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Americans under 21 first voted 50 years ago. It didn’t go as expected.
Washingtonpost ^ | 10/29/2022 | Frederic J. Frommer

Posted on 10/31/2022 11:54:39 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27

Fifty years ago, when young Americans aged 18 to 20 got to vote in their first presidential election, Democrats were confident that it would be a bonanza for their candidate, George McGovern. But President Richard M. Nixon had other ideas.

After the ratification of the 26th Amendment in 1971, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, Nixon invited 500 newly eligible voters to the White House for a July 5, 1971, ceremony, where the amendment was officially certified.

“A country throughout history, we find, goes through ebbs and flows of idealism,” Nixon told them. “Time after time the country needs an infusion of new spirit, an infusion of youth. You are bringing that.”

Nixon might not be the politician often associated with idealism — he made those stirring comments less than three weeks after the Watergate break-in that would doom his presidency — but he was shrewd enough to make a strong bid for these new voters.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: 18yroldvoters; 2022election; 2072election; 21; 26thamendment; americans; election2022; election2072; nixon; richardnixon; twentysixthamendment; under; years
Gen Z seems to love the rats. I could be wrong
1 posted on 10/31/2022 11:54:39 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Nixon was a good man and a decent President. Damn you journo-listers to hell for trashing this man.


2 posted on 10/31/2022 11:56:37 AM PDT by imabadboy99
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Raize the voting ave to 25.

Call it ‘The Tik Tok Adjustment’


3 posted on 10/31/2022 11:56:57 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Voting age should be raised to 24.


4 posted on 10/31/2022 12:10:14 PM PDT by fwdude (Society has been fully polarized now, and you have to decide on which pole you want to be found.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

My first vote was for Nixon. I have no regrets.


5 posted on 10/31/2022 12:18:24 PM PDT by rockrr ( Everything is different now...)
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To: ChicagoConservative27
One of the worst moves to preserve wisdom in politics that was ever invented. Goes along with the stupid decisions of the Supreme Cout to raise a previously non-existent water-tight wall of separation of government and Judeo-Christianity (but not Moslem or Hindu nor Satanism or atheism) and life for pre-born humans.

Because of their influence, we now have people entering institutions where minds ought to be made tough but mostly they are not. For money and power the schools overall are destroying the capability for critical thinking, and sending it abroad to our destruction as a beggar nation of fools, many of them MBAs and unionized "educators."

Spoken from an octagenarian PhD scientist who has seen it all, resident participant in top universities throughout from the 1950s onward, Syracuse U, Alfred Univ., Univ. Rochester, Virginia Polytech. And done my National Service with an Honorable Discharge as a machine gun squad leader as well.

6 posted on 10/31/2022 12:23:33 PM PDT by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux ["Let there be Light, God's Light"])
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To: ChicagoConservative27

The youth vote, for the most part, has Never really shown up to vote. The Democrats have been working that for 50 years with very mixed results.


7 posted on 10/31/2022 12:26:27 PM PDT by Captain Peter Blood
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To: ChicagoConservative27

my ONE vote of SHAME! Stupid classmate talked me into it.


8 posted on 10/31/2022 12:32:53 PM PDT by RebelTXRose (Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for us! PRAY THE ROSARY!)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

The headline is wrong: Americans under 21 weren’t even born 50 years ago.


9 posted on 10/31/2022 1:15:57 PM PDT by enumerated ( )
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To: rockrr
..."My first vote was for Nixon."...

Mine too.

I'm 71 now. I was raised a Dem but have never voted for one, not even in local elections. My father was a union Teamster under Hoffa and got me into the union in High School. Viet Nam was hot and heavy at the time and Jane Fonda was riding anti aircraft guns.

My first election was looking at commie Black Panthers, SDS, and Weathermen killing cops and burning America. McGovern was just an out and out Commie. Humphrey wasn't any better. My father flew B-24's in the War and knew McGovern did too, so he had a predilection to like him because of the B-24 thing, but even he couldn't vote Dem that year. He had already voted for Eisenhower before so he voted for Nixon also. He had snapped out of the cult of Dems after FDR.

We still had "Jim Crow" in Texas and it was easy to see it was all Dems that had had white drinking fountains, separate schools, and separate bathrooms. Prayer was still allowed in my schools and sodomy was illegal and the pill had just been invented they said would eliminate unwanted pregnancy.

It was entirely visible that the Dems were pro segregation, anti God, anti baby, and pro sodomy. In general they were demonic on every issue. In my 71 years, I have never voted for one Dem,....ever! I would not hesitate to vote for Nixon even knowing how it turned out. He was the best we had at the time over Satan and his demons.

10 posted on 10/31/2022 1:16:22 PM PDT by chuckles
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To: BenLurkin

Yep. Also raise the age to drink and buy a gun to 25.


11 posted on 10/31/2022 2:26:33 PM PDT by DownInFlames (P)
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To: rockrr

Likewise for first ever vote. Regrets, I’ve had a few.


12 posted on 10/31/2022 6:41:10 PM PDT by V K Lee (Our CONSTITUTION. Written with DIVINE assistance by very wise men. A document unlike any other.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

After the ratification of the 26th Amendment in 1971, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, Nixon invited 500 newly eligible voters to the White House for a July 5, 1971, ceremony, where the amendment was officially certified.

. . .

he made those stirring comments less than three weeks after the Watergate break-in that would doom his presidency — . . .

The Watergate break-in happened in June of 1972, so the Washington Post was eleven months after the speech. Strange the editors of the Post did not catch that since it was one of their biggest stories ever.


13 posted on 11/01/2022 6:56:34 AM PDT by Steven Scharf
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To: BenLurkin

The voting age was lowered because of the Vietnam war. A lot of people thought that if they were old enough to be drafted and sent off to fight then they should also have the right to vote. So we got the 26th amendment.

“old enough to fight, old enough to vote”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution


14 posted on 11/01/2022 6:57:37 AM PDT by sloanrb
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To: sloanrb

Yes, I was there. That was the excuse.


15 posted on 11/01/2022 7:34:50 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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