Editor,
After watching the civil division that this past presidential election has caused for the past year and a half, we seem to be reaching a climax in political opposition.
After the election of Donald Trump as president-elect, many Americans across the country took to the streets in protest. Many of these protesters are Millennials who are now calling for an entire overhaul of our election process.
The irony found in this is that this group of young like-minded individuals make up the age demographic that votes the least in both general and midterm elections. This begs the question: Why would a group of people call for an overhaul of a process that they themselves rarely use to its full advantages?
The answer is simple, really; the vast majority of Millennials are not aware of how the process actually works and why it is still necessary. Sometimes advocating your own personal position means more than just showing up to the polls on Election Day. There is a lot of work and opportunity prior to that.
Off the top of your head, how many of you are aware of how the actual primary process works for either party within your state? Most of them begin at the county level, where county delegates are elected to go to a state convention and where state delegates are elected, and sometimes these delegates are not bound by popular vote from the state primary election.
My guess would be that not very many people are aware or actively participate in this process, especially Millennials. I believe the issue lies within a lack of proper political and civic education from an early age.
It used to be that, in our parents’ and grandparents’ days, there was a strong emphasis on civics in public schools. Children were taught what makes our country unique and how things are accomplished within this democratic republic. I believe that each state should implement its own civics curriculum within public schools that begin at an early elementary level, so that students are not only taught how the system works from the beginning, but also to respect the traditions that go all the way back to the founding of this country.
I also believe that just learning about it is not enough, there should be opportunities made easily available for students to intern or participate in these processes so that firsthand knowledge can be accrued.
Another purpose for a civics curriculum could be to teach students how to properly research politics on their own and develop their own opinions. In today’s world of 24-hour news coverage (most of which is biased) and extreme social media, many younger people tend to follow the crowd or absorb what they’ve been told, even if a little research may prove that these hardlined opinions may not fall in their best interest.
If our political system (which is actually a good one) is expected to last through the next several generations, it is our responsibility to better educate our youth on how the system works and why it works that way; teach them how to become active in the process and how to think for themselves rather than be told how to think.
We may be too late to save the Millennials (of which I am a part of), but we still have time to properly educate today’s children in how our local and federal government work. It us up to us, however, that the next generations are fully capable of using and carrying our process forward into the future, instead of protesting after the fact when so much more could have been done prior to the election itself.
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Shane Walk
UNM student
