Who Could Blame Them For Staying Home?

President Joe Biden sits pensively in the Oval Office. Photo by Adam Schultz.

Even before President Joe Biden delivered a shockingly poor performance at the presidential debate on June 27, young voters had long been in despair. “‘It’s not that young voters are too lazy to get to the polls—it’s deeper than that,’” said Lillian, a New York college student, in a January interview with Teen Vogue. “‘The collective vibe is hopelessness.’”

Much attention has been directed toward the perceived problem of young voter turnout. An article in FiveThirtyEight argued that young voters disproportionately experienced barriers to voting, while a New York Times analysis hypothesized that young people had not formulated the habit of voting or were less familiar with the process of voting or the candidates. To some extent, this is all normal. For decades, people ages 18-29 have historically voted at lower rates than other age groups, and in 2022, young people actually voted at higher rates than did other generations at that age.

Yet, there remains something to be said about how young people today perceive voting. While low youth turnout may be partially attributed to normal patterns of voting behavior, young people are also remarkably skeptical of the power their votes really hold. A March 2024 poll by the Harvard Kennedy School found that 41% of people ages 18-29 did not believe their votes would make a “real difference,” up 3% from March 2020. Some of that disillusionment comes from feeling like neither political party offers a truly substantive plan for positive change. Michele Weindling, an electoral director for the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate activism group, told CNN in 2023 that “‘we need to be told not just why we’re voting against the right, but what we’re voting for.’”

Other young Americans argue that, even without something to vote for, the risks associated with a second Donald Trump term are so great that young people must show up anyway. Sara Pequeño, writing for USA Today, asked, “Are we angry enough at Joe Biden to risk a second Donald Trump presidency?” Should young voters fail to turn out for Biden, they will have effectively chosen the dark path of a second Trump administration—one that would be characterized by weakened environmental protections, reckless international policy, mass deportations, corruption, and authoritarian rhetoric and policy. While staying home may not be a lazy decision, it is at the very least short-sighted if not irresponsible. 

Although neither candidate has appeared particularly compelling for many young voters, the pragmatic appeal that young people must vote for Biden to bar Trump from a second term has nonetheless seemed convincing—until now. 

Biden’s poor debate performance in June vindicated and exasperated the frustrations of young people. With a raspy voice that the White House later attributed to a cold, Biden’s meandering and incoherent responses failed to refute Trump’s arguments at almost any point in the debate—And young voters have taken notice. Immediately after the debate, a Times/Siena poll found that Biden’s favorability among young people dropped to 24% from 35% in early June, while the percentage who “strongly agreed” that Biden was too old to be an effective president jumped from 48% to 64%.

It is now abundantly clear that Biden is no longer a viable candidate for president. If young people do not turn out to vote for him, they should not bear responsibility for a second Trump term. Indeed, to blame young voters would be to frame the problem incorrectly. Such thinking blames constituents for failing to affirm the irresponsible decisions of unresponsive leaders and validates politically expedient decisions that extort young people for votes without delivering on promises. It requires that young people fork over their vote to Biden, or else be punished with Trump’s demagoguery and authoritarianism.

The choice, to be sure, is still clear: if Biden is the only alternative to Trump, the American people must choose the former. But this dichotomy does not accurately represent the totality of the situation. Though voters may be stuck with a choice between Biden and Trump come November, Biden still has the opportunity to give the Democratic party and, by extension, all voters the choice between a litany of other, more viable candidates.

Though it may be difficult, the solution to this ongoing problem is apparent: Biden must step down and make way for a younger, more vigorous candidate. In Weindling’s words, young people on the left need someone to vote for. This is now all the more crucial following Trump’s selection of JD Vance—just 39 years old—as his Vice Presidential candidate. By introducing a new, younger candidate, Democrats could eliminate concerns about their nominee’s age and send a clear message to young people: We hear you and give you a candidate worth your vote. But this change will not be easy. Forcibly replacing Biden is virtually impossible, and he has maintained that he will not drop out voluntarily. At one point, he even told an interviewer that he would not do so unless the “Lord Almighty” told him to. 

While some Democrats are applying more pressure on Biden to step down, many of them, including potential replacement picks, remain reluctant because of the political risks involved. Several have resigned themselves to the idea of his continued candidacy after he indicated that he will refuse to step down in an open letter to Congress. Some have even attempted to avoid the question of his fitness altogether by diverting attention back to Trump. Rep. Debbie Dingell, for instance, said that “‘we’ve got to stop talking about this…[because] we need to get back to talking about Donald Trump and his performance and all the issues that are at stake and the contrast.’”

Dingell’s entreaty is reasonable to an extent. If the issue at hand for the Democratic party in this election was a reasonably reconcilable controversy over policy, then the stakes of a Trump election would easily warrant a vote for Biden. In 2016, the progressive publication The Nation penned an editorial making this very case. It called on its readers to vote in the general election for Hillary Clinton as a vote against Trump, whose presidency “would be a catastrophe for the United States—and for the world.” Though Clinton was not as progressive as Bernie Sanders, whom The Nation had endorsed previously, she was a capable candidate whose policy was far better than Trump’s, they argued. 

But we cannot ignore the limits of this argument. Support for Democratic candidates cannot stem solely from the prospect of a second Trump presidency. Indeed, if this logic can excuse Democrats for pushing through a nomination of such an arguably infirm candidate as Joe Biden, it can excuse anything short of putting up their own authoritarian candidate. To think this way would leave Democrats completely unaccountable for their actions. In effect, it shifts all responsibility away from Biden and other party leaders—who refused to offer voters a suitable choice for president—and onto voters for failing to heed the proverb that “beggars can’t be choosers.” Ultimately, it flippantly disregards voters’ serious concerns about Biden’s capacity to lead by painting them as hand-wringers who have needlessly endangered the chances of a Democratic victory. Worse, it proves young people right—that their votes do not matter. The choice to keep Biden as the nominee will be made with or without them.

Young people, we should show up this November. However, it is equally imperative to remember that the outcome of this election rests on the leaders who refuse to heed voters’ calls for Biden to step down. Else, we alienate dissatisfied constituents while enabling politicians to ignore the will of the people. If Biden and other Democratic leaders continue down this path, if they continue to ignore the young people and many other voters who want Biden out, who could blame them for staying home?

Jacob Gold (CC ’27) is a junior editor at CPR from Castle Rock, Colorado. He looks forward to a career in law, with particular interests in civil rights, free speech, and misinformation.