The Democratic Party has a youth problem — and not in the way leadership may think. It’s not that young voters are apathetic or naïve. It’s rather that the Democratic Party and its older voters treat its young voters with condescension and, occasionally, outright contempt. That disdain is driving away and disillusioning an entire generation whose support they cannot afford to lose.

If the Democratic Party keeps treating the younger generation this way, young voters won’t just stay home: they’ll start building a political future that leaves the party behind, or even opt out of civic life entirely. And when that happens, it won’t be because they decided to abandon the Democrats. It will be because the Democrats abandoned them first.

Democrats sneer at young people’s priorities

We’ve seen it repeatedly: the moment young people organize around an issue — especially one that challenges entrenched US policy — they are told they “don’t understand political complexities” or that they’re letting emotions override reason. Take Gaza, for instance: for much of this generation, watching US support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza and killing of its civilians has been a defining political moment.

In the wake of the US government’s inaction, young people have done exactly what engaged citizens have been instructed to do. They’ve organized, debated, protested and demanded that their government live up to its stated values. According to the Crowd Counting Consortium at Harvard, there have been several thousand days of pro-Palestinian protest activity. Students have made demands for policies such as divestment or institutional support for Palestinian academic freedom. The protests were overwhelmingly peaceful. 

Yet, instead of listening, older Democratic leaders and voters dismiss their outrage as naïve, misplaced or misinformed, forgetting that civic engagement is supposed to be a democratic value, not a liability. This phenomenon is omnipresent in both news media, statements from elected leaders and even Beltway conversations. These are political conversations that happen among policymakers within the “Capital Beltway,” the area inside Interstate 495 in Washington, DC. 

American journalist and political commentator Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed for the New York Times is a perfect example of this subtle dismissal of young voters. While Kristof encourages activism from students, he implies that the approach taken has been performative, not meaningful. He even suggests his own purportedly more serious alternatives. Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi even went so far as to state that youth protestors are victims of Russian propaganda. And, memorably, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rejected pro-Palestinian delegates’ efforts to get a Palestinian American speaker on the main stage at the Democratic National Convention. 

Then, when young people abstained from voting or supported independents in 2024, they were pilloried as disloyal, unserious and reckless. The message is clear: youth organizing is only welcome when it aligns neatly with the status quo. Anything else is lazily dismissed or treated as a threat to be managed, rather than a perspective with which to engage.

The Democratic Party is rife with no-accountability culture and inaction 

But the political establishment doesn’t stop at mocking young people’s values and intelligence. The Democratic Party also models a political culture where there are no consequences to Democratic actions, no matter how damaging their policies might be. For instance, the architects of the Iraq War still collect speaking fees, teach at elite universities and opine on cable news as if their catastrophic decisions didn’t destabilize the region and cost countless lives. 

Adding to this resistance to generational change is the fact that the party has not reckoned with the 2024 presidential loss or mounted a credible resistance to President Donald Trump’s agenda. When pressed about whether the election emblematized a rejection of the Democratic Party, Pelosi claimed it was not. After Trump unleashed a slew of executive orders, Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries merely posted on X that, “Presidents come and Presidents go. Through it all. God is still on the throne.” Then, when Trump went after free speech at universities, New York Senator Chuck Schumer answered with what  The Daily Show host Jon Stewart parodies as “bringing out the big guns: a strongly worded letter.”

Despite public outcry about the threat Trump poses to democracy, the Democrats seem to be caught flat-footed as he goes about the business of dismantling democracy. This is a huge betrayal for young people staring down the erosion of economic safeguards, civil and political rights, and democratic norms in real time. 

Further, according to Pew, the median age of House Democrats is 57.6 years old; in the Senate, it’s 66.0, slightly older than Republicans. We are essentially asking a generation that has grown up in the shadow of a financial crisis, endless war and climate inaction to trust the same leaders who presided over those failures — and to do so without skepticism. It is insulting to ask young people to continue to hold their noses while casting votes for Democrats, particularly given that young people have the most to gain or lose from the policy decisions of those in power.

Belittling idealism drives the stakes up for the Democrats

Youth engagement is a fleeting opportunity — a rare moment when politics can still feel like a tool for justice and progress. Young voters have the interest and capacity to dedicate energy to social causes and moral questions. Squander that capacity, and you don’t just lose a voting bloc for a cycle — you lose them for a generation. You harden their cynicism, you drive them toward alternatives and you signal to anyone paying attention that the party’s commitment to the future is purely rhetorical. The party also squanders an opportunity to organize more effectively when it dismisses young people flexing the muscles of democratic citizenship. 

Meanwhile, the right — especially the Make America Great Again movement — has been willing to speak directly to young people’s sense of alienation. The Republicans have been offering the youth a political cause, however warped the substance may be. This has only added to the Democratic Party’s alienation amongst the public. For example, the Harris ticket underperformed with youth in 2024. And perhaps it’s no surprise that in 2024, more new voters chose to register as Independent and Republican than Democrat. 

The Democratic Party must change its tune. Some say the party should take after Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City. After Mandani’s November 4 victory, Robin Smyton of Tufts University’s TuftsNow wrote that Mamdani’s way of speaking about “issues that young people care about and offering a compelling vision to vote for, not just a candidate to vote against, was likely key to engaging youth.” Perhaps Mamdani is merely offering something that better reflects the lived economic experience of the young, disillusioned electorate. 

Mamdani’s primary and subsequent mayoral victory are indicative of a rising trend: young challengers are stepping up against older Democratic politicians across the country. This progression should wake the Democratic Party out of its stale, dysfunctional politics. Having a young political culture that has the interest to envision alternative ways of organizing our economic, social and political lives is something to nurture, not belittle.

[Cheyenne Torres edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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