Latest / Pod Save America / Why No One’s Winning Young Voters (Ep. 5)

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Why No One’s Winning Young Voters (Ep. 5) · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that we
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: recorded this episode a few days before the debate that
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: has changed everything. But we still want to bring you
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the episode that we recorded because the concerns that you're
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: going to hear from these voters are concerns that they
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: expressed before the debate and they are concerns that they
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: will express after the debate, I'm sure. So with that,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: here's our episode.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: That's sort of where young people sit generationally in history
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: in general is like we are always the group of
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: people that are going to be fighting and begging and
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: demanding change. Like we're never going to be OK with
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: what the status quo is. So even if Biden has
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: been the most progressive president and we do talk about that,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I think young people are always going to be the
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: group that pushes us to be better, to have a
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: more equitable and fair society, because we've always been that
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: way on every civil justice fight that's existed.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: In my opinion.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: So.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I think we just need to do a better job
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: at talking to them.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Anderson Clayton is a 26-year-old voter in a swing state
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: who wants to see a generational shift in our politics.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: That makes her just like most Gen Z voters. What
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: makes her different is that she decided to run for
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: state party chair in North Carolina and is now the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: youngest person in America to ever hold that title. We
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: called her up to talk about what she's hearing from
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: young voters in North Carolina as she tries to flip
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the state this November. A tough challenge in a place
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: that's only competitive because of an electorate that keeps getting
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: younger and more diverse. For a few decades now, young
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: voters have been a big reason that Democrats win elections.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: In 2020, over half of 18 to 29-year-olds voted, low
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: compared to other age groups, but still the highest youth
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: turnout since the voting age was lowered to 18. For
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the first time ever, there were more Gen Z and
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: millennial voters combined than there were baby boomers and the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: silent generation. And these voters supported Biden by around 20
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: points more than Trump, a huge gap that we also
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: saw in the 2018 and 2022 midterms. But there are
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: warning signs everywhere that 2024 may not look the same.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: You see it in polls, you hear it in focus groups,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and you've probably heard it anecdotally. A lot of younger
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: voters seem more disillusioned and angry than usual about politics,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the two parties, and their presidential candidates. Democrats have always
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: had challenges getting younger people to actually vote. But this time,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: there's a concern that even if they do vote, they
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: might not support Biden or other Democrats by the same
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: margins they have in the past. The big question, of course,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: is why. And what would actually motivate young voters to
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: get out and help defeat Trump and MAGA politicians with
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the same turnout and margins that we saw in 2018, 2020,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: and 2022? We asked Anderson what she thinks.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I think that parties in previous years have been the
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: ways that people were motivated to turn out and vote.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: But I think in terms of young people, issues are
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: going to motivate them a lot more this year and
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: in future generations and in future cycles of political organizing
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: that we're going to see. And young people really care
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: about specific policy issues. Finding a job, finding a house,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: being able to live, like deciding where they want to.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Do they want to start a family?
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: Do they not?
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  Speaker 2: Like that should be their decision to make at the
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: end of the day. Like, Gaza and I, cause I,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I think about it and I'm like, that is the
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: one issue I hear so much talked about when we
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: put young people in that category. We have heard the
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: president call for a ceasefire. We've heard the vice president
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: call for a ceasefire. Like I am not negating that
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: that is a huge issue for a lot of young people,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: especially a lot of politically active young people that are
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: aware of that issue, have been aware of it and
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: know what's going on. And I've also come into a
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: political awakening on it. But I also think that like,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Young voters, especially in the South right now, have seen
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: our rights be fundamentally stripped from us. And I think
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: that people here in this region of the country care
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  Speaker 2: a lot about what is happening at the state level
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: and at the local level, because it is causing us
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: to not be able to see a future staying in
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  Speaker 2: the state that we grew up in, that we care about,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: that we want to live in for the next 50 years.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: And so a lot of those issues look like housing affordability.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: It looks like wages in North Carolina. Abortion rights is
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: something that I hear from college campuses every day when
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I'm on them. And also the fact, I mean, UNC
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  Speaker 2: Chapel Hill had two school shooter drills last year alone,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and they had a faculty member that unfortunately was killed
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: with an active shooter on one of their campuses. And
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: that came from our state legislature repealing the pistol permit vote.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: that came down in 2023. And we have seen this
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: legislature come for young people. And I'm like, God, if
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I can't get y'all motivated by the fact that these
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: people are literally stripping away your fundamental freedom, I don't
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: know what more I can do in this election cycle.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: This will sound repetitive, but contrary to the impression you
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: may get from the news and social media, it turns
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: out that the majority of young people care most about
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the same issues nearly every other group of voters cares about.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Their cost of living, their basic rights and freedoms, and
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the safety of their communities. The difference is, they are
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: more doubtful than most that the people who represent them
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: will actually be able to deliver for them. Especially when
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: those politicians' life experiences seem so different and distant from
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: their own.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: I tell people all the time, I'm like, young people
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: got to organize young folks. Like, did you listen to
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: your parents necessarily? Probably not. Like we listen to the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: people in the community that is around us. And like,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: what is our voting block feeling about this election cycle?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Do they feel the doom and gloom that's provided to
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: us every day with a phone screen that tells you
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  Speaker 2: you can do nothing about politics whatsoever? You can't change it.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Or do they listen to the person that's out there
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: in their group chat that's saying, hey, I'm going out
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: to knock doors today for Joe Biden and for Kamala
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Harris or for Josh Stein and for Alison Riggs, who's
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: running for Supreme Court in North Carolina. I need you
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to come out with me. Let's go out and knock
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: doors for a candidate that actually wants to see a
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: future that envisions young people in it in this community.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Anderson's last point is an important one. Even though younger
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: voters have the same concerns as other generations, they have
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the longest future ahead of them. And they're not going
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: to participate in a political system that doesn't focus on
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: that future, especially when it seems so uncertain right now.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: So how do we convince young voters that their participation
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: is the only way to fix what's broken about politics?
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: How do we get more Anderson Claytons, or even just
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: enough young people who are willing to stave off the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: threat of Trumpism again? A few weeks ago, I caught
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: up with two people who've been talking to young voters
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and asking these questions for years. John De La Volpe
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and Kristen Soltis Anderson. John is an advisor to the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign, the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: School of Politics, and the author of Fight, how Gen
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Z is channeling their fear and passion to save America.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Kristen is a pollster who leads focus groups for the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: New York Times and is the author of The Selfie Vote,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: where millennials are leading America and how Republicans can keep up.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: You'll hear our conversation next, followed by more from Anderson
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: on what's happening on the ground in North Carolina this year.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to the Wilderness.
• 7:42
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: So we are talking this season about different groups of
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: undecided voters who aren't yet sold on Joe Biden or
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump or even voting at all. And I wanted
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: to talk to the two of you because one of
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the biggest mysteries of this election is what's going on
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: with young voters, a group both of you have spent
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: years polling, studying, talking to, writing entire books about. So
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  Speaker 1: I guess the first thing I'd love to hear your
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: thoughts on is this. Historically, the debate about younger voters
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: has been whether or not they'll show up. Still a
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: big question in this race, but now there's a debate
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: about who they'll vote for. We've seen some polls like yours, John,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: like the most recent CBS poll that show Biden maintaining
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: roughly the same advantage with younger voters that he had
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: in 2020. Other polls that show Trump gaining quite a
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: bit of support among these voters. John, what do you
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: think's going on here?
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  Speaker 5: I think it really is fascinating Dependent upon the definition
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: of the poll, definition of the sample. The poll that
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: you're referring to, which is the 25th year at Harvard,
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: shows among likely voters that the race is relatively normal.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: In other words, the Democrat.
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: Five or six months out when we conducted the survey,
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: is in the mid-50s. Republican, somewhere in the mid-30s.
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: So among that.
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  Speaker 5: Relatively narrow set of likely voters. That's kind of what
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: I see, and I think that's what was reflected in
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  Speaker 5: the CBS YouGov poll over the weekend. When we broaden
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: that up, when we look at registered voters, when we
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: look at the entire 18- to 29-year-old cohort, or when
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: we add in third-party and independent candidates, the data becomes
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: more opaque, and I think that's where we see a
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: significant shift relative to what we would expect to be
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: at this point.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: But right now, where I sit, it looks relatively normal
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: when we look at likely voters.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Kristen, what do you think?
• 9:41
  Speaker 7: I think that I look at polls like John's and
• 9:44
  Speaker 7: I put a lot of stock in them because they
• 9:46
  Speaker 7: are specifically looking just at young voters. I do polls
• 9:51
  Speaker 7: all the time of the broader electorate and out of
• 9:54
  Speaker 7: a thousand likely voters, the slice that's going to be
• 9:57
  Speaker 7: in that 18 to 29 group is relatively small. Sometimes
• 10:00
  Speaker 7: we're doing sampling using online panels that are matched back
• 10:05
  Speaker 7: to the voter file in our data. That's one way
• 10:07
  Speaker 7: that we try to ensure good data quality, but it
• 10:09
  Speaker 7: doesn't fix everything. And so if you asked me, what
• 10:12
  Speaker 7: do I trust more, a subsample of a survey or
• 10:16
  Speaker 7: John's survey? I would say John's survey more. 100 times
• 10:19
  Speaker 7: out of 100. And so I think when it comes
• 10:21
  Speaker 7: to the data where you're looking just at young voters,
• 10:24
  Speaker 7: not at a small subsample that bounces around a lot,
• 10:28
  Speaker 7: you do pretty consistently see a story of young voters
• 10:31
  Speaker 7: being not that in love with Joe Biden, maybe being
• 10:36
  Speaker 7: open to the idea of voting for Donald Trump, but
• 10:38
  Speaker 7: they are not conservatives. They are not Republicans. And that's
• 10:42
  Speaker 7: an important distinction to make.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: OK, I want to. take a step back and talk
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: about what you guys have been hearing from young voters. John,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: you've been conducting focus groups in town halls all over
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the country, some of which you've generously offered to share
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: with us today. Let's start with some general views from
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: voters in Columbus, Phoenix, and Atlanta about politics, government, and
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: what it's like to be young in America today.
