The Most Important Political Influencer of This Election: Our Youth

It was Easter Sunday when I found out about Joe Biden’s rollout of a new student loan forgiveness plan. It’s a plan that would eliminate widespread student loan debt for many who attended public colleges, as well as historically black private universities. It is by far the most progressive action taking by the Vice President on this issue.

As someone who spent time on the campaign, I was surprised. 

How did I miss this? I pinged a group chat filled with other Team Joe fellows and interns I served with and asked if they had seen this plan.

None of them did. It had already been five days since its release.

Perhaps this is to be expected. The media’s raison d’être is, rightly so, being a voice of clarity during a time of emotional upheaval. In other words, any inch of coverage could never be ceded to anything other than the Coronavirus pandemic.

It’s also what I find most worrisome.

As our country continues with the fatigue of emotional and economic distress, our capacity to cling to the excitement that comes from organizing around new political realities - ones that move us towards unity and hope - seem to diminish drastically. How can we fix this?

In what now seems like a lifetime ago, the answer could previously be found in diverse candidates - both in their generational appeal and their fresh perspectives. But now, any previous room for this attitude is drowned out by the fear and instability brought on by the pandemic, on the heels of the most important election in modern American history.

The situation recalls some of the darkest hours of our country in recent memory. Analogous to the evil that befell us on 9/11, the pandemic threatens to move us away from a politics of hope towards one centered around fear, wrapped tightly within a rhetoric of divisiveness and hate. We know all too well where those paths have led us. 

But unlike that period in our nation's history, we now have a unique opportunity to break free.

As many of us remain quarantined away, the outbreak has shuffled everyday-life into the virtual world. Now, many parents and elderly voters are cozying up to digital platforms we would have never imagined them to find; parents and grandparents are now boasting to their children about their seamless adjustment to a new reality—Slack, Zoom, Viber, Twitch, Facebook Messenger and all at the same time, even with guest appearances on Tik Tok videos and on Instagram live streams. 

This presents an unparalleled opportunity for our generation of young voters to use our internet fluency - as architects of digital communities and facilitators of intimate connections online - to heighten and strengthen the political discourse in a time of great need; to utilize our perspective as the most ethnically diverse generation to be a force that keeps the concerns of underrepresented voices front and center; to welcome a new cohort of elder citizens onto our home turf—the internet—in a way that moves the conversation forward. 

Had the global community been adequately prepared for the Coronavirus pandemic, we would still be seeing the traditional fervor around the campaign trail. Conversations with families around the dinner table on economic anxiety, large rallies in stadiums and high school gyms around climate change and healthcare, to intimate town hall settings where generating meaningful dialogue or challenging candidates to answer honestly would be the norm. But going door to door is no longer an option. Handing out flyers, or having meaningful conversations in bars or at schools feel like a distant memory. 

The political ground-game is now fully digital. And regardless of how this strange reality has come about - it has flipped on its head what has so often been a political paradigm that has counted out the young political generation. 

Now, instead of asking our elected leaders for a seat at the table, we somehow find them asking for a seat at ours. 

These movements, originating and fuelled by the internet, meant that the organizing efforts to broaden the coalition with elderly members of the community began with gathering offline.

But for what might be the first time ever, this is now possible to replicate on the internet. Examples from within the Hip Hop community show this to be true, where Quarantine Radio shows and live DJ sets have people tuning in that wouldn’t ordinarily be doing so in person. Artists are now architecting their livestream experiences and musical sets to broaden generational appeal, as they find their own reach now includes your grandparents, your preschool teacher, and friends made overseas due to the ease of accessing content online. Similarly, this newfound intergenerational appeal can help young creators reimagine their reach around organizing—to view it as a lever to demand policy asks from the older generation and to strengthen coalition-building with younger voters, by keeping youth in the loop around when to vote and to help the first-time voter, who's never seen that mail-in ballot before, to ensure their voice is heard too.

This is a call to action to our generation of young people, who are not only the leaders of today, but who represent the new creative class: the high-school gamer with an engaged livestream community of thousands of viewers across the world, the university students who walk and chew gum at the same time as content creators, daily storytellers, and full-time students, and the recent grads who’ve impressively built an intellectual audience around their passion on Twitter. 

That isn’t to say that political excitement and engagement can only be spurred from within. Adopting an agenda that aligns with the values of the new political generation is ultimately up to the candidates since it’s the leadership required for moving our country forward.

But there will be needed action around creating cultures of engagement for down-ballot candidates, from young progressive Senate candidates in Nebraska to congressional candidates on the East Coast. Virtual town halls and phone banking competitions and, more importantly, creating an apparatus that ensures as many folks are registered to vote—understanding their options to doing so during the pandemic can be immensely impacted by how we use a digital platform and narrative.

This is now a world where content has become more of a utility than entertainment; where digital spaces and experiences can reach new communities; and where community drives trust around shared values. And therein lies the opportunity. There is hardly a better calling for young people to reimagine their importance over the next few months—to utilize their home turf as a way to be arbiters of creative messages that can excite us to vote, under the most difficult circumstances, come November.

- Vibhor