by Jacob Nestle
I almost titled this article “The Top 5 Reasons Millennials Should be Libertarian.” Then I did some research and realized that doesn’t make sense. Why? Because we already are.
Millennials are often criticized for being naive. The Bernie Sanders campaign, if nothing else, proves this. This campaign duped huge numbers of millennials. For a long time, I worried that my generation would be saddled with a majority of actual socialists.
But that’s not the whole story.
Millennials, like every other group of people, have their own interests. We have our own specific concerns and problems. Those skew our perspective and make it hard to understand how things really work. It’s almost impossible to give a single, unifying point of view for us. That’s because we’re also incredibly diverse. We aren’t just diverse in race; our political beliefs land us all over the place, not just the far left, ‘progressive’ wing.
So, without further ado, here are the top 5 ways millennials like me are already headed in the direction of libertarianism. If you want more, this survey done by Reason magazine gives a lot of detail.
1. We love transparency.
Transparency is the number one way to keep government clean and above the board.
Now, we can talk all day about Hillary Clinton‘s corruption, but what’s more problematic than the corruption of one woman is the overall problems with the system. Millennials, by and large, go where the action is. Love it or hate it, the millennial tendency for activism is going to change things.
That’s why libertarian groups like Young Americans for Liberty should make sure we understand and utilize our own nature. It’s not so much about an institution but where the most can get done. Creating that environment is our job.
Now, we need to be careful, of course, not to be overeager, but millennials are the future of America. Lord help us all, you might be thinking.
But it’s encouraging to know that, unlike the previous generations, millennials tend to value transparency for the government. The ACLU ran this poll, which found millennials generally have a positive opinion of Edward Snowden. A majority (56%) of American millennials rated him as at least somewhat favorably.
2. Most of us don’t trust the parties.
Over a quarter (28%) of millennials in the Reason magazine poll linked above actually trust neither party to handle… anything, at all. Half don’t think either party will responsibly handle privacy, which is, as we know, super important to us.
If only there were a party that was really into privacy and doesn’t have a record of screwing over American citizens.
Oh, right.
Now keep in mind that that poll was taken two years ago, before the Sanders supporters realized how impressively unfair the Democratic Party is. Also, of course, before the Trump train ran over the Republicans. There’s no polling data from the last year, so this is conjecture, but hear me out.
I’d be willing to bet the farm I don’t own that millennials are even more disgusted with both parties than we were two years ago. I’d bet my life on it. It’s impressive how many of my fellow millennials are just horrified by this whole mess. We’re just plain disillusioned.
So let me talk to my generation directly for a second. We don’t have to accept this. We don’t have to accept the rigging, xenophobia, and mudslinging.
The fact is that we are better than this. We shouldn’t accept any of it. We don’t have to. It’s our right and duty to vote with our conscience, even if that means supporting someone who probably won’t win.
Turn the distrust of the parties, even of the whole system, into positive action. That’s what I’m trying to do. We’ll all bring our own experiences and beliefs to the table, but I think we can get something really done if we buckle down. It’ll happen if we turn a negative distrust to positive activism and real voting for people with principles.
3. We support immigration.
The Democratic Party is good at one thing for sure, and that is twisting any situation to favor them. Look at how complete their control over the media is, for one. For two, see just how thoroughly they’ve convinced everyone they’re the only choice for those in favor of immigration. Any immigrant from Mexico is, essentially, fed a narrative that Donald Trump is representative of everyone but the Democrats.
At the very least, making immigration easy is depicted as a Democratic issue. That’s the narrative.
That’s unfortunate because we tend to support immigration and the economic growth and prosperity it can bring to a country like America. What’s the point of making immigration harder anyway?
This support for immigration is at least partly because we’re also more likely than most to know that immigrants don’t steal American jobs. Score one for Millennials.
4. We’re going to get more fiscally libertarian
You’ve almost definitely heard the adage that people get more conservative when they get older, and the often-incorrectly-attributed saying that a young man who’s conservative has no heart and an old man who’s liberal has no brain.
Well, that’s partly based in fact. Older people are more conservative than younger people. But people tend to stick with the same social values we have when we’re in our mid-20’s. Millennials won’t mysteriously turn against gay marriage when we hit 40.
What does change? People who are older are better at efficiently looking at information and making the obvious conclusion. Even if it takes them a little longer, they tend to be better at problem-solving.
This translates to a pretty simple fact: Millennials are going to get more economically conservative as we age. That’s especially true of taxes. As soon as some of us start to really own things, we’ll understand what property rights actually mean. Economic policy will follow.
5. We’re going to change the world.
Millennials are often called the “activist generation” in a derogatory manner. That’s because some of us really do nothing but rant on Tumblr.
But most of us aren’t that way.
In fact, I’m confident that we’ll be able to handle the challenges that are thrown at us. I believe in us.
Maybe that’s crazy, but I don’t think so. We have a special gift, we millennials: we know we can actually have a real impact on what happens. Some of us aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to have that impact, but if enough of us get involved, there’ll be a real change. We’ll overcome the problems given to us by the older generations (yeah, I went there).
There’s a special opportunity here, I think. If the Libertarians, both as a party and as a movement, can play their cards right, they’ll find that most of us are already Libertarians. We just don’t all know it yet.