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: Who agrees with that, like, when you turn 25, everything
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: kind of sucks?
• 11:11
  Speaker 7: Is that what you said, someone?
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Raise your hand. Raise your hand.
• 11:17
  Speaker 8: Raise your hand if you connect in some way to
• 11:20
  Speaker 8: what Chelsea said.
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: Once you turn 25 or so, everything kind of sucks.
• 11:24
  Speaker 9: Raise your hand.
• 11:25
  Speaker 8: Keep them up there for a second.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 11:30
  Speaker 10: Almost everybody.
• 11:31
  Speaker 9: Kind of building off of that, a lot of the
• 11:34
  Speaker 9: issues that we're facing in this country are are systemic
• 11:38
  Speaker 9: and they are primarily based in capitalism and it would
• 11:42
  Speaker 9: be great if we could address gun violence and reproductive
• 11:45
  Speaker 9: rights and the cost of living but when i see
• 11:48
  Speaker 9: these things on the news and i think about it
• 11:50
  Speaker 9: it's like we need.
• 11:51
  Speaker 8: To do a complete overhaul of the system so and
• 11:54
  Speaker 8: i know that the government's not willing to do that
• 11:55
  Speaker 8: because they're profiting and we're gonna.
• 11:58
  Speaker 11: See at the end of the day i don't think
• 11:59
  Speaker 11: the government's coming to save anybody We're all self-reliant. They're
• 12:03
  Speaker 11: still over here trying to sit here and say, oh,
• 12:05
  Speaker 11: we need to give.
• 12:06
  Speaker 12: Money to Ukraine, give money to everybody else.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: But they have.
• 12:09
  Speaker 12: People on the daily who are in the streets dying,
• 12:14
  Speaker 12: barely able to survive.
• 12:16
  Speaker 13: Still nothing. Majority of politics are like extreme left battling
• 12:20
  Speaker 13: the extreme right. And it's like majority of people fall
• 12:22
  Speaker 13: somewhere in between and don't have to be arguing about
• 12:25
  Speaker 13: every single policy that they have absolutely no say in.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I picked those because I thought they were fairly representative
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: of the sentiment I heard from most of these voters. Frustrated, pessimistic,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: pretty cynical about politics and government. Kristen, does that track
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: with what you've seen and heard?
• 12:42
  Speaker 7: It does. And I got to say, it makes me
• 12:43
  Speaker 7: so sad that so many of them said, oh, yes,
• 12:46
  Speaker 7: upon turning 25, everything sucks. Just like side note, actually,
• 12:50
  Speaker 7: when you're 25, everything's amazing. When you're 40, you're going
• 12:53
  Speaker 7: to think that everything was amazing when you were 25.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Exactly what I thought.
• 12:57
  Speaker 7: Just a side note there. Don't be so down in
• 13:00
  Speaker 7: your mid to late 20s. But I do think that
• 13:02
  Speaker 7: for young people today, there's this disconnect that I find
• 13:05
  Speaker 7: bizarre and disheartening, which is that on the one hand, objectively,
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: there are lots of things that actually are really great
• 13:13
  Speaker 7: about being a part of humanity at this moment in time.
• 13:17
  Speaker 7: It is way better to be a human today than
• 13:19
  Speaker 7: it was 100 years ago, than it was 200 years ago.
• 13:23
  Speaker 7: even than it was 30 years ago. And so it just,
• 13:27
  Speaker 7: I feel like we are living in a moment where
• 13:30
  Speaker 7: there is a lot of reason why young people should
• 13:33
  Speaker 7: not feel as down on everything as they are. And
• 13:37
  Speaker 7: yet we live in, I think, a media ecosystem where
• 13:41
  Speaker 7: everything is fine, nothing to see here, like doesn't get
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: anybody to click on anything. But panic and doom and
• 13:48
  Speaker 7: You're being screwed. Everything's horrible. It's not your fault. The
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: world is coming after you like really sells this day
• 13:54
  Speaker 7: in age. And I worry that we have a generation
• 13:58
  Speaker 7: that has really fallen captive to this notion that they
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: are victims of something that they can't control and therefore
• 14:06
  Speaker 7: just go blame everybody else. Everything's terrible. They're not wrong
• 14:09
  Speaker 7: to think that politics is frequently awful. They're not wrong
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: to think that the two parties are not doing a
• 14:15
  Speaker 7: good job of representing an awful lot of voters in America.
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: I don't mean to say this to be Pollyanna-ish, but
• 14:22
  Speaker 7: it makes me so frustrated because I think back to
• 14:25
  Speaker 7: the millennial experience, right? And maybe we were optimistic in
• 14:29
  Speaker 7: a way that was unwarranted. And so this is maybe
• 14:31
  Speaker 7: the pendulum swinging back the other way. We were optimistic
• 14:34
  Speaker 7: and then reality came and hit us in the face.
• 14:36
  Speaker 7: And for Gen Z, they're going to start off really
• 14:38
  Speaker 7: cynical about everything and there's no way for them to
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: possibly be disappointed because they already think things are as
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: bad as they could possibly be. So it does line
• 14:48
  Speaker 7: up with a lot of the data that I'm seeing.
• 14:50
  Speaker 7: The one thing that I didn't hear in those clips,
• 14:53
  Speaker 7: but I'm curious, John, if you have heard any of
• 14:55
  Speaker 7: this as well, is that for a lot of young people,
• 14:57
  Speaker 7: they think everything is terrible and they don't trust government
• 15:01
  Speaker 7: or today's current politicians to fix it. But they actually
• 15:05
  Speaker 7: have quite a lot of confidence in their own generation
• 15:07
  Speaker 7: to fix it. So it's not like they think everything
• 15:09
  Speaker 7: is going to be terrible forever. They just think it's
• 15:12
  Speaker 7: going to be terrible until their cohort is in charge.
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: And they do believe in the power of government to
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: solve those challenges. They distrust government. They distrust the current government.
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: But they do think that government and a robust government
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: should have a responsibility to address some of these underlying challenges.
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: systemic issues that you heard in those clips.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: John, I was just going to ask you, like, this
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: does seem, when I hear these voters, it seems like
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a particular challenge for the party that wants people to
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: believe that government can be a force for good and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: for progress, doesn't it?
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: Well, that is, I think, is one of the questions,
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: one of the main questions I have about this entire electorate,
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: which is, as Krista knows, that young people generally vote.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: When they can see the difference that voting makes, right? Right.
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: For themselves, for the communities, for the nation. And where
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: they're not able to connect those dots, they are less
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: likely to be open to messages from either candidate and
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: certainly less likely to vote and to participate.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: And the big disconnect I think we see kind.
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: Of in this cycle is I would argue that no
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: administration has been more youth forward in terms of their
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: agenda as the Biden-Harris administration. I think when I ask
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: young people, Four years ago, why are you going to vote?
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: Or now, why did you vote?
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: I hear climate. I hear gun violence a lot. I
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: hear economic issues, specifically student loan forgiveness.
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: All of those things, all of these three things have
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: been delivered in historic fashion, yet they're not able to
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: see that.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: They're not able to feel that.
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: And therefore, I think skepticism grows. It's always been a
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: challenge with younger people because when you're older, you're I
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: can measure we all have money in the 401k, in
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: our 401k or in the stock market. You know, older
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: voters know that their prescription drug coverage will be cost.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: Those are tangible differences that government make. For younger people,
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: it's hard to measure the day-to-day impact of climate, you know,
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: or gun violence prevention, those sorts of things.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: And I think that adds to.
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: The cynicism and one of the more challenges we have
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: to connect with them.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Kristen, I am prone to think and have argued that
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of the doomerism is a result of the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: media information environment that this generation is growing up in. And,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: you know, we're millennials, like we went through 9-11 and
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: the Great Recession, right? So we had our share of
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: problems too. You know, and then I hear from Gen Z,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you know, people in Gen Z who say, well, no, no,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: we're dealing, it's not just the media that we're watching.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: We're dealing with these terrible problems. Don't just blame the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: media or TikTok or anything else. And I do wonder
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: if it's really the media environment, would that mean that
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: young people who aren't as tuned into politics, who don't
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: consume as much media, would they be more Hopeful. Would
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: they be less less cynical and pessimistic? Have you guys
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: seen that at all in terms of like the split
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: between very engaged young voters and not so engaged young voters?
• 18:26
  Speaker 7: Well, what I think is interesting about this generation, too,
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: is that even I'm going to rewind the clock for
• 18:33
  Speaker 7: me back to when I was that age. because I
• 18:37
  Speaker 7: am an old millennial. This is like a real misconception
• 18:41
  Speaker 7: that I find a lot of people have. They think
• 18:43
  Speaker 7: millennials are young. No, no, we're like ancient at this point.
