“It must suck to be young”

0:00Noel King:Populist Democrats have displaced centrist Dems in New York and Colorado in primaries this summer. They are young and angry and taking aim at a system they say is rigged. And in Michigan today, here we go again. The centrist Democrat Haley Stevens is under fire for this. Israel comes to me in my dreams. And for the more than$30 million AIPAC has spent boosting her campaign. Her opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, is a critic of Israel and a critic of his own party. Like what's worse, the people who actually come and tell you that they just want to take nice things away from you or the people who tell you that they want to give nice things to you only to be paid for by the people who want to take nice things away from you?

0:38Noel King:I feel like you're saying what's worse, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Is that what you're saying? Listen, hypocrisy generally is worse than just straight mendacity. His message is resonating deeply with young people. Today on Today Explained from Vox, we go to Michigan to talk to young people about why the left's emerging populism is hitting.

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2:17Which of the political parties do you identify with? If either. I identify as whatever's gonna make me the most money. Who's that right now? I have no idea.

2:29Noel King:It's Today Explained. I'm Noel King. Recently, producer Peter Balanon-Rosen and I skittered through the swing state of Michigan trying to answer a question. All right. So last midterm cycle, four years ago, Michigan distinguished itself by having the highest youth voter turnout in any state of these United States of America. What is going on? The third baseman, number 12, Chase Harlan. We went to find the Youngs. That's ages 18 to 29, if you're wondering. I just need to start chugging this. Two Coors Lights. Six dollars, baby. Thirsty Thursday. Lansing, Lugnuts, Minor League Baseball, Country Night, Drink in Your Hand, Cowboy Hat on Your Head, Peter in Your Face.

3:10Do you vote? Do I vote? Yeah, I vote. Why do you vote? Why? Because I'm American. I care about my country. I do go, but I don't want to. You got to make a bigger effort than just throwing up an ad on a TV and expecting us to vote for you. Like, I want to hear about your voice, your policies, what you want to do, the transparency with your finance. I want to know because that is my vote. This is Michigan and I want to be important and I want to I want my vote to go to the right place.

3:34Noel King:Get on your feet. Make some noise if you want a free hot dog. OK, so Michigan is doing something right. The last midterm cycle, the Michigan Utes voted double the rate that young people in Indiana or Louisiana or Idaho did, for example. So what is happening? What is happening in Michigan? Who will take credit? Perhaps one of the state officials in charge of voting. My name is Agogo Adavie, and I am the Michigan Deputy Secretary of State. Historically, young people do not vote in numbers as great as older people do, right? Some of the highest patterns of young people voting are found in this state.

4:12Noel King:What is Michigan doing that other states are not doing? Well, there are a couple of things, including pre-registration for 16 and 17-year-olds. Wait, so in Michigan, you can register to vote at 16? You can pre-register to vote. You can pre-register to vote at 16. Because I want to make sure that the other people who are listening in don't think we're breaking the laws here. It is 2026, fair. It's 2026. We have, you know, only the facts, ma 'am. But yeah, once you turn 16, you can pre-register to vote. And then once you turn 18, your registration is good. Wait, OK, yes. But here, you need to tell me something.

4:52Noel King:Because when I was 16, my top priority was getting my driver's license. I failed the test three times before I got it. Did you pass on the first try? I did. But it's probably good to be a future deputy secretary of state. Okay, so priorities when you're 16, getting a driver's license, maybe hooking up with someone. Maybe. If you had said pre-register to vote, I would have been like, what? Are 16-year-olds in Michigan so special that they're like running out to pre-register to vote when there's all this other fun stuff going on? But the first thing you said, what was the first thing you said that yours priority?

5:30Getting my driver's license. It's part of that process too. Wait, what? So when you go in Michigan, we do the graduated driver's licensing program, which I'm sure that you did. As part of that process, we pre-register you to vote. It's automatic unless you opt out. On top of that, our bigger colleges, they have dedicated university staff who have a full-time job of boosting turnout on their campuses. On top of that, we have same-day voter registration.

