In today’s society Teenagers are seen as confused young adults that are more focused on the latest trends rather than their education or the world’s news. But this isn’t true. In fact young adults are more outspoken than ever, with social media platforms like Twitter and Tumblr at hand. Teenager’s opinions on world news are more vivid and wide spread than ever.
Unfortunately for young adults their opinions tend not to be shared in terms of election results. Results from Brexit showing that people aged 18-24 voted to remain at 73% compared to those aged 65+ who voted to leave at 60%. Along with the results of the USA 2016 Presidential election showing that 55% of 18-29 voted Clinton compared to 65+ voting 53% towards Trump. With the results for both elections showing that the older generation vote overruled the younger generation, my question is: Why is the younger generation’s opinions being overshadowed? Is it because the media doesn’t have enough coverage on young adult’s opinions? Or perhaps not enough young people vote? I wanted to find out which one was the reason young adults don’t have as big of a platform (they should have when it comes to politics, and so I asked young adults why they thought this was so).
On the 23rd June 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union at 51.9%. When it came time to see how ages voted there was a surprising result, with those aged 65+ voting to leave at 60% the EU whereas 18-24 votes to remain at 73%. It has left many young people feeling as if their future has been decided for them. With their only being a very slim chance that the result could change from a second referendum, I asked those aged 16-25 what they thought of this outcome.
With the results of the EU referendum being as they were, do you think that the younger generations were let down by the older generation?
“I think we were and for some reason our voices are never heard but it’s us that it’s going to affect." Kerrin Terry, 17, Canterbury College.
"No, the older generation have been around for a bit loner they know what’s happened before and what’s happening now, so they have more of an open mind about it and have more information then we might have, and so it some way I feel like no we haven’t." Rachel Boswell, 17 Canterbury College.
"I think we were because we didn't have the opportunity to vote but it's our future that’s being voted on so we should have had that right. I think that if there were more young people that thought we should have stayed in the EU, then that’s how it should have gone because that's our future. But then again the older generation know more about politics so they know that area so they might have been right." Toni Butcher, 16, Canterbury College.
"Yes, but obviously the vote that people wanted did win overall. Even if more had voted it probably would have been more so the older generations because obviously it would have been 16 and up it couldn’t have made that much of a differences so I think the result would have been the same even if the younger generation could have voted." Hannah Spurling, 17, Canterbury College.
Do you think if 16/17 were able to vote in the EU referendum there could have been a different result?
“I think there would of because we’re looking out for our future whereas the older generation let us and so I think we would have voted to stay." Kerrin Terry
"There’s definitely would have been a different result because even just on social media the amount of young people that couldn't vote who got angry the second the result came in. There were so many people complaining about how the older generation has ruined are future and all this. So I think if we had the chance to vote we would have definitely stayed." Toni Butcher
"I doubt that there would have been a different result because I don't think that it would have made a differences, especial 16 year olds because they wouldn’t of known what to do and would have ended up listening to older generations anyways.” Hannah Spurling
Another major election that took place in 2016 was that of the USA Presidential Election, with the end result showing that Donald Trump had won by having a majority in the Electoral College vote. Whereas Hillary Clinton won overrule with the popular vote by more than 3 million, with 55% of the votes from those aged 18-29. However Trump won over the older generation (65+) at 53% but only by a slither with 45% of the same age group voting for Clinton. But why did young Americans prefer Hillary Clinton over Trump, well an interview carried out by ‘The Atlantic’ asked 19 year old Melissa Kelley why she voted for Clinton, her response: “He’s just anti-everything I believe in”, meaning Trump’s ideology on topics such as Women’s rights, Black Lives Matter, Refuges and the Environment. With the reasons behind as to why so many more voted Clinton over Trump, I asked a group of young adults what they thought were the reasons Trump still won the election:
With many more young people voting for Clinton over Trump, what do you think was the reason for Trump winning?
Toni: Under 18 years old were not able to vote and younger people did not want Donald Trump in as President.
Kerrin: People wanted change but they didn’t know what to do and around the time of the election there were a lot of confliction between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump so they didn’t know who to vote for and when Trump was voted in there was this whole panic and now it’s not the change they wanted.
Hannah: They wish they could go back to the election because they just didn’t want Trump in.
Why do you think America needed change?
Toni: There were and are a lot of issues going on in America at the time and they had a lot of movements like the black lives matter and all of the different issues during the campaign that needed to be shorted out. Therefore, they chose a president that they thought would help fix all the issues.
Hannah: I think that the younger generation knew that Donald Trump was a bad candidate so when he was elected they felt quite upset about the vote because he was doing so many things wrong. Quite a lot of people saw him as stuck up and so when he was elected he didn’t really help the whole issues.
Why do you think young people voted for Hilary Clinton rather than Trump?
Toni: Donald Trump’s views went against what the majority of what young people believe in. A lot of the young people believe in equal rights for any sexuality, gender, race and everything like that. So when Donald Trump comes in and says he’s going ban certain people from countries, there’s all these different things about how these people that work for him are homophobic, or the way he talks about women, treated women in the past. It’s just enough aspect to why they don’t like him.
Kerrin: It’s an example of how young people’s opinions are discarded even if they are the ones that are going to be affected the most and that’s really sad, it’s not the way it should be and it needs to change.
Hannah: I think people voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump because of the black lives matter campaigns, Donald Trump made it perfectly clear that he didn’t agree with what was going on whereas Hillary Clinton was a protester of this and she responded in a way that people wanted a president to response whereas now they’ve got Trump, then again younger people’s opinions should matter more than older opinions because the young are the ones that have to deal with it more.
With the up and coming general election many 16/17 wanted the right to be able to vote to the point where a petition was made to urge the government to think twice about allowing 16/17 to vote. However PM Theresa May ruled this option out with her opinion on 'BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour': "You have to pick a point at which you think it is right for the voting age to be. I continue to think it is right for it to be 18." With the decision made that 16/17 will not be able to vote in the next general election, I asked a few 16/17 what they thought of this:
Do you think that 16/17 should be able to vote in the general election?
"They should be able to vote because it’s our future that it’s affecting and so we should have a say." Kerrin Terry
"No, just because some 16/17 don’t actually don’t know enough information or just don’t understand, so they wouldn’t really know what to say. But obviously some people do know what they are talking about." Rachel Boswell
"I don’t think they should be able to vote, but I think our voices defiantly need to be heard. But I think that with the range of people, 16/17 over the county, there are way too many immature 16/17 year olds that don’t know what they’re talking about or don’t know anything about politics and so would ruining it for other people. But I think our voices defiantly need to be heard." Toni Butcher
"Maybe 17 year olds and above should be able to vote, but maybe not 16 because you have to be mature enough to be able to vote." Hannah Spurling
Since writing this article the general election has taken place, with the result showing that no party won a majority as the Conservatives lost seats across Britain meaning that there will be a coalition government with the DUP party. Labour party gained 30 seats across the country whereas Conservatives lost 13 seats. Many believe that Conservatives not getting a landslide win and Labour gaining 30 seats was the young vote getting revenge on Theresa May for the results of the Brexit.
The results of the general elections has proving that young adults are now making their voices be heard.
