Posted on 12/04/2013 12:32:02 PM PST by neverdem
A majority of America's youngest adults would vote to recall the president.
Young Americans are turning against Barack Obama and Obamacare, according to a new survey of millennials, people between the ages of 18 and 29 who are vital to the fortunes of the president and his signature health care law.
The most startling finding of Harvard University's Institute of Politics: A majority of Americans under age 25--the youngest millennials--would favor throwing Obama out of office.
The survey, part of a unique 13-year study of the attitudes of young adults, finds that America's rising generation is worried about its future, disillusioned with the U.S. political system, strongly opposed to the government's domestic surveillance apparatus, and drifting away from both major parties. "Young Americans hold the president, Congress and the federal government in less esteem almost by the day, and the level of engagement they are having in politics are also on the decline," reads the IOP's analysis of its poll. "Millennials are losing touch with government and its programs because they believe government is losing touch with them."
The results blow a gaping hole in the belief among many Democrats that Obama's two elections signaled a durable grip on the youth vote.
Indeed, millennials are not so hot on their president.
Obama's approval rating among young Americans is just 41 percent, down 11 points from a year ago, and now tracking with all adults. While 55 percent said they voted for Obama in 2012, only 46 percent said they would do so again.
When asked if they would want to recall various elected officials, 45 percent of millennials said they would oust their member of Congress; 52 percent replied "all members of Congress" should go; and 47 percent said they would recall Obama. The recall-Obama figure was even higher among the youngest millennials, ages 18 to 24, at 52 percent.
While there is no provision for a public recall of U.S. presidents, the poll question revealed just how far Obama has fallen in the eyes of young Americans.
IOP director Trey Grayson called the results a "sea change" attributable to the generation's outsized and unmet expectations for Obama, as well as their concerns about the economy, Obamacare and government surveillance.
The survey of 2,089 young adults, conducted Oct. 30 through Nov. 11, spells trouble for the Affordable Care Act. The fragile economics underpinning the law hinge on the willingness of healthy, young Americans to forgo penalties and buy health insurance.
According to the poll, 57 percent of millennials disapprove of Obamacare, with 40 percent saying it will worsen their quality of care and a majority believing it will drive up costs. Only 18 percent say Obamacare will improve their care. Among 18-to-29-year-olds currently without health insurance, less than one-third say they're likely to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges.
More than two-thirds of millennials said they heard about the ACA through the media. That's a bad omen for Obamacare, given the intensive coverage of the law's botched rollout. Just one of every four young Americans said they discussed the law with a friend or through social media. Harvard's John Della Volpe, who conducted the poll, said the president has done a poor job explaining the ACA to young Americans.
Republican and Democratic leaders should find little solace in the results. The survey said that 33 percent of young Americans consider themselves Democrats and 24 percent identify with the GOP. The largest and growing segment is among independents, 41 percent of the total.
Democrats' advantage among young voters is fading. Among the oldest millennials (ages 25 to 29), Democrats hold a 16-point lead over the GOP: 38 percent say they're Democrats, and 22 percent call themselves Republicans. Among the youngest of this rising generation (ages 18 to 24), the gap is just 6 points, 31 percent for Democrats and 25 percent for Republicans.
Approval ratings of Congress have declined steeply in the past few years, with congressional Democrats now at 35 percent and congressional Republicans at just 19 percent.
Young blacks say they are much less likely to vote in the 2014 midterm election than they were in November 2009, signaling a worrisome level of engagement among a key Democratic constituency.
In addition to health care, domestic spying is an issue that puts Obama on the wrong side of the rising generation. While split on whether Edward Snowden is a "patriot" or a "traitor" for revealing Obama's surveillance programs, strong majorities of 18-to-29-year-olds oppose the government collecting information from social networks, Web-browsing histories, email, GPS locations, telephone calls, and text messages.
College loans are a big issue with young Americans, too. Nearly six of 10 called student debt a major problem, and another 22 percent called it a minor one. Seventy percent said their financial situation played into their decision whether to attend college.
Respondents were given a list of options for shrinking the nation's debt. Majorities favored suggestions to tax the rich, cut foreign economic aid in half, slash the nuclear-warhead arsenal, and reduce food stamps.
The results conform with a story I did this summer with the help of the IOP ("The Outsiders: How Can Millennials Change Washington If They Hate It?"), arguing that while Millennials are deeply committed to public service they don't see government as an efficient way to improve their lives or their communities.
The IOP report issued today said: "This is not to say that young Americans are rejecting politics, the role of government and the promise of America more generally. They are sending a message to those in power that for them to re-engage in government and politics, the political process must be open, collaborative and have the opportunity for impact -- and not one that simply perpetuates well-worn single issue agendas."
The survey was conducted online. The National Journal generally refrains from covering online-only polls but has made past exceptions. In this case, Harvard's IOP survey uniquely focuses on millennials with accumulated data set and a credible polling operation.
(Find full poll results here: http://www.iop.harvard.edu/)
Amazing how Obama’s overall approve/disapprove percentages are better than every individual category that defines his presidency with the Under 30 crowd. Actually, it’s sad and sickening.
The majority of “millenials” (guess they need to be called something) would recall POS POTUS or throw him out of office.
Thought process here is that they expected to get free healthcare and not pay for it.. I’m not seeing a massive shift to the right. If anything they’ll swing left harder.
I remember having to work harder to get a better job with better pay so I could pay for healthcare.
