beatrice_otter | And we wonder why American politicians don't listen to young people.

Graph of Citizen Voting Turnout by Age Bracket

First, consider the chart on the left. It lists the percentage of people in each age bracket who voted in each election since 1986. Unsurprisingly, a higher percentage in each age bracket vote during Presidential election years than in off years. Also unsurprisingly, young people are the bottom group. In years with a Presidential election, we usually get about the same number of 18-29 year olds voting as the next age bracket up (30-44 year olds) in off years. The older the age group, the higher the percentage of the people who vote. This is true across the boards.

Now. Every politician and political strategist in the country has seen this chart or one like it, I guarantee. Put yourself in their shoes. They need to win an election. Who should they court? The young people who may passionately love them but (even if they do) don't turn out to vote in large numbers? The group who, even when the turn out in the most massive numbers in thirty years (2008, for Obama) still aren't even in shooting distance of the age bracket above them? The group who will only be there, at best, with a 20% turnout when your seat (or your parties seats) are up for election in the midterms? No. That would be stupid. You couldn't possibly rely on that group, even if you believed in absolutely the same things they did, because you would know for certain that you would never get to implement any of those policies because a) they probably wouldn't turn out in great enough numbers to get you elected and b) even if they did, in the midterm elections (when they don't vote) your opponents would get control of the majority again and block anything you suggested. No. If you wanted to actually have a chance in hell of accomplishing, you would cozy up to the older groups, the groups that actually vote. Because those are the people you can count on. The older the group, the more solid their support once you have it, because not only do they vote in much higher numbers, the vote in midterm elections.

Now consider the chart on the right. It lists the percentage of members of each political category, from conservative to liberal, in each age bracket. It should not be surprising to you that the older the age group the larger the red (conservative) groups are and the smaller the blue (liberal) groups are. This should be fairly familiar to anyone who has discussed politics with anyone outside their own age bracket. So if you are a politician, cozying up to an older age bracket because you are surer of their support, you will swing more conservative. Pretty much guaranteed.

We millennials complain that nobody listens to us in politics, and that politics are gridlocked. But this is an entirely predictable product of our own voting habits. Why should they listen to us when we don't actually take the critical step of voting? And even when, as in 2008, we have a large effect on an election and provide the swing to get someone elected (like Obama), we don't stick around to make sure that he can actually put in place the policies we elected him to do by making sure he has a congress that agrees with him. If we want our voices heard, WE HAVE TO VOTE. We have to vote for president, and we have to vote in midterm elections, AND WE HAVE TO VOTE RELIABLY EVERY TIME. ALL OF US. If we do not vote, in large numbers, reliably every election, a politician would be stupid to listen to us. Because listening to us would actively hurt their chances of getting elected by preventing them from listening to the people who actually do vote.

Politics is not about single elections. It is about long-term governance. That requires long-term participation. If you vote once and it doesn’t get the result you wanted, and so you complain and never do it again? You’re that guy who goes to a gym once for half an hour and complains that it didn’t achieve anything so why exercise.

If you do not vote (unless you are actively prevented by unfair voting laws or inaccessible polling places), YOU DO NOT GET THE RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYTHING POLITICAL. Why? Because you threw away your chance to have your voice heard when it might actually have accomplished something, and so all you're doing is whining. The reason American politics doesn't listen to us? It's not corruption. It's the entirely predictable result of our own actions: we talk a big game, but we do not follow through.

When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. When you desire a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.--Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory