OPINION:
Perhaps the most stunning aspect of the remarkably strong showing of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in two recent national polls was his support among younger voters. The two polls showed him leading both President Biden and former President Donald Trump with voters under 40.
In a late October Quinnipiac University survey, Mr. Kennedy was the leading choice for young voters aged 18-34, with 38% supporting his candidacy compared with 32% for Mr. Biden and 27% for Mr. Trump. A more recent New York Times/Sienna College poll found Mr. Kennedy winning support from 34% of voters aged 18 to 29. He also won a plurality of millennial voters, with 31% of those age 30 to 44 saying they would back Mr. Kennedy, while Messrs. Biden and Trump garnered 30% apiece.
The outcome was frankly astonishing for the D.C. establishment political consultant class, who make a rather good living prognosticating such demographic trends. The conventional wisdom after the 2022 midterms was that young voters were solidly and unshakably in the Democratic camp. In that election, with many predicting a “Red wave” in reaction to unpopular Biden administration policies, voters between the ages of 18 and 29 turned out in larger than usual numbers to endorse the Democratic agenda. Strikingly, it was the only age group that broke heavily Democratic, with over 60% voting in favor of the party in power.
The robust support of young voters for Democrats in the midterms was surprising for many, who anticipated a blowback from the ruinous COVID-19 policies the administration had imposed in the preceding years. No demographic suffered more devastating consequences from the shutdown of economic activity, social interaction, and schooling as a result of the completely unnecessary “health emergency measures” enacted with the justification of the COVID-19 pandemic. College students were required to pay full tuition in order to attend class “virtually” on a computer screen, cut off from all interaction with their peers. Young people were denied graduation ceremonies and celebrations.
Those entering the workforce were required to endure a ruinous shutdown of economic activity and enforced “social distancing” (both based on zero science) that severely diminished prospects of gaining professional experience or establishing a solid financial foothold and starting a family. Millions were forced to accept injections of an experimental (and, as we now know, highly dangerous and completely ineffective) “vaccine” in order to resume some semblance of their normal lives and attend overpriced schools in person to obtain degrees quickly plummeting in marketplace value.
An entire generation suffered irreparable harm due to a fraudulent narrative about a disease engineered with the funding of their own government and from which they themselves were at virtually zero statistical risk—all of which was known as it occurred by many of the medical and political authorities responsible for these catastrophic policies. Those policies were especially catastrophic for Gen Z. Soaring rates of suicide, substance abuse, mental illness, and all-cause mortality are well documented in the wake of Great Reset policies implemented with the onset of the pandemic.
The jury was seemingly in: At the formative age when previous generations of young Americans were expected to “question authority,” Gen Zers opted for rote compliance with “health emergency mandates” that had no Constitutional justification and severely curtailed basic liberties, such as freedom of assembly and freedom of religious practice, accompanied by a crackdown on speech thinly disguised as an effort to combat “misinformation.” In the Land of the Free, an entire generation was conditioned to accept unquestioningly the arbitrary mandates and judgments of medical and political authorities at the risk of being socially ostracized and facing academic and economic cancellation for holding unapproved views.
But given the support for the maverick candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., perhaps the most outspoken and prominent opponent of the tyrannical policies in question, it seems that this assessment of the political sympathies of young voters was inaccurate, or at least incomplete. The fact is, despite the authoritarian leanings of many under-40 products of our failed educational establishment, there exists a significant minority (perhaps even a plurality) of young people in the United States who vigorously reject the corrupt UniParty institutional consensus of our ruling elite and the sad state of national decline that has been the result of their policies over the decades since the end of the Cold War.
Alone among the candidates, Mr. Kennedy has outlined policies to address the cost-of-living and affordable housing crises that are wrecking opportunities for Gen Z and younger Millennials. His positions on the environment, legalization of marijuana and abortion are much more practical and in sync with post-Regan era political realities than those of his major party opponents, constrained as they are by antiquated party orthodoxies.
So perhaps Gen Z is, in fact, poised to push back against Big Brother. The coming election—and whether RFK Jr. can get them to turn out and revolt against the status quo—will be the test.
• Brian Robertson is a writer and literary agent living in Maryland.
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