(Photo by Flickr user E. Krall via Creative Commons license)
While the Republican candidates for president have loudly lamented the steep decline of America, new research by a GOP pollster suggests young people are far more optimistic about the country’s future.
“They’re refreshingly, resoundingly sunny about America’s future,” Frank Luntz writes. “This generation simply rejects the gloom and doom, even as their parents and grandparents fret that America is in decline.”
Graphic by Luntz Global
The right-wing political consultant recently completed a national survey of 1,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 26. He found that 88 percent of respondents are at least “somewhat optimistic” about their future, while 54 percent reported being “extremely optimistic” or “very optimistic” about their tomorrows.
While leading presidential candidate and businessman Donald Trump frequently talks about making America great again, 61 percent of the young people in the survey believe the nation’s best days are still ahead. Just 39 percent felt our “best days are behind us”.
However, this youthful optimism does not extend to politicians and corporate America. Sixty-six percent of young people believe corporations embody “everything that is wrong about America”. Elected officials fare only slightly better; the survey found 60 percent of young people felt Washington embodies everything that is “wrong about America”.
Graphic by Luntz Global
In fact, when presented with 16 pressing issues facing the country, the younger Americans said they were most worried about the widening gap between the rich and the poor. The high cost of a college education was the second most pressing issue.
All of this is a cause for alarm, according to Luntz, who writes, “The hostility of young Americans to the underpinnings of the American economy and the American government ought to frighten every business and political leader.”
What might also frighten conservatives is who young people admire most when asked about political figures. Democrats Bernie Sanders (31 percent), President Barack Obama (18 percent) and Hillary Clinton (11 percent) top the list. Republicans lag behind with Donald Trump (9 percent), Ted Cruz (5 percent) and Marco Rubio (3 percent). President Obama is the person that first- and second-time voters would most like to have dinner with.
Forty-four percent of the 18-to-26 year olds interviewed considered themselves Democrats, compare to 15 percent who identified as Republicans. The remaining 42 percent of young voters consider themselves to be independents.
I have met many young Americans and I am impressed by them. I am in no way in fear for the future of the US and neither are they. I think they will be able to see through the fraud that Hillary is and vote accordingly. Trump 2016!
ha-ha-ha! you conservatives are really bat-brained! hillary is the liberal and trump is the conservative! it is him who is declaring that america is going down the drain and spouting hatred and fear! you made my day!
If this survey describes reality, I will become optimistic. I find it hard to reconcile the not choosing “inequality” as the one word and the finding that the widening gap between the rich and the poor is the most worrisome issue.
Equality is an extreme, liberal left, may I say socialist, mind control word. You can never achieve anything close to equality on this planet or any other I would suspect, as long as you allow people to think for themselves. As long as you let them set their own goals, foster their own beliefs, or move to their own sense of self drive it can never be achieved even in moderate terms. If people are free to set their own levels of ambition, pursue their own idea of happiness, there will be those who do not strive to better their lot in life, Many fail to have the drive, ambition or intellect to know what they can achieve nor how to achieve it. Nor do some want to, they like the simplicity of what they have become. They are comfortable in that state in life where they reside. To some it is growing a small garden to feed themselves, others simply want the lazy life of living off the charity of others. To others stay in their alcohol or drug influenced stupor. Much of your inequality is by choice and your ‘utopia of equality’ cannot breach this gap.
Not as long as we allow people to be free to succeed or fail as they see fit, as this is called FREEDOM. The illusion of some equal world will always be a fantasy for the non thinkers to hope for. I find that in this group many hope ‘their lack of ambition’ can be supplanted with a grand governmental taking and giving. Giving to them that is! This is their equality, the “I can’t or won’t better myself so Mr. Government take it from those who are slaves to their ambitions and GIVE IT TO ME” all while I sit here and play video games or smoke my pot!
As long as you want your personal freedom to choose where you live, work, your successes, your failures, your partner or friends, even your daily routine, ( A routine which may be what stops you from being one of the wealthy in the first place) then you should be very wary of anyone spewing equality as the biggest world problem. They are pushing a veiled ‘PROPERTY OF THE STATE’ idea on you and you are too much a non thinker to see it. So what you are asking for a Socialist or Communist way of life. Dare I say you don’t have to wait. They are but a plane ticket away! Feel free to be set free to your ideals.
In a socialist country you are told what you will study, where you will live in the government housing, if you will make shoes or shovel shit. You will have to ‘comply’ with the every wish of the State or you will be subject to retraining and further restrictions than your everyday life already would hold for you. You can never have success, as it does not actually exist, you can only have some hole to retreat to with the crumbs the State let you gather for the day but only if that is not suddenly taken from you for the good of the state. Even today reporters or protesters who go outside the lines set by Russia or China and criticize their leaders suddenly disappear or are publicly executed by those who best remain unknown to the commoners. (When you meet them it is to late!) People have starved to death every year in Socialist and Communist Countries while the leaders of the EQUALITY feast and ride in limos. Look to North Korea for your guidance, you are not even safe if you are blood related to the great leader.
