🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
As I travel across the country campaigning for president, I talk at every stop to young Americans who enthusiastically support my candidacy. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, I am leading in a three-way with President Biden and former President Trump among voters 18 to 34, and a New York Times/Siena poll shows me beating Biden and Trump among 18 to 44 year olds in six key battleground states.
Mainstream media often ask me why I enjoy such strong support from young voters. Based on countless campaign trail conversations, I believe America's youth support me because I am offering them something that has been nearly lost over the last two presidential terms: hope for an America that lives up to its promises and ideals.
Sadly, young Americans see little hope in the two major parties or their likely nominees. During Biden and Trump's presidencies, an entire generation of American kids has become disillusioned. A June Gallup poll showed that only 18 percent of voters 18 to 34 are "extremely proud" to be American. And a plurality of 18 to 29 year olds recently polled by Harvard trust neither Biden nor Trump on the most important political issues.
Young people are not satisfied with voting for the lesser of two evils. Their generation seeks an outsider like me who is running as an independent, given that 38 percent of the youngest voters aged 18 to 29 have no party affiliation, a higher percentage than identify as Democrats (35 percent) or Republicans (26 percent). Because they are repelled by the rancor and name-calling in two-party politics, they respond positively to my mission to "Heal the Divide."
Moreover, my message resonates because I show this generation a viable path toward restoring hope in America, so that they can be proud of their country and believe in their future.
This starts with the economy. The central promise of the American dream was that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can make a decent living, afford a home, raise a family, take a summer vacation, and put aside something for retirement. That promise has been broken for the younger generation, and they feel betrayed.
Instead of addressing the real economic problems of the Millennial generation, the Biden administration pays TikTok influencers to "tell positive stories of Biden's economic stewardship," to draw attention away from viral videos about expensive burgers and the exploding cost of living. Biden's government is gaslighting young Americans to believe that the economy is better than it really is.
In contrast, I am leveling with young voters about economic reality and offering real plans to improve their lives, such as a guaranteed 3 percent mortgage rate for first-time buyers financed with tax-free T-bonds. That way, young families can compete with the predatory Wall Street banks that have been snapping up single-family homes.
I am also listening to young Americans who want the next president to wind down the war machine and instead invest in this country. The wars waged since 9/11 have cost us more than $8 trillion dollars, gutting the middle class. For the first time in their young lives, Millennial and Gen Z voters see a candidate who will actually challenge the power of the military-industrial complex that keeps us bogged down in perpetual quagmires.
The disastrous war in Ukraine has already cost American taxpayers $111 billion, and Biden has been seeking another $60 billion. Imagine if we invested that money in the next generation of Americans, instead of a brutal conflict that has claimed a generation of Ukrainian youth.
Young voters also worry about the environment. Over the last four decades, I have given about 500 speeches on college campuses. I know students are sincerely concerned about the future of the planet. They connect deeply with stories from my career as an environmental lawyer holding big polluters like Monsanto and Mobil accountable, and cleaning up the Hudson River.
The next generation wants to vote for a president who will leave them clean air and water, rebuild soils, eliminate toxic chemicals, protect forests and rivers, and encourage the production of healthy foods with regenerative farming.
Today's kids are not interested in candidates who dismiss or mock environmental problems, or who enrich their corporate donors with billions of dollars for false environmental solutions.
Other parts of my message—free speech, medical freedom, ending the corporate capture of government—resonate with younger generations, too. But I believe there may be another notable reason why young voters respond so strongly to my candidacy, one which strikes a chord deep in the American psyche.
The tragic assassinations of my uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and my father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, left an indelible scar on this country. Those national traumas engendered a feeling of existential loss, a blow to the very soul of the nation. Although the assassinations of the 1960s are ancient history to today's youth, still they intuitively understand that we could have taken a different, better path.
This is what my campaign calls, "The America that Almost Was and Yet May Be."
This sense of indignation, betrayal, and perennial hope that animated the youth movement of the 1960s lives on today. On November 23, 1963, the day after the shocking assassination of President Kennedy, Bob Dylan performed his now iconic youth protest song, "The Times They Are A-Changin.'" His timeless anthem captured the spirit of righteous anger and yearning for a better world that burned brightly in the youth culture of the 60s.
That flame still flickers today in the hearts of young Americans who grow up dreaming of a country that may yet, despite everything, live up to its highest ideals.
I am doing my best to keep that flame alive for the next generation.
Robert F. Kennedy is running for president of the United States as an independent.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
