Washington wake-up call? ‘Generation Y’ calls for 3rd-party political choice
Fed up with ‘politics as usual’ in the United States, dominated as it is by the Democrat and Republican parties, the majority of US ‘millennials’ say a third major party is the answer, according to a recent poll.
The Democrats and Republicans remain locked in a political witch hunt known as ‘Russiagate’, which has been the main obsession in Washington since even before Trump’s inauguration. It should therefore come as no surprise that many young Americans are expressing hope for change.
Some 71 percent of Millennials – the generation of Americans born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s – say the Democratic and Republican parties are failing to such a degree at the primary task of representing the American people that a third major party is needed. That’s according to a recent NBC News/GenForward poll.
Across the political landscape, neither major party scored particularly well in the poll. Although the Republicans under President Donald Trump appeared to fare worse.
A full 63 percent of those polled say they disapprove of the way Trump is performing as president, while 60 percent held an unfavorable opinion of the way Congress is doing its job. Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed expressed an unfavorable view of the Republican Party, while 42 percent viewed the Democrats unfavorably.
Those results support the findings of an earlier poll, sponsored by CNN and conducted by SSRS, which showed Americans losing faith in both major parties. Fifty-four percent of Americans polled said they hold an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party – its worst ranking in over 25 years, while 61 percent held an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party.
When the poll is broken down demographically, White millennials registered the highest percentage (75 percent) of those wanting a third-party choice. Other racial groups, however, were close behind. African Americans (69 percent), Asian Americans (69 percent) and Latinos (64 percent) all agreed that political choice in the United States is wanting.
Broken down by sex, 74 percent of men believe the country needs a third party, while just 23 percent said the Republican and Democratic parties are effectively representing the needs of their constituents. On the other hand, 69 percent of women were in favor of a third party, while 29 percent said the parties do an adequate job.
Overall, 65 percent of millennials think the country is on the wrong track.
The survey was conducted October 26 to November 10, among a nationally representative sample of 1,876 adults aged 18-34.