China and Russia still hold millions of people in forced work and retraining camps as they are deemed dissenters of the State.
If having a growing number of radical religious groups wanting to ‘kill you’ for not thinking, living or enslaving women the way they do falls to some level below your non achievable EQUALITY mantra in world importance, I suggest getting off your whoopee cushion and take the blinders off. Join those risking their lives to protect you! They could use your help! Thousands are dying every day because of the likes of ISIS. People like you want your Starbuck’s and go thru life with misguided, dare I say brainwashed views and your eye’s wide shut! You should be pleased as now even Socialist Cuba is an open door for you. Go samba or tango till your hearts content. Mankind are all created equal, but they don’t stay that way in living their FREE lives. They are all frightfully equal when enslaved. They all have nothing to live for!
A view from a 100% Service connected disabled veteran who gave his entire future so you can be smugly and blindly ignorant.
China and Russia are still a so called Comny country Europe is socialized and NoOne is told what to buy or where to live What do you think our Social Security Medicare, Police Dept’s.Fire dept, Public Schools are? Its all socialized and keeping people decent educated etc.If it weren’t for that this country would be in a hell of a shape The Rich don’t give a damn if seniors have any kind of income after working thirty years for mediocre wages. Also not Everyone is up to college degrees many like working physical which brings me to the important point. If it weren’t for them you well of folks have to build your own places clean your own Houses and plant your own food .Doesn’t that sound like a Winner for some of you Know it Alls .Yes Socialism is only two more things we need in this country. Healthcare free college for all that is for the willing with good grades .To be sure Health care is not a luxury for the Insurance Companies to call the shots and have doctors hands bound because of it while they are getting rich.Don’t let these companies fool you when they say they are hurting. This I call a Democratic socialized country and most important wages to live on and not having to ask for help from the government while working sixty hour weeks.
This polls show: you, VOA`s leftists, together with the education system and Media, honestly earn your salary for propaganda. Shameful billioners like Soros, Buffet,Gates,Zukerberg, others, participate in this propaganda,that is ridiculouse.The leftists, absolutly halpless in economics,foreign policy(like Obama) are the dodgy party organizers(like Stalin),propagandists, and the youths are their easy prey.
All of this is a cause for alarm, according to Luntz, who writes, “The hostility of young Americans to the underpinnings of the American economy and the American government ought to frighten every business and political leader.”
Frank Luntz WHY????
I could understand the GOP being concerned about the poll results, but for the American People they should be rejoicing!!
What Frank Luntz is implying is that corruption, greed, and inequality are the “underpinnings of the American economy.”
However what this age group confirmed is that corruption and greed were responsible for the Great Recession of 2008 and which was more than proven by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s 2011 report and for which today’s America is still reeling from the effects.
From the responses given by these young Americans for corruption, greed, and inequality a person would be thinking they were describing Mexico since that is what Pope Francis was hammering away on during his recent trip to Mexico.
Since the right wing icon of the airwaves Rush Limbaugh called Pope Francis a Communist, I can well imagine that Limbaugh will call these young Americans Communists because they object to the underpinnings of the American economy: corruption, greed, and inequality.
Perhaps Frank Luntz can do all Americans a huge favor and go to Putin’s Russia and conduct the same survey only to learn that perhaps young Russians also object to the underpinnings of the Russian economy: corruption, greed and inequality.
This is awesome, I don’t know what is so frightening about it.
As I young person myself, I believe we deserve a Sanders presidency, though it’s not looking very likely at this point. It’s our country and we’re inheriting all the problems, why can’t we believe in and demand change?
The political pundits and business tycoons who are busy feathering their nests on the coattails of Trump and his ilk had better be warned….
I just retired from teaching in a very rural, very conservative community. I certainly am not surprised by the results of the survey or the interpretation of Mr. Luntz and his fellow Republicans. Most young people are by definition optimistic. They have also witnessed first hand how the economy has treated the middle class and they want something different. I believe what is happening is a paradigm shift. The conservative/liberal labels are 19th century labels for a 19th century mindset. The Republican right, Adelson and the Kochs have spent hundreds of millions on the current election cycle to no avail. What is happening is a demographic shift and it has already happened. Being angry and throwing a temper tantrum is not a substitute for a political dialog. A party which cannot dialog, about Supreme Court nominees or anything else has sealed its own fate.
communist ideology is a political silent cancer, it begins in the minds of young people, masked as a cure for all political or economy failure in any country. be careful you do not deserve this evil fate.
It seems that all sides of this issue are correct. It depends on your perspective.
Open minds are required here. History must not be allowed to repeat itself. We know what doesn’t work. It’s time for something else.
First, all, yes all, public ( government) jobs are limited to the Federally mandated minimum wage. The president will earn the same as the mail delivery person and the district attorney and the trash collector. A ninety day review system will be used to determine if a conditional, limited pay adjustment is required.
It’s a start.