“How Young People Can Help Bridge America’s Partisan Divides”

Young people between 18 and 29 consistently have the lowest voter turnout of any age group (“Election Voter Turnout Rate”). Some of the reasons for lack of participation by young people are perennial. They are more likely to be interested in their day-to-day lives and occupied with school, sports, music, and their friends. Even those who are interested in politics may not be inclined to be active about it because they do not feel they have much of an influence. As one NYC high school student put it, “more young people don’t get involved because they aren’t encouraged or treated equally by adults when talking about politics [and] people will just be dismissed even if they are very knowledgeable just because they are younger.” 

As difficult as it is to solve these problems of engagement, there is now an even bigger hurdle to overcome. Young people are growing even more disillusioned and disengaged because of the sharp and ever-growing partisan divide in American politics. Richard Pildes, a law professor at New York University and expert on democracy, described how “younger people are very disaffected from the political parties” and increasingly exhibit an “impatience with politics.” Pildes’ concerns were exemplified by a New York City high school sophomore who described how “I don’t get involved in politics because I think it is too divided and I think it is confusing because it is divided. Sometimes it feels like the government is making random choices to benefit just their party and not the American people.” She went on to note that, “I don’t think that the divide is repairable because other sides won’t listen to each other and there is not much understanding from either side.” For students who do not have much time to follow the news closely, things may appear even more hopeless than the reality because they may only hear about the worst political scandals. As another high school student explained, “As a student, I do not follow politics as much as others do, as I don’t have much time throughout the day to keep up with all the news.” She added that she did “hear about corrupt scandals within the government which causes some distrust.” 

America has always had its partisan divides, of course. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, author of A Republic, If You Can Keep It, a book that explores the decline of civility as one of its themes, points out that “we don’t live in totally unique times.” There have been many examples of divisions in American history, including a vicious Civil War. According to James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation fired by Donald Trump, humans are “tribal by nature” and “hungry for sources of meaning.” Comey described that the human desire for belonging has led to a “cynical exploitation of human nature by political actors, who have realized that if you offer a tribal source of meaning and identity to people, and constantly reinforce that, squeezing harder and harder to generate more outrage, more connection to that source of meaning, it becomes lasting and incredibly useful to someone who has political goals.” Comey notes that this creates an incentive “on both sides of the aisle to exploit what is human nature.” Sunny Hostin, a co-host on The View and legal journalist, agrees that some politicians play on these human instincts to feel like they belong to a group. Referring to Donald Trump, Hostin said how “having someone like that in office fear mongering to so many, made people think that they were more different than they actually are.” Students are aware of these dynamics. As one high school student put it, “I think politicians often use us vs them tactics as well as fear-mongering to gain support which divides America. And while I can’t pinpoint when America began to become divided off the top of my head, I think since the division started, it has only gotten worse, as once the division is created, it is easier to further divide.” 

One reason that gap is worse today is the media. Preet Bharara, a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and host of the political podcast Stay Tuned with Preet, explained how easy it can be for people to become “very isolated and siloed from their fellow citizens.” Bharara said that “with increasing channels for media, like social media, internet blogs, podcasts, the proliferation of cable channels, … people can get only the news they want, get only the viewpoints they want, get only the opinions they want.” When people only listen to others with like-minded perspectives, they are unable to engage in debates or expand their viewpoints. Suzanne Nossel, the CEO of PEN America, an organization dedicated to protecting free expression, echoed these ideas, saying how “It is hard to identify any single cause [of increased partisanship], but it is true that with the advent of the digital age our media and information consumption habits have become much more specific and balkanized.” People may be hearing only one set of facts, and depending on the source, they may not even be true. Bharara described how the media market wants to make money, so there has been “some attention to trying to be as sensational as possible, sometimes at the expense of moderate reporting and moderation.” Emily Bazelon, a former senior editor at Slate and a current The New York Times Magazine staff writer, mentioned how sometimes “reporters and people who do interviews for social media are able to craft specific messages, to serve their own agendas” by asking questions that solicit answers that may not “actually reflect people’s views in their entirety.” This fuels the fire that is the partisan divide. 

The feverish rise of social media also leads people to treat each other differently than they would in face-to-face meetings. Justice Gorsuch notes how harmful social media can be, especially in the context of partisanship. He notes that “people say things into a vacuum they'd never dare say in your face.” Justice Gorsuch also points out that people have an incentive to be shocking and to amplify disagreements in order “to generate clicks … and money.” High school students know the social media world can be misleading. As one student put it, “everyone should make sure they have proper information beforehand and aren’t just following some random Instagram post’s information or anything like that.” Yet it is hard to always be vigilant, and the general impression created by social media is one of irreparable division.

There are structural forces pushing toward increased partisanship as well. Primary elections where registered voters of particular parties select the party’s candidate for a particular office took off in the 1970s. Pildes notes that “one of the problems we have is that primary elections have much lower turnout than general elections, and it’s not clear how representative the primary electorate is even of the views of people who support the party overall.” Candidates try to appeal to this select group of voters by taking “more polarized positions.” The people who have succeeded under this model have every incentive to keep it. As Pildes describes, “existing politicians and legislatures are rarely going to vote for changes to the rules under which they were elected."

That is the Catch-22. Mobilizing young people who do not have a vested stake in the status quo is necessary to change this dynamic of media bias, social media distortion and disinformation, and polarized selection processes. Yet these very same forces are what repel young people from getting involved in politics at all.

