On October, 23rd, 2016, Leonid Bershidsky published an article, Democracy Turns Off Millennials. It Doesn’t Have To. While the contents were interesting, I found his reasoning a bit lacking.
Are millennials willing to sacrifice Democracy?
For instance, he cites this data:
In 1996, only 1 in 16 Americans said it would be good if the military ruled the country. By 2014, it was 1 in 6. Only 19 percent of millennials say it wouldn’t be legitimate for the military to take over if the government proved incompetent or unable to do its job. A growing share of young people is in favor of a “strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with parliament and elections” and a government of “experts” rather than politicians.
He concludes that perhaps a better election system, like Ranked Choice voting (also call Instant Runoff Elections) might lead to better people being elected- more of a meritocracy.
No, millennials are willing to sacrifice oligarchy and corruption
First off, millennials have seen the failure of American Democracy. Recall that the 2014 Princeton study showed that Congress is effectively functioning like it’s run by an oligarchy, of the few, by the few, for the few. This has been the case at least since 1980, well before they were born.
And they’ve seen China make steady growth in China, with about 80% of the Chinese people approving of their government. Meanwhile, in the U.S., over 80% disapprove of Congress, and it has been low for a long time.
Plus, the question said, “if the government proved incompetent or unable to do its job.” The question did NOT say, the military would never relinquish its power. And it did not ask: What if things didn’t improve under the military rule?
Learning from Congress to sell out American values
Republicans have been willing to sell out American values for years now. They support white supremacists, science deniers, birthers, and for years have lied in their propaganda about Democrats. They perform witch-hunts in order to publicize every unproven rumor, and then enjoy the press long after they issued reports that found no wrong-doing. Instead of legislating, they obstructed appointments and legislation, They voted 52 times to repeal Obamacare, but have done nothing to fix it.
Similarly, Trump holds out the possibility of selling out America’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of power to the next generation. Congress continually sells out the American people to corporate interests as 50% leave Congress for million-dollar lobbying jobs, and industry donates huge amounts to campaigns to protect their profits. Recently, John Boehner quit and will be given million of dollars as a reward for his many years of sucking up to businesses.
The recent history for millennials contained a corrupt Bush administration starting a war based on lies, spending trillions of dollars to enrich the vice president and destabilize the mideast, bringing catastrophe and death to millions. Politicians, mainly the Republicans, have sold out American values for years.
Do you want millennials to value Democracy? The solution isn’t to make a few changes. We need to create a participatory Democracy that works.