• 18:46
  Speaker 7: But that being interested in current events is now, it
• 18:55
  Speaker 7: is much more the norm. It is much like being
• 18:59
  Speaker 7: tuned in That does not mean watching hours of cable
• 19:03
  Speaker 7: news each week. That's not what I mean. But it
• 19:08
  Speaker 7: is no longer just the province of like the kids
• 19:10
  Speaker 7: on the debate team. That it is the thing that
• 19:13
  Speaker 7: like the most popular influencers are talking about when something
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: big happens like the Dobbs decision. Like the influence of
• 19:22
  Speaker 7: politics and discourse around issues is not just siloed off
• 19:27
  Speaker 7: into politics brain anymore. And I think that explains a
• 19:33
  Speaker 7: lot of things. I think it explains a lot of
• 19:35
  Speaker 7: why Gen Zers are driving their boomer bosses crazy by
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: wanting their companies to take stands on political issues, that
• 19:42
  Speaker 7: for an older generation, there was a little bit more
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: of a siloing of your political views are over here.
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: Here's what I do for my job. Here's my family.
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: Here's my church. And like those walls are all coming
• 19:52
  Speaker 7: down for a younger generation that the same person they
• 19:57
  Speaker 7: are getting beauty tips from is 30 seconds later telling
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: them your reproductive rights are under assault. That those worlds
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: have blended in such a way that I actually don't
• 20:08
  Speaker 7: necessarily differentiate like young people who are less tuned in
• 20:12
  Speaker 7: because it's like less tuned in to what? Somebody who
• 20:14
  Speaker 7: is not paying attention to political podcasts is probably following
• 20:18
  Speaker 7: sports news or beauty influencers. And you can get political
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: news that way in a way that you probably weren't
• 20:25
  Speaker 7: 20 or 30 years ago.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating. I hadn't thought about that.
• 20:29
  Speaker 8: All right.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: So just about every poll shows that the economy is
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the top issue for young voters as it is for
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: all voters. This is especially true for concerns about affordability,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: cost of living. I will say, like, the sense of
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: frustration and hopelessness feels more acute with young voters than
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: with a lot of the other voters I've heard. And
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it came up in every single focus group and town
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: hall that John sent us. Columbus, Phoenix, Irvine, Atlanta, and Detroit.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 20:58
  Speaker 14: For example, I'm paying $ 2, 000 for a two-bedroom apartment to rent.
• 21:04
  Speaker 14: And that would cover their mortgage on like a mansion
• 21:07
  Speaker 14: when they were younger.
• 21:09
  Speaker 15: I spent four years at school and I've been applying
• 21:11
  Speaker 15: for jobs for the last four months. It's been hard
• 21:14
  Speaker 15: finding places.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: A lot of places don't want to email you back.
• 21:17
  Speaker 15: And it doesn't give me much hope after I just
• 21:20
  Speaker 15: spent four years in college trying to work hard for
• 21:23
  Speaker 15: this degree. And can't even get an email back saying, sorry,
• 21:26
  Speaker 15: we recommend somebody else.
• 21:28
  Speaker 8: It seems often people, older people don't understand how expensive
• 21:32
  Speaker 8: everything has gotten.
• 21:33
  Speaker 10: Four years younger.
• 21:34
  Speaker 8: I worked really hard to move into like a more
• 21:37
  Speaker 8: middle class lifestyle and that immediately was pushed into a
• 21:40
  Speaker 8: lower class lifestyle.
• 21:41
  Speaker 10: From the cost of living.
• 21:42
  Speaker 12: A lot of younger people pick up a lot of
• 21:44
  Speaker 12: jobs and lose a lot of jobs very quickly and
• 21:48
  Speaker 12: a lot of older people will feel like that's unprofessional
• 21:50
  Speaker 12: that you may get a job quick, get another job
• 21:52
  Speaker 12: quick but the rate we going and the pay we
• 21:55
  Speaker 12: making is you don't have an option to stay where
• 21:57
  Speaker 12: you're not getting what you deserve or what you should get.
• 22:01
  Speaker 12: So they don't understand the severity of staying in a
• 22:04
  Speaker 12: place where you're not making enough money to survive, let
• 22:06
  Speaker 12: alone they feel like you should overwork yourself and become
• 22:08
  Speaker 12: a slave to your job so you can make bare minimum.
• 22:12
  Speaker 16: I'm not looking to buy a house right now, but
• 22:15
  Speaker 16: it is something I would like to do one day.
• 22:17
  Speaker 16: And it feels like that goal just gets further and
• 22:21
  Speaker 16: further away. Like by the time that you get to
• 22:23
  Speaker 16: where you want to be, that benchmark has moved up again.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Now, you look at economic statistics and see that The
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: unemployment rate is very low for young people. Inflation has
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: come down. The data doesn't seem to suggest that young
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: voters are doing worse than other generations. So I'm curious, like,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: have you guys heard similar economic angst from millennials or
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Gen X when they were this age or something different
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: happening with Gen Z? John?
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: This is different. This is different.
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: You know, John and Kristen, I spend probably 20 summers,
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: you know, doing similar sorts of town halls and focus
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: groups from the advent of the Harvard Youth Poll. And
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: like I found the vibe in the rooms in 2017
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: different when Trump was in office in terms of the
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: fear and the anxiety and the concern, I'm hearing the
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: same thing but in the economic perspective that I had
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: never heard of before. And in addition to that, though,
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: The other thing, I'd be interested in Kristen's perspective. The
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: other thing which I'd never heard or seen before is
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: there's barely a focus group or a town hall. The
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: town halls, I'm talking about 24, 25, 30 people that
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: I can assemble where a member or two had not
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: already been homeless, feel like they're on the verge.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Of homeless, you know, or something similar.
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: So it's like the qualitative experience of the anxiety, which
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: I think some context could be helpful, right, from all
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: of us, one. But there is real, you know, kind
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: of a connection to being without a home at such
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: a young age that I think that we need to
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: listen to and take seriously.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say that when I have done these
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: focus groups too, like the one issue that relates to
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: cost of living that comes up more than anything else
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: is housing. And I do think you can say that like,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: economic statistics are what they are, but housing especially, both
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: rent and mortgage and with interest rates where they are,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: that is much different than it has been. But Kristen,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: what do you think? What have you been hearing?
• 24:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I would say that what I am hearing, the
• 24:35
  Speaker 7: Gen Z angst compared to, say, the millennial angst, they
• 24:38
  Speaker 7: are not twins, but they are cousins. For the millennial angst,
• 24:43
  Speaker 7: it was acute concern about the ability to get a
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: job that really was backed up by the economic data
• 24:50
  Speaker 7: at the time. For millennials, that was the, we were
• 24:55
  Speaker 7: the generation where a lot of the, hey, you know what,
• 24:58
  Speaker 7: if you want to set yourself up well in life,
• 25:00
  Speaker 7: what you need to do is set aside 10% into
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: your retirement fund and you need to buy a house
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: and you need to get married and you need to
• 25:07
  Speaker 7: go to college and get a degree. And we were
• 25:10
  Speaker 7: the generation that started to go, are you sure about
• 25:13
  Speaker 7: all that? Because the housing market just collapsed and I
• 25:16
  Speaker 7: do have a college degree and I can't really get
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: a good job. And so our generation was more the
• 25:21
  Speaker 7: one where all of these things that we were told
• 25:23
  Speaker 7: we were supposed to do, we started to go, I'm
• 25:26
  Speaker 7: not so sure about that. Gen Z is just kind
• 25:28
  Speaker 7: of outright rejecting them from the beginning and saying, like,
• 25:30
  Speaker 7: I see through this facade. I'm not interested in participating
• 25:33
  Speaker 7: in this farce. And that's where their anxiety is coming out.
• 25:37
  Speaker 7: But so take something like housing. For the millennial generation, generation,
• 25:41
  Speaker 7: the problem would have been that the economy is so
• 25:43
  Speaker 7: bad and you can't get a job that pays enough
• 25:46
  Speaker 7: to save up enough for the deposit. Where for Gen Z,
• 25:51
  Speaker 7: now we're in a world where it's harder than ever to, say,
• 25:53
  Speaker 7: qualify for a mortgage because they've now changed what it
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: takes to do that. The interest rates are going to
• 25:58
  Speaker 7: be higher. So they may have a very different job environment,
• 26:02
  Speaker 7: wage environment. but at the same time, if they're having
• 26:06
  Speaker 7: to spend it all on groceries, then it's hard to
• 26:08
  Speaker 7: save it up anyways to be able to pay for
• 26:10
  Speaker 7: that down payment. And so it's, they are not identical,
• 26:14
  Speaker 7: but they are similar. I do think that most young
• 26:17
  Speaker 7: people come into adulthood and find that being an adult
• 26:21
  Speaker 7: is very hard, is very challenging. And you're suddenly faced
• 26:24
  Speaker 7: with all sorts of things that maybe the school system
• 26:27
  Speaker 7: or life has not prepared you for adequately when you
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: get there. And you're right to be pretty ticked off
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: about that. I've I'm not trying to necessarily walk back
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: my earlier dismissal of young people's angst, but to say
• 26:38
  Speaker 7: that if you are 25 and you are frustrated that
• 26:43
  Speaker 7: you cannot afford a home, you're not wrong to be
• 26:47
  Speaker 7: frustrated that you cannot afford a home. If you are
• 26:49
  Speaker 7: 25 and you have a ton of student loan debt
• 26:51
  Speaker 7: and a degree that you think is not paying off,
• 26:53
  Speaker 7: you're not wrong to be upset about that. But I
• 26:56
  Speaker 7: do also think that it's important to keep in mind
• 27:00
  Speaker 7: what is the median experience, right? So college for student
• 27:04
  Speaker 7: loan debt. John, I'd be curious for your take on this.