All is not lost, however. Young people get more involved in politics when there is an issue that they care about passionately. Some recent examples have been abortion rights and police brutality. For example, voter turnout among people under 30 increased dramatically in the midterm elections in 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and put reproductive choice in jeopardy around the country. It was the second highest voter turnout among that age group in 30 years. Young people also turned out in higher numbers for the presidential election of 2020 than they did in 2016, and research shows a big motivation for that turnout was a concern with police violence and racism (Lopez). The kind of deep structural fixes America needs, however, will require more consistent and lasting engagement by younger generations. In particular, today’s high school and college students need to tackle the partisanship that plagues America. 

Experts offer a variety of paths forward and just about everyone agrees it starts with educating young people about key aspects of American governance and why it is so important. Dawn Smalls, the co-chair of the New York City Bar Association's Civic Education Task Force, is a proponent of teaching everyone civics. Even though basic facts about civics may seem like they would be common knowledge, only 26% of Americans are able to name the three branches of government. A mere 37% of those surveyed were unable to name any of the First Amendment rights (“Americans Are Poorly Informed”). “You have to understand how your government works and why it is relevant to your life,” according to Smalls. Justice Gorsuch echoed these sentiments on the importance of civic education. He notes that “you cannot make effective change through a system if you don't know how a system works.” 

Another key role for education is showing young people how important it is to engage with different ideas and points of view and to try to find common ground with others. John Sexton, the former president of New York University and the author of Standing for Reason: The University in a Dogmatic Age, argues that classrooms and universities are ideally situated to tackle the partisan divide. Sexton observes that good teachers will always ask “where are my students” and make sure to engage everyone’s perspective in classroom discussion. He notes this why “people who are against dialogue see the universities as a danger.” They know the academic environment is where we learn to bridge divides in America. Bharara agrees, describing how schools “help you refine your own arguments” and notes that “more ideas, more talking, more interaction, more welcoming of divergent viewpoints … is something that I would recommend to young people.” 

Sexton recommends the model of competitive debate as a valuable tool for improving dialogue. He notes that people who participate in debate are forced to argue a random side for a specific topic. Even if someone is not in favor of the topic they are arguing for, they will still have to come up with arguments for their side and think like someone with a different viewpoint to anticipate counterarguments. He explained how debate is “all designed to facilitate the process of dialogue rather than confrontation.” Using this kind of model in classrooms and other discussion settings can, as Sexton puts it, “create a culture where people get more and more capacity to listen to each other and they begin to experience a joy of hearing something different.” 

While these discussions may start in the classroom, they should not end there. However simple it may seem, conversation is a key part of solving the partisan divide in America. Even if your opinion does not change, it is always helpful to gain more knowledge and learn new perspectives. Nossel, PEN’s CEO, points out that, “When you stop to hear someone out, even on an issue where you disagree vehemently, you almost always take away some kernel of new insight that shapes your perspective.” If everyone stays isolated in their own corners, they will never be exposed to others’ opinions. Sunny Hostin described The View as a positive example of this kind of healthy discussion. The hosts of the view have different political leanings and Hostin notes that “we disagree more than we agree on most topics, but we have a respect for each other, so that we’re not just going to walk away into our own corner and we’re not going to stop the conversation.” The View is important because it teaches students and all Americans how to engage in debate in a healthy way and have good conversations. Hostin said that “You do change someone’s opinion every once in a while.”

Young people should also be encouraged to engage on smaller issues in their schools and communities, or even just with family members, as a gateway to broader political activism. It can seem daunting to get involved in the political scheme, but any type of work can make a difference. Sunny Hostin urges people to get involved at a young age in politics. “I firmly believe that sitting back and just watching is the worst thing that you can do. I think you have to make choices, especially when it comes to solutions.” 

Young people can also push for the kind of structural changes that will make it easier for their voices to be heard. For example, because primary voting has promoted extreme candidates, one solution is to support reforms to that process. Election expert Pildes points to changes to the primary process in Alaska as a possible blueprint. Alaska now has the top four winners of the primary to go on to the general election, where ranked choice voting is used to determine the winner. This system can help limit partisanship because candidates do not have to take extremely polarized views in order to win primaries. Pildes says “the hope is that this system rewards candidates who are able to generate that kind of broad appeal and penalize candidates who may have intense factional support.”

None of these solutions will eradicate the partisan divide, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Some partisanship can be beneficial. Pildes points out that polarization “makes it more clear what each party stands for, so voters know what they’re getting.” Bharara notes that partisanship allows for “people with minority points of view to be heard.” This can motivate some people to join parties and causes they believe in. Comey notes that “the good news is … millions of [Gen-Z] members are interested in participating in a way that has surprised me and uplifted me. Rather than withdrawing … [people are saying] let’s get in there and participate and fix it. Let’s be active on all kinds of issues that we care about and try to make the world a better place.” Overall, Comey believes that it is a very good sign that young people “not only haven’t withdrawn, but redoubled their commitment to step into the public square and straighten it out.” The numbers may not be as high as they should be to tackle the deep problems facing America, but they do provide reason for optimism. Moreover, there is a path for even bigger changes. It starts with education and dialogue among the younger generations that will inherit all the problems generated by the partisanship of today. 

Works Cited: 

“Americans Are Poorly Informed about Basic Constitutional Provisions.” The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, 10 Nov. 2023, www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/americans-are-poorly-informed-about-basic-constitutional-provisions/?utm_source=Media&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=e5f213892a-Civics_survey_2017_2017_09_12&utm_term=0_9e3d9bcd8a-e5f213892a-425997897. 

“Election Voter Turnout Rate by Age in the United States.” Our World in Data, ourworldindata.org/grapher/voter-turnout-rate-by-age-usa. 

Lopez, Ashley. “Turnout among Young Voters Was the Second Highest for a Midterm in Past 30 Years.” NPR, NPR, 10 Nov. 2022, www.npr.org/2022/11/10/1135810302/turnout-among-young-voters-was-the-second-highest-for-a-midterm-in-past-30-years.