6:01Noel King:A lot of people assume, and I think this is because of data, that young people tend to vote Democrat versus Republican. I would think perhaps if I were in the Republican Party, I might look at these efforts and say, oh, this is going to get more young Democratic votes. That might be a problem for me. How did Michigan keep this, if it did, from becoming a partisan issue? Well, I certainly think that is the stereotype and that's the narrative. But I don't think that's always correct. I traveled a lot around the state in 2024. And one of the things that I was hearing from a lot of young people, especially young people who weren't on college campuses, was I'm concerned about inflation.

6:46And those people were not necessarily inclined to vote Democratic. Some of them did end up voting Democrat. Some of them voted Republican. And some of them just stayed home. So it's really, I challenge anyone who sees this as just a way to bank Democratic votes to actually talk to the young people. Right now in this state, we have an opportunity for people to be persuaded. That's why we're a purple state.

7:18Noel King:The thing about a purple state is that it's split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats. The thing Peter and I found in Michigan is that this year, some of the young people are themselves split between Republican and Democrat. I think the Democrat Party represents me with a lot of the green lights that they have for people of my community, the LGBT community. But, however, for this community college student with two jobs and rent to pay. Groceries have really inclined a lot. I've, you know, myself had to kind of participate with a little bit of government assistance because of that as well.

7:57Noel King:And even that has now come with rules, regulations and guidelines as well, which I don't disagree with. And I think that is a part where I kind of like, OK, turn an open ear to a little bit of the Republican parties of that, of people getting benefits and they're not like working, just free, freeloading. OK, who else? I'm very big on life. I don't want to step on toes by the abortion topic, you know. I feel like everybody has a right to live. Based on that alone, I would have a guess about which party you tend to sort of gravitate to. But let me not guess. I wouldn't say Republican because there's obviously a lot of things with the Republican Party that I disagree with.

8:37Like I'm really against like the war. I'm really like anti-war, which I feel some Republicans are very pro-war. Seeing what's been happening in Gaza, that is a very large issue for me. And it can often be like determining whether I like or don't like a candidate. We need politicians who will actively fight against that and who are actively calling it out for what it is, which is a genocide. I don't think either party truly has my best interest at heart.

9:03Noel King:That sentiment, neither party is really concerned about me, was something that we heard in Michigan a lot. And so it's no surprise maybe that some recent surveys show the most defining shift in political attitudes among young people in the last decade, it is not to the left or to the right. It's that growing numbers of young people tell pollsters they don't believe their vote matters at all. And they see a direct link between their lack of voice and their ability to make the rent. Everything is so expensive right now. You know, presidents always have these promises that they make, like, oh, prices are going to go down for, you know, groceries, rent, whatever.

9:40Like, that doesn't always happen. And then we see the gas prices keep going up. We see groceries keep going up. I mean, I have to pick up more hours, obviously, pick up a second job. Like, I'm spending 80 % of my income just on rent. It's like, what else do I have to live off of? And I think that our politicians should be keeping track of that. Honestly, fuck all you guys and learn to compromise. You're supposed to represent the people and what the people want. So I'm hearing you think the system's a little busted. Oh, of course. The system's corrupted. Either side, I think it's corrupted. You kind of just have to start the whole thing.

10:12Noel King:We started by telling you that in Michigan, young people vote at higher rates than in other states. And that is true. But it's still only about four in ten young people who do vote. And this growing sense that it's all corrupt is not going to help turn out. So what do you do if you are the person running for office? Young people are disillusioned. Their votes are up for grabs. How are you going to grab them?

10:37You guys, your generation has a fantastic bullshit meter. Because you're fed bullshit online all day, right? And you can usually tell bullshit from truth.

10:46Noel King:That is doctor, but not a physician, Abdel El-Sayed. The polls show him leading with young, likely voters by wide margins. More than 60 % in some polls say they'll vote for him. He's definitely trying. His campaign holds events specifically for people under 30. The Democratic Party brand is so bullshit that everyone looks at this and you're like, are you kidding? Like, please be serious. His centrist opponent, Haley Stevens, who did not respond to our request for an interview, points to language like that and says El-Sayed is too radical. Maybe some of this is just the ugliness of this particular campaign, but it's conceivable that El-Sayed's rise is only possible in the year 2026.