• 27:06
  Speaker 7: I hear that as a concern amongst political elites a lot.
• 27:11
  Speaker 7: Oh my goodness, this is going to be something huge
• 27:12
  Speaker 7: that drives young voters. But a majority of young people
• 27:16
  Speaker 7: don't necessarily have a four-year degree, or that's not part
• 27:19
  Speaker 7: of their life plan anyways. And so I also do
• 27:21
  Speaker 7: wonder how much some of this anxiety is rooted in
• 27:26
  Speaker 7: the attention that gets paid to the voices of those
• 27:28
  Speaker 7: who want to attend expensive colleges or get an apartment
• 27:32
  Speaker 7: in an expensive urban area versus kind of the median
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: Gen Z experience, which may not look like that.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: John, what do you think?
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that, I think a couple of things,
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: one of which is the most anxiety I hear is
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: actually from, you know, the two clips that stand out
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: to me, one's from Detroit and one was from Columbus,
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: where people After they graduated college or community college, we're expecting, quote, that,
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: you know, working class or middle class lifestyle. And they're
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: already saying they're falling behind and may never be able
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: to kind of to catch up. And I think a
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: lot of it is just like the cost of even
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: rental income, right? So I think a lot of it isn't,
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: I think it is that kind of lived experience. And
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: the one word that kind of connects all this for
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: me is stability. Younger people are looking for some place
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: where they can find some stability. There is no stability
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: in the political system today. There is no stability when
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: we look at where the world is right now. And
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: there's very little stability in their own home or in
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: their neighborhood. And that is, I think, those three combinations,
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: those three things in combination.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: Is what's really driving a lot of anxiety and angst.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: And I want to hear what Kristen's perspective is on this.
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: But I would throw out like, hey, you know, what
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: do you think the stock market, when was the last
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: time the stock market had a record?
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: You know, yesterday.
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: You know, I can't convince someone that their life is
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: getting better even though the stock market is getting better
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: or even the unemployment rate. It's how they're feeling it
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: and perceiving it at this moment in this very, you know,
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: young part of their overall, hopefully.
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: Adult experience.
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: So I want to pick up on what you said
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: about stability because in general, I think that this axis
• 29:18
  Speaker 7: of chaos versus stability is going to be totally decisive
• 29:22
  Speaker 7: in this election. I think that voters overall are craving
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: stability in what they feel has been a very chaotic
• 29:29
  Speaker 7: last eight to 10 years of American life. At the
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: same time, I struggle with how to square that with
• 29:37
  Speaker 7: some of the young people whose voices we just heard
• 29:40
  Speaker 7: in those clips that you played, where they're saying, I
• 29:42
  Speaker 7: want to tear down the system. And to bring it
• 29:46
  Speaker 7: back to the 2024 election, that's exactly the kind of
• 29:49
  Speaker 7: rhetoric you would hear from someone who was a low
• 29:51
  Speaker 7: engagement voter who decided to turn out in 2016 for
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: Donald Trump and who I think in 2024 is susceptible
• 30:00
  Speaker 7: to turning out for Donald Trump because they still want
• 30:03
  Speaker 7: that wrecking ball style approach. And maybe they're RFK Jr.
• 30:09
  Speaker 7: curious or what have you. But I think what's so
• 30:11
  Speaker 7: interesting about young voters is that on the one hand,
• 30:14
  Speaker 7: I agree that they would like some ability to, you know,
• 30:18
  Speaker 7: feel like they have financial security, to feel like they
• 30:21
  Speaker 7: have housing security and those sorts of things. But aren't
• 30:25
  Speaker 7: they also the generation the most likely to say, I
• 30:28
  Speaker 7: want to blow things up?
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it's fascinating that we're talking about
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: sort of the two candidates and the two parties, and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: we're talking about it on the axis of chaos versus stability,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: which I tend to agree with, or tear it all
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: down or keep the system we have. And it does
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: seem like the traditional system maybe pre-Trump Republican message that
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: government should, you know, get out of the way would
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: not necessarily be attractive to these voters. But it also
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: seems like they're skeptical that Democrats will be able to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: actually deliver on their promises to help make life more affordable.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: So sort of where does that leave both parties in
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: terms of, like, do you guys think there are economic
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: messages that would resonate with young people that aren't just
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tear it down. I'm not going to
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: tear it down. I'm going to keep things the way
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: they are. I'm going to change things. Do they have
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: any sense of an economic message that's appealing to them?
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: John?
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: The first time.
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: I conducted a survey many years ago when I was
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: asking questions about capitalism, socialism, and other things, when I
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: found a majority essentially rejected capitalism, I learned very quickly
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: through follow-up focus groups that it wasn't a rejection of
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: the system itself. It was essentially a rejection of how
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: it was being practiced. In fact, when I share the
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: definition in subsequent surveys, support for capitalism went up. What
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: I have continued to hear is that when I challenge
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: young people to tell me what's better, they would describe
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: to me a combination of a Teddy Roosevelt and an FDR,
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: kind of a a new deal in a square deal,
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: something that provided some basic infrastructure, social infrastructure one, but
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: also something that was big enough to break up monopolies
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: and those sorts of things, give the regular person kind.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: Of an opportunity.
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: So I think it's a more modern version of capitalism
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: is what younger people are asking for. But I always
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: love spending time with Kristen because I learn so many things.
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: So when I think about the chaos versus stability, it's
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: really kind of how many different axes are there, right?
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: Are we talking economics? Because that tends to favor Trump.
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: Are we talking kind of political and democratic? That would
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: tend to favor Biden, I would argue, right? So it's
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: just not chaos versus stability is really kind of what
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: are the axes on that we're also looking at, the
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: second axes.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: So fascinating.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Christian, what do you think? Because it's interesting, the Republican
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Party's in a spot right now where policy-wise, it seems still,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: at least Republicans in Congress, are still wedded to like
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: a tax cut deregulation agenda. And then there's the Trump
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: style of politics, which seems to be like, you know,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: economic populism as a style more than actual policies. But like,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: how do you see that?
• 33:17
  Speaker 7: I think that a big part of the reason why
• 33:19
  Speaker 7: you have seen more young people at least express an
• 33:24
  Speaker 7: openness to someone like Donald Trump compared to, say, Mitt Romney,
• 33:28
  Speaker 7: 12 years ago, is in part that economic populist thread.
• 33:33
  Speaker 7: Because I think for a lot of young people, their
• 33:36
  Speaker 7: core concern with the financial, with our economic system, is
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: a sense of fairness. Which is not to say that
• 33:42
  Speaker 7: they think that fairness means everybody gives 100% to the
• 33:45
  Speaker 7: state and the state allocates it accordingly. Actual centrally planned
• 33:51
  Speaker 7: economy is not necessarily what they're thinking. So I agree
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: with John on that. A lot of young people who
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: say they want to tear down the capitalist system, when
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: you ask them to describe their ideal system, it is
• 34:00
  Speaker 7: not the Soviet Union. It is like Scandinavia. At the
• 34:07
  Speaker 7: same time, I think that for Republicans, you know, there
• 34:11
  Speaker 7: was a moment when kind of entrepreneurship and those sorts
• 34:16
  Speaker 7: of things, I thought there was a way for that
• 34:18
  Speaker 7: to be message to young people, in part because of,
• 34:22
  Speaker 7: you know, you heard some of those respondents in the
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: focus groups talking about their side jobs or, you know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 7: they're the ones that have kind of struck out on
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: their own. I had thought for a while that that
• 34:32
  Speaker 7: entrepreneurship message would have resonance, but I have since come
• 34:36
  Speaker 7: to think it has some limitations, in part for the
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: same thing that I said about the college degrees and
• 34:41
  Speaker 7: the housing. Like, to what extent is entrepreneurship actually a
• 34:44
  Speaker 7: dream of a lot of young people versus the a
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: dream of a small number of very vocal young people
• 34:50
  Speaker 7: who maybe take up disproportionate space in our minds. And
• 34:53
  Speaker 7: so for Republicans right now, I think the idea that
• 34:57
  Speaker 7: the government is bad at allocating resources, the idea that
• 35:01
  Speaker 7: the government is bad at making decisions about things is
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: still resonant. I think you're seeing some interesting pushback among
• 35:08
  Speaker 7: certain segments of young people on topics like crypto, for instance,
• 35:11
  Speaker 7: where they tend to like it more and they feel
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: like government's going to screw it up if government gets
• 35:15
  Speaker 7: more involved. That's just one little piece of where I
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: do still think there is a I don't want the
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: government controlling everything strain among this generation. But that's not
• 35:24
  Speaker 7: the same as, gee, I want to lower corporate tax
• 35:27
  Speaker 7: rates so that we can be competitive with the rest
• 35:28
  Speaker 7: of the world. Like that's not those are not the
• 35:30
  Speaker 7: same message.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: So we mentioned this briefly, but one economic issue that
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: keeps coming up is student debt, but also just the
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: financial value of a college education more broadly. And here's
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: what some of these voters said about that.
• 35:46
  Speaker 8: College was my biggest regret, honestly.
• 35:48
  Speaker 11: Oh, really?
