Biden needs to explain policy to the youth vote

The Bad News for Joe Biden is that youth (18-30, roughly) have fallen out of love with him.

The Good News is that the youth, in most elections, don’t show up in large numbers.

Usually.

But In 2020 the youth turnout climbed to a high of 50%, and Biden captured about 65% of it, beating Donald J. Trump by more than 25 points. Analysts believe that was an anti-Trump, and a pro college-debt-forgiveness vote, but now that huge lead has collapsed. Trump now is leading Biden among a segment of the population that usually spurns the anti-choice, and anti-climate change attitudes of the GOP. 

The last Republican president to capture the youth vote was another old man — Ronald Reagan, whose sunny description of America was the opposite of the apocalyptic one painted by Donald Trump.  

The conundrum for Biden is the belief system of the young seems tied more to what they see on TikTok than on reality. The “youth” are out of step with other age cohorts, and too much of what they believe is anti-democratic rot.

It is not all youth that have become unmoored from reality, but the numbers of those who have strayed are distressingly large.

Here are some examples of their beliefs, reported in just the last year:

The most shocking was a Daily Mail poll that revealed one in five Generation Z youth have a positive view of 9/11 mass murderer/Islamic terrorist Osama bin Laden. That would be like 20% of young Americans in the ‘50s having a favorable view of Nazis.

In case you find the Daily Mail poll is too awful to believe, remember that a few months earlier, a copy of bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America” was circulating on the Internet — with large numbers of TikTok “influencers” wondering why they had not been told the “truth” before. Yes, these blockheads read anti-American propaganda, a justification for killing nearly 3,000 Americans, and are convinced by it. Bin Laden was expressly addressing young people. It had no traction when he wrote it in 2002. Millennials spurned it. But the next cohort, Gen Z, fell for it.

At no time in history, thanks to the internet, has access to the truth been more available. However — conspiracy theories and lies, thanks to the internet, have never been in wider circulation.

And this is before deep fakes and AI, which have the capacity to make major lies seem like the truth.

We are raising a generation that seems unwilling or incapable of determining the truth.

Which is not all that surprising when you understand they seem incapable of determining their own sex. A skyrocketing number have renounced heterosexuality in favor of… well, you name it, being as social scientists have created more gender choices than Heinz has varieties. Wikipedia has provided a helpful list from A to Z.  Read it and scratch your head.

The number of young people claiming nonbinary status is literally blasting through the roof. Sure, there are nonbinary people, but in the numbers claimed? Seems unlikely.

The New York Times reported in 2022, “Experts said that young people increasingly have the language and social acceptance to explore their gender identities, whereas older adults may feel more constrained. But the numbers, which vary widely from state to state, also raise questions about the role of peer influence or the political climate of the community.” (Italics added.)

That the numbers vary widely from state to state is important. It strongly suggests that what is at work is not biology, but sociology, and geology.

And it’s not just America. A year earlier, NBC News reported that one in five — 20% of young people — globally claimed to be some flavor other than straight.  (The other countries were Western, not Islamic.)

I know of no scientific study that has ever shown that more than 7% of the population is nonbinary. But now, in the words of an old song, “Anything Goes.”

The younger the respondent, the more likely they are to claim nonbinary status.

The Brown University student newspaper reports that 38% of its student body claims to not be heterosexual, a number that doubled since 2010 and is five times the national rate. (The key word is “claims.”)

At that rate, in another 13 years, Brown will be 76% queer.

Is that remotely believable?

The Brown newspaper is reporting what students say,  not what they actually practice.

Today, rather than Oscar Wilde’s “love that dare not speak its name,” gay is being shouted from the rooftops. It has cachet. It is cool.

So is nonbinary. How else can you explain public schools putting Tampons in the male bathrooms? Are male lactating rooms next?

I think what I might call the queer surge is mostly peer pressure, and its locus is on the coasts. It closely ties to political identity. Like sanctuary cities, it is most prevalent in blue states.

So while Brown students in Rhode Island may think they are going gay, I’ll bet not many student Hoosiers in Indiana University share those beliefs.

But nonconforming sexual identities won’t hurt Biden much, if at all. The Dems are gay friendly. I doubt I’ll ever hear Trump say, “I love the gays,” and he has with vets, and Blacks, and Hispanics, and the non college-educated.

I saved the worst for last.

Asked to say which side they sympathized with more —  Palestinians or Israelis — the 18-29 group were the only cohort to choose the Palestinians. And that was before the Hamas slaughter of 1,200 Israelis — including arson, rape, torture, the murder of babies and elderly, and the kidnapping of hundreds of people.

Pew research says about 41% of Americans oppose the Biden policy — which supports Israel. 35% agree with the policy, while a whopping 24% are unsure.

In this country, and in the media, the pro-Palestinian side has been extremely effective in pushing their narrative, convincing the uneducated, as Osama bin Laden did from beyond the grave. Most of that narrative is lies.

The three big lies are genocide, apaetheid and colonizer. None is true, as I have previously detailed.

There’s not much Biden can do about the warped ideas a bloc of the young have about their sexual identities. That will straighten itself out when they start having children, hopefully after marriage. None of the mothers will be biological males.

Their views about bin Laden, and 9/11, figure directly into attitudes about the situation in the Mideast today.

Biden must explain what is going on, and why.

He may not be the best person to do it. He needs a surrogate.

No, not Kamala Harris. Not Barack Obama either. He basically kept Israel at arm’s length.

My choice would be Bill Clinton.

He’s still pretty popular — more than Biden, that’s a fact — and he did take a swing at bringing peace, when in 2000 he brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Liberation Organization chief Yassir Arafat together at Camp David.

As usual, the talks failed. As usual, the Arabs said no. Clinton laid it at the feet of Arafat.

The American public (and me) rightfully freaked out by the excessive destruction in Gaza, but Americans are largely ignorant of the history of the region. Until about 40 years ago, the Arab world had but one desire — to destroy Israel. Surrounded by 300 million enemies, Israel had no choice but to develop a military that could offset the numerical odds.

Is it a Goliath now? Yes, of necessity.

Most Americans see Goliath, but not the necessity for it.

They need to be told. Clinton can do that.

Swinging just 20% of those who oppose Biden’s policy could provide a margin of victory.