: “My peers and I are often told that we are the future leaders of America. We may be the future decision makers, but most of us aren’t leaders. The inability of Harvard students to question or oppose these irrational bureaucratic excesses bodes ill for our ability to meet future challenges.”

Indeed.

Polling Shows Opportunities for Republicans Among Young Voters in 2022

 

The latest Economist/YouGov poll shows young people disillusioned with the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party.  But can Republicans make the sale?

The Economist/YouGov polled 1500 Americans on their views on the Biden Administration and the ideological positioning of the two major parties.

Americans overall, and young Americans in particular, are not optimistic on the outlook for the next three years under Joe Biden.  Just over a third of young Americans are optimistic about the remaining Biden presidency.   The same number of Americans aged 18 to 29 are pessimistic.

  It is important to remember that exit polls found that Biden received 60 percent of the vote among 18 to 29 year-olds ion the 2020 election.  Clearly large numbers of young voters have become disillusioned with the failures, corruption and big government policies of the Biden Administration.    

Biden does slightly better among 30 to 44 year-olds.  Still, a substantial majority of Americans under the age of 45 are either pessimistic or unsure.  The Biden Administration has not endeared itself with young people in America. 

Young Americans are more likely to see the Democratic party as too far to the left than want to see the Democratic party continue to move left.  By a 3 to 2 margin, 18 to 29 year-olds view the Democratic Party as more left wing than they are.  The margin increases to two-to-one among 30 to 44 year-olds. 

Nevertheless, the Republican party also needs to do a lot of work to appeal to young voters.  Young voters are more likely to see Republicans as too far to the right than not conservative enough.  However, older voters are more likely to view the Democratic party as too extreme.  Almost half of Americans 65 and over see the Democratic party as much father to the left than they are while less than a third find Republicans too far right. 

The fact that voters overall are marginally more likely to find the Democrats too far to the left (33 percent versus 29 percent for the Republicans) is in stark contrast to the corporate media narrative which routinely characterizes Republicans as “far right” but never, ever characterizes Democrats as “far left”).

Republicans need to make the case that the free market system and smaller government are in the best interest of young people.  It is younger Americans, who have more of their lives and careers ahead of them, who have the most to gain from a pro-growth, pro-opportunity economic program for America.    

 

 

Good News: A Majority of Young Canadians Support the Right to Protest of the Freedom Convoy Truckers

A new poll by the Angus Reid institute, a non-profit public opinion research organization, shows that a majority of young Canadians support the right of Freedom Convoy truckers to express themselves.

Support among young Canadians is much higher than among the old. 

The survey asked Canadians whether they felt that the right to protest outweighed the economic disruptions from the protest.  Results by age and gender appear below:

The results are both surprising and encouraging. 

Surprising because young people are often viewed as more supportive of authoritarian measures than the old. 

Encouraging because, at least on this issue, a solid majority of young Canadians support freedom of expression.  In that context, the results of the Angus Reid poll are very good news indeed. 

The authoritarian crackdown of the Trudeau should be revulsive to anyone who believes in free expression and individual rights.  Trudeau is revealing himself as nothing more than a pretty, elitist dictator. 

The Trudeau regime has instigated violence against protesters, trampled innocent civilians with horses, and frozen the bank accounts of thousands of supporters of the protests.

And then there is the blatant hypocrisy of Canada’s boy Prime Minister who swooned for Black Lives Matter but uses the jack-booted power of the state to crush peaceful protests by ordinary working-class Canadians.  

Hopefully, young Canadians will lead the charge for freedom in Canada.  Unlike their elders, young Canadians appear to have their heads on straight.

Young Voters Overwhelmingly Disapprove of Biden. Will the GOP Seize This Opportunity?

 

A new poll by CIVIQS provides more evidence that younger voters are turned off top Joe Biden.  Will young voters register their disapproval of the Biden Administration in November?

I blogged a few days ago about polling data that showed younger voters turned off to Joe Biden and willing to look toward the GOP on important issues including on jobs and the economy.

The openness of young people to the GOP message could make the 2022 election a watershed moment in American politics. 

During the past twenty years, majorities of younger voters have favored the Democratic Party while older voters have favored the Republican Party.  Younger voters have been critical to the success of Democrats at all levels of government. 

Now large numbers of young people have been turned off by the incompetence of the Biden Administration.

CIVIQS surveyed over 160,000 registered voters on their views of Joe Biden’s performance as president. 

Their survey shows that generational differential in approval have disappeared. 

A mere 26 percent of Americans under the age of 35 approved of Joe Biden’s handling of his job as president.  Approval among younger voters was lower than the 34 percent approval rate for Biden among all voters. 

Biden’s approval numbers are underwater is most major demographic groups.  His approval levels are equally dismal among both highly educated young people and non-college graduates and among and men as well as women. 

Most telling, only a slim majority—51 percent--young people that describe themselves as Democrats approve of the job that Biden has done as president and a mere 42 percent of young Blacks approve of Biden’s handling of his job.

Young Americans are clearly dissatisfied with the left-wing Biden agenda and are looking for a change.

Will the Republican Party be able to craft a 2022 message that appeal to young people.  If so, 2022 could be a watershed year.  If not, then .... 

Will 2022 be the Year of the Young Republican?

 

Low approval for the Biden Administration and dissatisfaction with the state of the economy may finally bring young people around to the Republican Party.

The Democratic Party is dependent on young voters for electoral success.  Young people tend to vote Democratic while older voters favor the Republicans.

The age gap is so wide and persistent that had only voters over the age of 40 voted, not only would Donald Trump have been reelected in 2020, Mitt Romney and John McCain would have won in 2008 and 2016. 

And if only Americans over the age of 35 voted, Republicans would easily control both houses of Congress and a large majority of governorships.

Recent polling shows that young people have soured on the policies and performance of the Biden Administration.  I previously discussed results of the CBS poll.  Now a new poll by the Morning Consult shows equally dismal numbers for the Democrats.

The table below compares Biden’s approval in the Morning Consult poll with the share of the vote that he received in the 2020 election by age group. 

The difference between Biden’s job approval and the percentage of older Americans that voted for him in the 2020 election is less than ten points.

But among Americans below 35—Generation Z and younger Millennials—the gap between approval and vote share is a whopping 23 points.  Indeed, younger Americans now are marginally less likely to approve of Joe Biden’s performance as President than are older Americans.   

 

The decline in Biden’s approval ratings among younger Americans provides an excellent opportunity for Republicans bring younger voters over to their side. 

Young people now view Republicans as better able to manage the economy.  Economic issues are the top concern of young people according to the Morning Consult poll. 

 

Young people are open to electing more Republicans to Congress.  Democrats now only hold a slight edge among Americans between 18 and 34 though almost a quarter of the youngest voters say that they are unsure who they’ll vote for.

 

The failures and incompetence of the Biden Administration have created an opening for republicans to pitch their message to younger voters.  Whether Republicans will offer policies and candidates that are attractive to young voters remains to be seen.