Oct. 17, 2024
I recently retired from Northwestern University where I was a journalism prof. I get to campus regularly and find myself talking with students and becoming acquainted with the priorities of young people; some engaged in campaigns. Many more are turned off to politics.When I was in college, I was into politics. I went to school just across the border from Illinois. I was a Chicago guy, proud of my hometown, like young folks are now because of the TV show, The Bear. Yet for most of my four years, Chicago was out of sight, out of mind.
I lived in a college bubble, so I get how students now can ignore the election and resent people trying to shame them for not paying attention to the debates, the candidates, and the avalanche of intrusive emails and texts.
One student told me he has no intention of voting, despite issues that matter to him -- the economy, his ability to get a job, afford housing on his own, and abortion.
A survey of college students earlier this year found that when asked “what they would do if they or their partner became pregnant while in college, most asserted they would seek abortion.” The student said it deeply matters to him that if his partner or a friend became pregnant, she’d be able to turn to abortion.
An August CBS News poll found that 60% of voters believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Last month, People Magazine published a story identifying 56 celebrities who’ve shared their abortion stories. They were young women, not celebrities, when they sought an abortion.
Republicans Trump and Vance treat abortion like a campaign shell game. Under one card, they put Trump’s appointment of Supreme Court justices who did his bidding to overturn a woman’s abortion rights, under another is Vance’s call for a national abortion ban, under another is their mantra to leave abortions to the states.
I wonder if the student I talked with and others who consider the issue as important still won’t vote.
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Jack Doppelt is Emeritus Professor of Journalism, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University and co-author of Nonvoters: America’s No-Shows
1 comment:
It's difficult for me to understand any person of any age deciding not to vote in this election. I don't know whether it's a lack of civic education or a deficit in understanding how government impacts all our lives or an inability to empathize with less fortunate individuals or selfishness and immaturity or all of these things that would blind someone to the impact of not voting now. As for the student who said he had no intention of voting, did you ask him why he had made that decision?
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