Not Political People

The biggest barrier to voting for the young people I talked to wasn't logistics or laziness. It was the belief that politics is corrupt—and not in a partisan way. People across the spectrum told me the system was rigged. But cynicism wasn't the whole story. The people who still believed they could make a difference were the ones who felt like they weren't acting alone. When politics felt like some...

Young people spend an average of seven hours a day consuming media, and over half get their news from social platforms. So it's easy to assume we're all swimming in political content. But almost no one I talked to trusted what they were seeing. It wasn't that people trusted one outlet over another—they didn't trust any of them. What felt credible was whatever cut out the middleman: raw footage, pe...

Out of 65 people I talked to, 55 said politics feels divisive and negative. Most had personal experience with confrontation—arguments online, ruined friendships, the sense that expressing a belief could cost them a relationship. Here's what surprised me: the less engaged someone was, the more willing they were to listen to people they disagreed with. But they were also the most likely to stay quie...

After every election, the headlines roll in: young voters shifted right, Latino men broke for Trump, suburban women stayed blue. Demographics have become the default way we talk about politics. But when I asked people how they came to their beliefs, the answer was never that simple—it was about morals, pros and cons, weighing impossible choices. Other people's votes? That's where the shortcuts cam...

Only 23% of young Americans call themselves politically active. But I was curious whether the rest were as disengaged as they claimed. The problem is that the people least likely to talk about politics are the hardest to find. So I spent six weeks in swing states—not with polls or clipboards, but talking face to face with the people most likely to say no. Turns out, youth who claim they're not pol...