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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The kids are not all right [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-01
We begin today with Nadine Yousif of BBC News and her report that while Liberals did win the Canadian parliamentary elections, the “youth vote” went to the Conservatives.
As Mark Carney settles into the role of Canada's prime minister, he will not only have to take on US President Donald Trump, but also wider divisions within his own country. Among those is a generational divide, with young voters who are concerned about housing unaffordability, crime and the cost of living coalescing around the Conservatives.[...] Ahead of the election, support for the Conservatives outpaced the Liberals by 44% to 31.2% among 18 to 34 year olds, a Nanos poll on 25 April indicated. The issues that resonated with Canadians depended on age, too. Carney campaigned heavily on standing up to Trump, while affordability and a broken "Canadian promise" were central to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre's message. Abacus Data polling indicated about 18% of 18 to 29 year olds were worried about Trump. That jumped to 45% for voters over 60, suggesting a diversion on key issues between generations.
Youth voter apathy and/or youth voting for the far-right: It’s not simply Canada’s story; it was also the story in recent elections in South Korea, Japan, all over Africa, all over Europe, and Argentina. While the effects in last year’s American presidential elections were not as widespread as other countries, the United States was not immune.
And sure, there are outliers like Mexico and some states in India but an overall pattern has been established.
The Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics issued a sobering report, the Harvard Youth Poll, where the reasons given for American youth voter apathy and pessimism are nearly identical to some of the stories I linked above the fold.
The Spring 2025 Harvard Youth Poll surveyed 2,096 young Americans between 18 and 29 years old nationwide and was conducted between March 14-25, 2025. "From significant economic concerns to dramatic feelings of social isolation, and from growing mental health challenges to mounting distrust in the government and both parties, young Americans have apprehensions about what would have seemed unimaginable just a few short years ago," said IOP Director Setti Warren. "These findings are a stark reality check and leaders across the country would be wise to pay close attention." "This is a generation that's weathered pandemic isolation during formative years, entered an unstable economy, and faced skyrocketing housing and education costs—all while being told they're not resilient enough," said John Della Volpe, Director of Polling at the Institute of Politics. "What Gen Z needs isn't another lecture, but genuine recognition of their struggles and leaders willing to listen before they speak." "Amid financial hardship and a devastating crisis of community, young Americans are increasingly disillusioned with the world as they struggle to find their place in it," said Jordan Schwartz, Student Chair of the Harvard Public Opinion Project. "This generation doesn't expect politics to solve their problems, but as young Americans continue to lose faith in government institutions, the need for politicians to listen to and learn from young people has never been greater."
No lectures from me.
Lauren Gambino and Dara Kerr of the Guardian report on the remarks of former vice-president and Democratic president nominee Kamala Harris at a major speech in San Francisco.
Speaking to an audience of Democrats in San Francisco, the former vice-president struck a defiant posture as she praised the leaders and institutions pushing back against Trump and his aggressive agenda – from the members of Congress acting boldly to the judges “who uphold the rule of law in the face of those who would jail them”, the universities defying the administration’s “unconstitutional demands”, and the everyday Americans rallying to protect social security. The speech – her most forceful since Trump returned to power – marked a notable reemergence for Harris. The former vice-president, who now lives in Los Angeles and is weighing her next move – a possible run for California governor next year or another bid for the presidency in 2028 – has mostly kept a low profile since leaving office in January following her devastating loss to Trump in November. [...] Urging Americans to keep organizing, running for office and standing up for fundamental rights and values, she declared: “Let’s lock it in.” Delivering the keynote address at the 20th anniversary gala for Emerge America in at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco was a poignant coda for Harris. Her early success running for San Francisco district attorney in 2003 inspired the group’s founding, and on Wednesday Harris, a Bay Area native and the nation’s first female vice-president, paid tribute to its work recruiting and training Democratic women to run for office.
Chris Geidner of LawDork writes that the U.S. Supreme Court may allow for a religious charter school to receive public funding.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court and Oklahoma’s conservative attorney general agree that the state’s public charter school system should not be funding an explicitly religious school. The federal government’s charter school law and 46 other states’ charter school laws have been based on that premise as well. But on Wednesday, the right majority on the U.S. Supreme Court — with its religious supremacy project and its outside helpers — appeared likely to end that and OK the first religious charter school in the country. Justices Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh appeared eager to do so, and Justice Neil Gorsuch’s past writing in a related case signaled his alignment with the move, at least in principle. Chief Justice John Roberts — the key vote then since Justice Amy Coney Barrett has recused herself from the case — appeared to be open to the idea as well. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it, the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court are seeking to create a country where “the Free Exercise Clause trumps the essence of the Establishment Clause.“
Finally today, Emily Mullin of WIRED reports on the termination of experimental work into infectious diseases that may pose a risk to the public.
According to an email viewed by WIRED, the Integrated Research Facility in Frederick, Maryland, was told to stop all experimental work by April 29 at 5 pm. The facility is part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and is located at the US Army base Fort Detrick. It conducts research on the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases that are deemed “high consequence”—those that pose significant risks to public health. It has 168 employees, including federal workers and contractors. The email, sent by Michael Holbrook, associate director for high containment at the Integrated Research Facility, says the lab is terminating studies on Lassa fever, SARS-Cov-2, and Eastern equine encephalitis, or EEE, a rare but lethal mosquito-borne disease that has been reported in several northern US states. “We are collecting as many samples as is reasonable to ensure these studies are of value,” he says in the email. “We have not been asked to euthanize any animals so these animals will continue to be managed.” Holbrook did not respond to an inquiry from WIRED. The email says representatives from the Department of Homeland Security were padlocking freezers in biosafety-level-4 labs, those with the highest level of biosafety containment used for studying highly dangerous microbes. Only about a dozen BSL-4 labs exist in North America. These labs work with the viruses that cause Ebola, Lassa fever, and Marburg, types of hemorrhagic fevers. The Integrated Research Facility is one of only a few places in the world that is able to perform medical imaging on animals infected with BSL-4 agents.
Try to have the best possible day everyone. Take a deep breath if you have to.
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