• 35:50
  Speaker 12: I'm in debt for it and I don't even work
• 35:52
  Speaker 12: when I went to college.
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: You know, you graduated with a college degree. You can't
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: afford a house, a car, two kids, you know? But
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: now people with, like, a bachelor, you know, they can
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: no longer do that. Or, you know, then you have
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: to reach, like, the next step, like, master degree. Now
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: everyone get a master degree. So, like, the next one
• 36:11
  Speaker 6: would be, like... So I feel like just, like, not
• 36:13
  Speaker 6: compensate anymore.
• 36:16
  Speaker 17: As debt, one form or another, they're living with.
• 36:19
  Speaker 8: Everybody?
• 36:20
  Speaker 7: Student debt.
• 36:22
  Speaker 8: Student debt? Yeah.
• 36:23
  Speaker 15: How many people here.
• 36:25
  Speaker 17: Have student debt?
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: So everyone said they, or I think most people in
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: that group said they had student debt. You know, as
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Kristen mentioned, John, like the polling among all voters on
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: student debt relief is mixed, though young voters tend to
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: be more supportive of Is anyone, by the way, giving
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: President Biden credit for any of the student debt that
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: he has forgiven on his own in any of your
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: focus groups? Or is that just no one knows about that?
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: Very few.
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: So most of those focus groups, by the way, are
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: younger people. And we really wanted to see whether they
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: would vote or not. So that was essentially the criteria
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: for the demographics that we selected for.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: It's not, and very few.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: There are some people who had a family member who
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: relieved some student debt. Having said that, when I talk
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: to people in their 30s and their 40s, for example,
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: who have had some student debt relieved, they represent some
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: of the more emotional experiences I've ever had conducting research
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: like this in several decades. When you can hear you know, from,
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: you know, a 45 or 50 year old African American
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: woman who for the first time in her family's history
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: can now afford a house because of the debt relief, right?
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: Or it doesn't have to make a choice between, you know,
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: between saving for a child's education versus the rents, etc.
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: So there are incredible numbers of very moving stories about
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: the importance, point of role of this policy. The fact
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: is we have $ 150 billion plus relieved. That's almost 20%,
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: I think, of the Pentagon budget. And very few young
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: people appreciate that. Very few young people appreciate the fact
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: that Joe Biden promised it in 2020. And despite the
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: fact what the Supreme Court did, it has been delivered
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: to soon.
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: To be, I think, 10 million young people.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Well, Kristen, you mentioned this, but one thing I kept
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: hearing in these focus groups is these young people questioning
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: the value of a college education. And so, yes, they're
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: upset and burdened by student debt, but they're also just like,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: why did I do this? I did not get a
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: job that can keep me financially stable, even though I
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: paid all this money for college. And it does seem
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: somewhat seismic to me that questioning the very value of
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: a college education and that it can get you ahead
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: in life is sort of characteristic of people's opinions these days.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: And I feel like it hasn't been like that in
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the past.
• 39:14
  Speaker 7: Well, and I think it is rooted in the idea
• 39:17
  Speaker 7: that what is the purpose of getting a four-year degree, right?
• 39:22
  Speaker 7: And how has that question changed over the last 20, 30,
• 39:26
  Speaker 7: 40 years? Why did our parents' or grandparents' generation think
• 39:30
  Speaker 7: going and getting a bachelor's degree was important? That I
• 39:33
  Speaker 7: think especially after the Great Recession, there was this idea
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: that the job market is terrible for young people. In
• 39:40
  Speaker 7: order to get ahead, you have got to be extra
• 39:44
  Speaker 7: credentialed in order to set yourself apart. And so you
• 39:47
  Speaker 7: saw this real emphasis and I think not misguided to say, hey,
• 39:53
  Speaker 7: we should make sure that every student is on track
• 39:55
  Speaker 7: to where if they want to choose to get a
• 39:56
  Speaker 7: college degree, they've been prepared by the K-12 system to
• 39:59
  Speaker 7: do so. But the problem is, one, you have a
• 40:01
  Speaker 7: K-12 system that hasn't really prepared a lot of them
• 40:03
  Speaker 7: to do so. So they get to college and completing
• 40:06
  Speaker 7: in four years is going to be a challenge because
• 40:08
  Speaker 7: they've been so let down by the system that got
• 40:09
  Speaker 7: them there. Then they get to college and there's What
• 40:13
  Speaker 7: is the incentive of the college? Is the incentive of
• 40:15
  Speaker 7: the college to get them out in four years and
• 40:18
  Speaker 7: send them on their merry way? And I think we've
• 40:20
  Speaker 7: just had this misalignment of incentives that has led to
• 40:25
  Speaker 7: a generation saying, hey, I came and I got this
• 40:28
  Speaker 7: degree thinking it was going to do X, Y and Z.
• 40:31
  Speaker 7: And it's not clear to me that it's yielding that.
• 40:35
  Speaker 7: So what was this all for? And, you know, if
• 40:37
  Speaker 7: you talk to folks that work at colleges and universities,
• 40:39
  Speaker 7: they'll tell you, well, the value of the degree is
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: not just the dollars and cents that you are getting
• 40:44
  Speaker 7: in your paycheck. It's that you find yourself. It's that
• 40:47
  Speaker 7: you grow intellectually. It is in all of those things.
• 40:50
  Speaker 7: And that may all be true, but gosh, it costs
• 40:52
  Speaker 7: an awful lot of money to– become an adult and
• 40:56
  Speaker 7: find yourself and plenty of people become an adult and
• 40:58
  Speaker 7: find themselves and don't wind up in severe debt doing so.
• 41:01
  Speaker 7: And so I think this is a real crisis moment
• 41:04
  Speaker 7: for the higher education world where because the price of
• 41:09
  Speaker 7: their product has gone up so much, but the return
• 41:12
  Speaker 7: on that investment feels so opaque to people that I
• 41:16
  Speaker 7: think this is a crisis moment for the higher education world.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it certainly seems like that. And the degree
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter as much if you then can't afford rent
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: or mortgage after you leave college and get a job, right?
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: So even though economic concerns top the list for young people,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: this is a group of voters who feel very strongly
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: about what they see as an attack on their rights
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: and freedoms. Here's some young people from Atlanta talking about that.
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: What kinds of rights do you think are at risk
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: right now in this country?
• 41:48
  Speaker 9: Freedom of speech.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: Freedom of speech.
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: Do you guys agree with that? I agree with that.
• 41:54
  Speaker 9: Autonomy.
• 41:56
  Speaker 8: Okay.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I know we talked about it earlier. I don't know
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: if it's a right, but like you said earlier, you're
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: a generation.
• 42:01
  Speaker 16: Like I need your access to college.
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah. You know? Yeah.
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: Right to an education if you work for it. Right.
• 42:07
  Speaker 8: Right?
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: Is that a right that you feel like is like
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: under attack?
• 42:10
  Speaker 11: Sure.
• 42:10
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 42:10
  Speaker 13: I mean, you could definitely say reproductive rights because a
• 42:14
  Speaker 13: girl can't get an abortion now.
• 42:16
  Speaker 8: In some states in Georgia under attack in a lot.
• 42:18
  Speaker 15: Of states yeah I think that's crazy and I'm a
• 42:21
  Speaker 15: Republican and I think that is crazy.
• 42:24
  Speaker 18: I have endometriosis and a lot of health issues concerning
• 42:29
  Speaker 18: my reproductive system and some of the medications that I
• 42:31
  Speaker 18: have to be on and different things like that and
• 42:34
  Speaker 18: the possibility of having a risky pregnancy and not being
• 42:38
  Speaker 18: able to get the health care I needed is a
• 42:43
  Speaker 18: big right that I feel like.
• 42:44
  Speaker 11: I've lost Yeah, I would say speech really comes to mind,
• 42:48
  Speaker 11: freedom of speech. You know, I am Muslim, so it's,
• 42:51
  Speaker 11: you know, seeing kind of all these states on the
• 42:54
  Speaker 11: Israel-Palestine border, I mean, it hits home in some levels.
• 42:59
  Speaker 8: So, I mean, just kind of seeing how, you know,
• 43:02
  Speaker 8: the police can arrest so many people, you know, just
• 43:05
  Speaker 8: for protesting, seeing how corporations and people can take action.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: So, John, polls show that young voters are overwhelmingly pro-choice, um,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: and lists abortion as one of their top issues. The
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: open question is to what extent the issue will determine
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: their vote and whether they believe Biden will be able
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: to protect abortion access or even that Trump will further
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: restrict abortion access. Uh, what are you hearing?
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: So I think a couple of things on this, one
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: of which is, I think there's a large number of voters,
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: younger voters who don't necessarily understand or can't really see
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: the difference in their lives. based upon who the president
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: is in four years, even on these issues, number one, right?
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: So that's a very, very kind of important thing to
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: kind of, I think, appreciate that often the folks like
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: ourselves who spend a lot of time thinking, talking about
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: these issues don't always hear. The issue of rights, I
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: wasn't looking for rights, right? I'm asking people, you know,
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: what keeps people up at night, right? What are they
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: concerned about? And I think, and this is, my sense
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: is that's how the Biden campaign, you know, kind of
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: rolled out its announcement is around, there's a series of rights.
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: And I think the definition of what is a basic
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: right to Gen Z is different than the way in
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: which my generation, Gen X thought of it, right?
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: The right to breathe clean air and drink clean water.
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: The right to a K through 12 education without being concerned.
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: About a shooter coming in. That's a right. The right
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: to access healthcare.
