On Fearing Taylor Swift: All the negativity being heaped on pop icon Taylor Swift reveals a basic fear held by one wing of our political world. A fear they don’t want to show. They are scared to death of our young people. And they want to destroy anyone who might influence or organize them into a political force. When her personal life took her into gridiron territory, that fear went on steroids. If Taylor could get to Travis, then what could she do to ruin their efforts to turn America’s youth into themselves?
Their concerns are not without justification. According to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University (CIRCLE) “In 2024, Gen Z youth alone will make up over 40 million potential voters—including 8 million youth who will have newly reached voting age since 2022—making up nearly one fifth of the American electorate. Together with the youngest Millennials, young people ages 18-34 are poised to be a potential force in the next presidential election.”
CIRCLE did a November 2023 poll that showed,”…57% of youth, ages 18-34, say they’re “extremely likely” to vote in 2024, and another 15% say they’re “fairly likely” to cast a ballot in the (2024) election. Among youth who are extremely likely to vote: 51% back the Democratic candidate, 30% the Republican, 16% undecided. Young people’s top issues are inflation/cost of living, jobs that pay a living wage, gun violence, and climate change.” What is interesting is that the most likely motivator for young people to vote is climate change.
Not to be missed in these polls is the deep dissatisfaction and malaise that youth feel about themselves and their future. Something that artists like Swift speak to and have been the foundation of their massive youth following. The CIRCLE poll found that “close to half of young people say they’re struggling with mental health issues like loneliness or lack of confidence”. Should Swift take a decisive and active part in the 2024 elections, those who feel she represents their emotional and political state, will be heavily influenced.
Given that the right-wing spectrum of our politics is focused on issues that don’t make the top of our young people’s concerns, they stand to be the losers in any mobilization of the youth vote. Nor do appeals to a past America hold much sway with young people who have no recollection or emotional ties to this fantasized past. For youth, Ms. Swift is the future.
Women have become the most activist part of our political environment. As voting patterns since Roe v Wade was struck down in the SCOTUS Dobbs decision have shown, those women are in massive resistance to the efforts to drive them back into subservience. If there is an example of today’s independent and successful woman, Taylor Swift is it.
So, the right-wing freak-out over the very existence of a 5’11” 136-pound youth influencer, comes from the sure knowledge that the generation and ideas they represent are at tremendous odds with the concerns and goals of the new generation of voters that have now come of age.
The Democrats have plenty to worry about with NextGen too. Their task is to convince young voters that they are willing and able to pass the torch. We are still at a point where the nation’s top political leadership is more representative of their grandparents than themselves. It’s difficult to convince our youth that leaders born seventy-plus years ago understand them and their concerns. Add to that the natural impatience of youth contrasted with the slow pace of change, and the gap becomes a major hurdle. We are on the cusp of a generational change in leadership, but that younger political leadership is not yet ready for prime time. That is likely to shift in the 2028 elections, not in 2024. This too generates a panic among the current right-wing power players. It is driving a frantic effort to gain control of the nation’s direction to thwart the attitudes that threaten their world view. In a very real sense, this is their last gasp, before democracy loosens their ability to advance their agenda. Lock it up now, or for them, all is lost.
This illuminates a deeper fight over who shapes the future of America and its people. It puts Taylor Swift in the crosshairs. As it has for the Greta Thumberg’s of the environmental movement, the David Hogg’s of students uprising over school violence, those seeking relief from educational debt, the Black Lives Matter leadership seeking racial justice and anyone else who raises their voices over what kind of world our children will live out their lives in. They are challenges to a future that isn’t promising. They know they are inheriting a shitshow. As is normal with youthful exuberance and self-assuredness, not all the ideas and proposals they express will lead them where they want to go. It is up to the rest of us to support their demands for a livable and promising future, while attempting to temper their direction with our experience and life learnings. But ultimately, they will not be denied. In an irony of our current politics, the 2024 election is not a contest between visions. It is a fight fueled by one set of fears vs another.
IHG 3-14-2024 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at: https://ikegittlen.substack.com/ and share. Let’s see what we can build together.