Drinking Liberally Shot of Truth
By Amanda Milstein
Last year my New York City voter registration was not processed, and I was concerned that I would be cast out of my social circle for my failure to vote. From blog posts listing their favorite candidates, excursions to canvass in swing states, and to lively in-person discussions about their political opinions, it was clear that my friends felt strongly about politics. My failure to vote in my first year out of college, accidental or not, made me an oddity, and it was clear that I would feel ridiculous if I let it happen again.
Other young people are influenced by the same social pressure that I felt: the blogs are buzzing with talk of the increased youth vote in New Hampshire and Iowa, and CIRCLE reports that "Young adults voted for the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate in races for the House of Representatives (58% vs. 38%), the Senate (60% vs. 33%) and governor (55% vs. 34%)."
Why are young people voting for such large numbers for Democrats, and why has the number of youth voters increased so dramatically?
Paul Waldman suggests that young people may be voting for Democrats because the issues that are important to the right, such as restricting gay rights and immigration, do not resonate with them. A sixty year old voter probably did not grow up with openly gay friends and sitcoms that dealt with homosexuality in a positive light, whereas many younger voters have grown up in a culture that was more accepting.
David Sarno discusses another factor in increased voter turn out: pressure from online social networks. I am not the only one to be bombarded by my friends political preferences and voting information on Myspace and Facebook. Could seeing your friends status message read "Joe Shmoe is thinking about who he should vote for" or see them add political information to their profile increase people's likelihood of voting or becoming more politically aware?
I saw how Facebook can create social pressure about political issues in my own immediate family. My father's favorite president is Ronald Reagan, so I spent a lot of effort making sure my younger brother would share my political beliefs. I did everything from paying him to read children's stories that talked about gay rights, to secretly teaching him about the importance of unions, and sharing reasons why evolution was pretty cool (I swear all of these things really happened). You can imagine my horror when my Facebook news feed listed that one of my worst fears had come true-my brother had identified as a moderate. I threatened to start a Facebook group called "The Committee to Get My Brother To Identify as a Liberal," but it didn't work.
He later told me that he dreamed of a world where his position would be in the middle, and huge swaths of people would be to the left of his liberal political beliefs. Maybe I can accept that for now-or maybe now that I know how powerful a tool Facebook can be for changing people's behavior I will get everyone I know to write on his wall demanding that he state his political views accurately and vote accordingly. At Living Liberally we believe in the power of peer networks to inspire people to become more politically active, and it's great to know that young people are encouraging each other to become more involved, one Facebook status message update at a time.
