Have millennials given up on democracy?

[elleng]

A poll shows less than half of young adults think democracy is the best form of government – but protest parties show many can still be won over.

'Chief among the accusations levelled at millennials is that of political apathy. But the real problem could be even worse than disengagement: it seems many members of Generation Y could be ready to back a despot.

A large-scale survey of political attitudes conducted by the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney found that just 42% of Australian 18- to 29-year-olds thought democracy was “the most preferable form of government”, compared with 65% of those aged 30 or above. Earlier Lowy polls have turned up the same disenchantment, all confirming that young adults are deeply sceptical about democracy.

Some argue the culprit is creeping neoliberal economics; others the economic progress of authoritarian states such as China. Young Australians, knowing only democracy, are taking it for granted, another says. Inevitably, iPhones or Facebook come in for some of the blame.

Millennials themselves, asked why they do not back democracy, mostly say it “only serves the interests of a few” (40%) and that there is “no real difference between the policies of the major parties” (32%).

A similar malaise is expressed across western democracies. Approval ratings for the US Congress are famously low, but among young Americans fell to just 38% in the decade to 2014. In UK elections, young voter turnout shrank for nearly two decades before an increase in 2015. A Canadian poll four years ago found less than 50% of young adults thought democracy trumped other kinds of government. It did better in India, where 70% of adults endorsed a democratic system, and in Indonesia, where the figure was 62%.

Nascent protest parties in Europe have shown millennials can still be won over. Promises to resist “the caste” who run Spanish society won the upstart Podemos party around 20% of the vote in December’s national elections.

Young people played an outsized role in Syriza’s January 2015 win in the Greek elections, largely elevated Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour leadership in the UK, and are driving the surprise popularity of Bernie Sanders in the US Democratic primaries.'>>>

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/18/have-millennials-given-up-on-democracy

[Trust Buster]

1. That must be the shortest effort in recent political history.

It's not as if they're singing Old Man River.....LOL

[peacebird]

2. Millenials apparently don't want to be part of a farce, the "pretend" demmocracy we have now

Where money buys the votes and as millenials have noted

it “only serves the interests of a few” (40%) and that there is “no real difference between the policies of the major parties” (32%).

Hard to knock them on that! It's why we NEED Bernie Sanders.

[djean111]

3. Exactly on point. Well said. nt

[Ghost Dog]

5. Exactly. "So-called Democracy" is what is is,

perhaps especially in the English-speaking 'developed' world.

[merrily]

4. First, a republic is not a democracy. Universal suffrage does not convert a republican form

of government, such as we have, into another form of government entirely, either. It simply allows more people the right to vote for who will represent them in a republican form of government. So, no one I know of is rejecting democracy. They are saying the people who are supposed to be representing the 99% within a republican form of government are doing a lousy job of representing the 99% within a republican form of government.

The last democracy I know of was Ancient Athens (which, btw, fell after a war of choice).

A bullshit question like "Are millennials rejecting democracy" proves the validity of sticking with the definitions of words that help us think straight.

For some bizarre reason that I've never been able to fathom, people get angry with me for saying just about what the pledge of allegiance says. Fortunately, I can take it.

[elleng]

6. Note that this is the Guardian,

and the article refers to international issues and opinions, not just the U.S.

[merrily]

7. I noted. Which nation now existing has a democracy, and not a representative form of government?

(There are dictatorships, shiekdoms, monarchies, etc., but dissatisfied millennials in those kinds of countries would not be said to be rejecting democracy.)

Thanks, btw.

[Igel]

9. Extreme purism won't work.

The structure we have in the US is a representative democracy. It is a form of democracy.

By your kind of definition, there has been one fascist government, one democratic government, some monarchies, and no socialist/communist form of government. What's left for the other forms of government? No names.

Note that even in Greece it wasn't a "good" democracy. They had slaves. Not all men voted. Women didn't vote. And it was staunchly majoritarian.