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: So I think this generation, obviously reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights,
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: but also the right to feel comfortable sharing your views,
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: you know, in a public or a private spot. So
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: I think this idea of rights is something that is resonant,
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: that can connect a lot of the four or five
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: issues that we see in the top of these polls
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: quite a bit. And the degree to which I think
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: the Biden campaign can do that, I think that will
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: be helpful for his success to kind of motivate some
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: people to talk about the stability versus the chaos that
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: Kristen talked about earlier.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Kristen, Republicans are clearly worried about the political consequences of Dobbs.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: I know like Kellyanne Conway and some others have advised
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Trump to stick to a message where he talks about
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: letting the states decide and then also attacking Democrats for
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: not favoring any restrictions. Do you think that can work
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: with young voters? And how much do you see this
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: as a motivating issue for young voters?
• 45:28
  Speaker 7: So what fascinates me about the polling around this is
• 45:31
  Speaker 7: the way that it differs so greatly from the way
• 45:34
  Speaker 7: it looked 10 years ago, especially for young people. When
• 45:38
  Speaker 7: I was writing my book on millennials and their political views.
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: I actually dedicated a couple of pages to the fact
• 45:45
  Speaker 7: that when I was looking at the way millennials differed
• 45:48
  Speaker 7: from Gen Xers and boomers on issues on things like
• 45:51
  Speaker 7: LGBT rights, there were huge generational divides. But actually on
• 45:54
  Speaker 7: the issue of abortion, as recently as a decade ago,
• 45:57
  Speaker 7: there really wasn't a huge difference. This idea that there
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: were big generation or even gender divides was a little
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: bit overblown. It is not overblown today. There are huge
• 46:08
  Speaker 7: differences on these issues today. And for young women in particular,
• 46:13
  Speaker 7: it is a much bigger deal. And part of that
• 46:16
  Speaker 7: is because of the connection. And I think some pro-life
• 46:21
  Speaker 7: folks would have said, oh, this is unfair. But now
• 46:23
  Speaker 7: we've seen in enough states courts or legislatures taking action
• 46:28
  Speaker 7: that have led to the entanglement of an issue like
• 46:30
  Speaker 7: abortion with things like fertility care, with things like birth control.
• 46:35
  Speaker 7: This was a real panic in the wake of the
• 46:36
  Speaker 7: Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision. Oh, my goodness, is this
• 46:39
  Speaker 7: going to become a political hot button? And it kind
• 46:42
  Speaker 7: of subsided, like it flared up and then it sort
• 46:44
  Speaker 7: of went out of the discourse. It is back in
• 46:46
  Speaker 7: the discourse in a big way. And so I think
• 46:49
  Speaker 7: it's in a way that it was not a political
• 46:52
  Speaker 7: threat to Republicans 10 years ago. It is a political
• 46:55
  Speaker 7: threat now. And that's because even if it's not someone's
• 46:57
  Speaker 7: top issue, even if when you ask them that question
• 47:00
  Speaker 7: and you say, you got to pick one, what's your
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: top issue? They say, I can't afford my groceries. That
• 47:05
  Speaker 7: comes to the top of the list, economy, cost of living.
• 47:08
  Speaker 7: But that doesn't mean that abortion's not there as something
• 47:12
  Speaker 7: at a sort of gut level of, I just can't
• 47:15
  Speaker 7: bring myself to vote for someone who's on the other
• 47:17
  Speaker 7: side of that issue. And I also think that the
• 47:20
  Speaker 7: pro-life community was caught very flat-footed by the Dobbs decision.
• 47:23
  Speaker 7: You know, I would hear from pro-life folks over the
• 47:26
  Speaker 7: years that they attributed that lack of a generation divide
• 47:30
  Speaker 7: on the issue to to the fact that, you know,
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: you have sonogram technology these days that allows you to
• 47:35
  Speaker 7: see at a very early stage of pregnancy, look, there's
• 47:37
  Speaker 7: that little flicker and They sort of thought that that
• 47:40
  Speaker 7: in and of itself would kind of win the public
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: opinion battle for them. And as we see in the
• 47:46
  Speaker 7: wake of the Dobbs decision, that has not been the case.
• 47:50
  Speaker 7: The other issue, though, that I wanted to touch on
• 47:52
  Speaker 7: was when you played that clip, it was fascinating to
• 47:54
  Speaker 7: hear from the young man who said, I'm Muslim and
• 47:57
  Speaker 7: I am concerned about freedom of speech on campus.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I was literally just about to ask you that because
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: it came from both sides of the political spectrum, the
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: concern about the attack on free speech or what they
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: perceived as an attack on free speech.
• 48:07
  Speaker 7: So that has been a very quick kind of shift
• 48:10
  Speaker 7: because I have followed the polling around young people's perceptions
• 48:14
  Speaker 7: of free speech on campus. And really up until the
• 48:16
  Speaker 7: last year, it has been primarily a kind of conservative
• 48:20
  Speaker 7: concern and has gotten kind of dismissed as, well, this
• 48:23
  Speaker 7: is just conservatives being mad that they're not allowed to
• 48:26
  Speaker 7: be outrageous on campus. And I don't really care about
• 48:29
  Speaker 7: their freedom of speech. And now suddenly that it is
• 48:32
  Speaker 7: affecting young different groups of students, not just, you know,
• 48:35
  Speaker 7: the campus turning point USA chapter, suddenly you are seeing
• 48:39
  Speaker 7: more and more young people beginning to go, wait a minute,
• 48:42
  Speaker 7: I don't know if I like this idea that because
• 48:45
  Speaker 7: I hold a certain opinion, I'm going to be quote
• 48:47
  Speaker 7: unquote canceled, or I know that term has been abused.
• 48:49
  Speaker 7: But it's fascinating to me the way that this is
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: now a broader concern beyond just the right.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: John, do you hear that come up a lot? Because
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I've sort of wondered this too. It becomes, and it's
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: not just like a, you know, conservative activists and liberal
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: activists or people on the right and people on the left.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: You also hear it from people who are apolitical or
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: who aren't super politically engaged, just this feeling that everyone's
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: getting in trouble all the time and they're like afraid
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: to even talk about it and bring it up. And
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: it feels like it reached its peak in like 2017, 2018, 2019.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: And now it's sort of maybe subsided a little bit,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. What are you hearing?
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I hear some of that. I hear some of that.
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: I still think it's more prominent, you know, in the
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: conservative and the Republican groups, but, um, I do think
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: that that is stifling people from sharing their views and
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: therefore makes them less confident in their choices and thinking
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: through who they are from a political lens and their values,
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: et cetera, because they're afraid to even ask questions. I
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: think that is a very significant factor in terms of
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: driving or not driving support for people voting or not
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: because we don't have an environment where people are comfortable
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: asking questions or sharing their opinions because they'll be judged.
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: Young potential progressives feel that. Young potential conservatives feel that
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: as well. And I think that speaks to just a
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: lot of work we need to do around civics and
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: civic education with these young people because it's just not
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: healthy for anybody.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: So there's that voter mention, the campus protests, and of course,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: the issue related to young voters that's probably gotten the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: most attention in the media, certainly on social media, is
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: the war in Gaza. It was brought up in John's
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: focus groups. But I thought it was notable that we
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: also heard a different angle on why young people are
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: upset about U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts. Let's listen.
• 50:52
  Speaker 10: I want to stop the genocide.
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: I want to stop funding the wars.
• 50:56
  Speaker 10: I can't, in good spirit, being a Muslim woman... continue
• 51:00
  Speaker 10: to vote Democrat each year, like I have, on local
• 51:04
  Speaker 10: and on a presidential level, when I know that my
• 51:09
  Speaker 10: taxpayers' money is funding bullets for children.
• 51:13
  Speaker 8: Can I ask a follow-up?
• 51:14
  Speaker 13: Do you feel like by not voting for Biden.
• 51:16
  Speaker 8: By voting for Trump or someone else.
• 51:18
  Speaker 11: That will.
• 51:20
  Speaker 10: The lesser evil?
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: That will provide more peace or some assistance?
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 51:28
  Speaker 14: And some dignity and respect.
• 51:30
  Speaker 10: For the Palestinian cause? I think it's my responsibility to
• 51:36
  Speaker 10: vote for that. Voting for Biden, I mean, we're taking names.
• 51:41
  Speaker 10: I voted for Biden last year because it was a
• 51:43
  Speaker 10: lesser evil. But now I can't in good faith vote
• 51:47
  Speaker 10: for Biden for the same reason, that he is evil.
• 51:50
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 51:51
  Speaker 10: Fixing the potholes, mental health programs in the United States,
• 51:54
  Speaker 10: that's a priority for us. It affects our every day.
• 51:57
  Speaker 10: The price of groceries going up, that affects our every day.
• 52:00
  Speaker 10: What's happening in XYZ country far away, which, again, we're
• 52:05
  Speaker 10: in debt, so why are we bailing out other people's debts?
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: So two different issues there, but I want to start
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: with Gaza. So polls consistently show that most young people
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: have become critical of Israel's response to October 7th and
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: tend to sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians. On
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: the other hand, Gaza tends to rank much lower on
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the list of issues that will determine their vote. John,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: does that track with what you're seeing?
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've asked the question dozens of ways and dozens
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: of focus groups and surveys, and that's essentially it. The
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: only thing I'd add slightly to that, John, is that
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: In the Harvard polling, younger people sympathize roughly equally with
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: both the Palestinian civilians and the Israeli civilians, right? It's
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: the governments where we see the divide. But generally, yes.
