Alan Zendell, November 1, 2024

Early voting statistics have told us that with five days left until Election Day half the people who already voted were over 65, and that fraction gets smaller as we look at younger age categories. The last number I saw for people under 30 was that they made up only 9% of the early voters. That probably correlates fairly well with where we can find the few remaining “undecideds.” Today, I’d like to address young people in as nonpartisan a manner as possible. Think of it as friendly advice from someone old enough to be your grandfather.

If this is the first year you’re eligible to vote, you were between 10 and 14 when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. My guess is you thought you had a lot more interesting things to do back then, than pay attention to the election. None of us knew that election might result in actions that profoundly affected your right to have your vote mean something in the future. You probably didn’t know the word “gerrymandering,” although the Congressional district your Electors represent was probably shaped by it. You probably lived in a state that encouraged as many people as possible to vote in 2016 – not so much in 2024, when many states strongly influenced by Trump have new laws that make voting more difficult.

If you cared about elections, you were probably like me at that age, naively assuming that everything would work itself out, and the peaceful transfer of power prescribed by our Constitution would proceed as expected. Your American history textbooks had continually delivered the message that America is where the good guys live and our free, democratic elections were the envy of the civilized world. Maybe you still believe that, or maybe you still don’t care. In either case, it’s time someone grabbed you by your lapels and explained reality to you.

Reality is that in a few years, I and my generation will be gone. Your parents’ generation will be in charge, and you will be working your butt off to raise and support a family. You won’t have the luxury of not caring about the future or whether you live in a country that has stripped its most vulnerable citizens of the freedoms defined in the Bill of Rights. Remember those?

In America, we get to say what we want to, as long as we don’t yell, “Fire!” to cause a panic. We get to worship, or not, as we please, as long as we’re not part of some radicalized cult that believes in drinking poisoned Kool-Aid. (Are you old enough to remember that?) We get to choose our leaders, and we get to fire them when their term is up if they don’t do a good job. We get to run our own businesses, join labor unions, and have opportunities to plan for retirement. We send our children to schools and if we work hard and play by the rules, we expect our government to protect us when we can’t fend for ourselves.

We also have the right to demand truth and moral and ethical standards from those who seek our votes. You are now old enough to understand and care about that, because the leaders you elect next week can have a profound impact on the rest of your lives. People were skeptical about everything our parents, teachers, and government told us when I was your age. If I could offer your generation a gift, it would be to return you to a time and place where truth and values were things we could codify and use as standards against which to evaluate all the noise you hear every day.

If you care about your future, you MUST get off your ass and vote. If you’re still not sure who to vote for, I have a few suggestions. If you feel like you don’t know enough about Kamala Harris, do what I did – talk to people you trust who know more about her than you do. Don’t we all have family members or friends who live in California? I was ambivalent about Harris until I had a long conversation with my adult son who has lived in San Diego for thirty years. Since I trust and respect him, his opinion made a huge difference.

If you need to know more about Trump, I’d suggest that you ignore everything put out by the Republican and Democratic Parties. Just surf the internet, (not social media,) and you’ll find thousands of hours of videos in which you can see and hear Trump in his own words. Start with the Access Hollywood tape. Hear him discuss grabbing women by their pussies and gloating about how he gets away with anything he wants to do. Listen to him demonize women, immigrants, and the two-thirds of our country that doesn’t bend a knee to his every request. Make up your own mind. The only wrong answer here is doing nothing and failing to cast your vote.

If you dont, and you wake up one day to find friends and relatives deported or in concentration camps, remember – I warned you.