How You Know Republicans Have Decided Young Voters Don't Matter | Opinion

On Wednesday, Gen Z and Millennials didn't get the exchange of ideas they'd hoped for from a presidential debate. They saw a gaggle of Republican politicians interrupting each other, screaming over one another, and obfuscating the issues. Rarely did the candidates address a single issue that youth voters, who will make up half of all voters by 2028, find most important.

The Republican Party seems simply to smile and wave at the reality that confronts them. Instead, the slate pandered to a small conservative splinter of the electorate that won't live long enough to reap the impacts of their policies. Their willful ignorance about future consequences manifests itself in a number of ways:

• Climate change is one of the top issues for young voters of all political stripes, including conservatives. In the first debate, Vivek Ramaswamy, the youngest person on stage, shouted in the face of a college Republican that climate change was a "hoax." Last night, he yelled, "Drill, frack, burn coal!" and, "Abandon the climate cult!" (He also called for everyone under the age of 16 to be banned from social media and for everyone under the age of 25 to be banned from voting.)

• Today's youth hear that while watching 1000-year floods destroy cities and epic fires burn homes to the ground. The GOP candidates even attacked electric cars while ignoring the billions in government subsidies to oil companies that are making record profits. Young people understand that human behavior and fossil fuels are causing climate change. The GOP doesn't.

• Not one of the candidates addressed the leading cause of death among young people, gun violence. Nearly half of all young people fear falling victim to a mass shooting, and active shooter drills are a fact of life in today's classrooms. The situation is so insane that some students have suffered more than one mass shooting in a lifetime that should have seen none. The GOP's inaction on sensible gun reform is a primary concern for young people.

• In the two debates, the candidates have cited their religious views as justification for promoting nationwide abortion bans and denying reproductive health care. At the same time, the nation's young people remain vehemently against government-mandated pregnancy. They are disgusted by the thought of a 12-year-old rape victim crossing state lines for an abortion. Voters in Kansas and Ohio have shunned Republican bans, with young people leading the charge for bodily autonomy.

• Gen Z is the queerest generation ever, and the GOP candidates continue to attack trans youth with archaic information about transition surgery's implications on mental health. Time and again, research demonstrates that gender-affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender-diverse adolescents, and teachers are in a critical position to provide support to nonbinary students. Watching the debate, it is clear why 70 percent of Americans don't believe that politicians know enough about gender-affirming care to legislate on it.

• Nikki Haley and the other candidates continue to champion types of private school vouchers and "school choice" options that intentionally push the boundaries of church/state separation. Private school vouchers often benefit Christian schools, and everyone else pays the price. They rob funds from public schools, are responsible for worse educational outcomes. They allow private Christian schools to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students, erase the history of people of color, deny accommodations for students with disabilities, and destroy America's right to religious freedom.

• As Gen Z becomes the most nonreligious generation in our nation's history, younger Americans are watching their religious elders and bible-thumping candidates find blind faith in former President Donald Trump over God and country. Trump voters are likelier to believe the former president is telling the truth than their friends, family, pastor, or the Pope.

It all boils down to this: the GOP disregards and demeans the voting block that will shape the future. They seek to de-platform LGBTQ+ youth, women, immigrants, and people of color with little regard for the opinions of those who will replace eventually be stuck with paying the price for their foolishness.

When Tim Scott wants to talk more about Nikki Haley's curtains than student debt, we're in trouble.

The GOP is abandoning the youth vote, and that's no way to win back the White House in 2024.

Kevin Bolling is the executive director of the Secular Student Alliance. He has served in that position since 2017.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.