A Rapid Change of Sentiment

Abstract

The rapid collapse of political resistance to lowering the voting age is here noted and the potential effect of the lowering is analyzed. The prediction is also made that several political assumptions concerning youth voting, firmly held until recent times, are likely to be shattered. Among them is the assumption that young people will vote pretty much as does the general population. It is also contended that dissatisfaction among the young is more likely to divide them than produce a youth bloc vote. The old shibboleths of politics are not accepted by the young, leaving candidates for office the task of guessing what their approach to the large mass of new voters should be.