Suffrage for the Children?

Please respect our republishing guidelines - Click Here

The Democrats are at it again. It seems that President Trump’s victory in 2016 spooked progressives to the point that they are willing to propose any idea — no matter how foolish — to stack the odds in their favor. They have made several asinine suggestions that span from subverting the electoral college to coming up with excuses to keep Trump’s name off of the ballot in 2020.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently made another silly suggestion: Why don’t we lower the voting age to 16? Yes, that’s right. The top Democrat in the House thinks it’s a good idea to allow children to vote. “I think it’s really important to capture kids when they are in high school when they are interested in all of this, when they are learning about government, to be able to vote,” she said at a recent press conference.

One might be tempted to believe that the Democrats are getting desperate. Fortunately, a recent poll reveals that American voters are not on board with the speaker’s proposal.

Voters Say “No” To Lowered Voting Age

Earlier this week, Rasmussen released the results of a survey showing that only 17% of likely U.S. voters approve of lowering the legal voting age from 18 to 16 while 74% are opposed to the suggestion. Not a surprising result, right?

The majority of Americans understand that teenagers have not reached the level of maturity required to decide which officials serve in the government. Indeed, the human brain does not finish maturing until the mid-20s. Perhaps prohibiting people from voting until they grow out of eating tide pods and throwing cheese on dogs might be an appropriate policy after all. The idea is about as silly as trying to regulate cow farts — oh wait, they’re trying for that, too.

Will They Ever Stop?

The motivation behind this latest Democratic suggestion is readily apparent to anyone with a modicum of common sense. Progressives are well aware of the fact that younger Americans are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates. Indeed, in last year’s midterm elections, 67% of voters under the age of 30 voted for a House Democrat. Moreover, public schools have increasingly incorporated leftist ideas in the curriculum, which makes them even more favorable towards the left.

The Democrats are engaged in the political equivalent of throwing things against the wall to see what sticks, and it does not appear that they are relenting in their efforts to sway the odds in their favor. So why are they not relying on good old-fashioned campaigning and debate? Perhaps it is because they are losing the argument on many different issues.

Americans are not in favor of the Green New Deal. While most don’t want to build a wall along the southern border, they do agree with President Trump’s overall approach to illegal immigration. More than that, the economy is still healthy, with record-low unemployment numbers. The reality is clear: The Democrats are not winning the important arguments, and they are concerned that they may not be able to gain political power through working within the established system.

This is why they are pushing to give illegals the right to vote. This is why they favor the National Popular Vote compact. It is why they are floating the idea of packing the Supreme Court with more justices. Progressives seem to be frantically looking for any way — fair or unfair — to gain an edge over the GOP. If this is the case, the prospects for a GOP victory in 2020 might be even better than it appears.