Politicians are corrupt, say 65 percent of young voters in a new Blueprint poll, reports Shelby Talcott in Semafor. Only 7 percent disagree."America is in decline," say 64 percent (10 percent disagree) of the 18-30-year-olds.
Young voters "see a dying empire led by bad people," said Evan Roth Smith, Blueprint’s lead pollster.
Blueprint's polling is designed to advise Democrats on the most effective ways to reach voters and win elections.
While 45 percent expect their lives to be better than their parents' lives, with the rest divided between "about the same" and "worse." However, a majority -- Democrats, Republicans, and Independents — believe "the country is going downhill," writes Talcott.
Remember Reagan's "shining city on the hill" and Obama's "hope and change?" Now, half of those polled think the U.S. is at risk of becoming a fascist country and could be described as a "hellscape," "dystopia" or "dying empire," according to the poll.
Of course, on the flip side, 48 percent say: "I'd rather be born in America than any other country in the world" with only 22 percent disagreeing.
Pessimism could be bad for Democrats, Blueprint warns. "There’s some evidence Trump tends to do better with voters who have low trust in institutions, as Eric Levitz writes in Vox. That could explain Trump's gains with young and nonwhite voters.
One of the lesser discussed issues in public policy is that the U.S. decided to adopt policies that make doing anything new or different very difficult. This means that updating infrastructure, improving education, or even operating a criminal justice system time consuming, expensive, and very uncertain.
It is easy to look like an empire in decline when there are so many roadblocks to doing anything than the status quo.
The teachers and professors have been successful in their goal to "demoralize the youth".
Day in and day out, children are pummeled with the idea the system is corrupt and America is an abomination. Now to wonder why young people believe this is ludicrous. This is what the "education" system has worked toward for 30 years.
The antidote is to shake them out of the "school helplessness" that they've been inculcated into and get at least some of them to stop and think.
Old people say to young people: "Get off your whiny asses and participate in politics, and replace the bad apples with the fresh new ones. Otherwise, STFU."
Hard to argue with the young on those points. But such sweeping condemnations sometimes lack substance.
Most young people hate Donald Trump. They are convinced that he is "corrupt." They are assuming (without a shred of evidence) that Trump profited mightily from his first Presidency.
It turns out that -- unlike most modern Presidents -- Trump LOST a fortune by running for President. Check Trump's net worth when he started running for office in 2015, and how much he was worth when he left office. You'll find that, unlike just about every other politician in DC, Trump's net worth DROPPED significantly while in office. He was worth 30% more before he ran for office than when he left office. Most o…