• 52:51
  Speaker 17: Yeah.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Kristen, I'm interested in your thoughts on the opposition to U.S.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: financial support for foreign conflicts like Gaza. We heard someone
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: mention Ukraine in an earlier clip. And of course, this
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: is a position the Republican Party has moved towards under Trump.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: That's quite different than the GOP you grew up with.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's where young people of both parties
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: are headed? Or is there an isolationist streak now among
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: young people?
• 53:18
  Speaker 7: Absolutely. So there is no bigger issue set that divides
• 53:24
  Speaker 7: younger Republicans from older Republicans than foreign policy, which surprises
• 53:31
  Speaker 7: me sometimes. But the data is very stark. And it's
• 53:34
  Speaker 7: not just Ukraine. It is really that for an older
• 53:39
  Speaker 7: set of Republicans, and I think they share this with
• 53:42
  Speaker 7: older Democrats as well to an extent, there is a
• 53:45
  Speaker 7: view that America can be a force for good in
• 53:47
  Speaker 7: this world. Maybe it's like echoes of the Cold War mentality,
• 53:53
  Speaker 7: but when America is the world's leader, the world is
• 53:57
  Speaker 7: better off. And that is not something that young people believe,
• 54:00
  Speaker 7: no matter where they're at on the political spectrum, right
• 54:03
  Speaker 7: or left. So for those on the left, it is
• 54:05
  Speaker 7: a belief that America is fundamentally flawed in X, Y,
• 54:08
  Speaker 7: and Z way, and how dare we tell the rest
• 54:10
  Speaker 7: of the world how to behave when we have all
• 54:11
  Speaker 7: these problems at home. For young folks on the right,
• 54:15
  Speaker 7: it's not necessarily a view that America is bad, but
• 54:18
  Speaker 7: rather a view that it's not our problem. Let's focus
• 54:24
  Speaker 7: in at home exactly kind of what you heard. And
• 54:26
  Speaker 7: so oddly enough, I mean, eight years ago when Republicans
• 54:29
  Speaker 7: nominated Donald Trump, I thought you could not have created
• 54:32
  Speaker 7: someone in a lab who was going to be more
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: off-putting to young voters to turn them away from the
• 54:37
  Speaker 7: GOP than Donald Trump. But I would say that foreign
• 54:40
  Speaker 7: policy is actually the one issue area that is a
• 54:43
  Speaker 7: big exception to that. And that this is where, even
• 54:47
  Speaker 7: though I think a lot of the sort of Republican
• 54:50
  Speaker 7: foreign policy establishment believes, and I would say I think rightly,
• 54:55
  Speaker 7: that the world actually is safer and more stable when
• 54:58
  Speaker 7: America is strong and is in a leadership role and
• 55:01
  Speaker 7: is working with our allies rather than just looking inward.
• 55:04
  Speaker 7: But for most young people, they really don't think they
• 55:08
  Speaker 7: don't think that America is that great to begin with.
• 55:10
  Speaker 7: And therefore, they don't think that American projection of power
• 55:14
  Speaker 7: around the world does anything but harm.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: And again, and the Democratic establishment agrees with a lot
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: of the Republican establishment on that. And younger Democratic voters
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: seem to agree a little bit more with younger Republican
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: voters that this is not our business and we should,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: and America's, or at least American presence around the world
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: is a negative, right? It's bad. John, is that what
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: you're hearing with some young Democratic voters too?
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, very much so.
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: And the context about that, that was a middle of
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: a town hall meeting with 25 people, uh, with a, uh,
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: with a young Muslim woman from, from Dearborn who's kind
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: of shared that perspective. Um, I think she is reflective
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: of her generation on the issue of it's, it's, you know,
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: we need to stop funding, you know, other people's wars,
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: et cetera, on one hand.
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: Um, I'm not sure that she's as reflective of her generation.
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: I know she's not in terms of the connection directly
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: to Biden and her being less likely to vote Democrat
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: because we have not seen that correlation. I think that's,
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: I think that's worth noting. The other thing is every
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: time I've been in Detroit having these very challenging conversations,
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: the entry point into Israel and Gaza is through foreign aid, right?
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: That is viewed as a value and not necessarily a
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: place where people may or may not claim someone is
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: anti-Semitic because they carry those values to other places.
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: Around the world.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's end by talking about views of the candidates themselves.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, Not a lot of Biden or Trump fans
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: among these folks, which does reflect most of the polling.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: But I thought it'd be interesting to hear how they're
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: thinking through the choice, starting with an Atlanta voter who
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: talked about why he used to like Trump.
• 56:56
  Speaker 11: I was like 18 years old, you know, going starting
• 57:01
  Speaker 11: off college.
• 57:02
  Speaker 13: And, you know, like he's funny and he tells it
• 57:05
  Speaker 13: like it is.
• 57:05
  Speaker 8: And, you know, he doesn't give a fuck, you know,
• 57:07
  Speaker 8: it's like he offends somebody.
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: And, you know, that was very appealing to me.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: You know, 18-year-old sensibility.
• 57:14
  Speaker 13: I would say Trump, and I think it's very easy
• 57:18
  Speaker 13: for me being 22 for it to be skewed because
• 57:20
  Speaker 13: I was a lot younger when Trump was in office,
• 57:23
  Speaker 13: so I didn't really pay attention to it.
• 57:24
  Speaker 10: I wasn't paying bills the same way I am now.
• 57:27
  Speaker 17: And I also think that Biden's a little bit, like,
• 57:31
  Speaker 17: there's lasting effects from COVID that really, you can't really
• 57:35
  Speaker 17: blame on him that we're starting to feel right now,
• 57:37
  Speaker 17: like inflation being one of them.
• 57:39
  Speaker 15: I don't think, he's definitely not helping it, but.
• 57:41
  Speaker 13: There was bound to be some level of inflation.
• 57:44
  Speaker 17: But, I mean, when I think about it, there was
• 57:46
  Speaker 17: no foreign tension.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: But as far as they were saying about Biden being bad,
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: I kind of agree with that. But at the same time,
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: I feel like if your choice is Biden or a racist,
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: you're behind a go with Biden.
• 58:02
  Speaker 12: I think we all need to show up to vote
• 58:04
  Speaker 12: and everything because there's so many, like, boomer generation politicians
• 58:10
  Speaker 12: in place that are literally insane like they should not
• 58:14
  Speaker 12: be there anymore they they don't know what's going on
• 58:16
  Speaker 12: they're not in tune with their people so.
• 58:19
  Speaker 11: We need to come together to make sure that there's
• 58:21
  Speaker 11: people there that know what's going on and can.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Speak up for what we need so uh we hear
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of younger voters talking about the lesser of
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: two evils um may sound frustrating or depressing to some people,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: but I don't know, John, could ultimately be an effective
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: argument if you're trying to get someone to vote for Biden?
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: Well, it's the old comparative. There needs to be a comparative, right?
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: You know, Trump tried this, Biden did that. Trump believes,
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: you know, Trump believes in restricting abortion on a national basis.
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: Biden is working to kind of create a national law
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: to support women's reproductive rights, et cetera. So there has
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: to be that sort of comparative. I think, John, One
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: of the more interesting focus groups I've done in a
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: long time was with those first clips.
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: Of those young men in Atlanta, right?
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: And the idea of that first-time voter, their first reaction
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: to Trump when they were in their early high school years,
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: they view him as an antihero.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: And that is worth noting, right?
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: Their values aren't necessarily aligned, but that first experience is
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: a different experience than the young voter four years ago,
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: you know, who kind of came of age and saw
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: the you know, the policy and the comments where.
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: There's Charlottesville and other things.
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: So that's a really important perspective in terms of how
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: younger people's experience in this cycle is different than younger
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: people's experience in the last cycle.
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: And it goes just as well for Biden, by the way.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Chris, and there's been some data suggests a growing gender
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: divide among young voters with Trump appealing to more young men.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Do you think his support among this cohort has grown
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: over the last eight years? What do you think's going
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: on there?
• 59:59
  Speaker 7: So I think to the extent that you had somebody
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 7: who at 18 took the view of Trump, like the
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 7: young man in this focus group, right, that they liked
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 7: something about his sort of lawless, I don't care kind
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 7: of vibe, and that was appealing to them. I've been
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 7: a strong believer that part of the reason why Donald
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 7: Trump lost in 2020, and there are a million things
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 7: you could put on this list, but the one of
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 7: them is In 2016, he retained this aura of celebrity
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 7: around him. He's the guy who's good at economics. He's
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: Donald Trump who you see on TV. And the reality
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 7: of President Donald Trump was not quite that. But now
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 7: we've got another four years that we've been on where,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 7: you know, Donald Trump sort of backed away from being
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: in the news that much. He's literally been on trial
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 7: for felony charges and most Americans think were probably not
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 7: that tuned in until maybe they heard about the verdict from,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 7: you know, someone who heard from someone. And so I
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 7: still think that at this moment, and this will change
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 7: by the time we get to November, that Trump has
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 7: kind of reverted back in a lot of voters' minds
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: to celebrity Trump. And you see him cultivating this, right?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 7: He shows up at UFC events. Like, that's what he's
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 7: leaning back into, this kind of, I am, you know— masculine.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 7: I don't care. I'm vibrant. I'm vigorous. He's trying to
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 7: set up a contrast with Biden in doing so. But
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 7: can that sustain itself over however many months we have
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 7: until November with lots of advertising reminding voters of what
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 7: Trump was like as president? That's where I'm not so sure.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Well, John, that brings up like the challenge of reaching
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: younger voters in an information environment where they're either not
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: paying attention to political news or getting their news from
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: social platforms like TikTok, or as Kristen was saying earlier,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: getting some political information from influencers who aren't necessarily explicitly political.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: How has that changed the strategies necessary to communicate with
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: and persuade these voters to And, and to, because otherwise
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: it becomes sort of a vibes thing that Kristen was
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: just mentioning where it's like, oh, Trump seems cool and
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: maybe it wasn't that bad. And he's showing up at
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: UFC and Biden seems really old. And I'm seeing all
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: these videos of him, you know, look at looking frozen
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: and whatever else, like what, what, what are those strategies like?
