Posted on 01/27/2015 4:29:41 AM PST by Kaslin
Barack Obama was ushered into the Oval Office by a wave of young supporters and first-time voters in 2008. However, they are now among those most disillusioned with Obama and his regime, and they are the ticket to winning the 2016 presidential election and preserving the heart and soul of our republic.
Politico recently posted a story that started with the words, "Coming soon to a battleground state near you: White House campaigns combining census reports with Instagram and Twitter posts to target teenagers who aren't yet 18 but will be by Election Day 2016."
With more than 8 million young people becoming eligible to vote in 2016, prospective presidential campaigns are already seeking ways to win over 16- and 17-year-olds across our county.
Obama won his two presidential elections because of his campaign's slick strategies in targeting the millennial generation. In 2012, Obama carried two-thirds of the youth vote. In fact, so powerful was their vote that a Tufts University study revealed that if Mitt Romney had merely split that youth vote with Obama, he would be president today.
Chief among Obama's campaign tactics to sway young voters was to exacerbate the country's disillusionment with Republicans, especially former President George W. Bush. But the tides have turned since then -- big-time -- and the millennials are now increasingly disillusioned with Obama and Democrats.
I understand that millennials generally are independent but vote Democratic, are less conservative and more liberal, believe in marriage equality and climate change, are anti-death penalty and anti-guns, are pro-marijuana legalization, favor big-government solutions, and are neither particularly patriotic nor very religious.
Yet I know that millennials love their country, believe in governmental activism, know the power of local community involvement, are open to truth, are willing to be challenged and have never been more disillusioned with President Obama and his fellow Democrats than they are today.
In October, Harvard's Institute of Politics published a poll of America's 18- to 29-year-olds. Obama's approval rating among young voters had dropped from a soaring 70 percent in the honeymoon months of 2009 to 40 percent, including record dips among young Hispanics.
Of course, disillusionment and dissatisfaction with predecessors is key to winning any election. It is virtually equivalent to the value of having the right candidate. In light of the 2016 presidential election, that means a winning campaign must have a candidate with a strong appeal to younger generations, not one who can merely address their needs.
I agree with Vincent Harris, digital director for Rand Paul's political operation, who said, "It's got to be the right candidate with the right message to excite and motivate that age demographic, with so many distractions in their life, to register and then turn out."
No doubt we all want to see our values represented in a candidate of our liking, but the desire is even larger for America's youngest voting generations. The right candidate's influence among them cannot be underestimated.
At the same time, there is still a high level of social and political mistrust among millennials. Therefore, I believe, for the next two years, we the people have a unique ability to help change our country by reaching out to young people in our own lives and our circles of influence. We shouldn't wait for our political party or presidential candidate to lead the way in reaching young voters. At the very least, as parents and grandparents, we need to be the primary models, mentors and motivators in the lives of youths and not leave those roles to other educators or influencers.
As trusted loved ones and friends, we need to educate, inspire and challenge millennials to fight for what's right in America, not merely what may be generationally favored, socially expedient or of personal interest. We must remind them of the importance of our republic's history and legacy and that it's all of our duty to set aside self and uphold the founding tenets of our country -- to fight to preserve what has been handed to us. If we lay the groundwork in young people's lives, they will be more apt to align themselves with a candidate who does the same, even if he or she runs on a platform that's a bit contrary to their generational preferences or agenda.
As I wrote in my New York Times best-seller "Black Belt Patriotism," in the chapter "Calling All Millennials!":
"Millennials are the future of America, but are not connected to its past. Due to our distortions and revisions of history, and oversights in education, the Founders are simply folklore but not a legacy to follow. Young Americans are willing to move America forward, but don't see any other way ahead beyond the creation of a more socially-conscious, domestically-strong, globally-peaceful nation. But we must help them to hear the voices of the distant past, and that they share commonalities with early Americans.
"But herein lies their potential soft spot: Millennials can too easily be swayed by slick-sellers of tolerance and compassion, because jumping off the bandwagon of bigotry is their allegiance and generational calling card. From popsicles to politics, truth can be too easily obscured, obliterated, and even abandoned, in their pursuit of domestic welfare, unity, and acceptance.
"That is why I don't (and we must not) shy away from encouraging and challenging millennials' quest to broaden their thinking even to consider the potential benefits of and truths in those things their peers might generally refuse or oppose (like conservative beliefs, dogmatism, national security, government, etc.). It's good to have a healthy skepticism before you are sold on a decision, but we also want to caution throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As it says in Proverbs, 'The wise in heart will be called discerning.'
"If we're going to win the culture war, we need the millennials to do it. There is no way around it. We need to reengage with our young people and plug them into America's glorious past so they can build a brighter future."
Of course, calling up the reserves of younger generations to save America is about far more than winning a presidential election. It's about truly valuing the work of our Founding Fathers, saving the memory and fabric of our republic, and leaving a legacy and perpetuating the very heart and soul of the country that we love.
I'm back to that profound truth articulated by President Ronald Reagan: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well-taught lessons of how they, in their lifetime, must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free."
Hopefully, between all of that time in Mom and Dad’s basement after college and the free time from 29-hour work weeks wasn’t entirely spent playing Xbox; they might have contemplated about what got them there.
” In fact, so powerful was their vote that a Tufts University study revealed that if Mitt Romney had merely split that youth vote with Obama, he would be president today.”
And if the Queen had b*lls she would be King.
Sorry Chuck, if you are banking on young heads full of mush to win 2016 you will be very disappointed.
12 years of communist indoctrination in public schools that taught them America is evil, and just a few years removed from believing in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy don’t logical choices make.
If they vote they will vote for free drugs, condoms, birth control, college, and whatever Santa promises them.
Our only hope is to discourage them from voting by smearing Hildabeast, and turn out our base in massive numbers.
Sorry, Chuck. If my choice boils down to Hillary/Liz Warren or Jeb Bush/Mitt Romney, my vote ain’t gonna do a damned thing to save America.
Chuck, if the GOP were good at voicing a message, based on the Constitution, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin.
It’d be as easy as ‘We are dismantling program X. For each person BORN, this would save $Y they would pay before earning $1’
Instead, the 2-headed-coin heaps their own programs of ‘FREE’ to the masses.
We have some responsibility ourselves for directing attention of youth to the ideas of the Founders, all to be found online now, not in some dark stacks on remote floors of university libraries.
For instance, the History Channel's current Sons of Liberty portrayal of Samuel Adams might allow us to introduce to Millenials his clearly-articulated understanding of liberty versus tyranny.
"The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have receiv'd them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas'd them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath'd to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. - Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom." It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event." Samuel Adams - Essay in the Boston Gazette, October 14, 1771"When designs are form'd to raze the very foundation of a free government, those few who are to erect their grandeur and fortunes upon the general ruin, will employ every art to sooth the devoted people into a state of indolence, inattention and security, which is forever the fore-runner of slavery." - Article signed "Candidus," in Boston Gazette, December 9, 1771
"If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them." Samuel Adams- As Candidus in the Boston Gazette, January 20, 1772
"The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave... These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament." Samuel Adams - Rights of the Colonists, November 20, 1772
"It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave." - The Rights of the Colonists, November 20, 1772
"Is it now high time for the people of this country to explicitly declare whether they will be free men or slaves. It is an important question which ought to be decided. It concerns more than anything in this life. The salvation of our souls is interested in this event. For wherever tyranny is established, immorality of every kind comes in like a torrent, it is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice.” - Samuel Adams
And:
“The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional.” - Samuel Adams
It this is true, we’re hosed.
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