OPINION:
Only 15% of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 say they follow news all or most of the time, Pew Research Center reported. Compare that to the 62% of those above the age of 65 years old who say they follow news regularly — and that explains a lot.
No wonder young people vote Democrat. They’re ignorant.
Pew found that, too — though maybe not in those words. Still, back in April of 2024, Pew wrote the “Democratic Party holds a substantial edge among younger voters, while the Republican Party has the advantage among the oldest groups.”
See? The takeaway: Youth — stupid. Age — wisdom. It’s in the polling.
Anyhow — back to present day: “Young adults are less likely to follow the news,” Pew wrote this month, of a survey that analyzed the media landscape and determined that those between the ages of 18 and 29 generally aren’t looking at news and even when they do, it’s rarely about government, politics, science, technology, business and financed. What is it about? Entertainment.
Ask them about the constitutional basis for socialists like Zohran Mamdani to price-fix groceries in privately owned and operated supermarkets, and they’re clueless. But ask them what Kim Kardashian wore — or failed to wear — to the latest red carpet event in Hollywood, and they got you. They got that.
Moreover, when youth do get political news, it’s accidental, Pew found. It appears in their social media feeds. It pops across their screens. It crosses their consciousness entirely inadvertently. But wait. The survey findings grow more interesting.
“Why do younger adults follow the news less closely? One possibility is that young adults are much less likely to feel attached to their community than their elders,” Pew wrote.
“Another,” Pew wrote, “is the way the news makes them feel.”
Oh. My. Gosh.
“Young people are more likely to say the news they get makes them feel scared or confused, with 33 percent saying it makes them feel each of these emotions often or extremely often,” Pew wrote.
Gimme my CBD gummies. Stat!
The conundrum for these younger know-nothings, of course, is that their anti-news feelings confine them to ignorance, and their ignorance keeps them beholden to the Democrat Party, and their loyalty to the Democrat Party entraps them in slavery — where their ignorance isn’t only solidified, but actually encouraged. Nothing says Democrat Election Win like a solid base of bleating, fearful, angry, non-thinking sheep.
All quips aside, the long-term repercussions of these survey findings for all of America are significant.
Young people are already operating at an education deficit when it comes to their public schooling and places of higher learning, where civics, the Constitution, truthful history, Founding Father wisdom and the concept of American Exceptionalism — the idea of rights and liberties coming from the Creator — are rarely taught. Now add to that the lack of awareness and knowledge that comes from living with blinders. If curiosity is a key driver of creativity and ingenuity and critical thinking, then the next generation of American leaders are a batch of dim bulbs at best. At worst, they’re good little Marxist soldiers, prepped with all the propaganda that’s needed to carry the Democrat Party into decades of rule — yes, not representation, but rather rule.
If youth aren’t taught the evils of communism in school, and if youth aren’t reading or tuning into news about the evils of communism in modern-day societies, who’s to stop them and what’s to prevent them from electing the least constitutionally concerned and most Marxist-minded politicians to run — to destroy — the government? This country could be just a few carefully crafted artificial intelligence political posts from disaster. China’s TikTok is just the beginning. Free speech, free assembly, free worship, free-carry of weapons, private property all become compromised; all become threatened.
The greatness of America, and the ideal that makes it distinct from all other nations of the world, is that here, in this country, under this form of democratic-republic governance, all citizens take their rights and liberties from God, and government, therefore, only exists to secure and protect those God-given rights and liberties. Government, in other words, is subservient to the people. Take away God-given rights and liberties and America becomes like any other country, with a government filled with elites and arrogant leaders who are in charge of deciding who gets, who gets none and who must give all.
That’s not freedom.
That’s tyranny.
“If the common people are ignorant and vicious,” Pennsylvania physician, politician and Declaration-of-Independence-signer Benjamin Rush wrote in 1786, in letters to his state legislature and fellow citizens, “a nation, and above all a republican nation, can never be long free and happy.”
Rush wrote those words in advocacy for the creation of free and public schools that would provide for a religious-based education that taught, among classical subjects, the virtues.
His premise still applies.
Ignorance does not breed liberty.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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