11:28Noel King:This man is a populist of the left. He talks about blowing up a broken system, and he identifies brokenness in the things that, until very recently, were kind of business as usual for the Democratic Party and for people who vote Democrat. Things like support for Israel, begrudging acceptance of corporate money, belief in institutions, institutions like the Democratic Party. El-Sayed is not that Democrat. And his audience is not that audience. What do you think you said today that resonated most? Tell me what you think. I'm going to tell you what I think. I think it was the notion that I'm not going to back down on a lot of the priors that a lot of politics as usual thinks that you have to agree with in order to be electable.

12:13Noel King:I was watching. I think the thing you said that resonated most was the Democratic Party is full of a lot of bullshit. It was your line. And that's kind of exactly what I mean, is that like if you want to run as a Democrat, there's a way that the party sort of expects you to run. They expect you to be taking money from the same corporations to follow the same party line and then to be malleable when you actually get to public office. And what I'm trying to do is to show that our party is so much more successful when we really are about the things that we say we're about. You're one of the leading voices who's been critical of aid to Israel and who's been drawing attention to Gaza as a campaign issue, and a campaign where you really could have just been focused on, like, the rent and health care.

12:55Those things are related, though.

12:56Noel King:Yeah, tell me what you think is going on. Why is every 19-year-old I talk to talking to me about Gaza? I think every 19-year-old you know has seen images of dead children on their phone from Gaza. I think every 19-year-old you know is wondering why they or their parents' tax dollars were spent to do that. And I think every 19-year-old you know is looking at their future and saying, wait, so my tax dollars are being spent to do that, and I can't ever dream of owning a home or working in an economy that's going to pay me fairly? Young people in Michigan, part of the reason we're here, they vote in greater numbers than a lot of other states, 4 in 10, 3.8 in 10.

13:35Noel King:Do you think young people can kind of put you over the edge here? Do you think young people can win this race for you? Ask me on August 5th. And more importantly, young people own the future. They are going to dictate what future they want. They're going to be the future. You're trying to get in good with them? No. I'm joking. I just, like, I like, you know, no, look, I, um, I think it's probably the worst moment in American history to be young. And that's a sad thing. You really think so? Absolutely. Why? As a young person, you should have hope in the future you're going to live. they're being told that there are no homes for them.

14:12They're being told that the earth is doomed because we can't figure out how to stop burning stuff into the air even though we have all the technology we ever needed to stop doing it. They're being told that you can't have health care in America and that the best thing that America can do is send its tax dollars abroad to go kill other people. So it must suck to be young.

14:36Noel King:It must suck to be young, says the guy the young people are voting for. Is this not reminiscent of American carnage and the deep dissatisfaction that fed populism on the right? It might even remind you just a little of Donald Trump, who told us how bad our lives were before we voted him into office twice.

15:00Noel King:When we return, the thing about being young in the U.S., Donald Trump has been the defining political character in American life for almost your entire life. What does that do to a person? Thank you.

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18:32Noel King:This is Today Explained.

18:37My name is Oscar Honka, and I'm 17 years old. My name is William Dodson, and I'm 17 years old.

18:42Noel King:Okay. How long have you guys been friends? Like eighth grade. Yeah, eighth grade, yeah. So about four years. Four years. All right. Oscar, tell me what Will is like. He's a really good friend. I would say he's probably like the most charismatic person I know, like very high-energy guy. But in a good way. Will, tell me about Oscar. I think he's someone you can lean on so much. And he's funny and kind. Like, he's just like a great person to be around. Thank you, bro. When you do argue, typically, what is it about? It's not strictly limited to, but mostly limited to Israel versus Palestine. I would say probably our worst debate was in the parking lot waiting for a friend.

19:22Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. That was bad. That was pretty bad. What was that about? Yeah, we were waiting on our good friend Bobby. But let's just say Bobby got into a pretty heated car when he finally got there. I probably got mad. He probably said something about there not being a genocide in Palestine, which makes me mad. It's one of the most angry things that anyone can tell me, really. It's because I've seen so many stories of just children being amputated without anesthesia. And it also just seems so obvious to me. Like, even if it wasn't a thing so serious as genocide, it would also make me mad if someone said the sky wasn't blue.