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: Well, you need to play in that space. You need to,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: you need to play in the vibes playground, right? That's got,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: that's where young people get their information. You know, it's
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: quite clear. And that starts, I think, with really.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: Having sophisticated strategies around two channels, around YouTube and TikTok,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: from those two platforms. And it's just not in 30 seconds,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: 60 seconds, 90 seconds. It could be in 10, 15-minute
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: chunks of video on YouTube, which young people actually enjoy
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: that seemingly long form of content if they're able to
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: learn something.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: Because that is where information.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 5: um, is, is, is, is that's like the central place
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: in terms of where information is moving it from there,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: it goes to, you know, Reddit and discord and Twitch
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: and the other gaming platforms, but these.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: These efforts, and it can't be directly from the campaign.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: They are the least, you know, um, uh, you know, uh,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: they're the least trusted, uh, distributors of this sort of content.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: So what has to happen.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: I believe is that, um, like Trump has been doing
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: some way is tapping kind of influences or newer ideas
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: outside of the traditional political ecosystem, see them on YouTube,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: see them on the streaming platforms, and begin to kind
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: of reestablish and make some sort of connections on the
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: issues that matter so that the younger person who is
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: at the Fourth of July picnic or moving into their dorm,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: when they have that moment when another member of their
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: group is questioning what it all means or questioning government
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: or questioning the differences, that information is available to be
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: communicated from a peer-to-peer, right?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: There needs to be.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: Some organization kind of top-down seeding information through TikTok and YouTube,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: in my belief, and then which gives permission to other
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: people to say, you know what, may not be popular,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: I'm standing up for Biden because of this.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Kristen, last question. For a younger voter, who is open
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: to the possibility of a second Trump term isn't sold yet,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: what do you think the most effective argument is that
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: might make them pause and decide that maybe they don't
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: want to pull that lever for Trump?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 7: So I think the notion that Donald Trump wants to be,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 7: you know, he says, I want to be transformative. I
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 7: want to be this wrecking ball. But the idea that
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: he does not want to be transformative in a forward-looking direction,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 7: but back. I mean, his message has always been make
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 7: America great again. It harkens back to a past. And
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 7: I know that this is the summer of nostalgia and
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 7: that we're in this moment where Jen's ears are like,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 7: pulling up videos from when like people our age were
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 7: graduating from high school and they're like, oh, I miss
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 7: that kind of an experience. Why don't we have this? Like,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 7: I understand that there is some nostalgia for 1999 that
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 7: is completely justified. That's not what Donald Trump is talking about.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 7: He's not talking about going back to 1999. And I
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 7: think it is the fact that Trump has set himself
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 7: up to say, yes, I want to blow things up,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 7: but the way I want to move them is to
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 7: hit the rewind button and go back and reclaim something
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: that we feel like has been lost. There are a
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 7: lot of things in America's past that are completely the
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 7: opposite of what Gen Z wants for their future. And
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 7: so I think if I was advising Democrats on how
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 7: to best divorce Trump from the young voters who are
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 7: curious about him, it would be that. It wouldn't be
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 7: trying to say Trump is just as old as Biden
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 7: or any of that stuff. It would be that Trump
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 7: does want to blow things up, that he does want
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 7: to be vigorous and shake up the system. And he's
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 7: In a second term, he's not going to be mild-mannered
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 7: about it. He has said as much himself, but the
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 7: direction that he wants to take things is the opposite
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 7: direction of what you're looking for.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: And John, say you have a young Biden 2020 voter
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: in your life who's not sure they want to vote
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: for him again. You have a few minutes to persuade
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: this person to get out and vote for Biden. What
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: do you say?
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: I'd say, why did you vote for him in 2020?
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: And they'll say something to the effect of, I want
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: to progress on student debt, on gun violence, on climate.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: And then I would remind them that despite, in many ways,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: significant odds of Republicans fighting against the Supreme Court, he's
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: accomplished those things. He's not only promised those things, he
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: listened to young people, but he delivered in ways that
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 5: no other president in many decades has delivered for them.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 5: And that those things are at risk. They may not
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 5: be where they need to be at this moment, but
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: they're at risk if he votes in some other way.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: John and Kristen, thank you so much for joining The Wilderness.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: This was a fascinating conversation. I really appreciate your time.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 7: Thanks for having us.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: I found John's focus groups bleaker than most, but also enlightening,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: especially after my conversation with him and Kristen. These are
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: two people with ties to the Democratic establishment and the
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: pre-Trump Republican establishment. But because they've both spent so much
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: time talking to younger voters, it's given both of them
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: unique insight into where the future of American politics may
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: be headed. And it's a place that's probably unrecognizable to
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: the establishment of either party. Younger voters simply don't have
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: the same faith in institutions that older voters do. Some
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: of that has to do with the fact that they
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: don't see themselves represented in those institutions. Some of it
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: has to do with the fact that they feel let
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: down by those institutions at a time when they don't
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: feel secure about their finances, their rights, or their safety.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: And some of it has to do with where and
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: how they're getting the news and information that shapes their worldviews.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: This presents an especially difficult challenge to the one party
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: that's currently fighting to defend our democratic institutions from the
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: threat of authoritarianism. But the challenge isn't insurmountable. We've already
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: seen young people turn out in record numbers in 2018
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: and 2020 and 2022. We've seen them march and protest
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: and organize with a sense of urgency and intensity that
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: this moment demands. And as John and Kristen both mentioned,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: even if Gen Z doesn't have much faith in the
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: older people who are currently in charge, They have a
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: lot of confidence in their own ability to make things happen.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Just look at Anderson Clayton.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: So right now in the state, we've got organizers on
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: the ground. They are knocking doors across every county in
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: North Carolina on every weekend. The traditional ways of voter
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: contact are not always going to be the most effective
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: to reach young voters. And I think that where we
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: have to really chase the margins and chase young people
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: is showing up where they are. So that means on
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: college campuses. That means at your place of work. I
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: was in a rural county this past weekend, and one
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: of the guys that's running for county commissioner out there
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: looked at me.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 7: And he goes, where are young voters at.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: In this county, Anderson? And I said, do you have
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: a Lowe's, a Walmart, a fast food restaurant anywhere in
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: this county? Yes, absolutely, because the majority of those entities
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: are actually the number one employer in those counties, right, sometimes.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: Walmart employs up to 300 people in any rural community
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: that you live in right now. And so looking at
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: that and saying, like, you know, where's the shift change? Like,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: on the shift change, like, are you out there with
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: a clipboard asking those folks they registered to vote?
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: This is the kind of energy and creativity we need
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: right now. We can't just sit around and worry and
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: wait for better things to happen. Better polls, better news cycles,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: better campaigns. We've got to go make it happen ourselves.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: We've got to go do the work like everything depends
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: on us. Because it does.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: I think about it being in the South right now,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, voting this year is about survival to
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: us in so many ways. 55% of Black Americans live
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: in the South right now. And so I'm coming from
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: a region... that has felt overlooked and honestly ignored by
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of the political apparatus in the entire country
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: for a long period of time. And I need people
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: to wake the fuck up this year that you're not
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: just voting for yourself. You are voting for every other
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: person in this country, in this state that is marginalized
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: and that does not have what they need right now.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: And it's not about Donald Trump or Joe Biden. It
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: is about the future of the world that you want
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: to live in. If you don't want to vote this
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: year to protect the people around you, what do you
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: want to vote for? Like, genuinely. And that's something that
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: I think you've got to sit with it and decide
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: it for yourselves. And there may still be people after
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: that that look at me and say, Anderson, it ain't
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: worth it to me. And I'm like, but that's on us. Like,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: that is humanity. And I'm like, I know that we're
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: better than that. We're better than that as people. We
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: have to be. We have to be this year.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: We know things aren't great. We know our options aren't perfect,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: and neither are we. But we can make things better.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: We can be better. And right now, we have to be.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time on The Wilderness. The Wilderness
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: is a production of Crooked Media. It's written and hosted
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: by me, Jon Favreau. Our senior producer and editor is
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: Andrea B. Scott. Austin Fisher is our producer. and Farrah
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: Safari is our associate producer. Sound design by Vassilis Fotopoulos.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: Music by Marty Fowler. Charlotte Landis and Jordan Cantor sound
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: engineered the show. Thanks to Katie Long, Reed Cherlin, Matt DeGrotte,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: and Madeline Herringer for production support. To our video team,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: Rachel Gajewski, Joseph Dutra, Chris Russell, Molly Lobel, and David Tolles,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: who filmed and edited the show. If the wilderness has
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: inspired you to get involved, head on over to votesaveamerica.com
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: slash 2024 Just sign up and find a volunteer shift
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: near you.