Takes little to answer a poll saying throw out the bums. Takes nothing to be critical really. What i would want to see would be what these millennials propose not oppose. They have been brainwashed to believe in socialism but yet have no jobs. I think these people might be reached but it would take massive de-programming.
Hey, dorks...PAYBACK'S A BITCH!!!!!
Young folks (millennials) didn’t / don’t have the life experience or political background to see Obama for what he was - a political neophyte with big government statist beliefs. All they saw was the image. Now that they see what he is, they’re rejecting him.
They also grew up being taught to abhor conflict. When the Republicans in the house fight back, the Millenials hate them too.
Not all of us were brainwashed.
What the TEA Party needs to do now is to establish in the minds of the public that in 90 years there has never been a conservative government. There may have been a Republican government, but that was still controlled by a majority of RATS and RINOS.
Unfortunately, they dislike Obama because he’s not socialist enough, i.e. he’s not reaching into the pockets of “the rich” and giving them everything they want.
Think, folks...just think...IF:
1. The media were made up of honest, forthright, journalists...
2. The Republican party had more than Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Sarah Palin who were unafraid to criticize boldly, loudly and repeatedly...
3. Christians of all stripes, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant were praying daily and fervently...as well as engaging the culture with the truth about the justice and mercy of our Lord...
How far would this perverted regime—this regime that hates the Constitution, free market capitalism, and classical Christianity—succeeded? I think it would never have succeeded.
I am glad for these current viewpoints of young people. Let us build on it wisely.
If the pro Obama voters just stay home, that could be enough, IMHO.
If anything they’ll swing left harder.
Why should they?
Cool. :-)
Now what to make of that? Assume, Mr. Volpe, that Obama goes out and explains to these young people that a basic principle of the ACA (we must be diligent in not referring to Obamacare, that's so yesterday) is that the young will pay more for healthcare they don't need so that the poor and old and unhealthy can have more favorable rates.
Would that be a good job of explaining Obamacare (oops!) to the young? Or how about this: "You will love Obamacare (oops! again) once you come to believe that it will save you money, give you better healthcare, reduce global warming and increase the minimum wage.
Yes, that sounds much better. Now I understand what Mr. Volpe is saying.
They should be ready to go to war! We have mortgaged their futures. May God forgive us, because history will not.
>>Thought process here is that they expected to get free healthcare and not pay for it.. I’m not seeing a massive shift to the right. If anything they’ll swing left harder.<<
I suppose you could be right, but here’s my take on it. The youth vote started to finally move against Obama after one particular incident. It wasn’t Fast & Furious or Benghazi, or the administration going after AP and reporters, or the IRS targeting of conservative groups. Most of them couldn’t tell you what the deal was with any of those.
However, once it was revealed by Snowden that the NSA was spying on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, cell phones, and every other form of social networking, the youth vote started to swing in our direction. I think there’s two reasons for that.
First, the youth have finally started to learn that privacy is worth something. Ironically, they found that out when all of their parents joined Facebook so they could finally find out what their kids were up to socially. Kids found out that they didn’t like having parents snooping through their posts and pix, so they started to migrate to other social networks. Also, a lot of them wrote and posted things that later got them in trouble because people outside their limited number of friends found out about them
For example, Governor Scott Walker just fired a 23 year old female for tweeting comments that insulted Hispanics. She wrote those tweets in 2011, when she was just 21 and not part of Walker’s staff. She probably meant them then, but it’s unlikely she would have written them today, given her new responsibilities. Didn’t matter. Walker had to let her go or be seen as employing people antagonistic to Hispanics. Were I Walker, I’d express some sort of sentiment that it was too bad to have to let her go, but that he had to because the press would have a field day, and warning young people not to make similar errors in judgement. Show some understanding, in other words.
Whew, this is getting long, but here’s the second point I want to make: Hunger Games.
Nearly every young person in the country has read the trilogy, and has seen the first movie. The first movie, and book, were more or less thrillers with the politics of the situation more muted. Book two, however, brought the dangers of an authoritarian government (centered in DC, by the way) to the fore. The second movie is due out about now. And, get this, the protagonist is vehemently anti-authoritarian, and wins.
In my opinion, Hunger Games will do to today’s youth what 1984 did to the youth of the early 50’s with the difference being that very few young people read 1984 (too bad, we might have spared the country a lot of grief if everyone had read it), but virtually the entire population between ages 14 and 24 is familiar with Hunger Games.
Some of you will have noted that the Left occasionally tries to tie into the movie with an article title. But when you read the article, it has precious little relevance to Hunger Games. The Left should be scared stiff that some politicians on the Right are going to figure out that Hunger Games has possibly created the greatest potential for an outright swing to the Right that this country has seen since WWII. In fact, I suspect that the reason that left-wing opinion writers cite Hunger Games is to convince conservative opinion writers to avoid it, thinking it must be another leftist series.
Why Hollywood is allowing Hunger Games to be made into a movie is beyond me, but in the end, I think we’ll all be extremely thankful that they did.
Oh, and I’m in my 60’s...for point of reference.
Stacked things a bit too high, there..
Politics
Millennials Abandon Obama and Obamacare
A majority of America’s youngest adults would vote to recall the president.
Take this test to determine you are a Millennial:
My score was: “Your Millennial score is 0”
How Millennial Are You?
Take our 14 item quiz and we’ll tell you how “Millennial” you are, on a scale from 0 to 100, by comparing your answers with those of respondents to a scientific nationwide survey. You can also find out how you stack up against others your age.
http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/how-millennial-are-you/
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