If 50% of the voters + 1 want to re-establish slavery, then that's democracy. If they want to require that everybody run around with their left side tinted blue and 3 rings on their right hand (and their right big toe exposed and painted bright red) at the pain of death, that's democracy.

The US is also a liberal democracy. It has a set of rights generally (at least for older people) considered inalienable and which naturally inhere in each person. Given the social orientation millennials, the idea that rights are just part of a social contract and what the majority says is not only what rights there are but what is good and proper probably sounds about right. We failed to educate them, to pass along the culture. In fact, for many the very idea of passing along a cultuer (other than some pre-approved ones) is reprehensible. They will produce for us what we all deserve.

Perhaps the millennials will come to their senses when they're no longer as coddled. Perhaps not, and a kind of left-wing fascism like we see in China and Russia will be mankind's future. Many prefer security and freedom from want to traditional human rights. Who needs free speech, due process, and freedom of the press if you're fed 3 square and have free wifi? Tangibles over intangibles, for a materialist, consumerist generation.

[merrily]

10. Describing a form of government correctly is extreme purism that doesn't work? Poster, please.

Smh

[DonCoquixote]

8. what it is

The millennials throughout the world have seen that the older generations will sell them down the river in a heartbeat, especially in an economy that was propped up to give many Boomers the world with extra sauce, and the Millennials who know they are already paying that bill. It sure does not help that even the outlets for "young people" have run dry; even rock and roll is not seen as all that revolutionary anymore, and if any hints of it do get loud (like the bile that was tossed Beyonce's way) sure enough, there are the inevitable people crooning about why we cannot have the Grateful Dead and the Beatles, despite the fact they NEVER left.

I seriously wonder what the 80 year olds think as their 60 year old children assume the leadership role. Do they laugh as the 60 year olds bellow for that autocratic respect that hey never gave their elders? Do they laugh when these 60 year olds put deadhead stickers on their SUVs, or pay 300 dollars for prime seats to see the Rolling Stones? Do they chuckle when they see punk rockers get lauded as poet laureates, to say nothing of the various British artists now called "Sir?" Do they think that if they gave the Boomers the same raw deal economy, and the same warfare that makes Vietnam look like a skirmish, that their children would have killed them< Nah, they were too busy getting high and having sex in the van. Hell, many of them still are, except they can afford the doctor to prescribe their "medicine" and know that they are not going to end up like so many young kids, especially PoC, in the jails.

You cannot compromise every level of culture, from rock and roll to the internet to politics, turn it into a machine to ensure that the world only cares about the upper middle class and up, and then wonder why the kids are NOT all-right. No, they are not "ready for a despot", which was the articles call out to the Boomers to say "yup, I got your rationalization for taking control from dem dumb kids right here, fresh and hot!" The input for these kids is not wanted, save as an unpaid intern to get coffee, do the real work, and in many cases, give some white older male (who still thinks he is cool) an chance to pressure someone into sex. This is done because they know even the kids who go to college have debt, and of course, instead of wondering why colleges get away with bleeding them dry, they do a rant about how poor they were in school, never mind that Grandpa and Grandma used their saving from the war to help send them to school, saving the Boomers never even bothered to do.

Now, am i saying this about ALL Boomers, know. Indeed, i have had the honor of knowing many Boomers who are as exasperated at all this as I am, perhaps even more so than I can be. I can read DU, and hear many Boomers who are not just disappointed, they are F***ing Pissed, and they skewer the usual suspects with much more venom than I do. I will also warn the xers yers and others who are doing well, the ones that managed to get that high tech job in that gentrified neighborhood, YOU ARE ON THE MENU. There is a reason why the elite are actually investing in projects like floating boat nations that have no flag, if they can run their lives from some modern olympus, while the bare minimum of people alive, those who can be given the bare minimum to live, and then can have their carcass sold for maximum profit, they will. It will get real fun when people realize that even Capitalism has no loyalty to the West, that the elite is made of people who can be born on any continent, from any creed, who simply only have allegiance to the global culture that worships them.