Why Young Americans Hate Politics, and What We Should Do about It

On the final day of her American Government class last spring, one of my wife's students approached her and said, “You're a really great teacher. It's too bad you're teaching this subject. I hate politics.” The young man had begun the course getting D's and F's, but gradually raised his grades to B's. Clearly he was diving into the work, but the dislike of politics that he brought into the course remained. Professor Linda Bennett's experience at Wittenberg University typifies what many people tell me and my observations confirm. Today's young Americans on and off campus have a visceral dislike of politics, and it is expressed in many ways. Like many Americans over 30, young people do not trust politicians, believing many to be corrupt and self-serving. Large percentages think government is unresponsive to people like themselves, and that government is too much in thrall to well-organized special interest groups. The 1994 National Election Study found, for example, that 77% of Americans under 30 said they trusted the Federal government to do the right thing only “some of the time” or “none of the time”; 79% thought that Washington was run to benefit just “a few big interests looking out for themselves”; and 54% believed that “quite a few” of the people in government are crooked. (Among those over 30, 79% said they did not trust the government in Washington to do the right thing; 80% thought it benefitted just a few big interests; and 51% said that quite a few people in government were crooked.) Large portions of young Americans do not think that they have any political clout or that national politicians are solicitous of their opinions.