“Squad member” Ayanna Pressley, a Democratic Congresswoman from Massachusetts, attempted to add an amendment to the House Election Bill. Pressley’s amendment would have lowered the voting age to 16. She made her case on the House floor:
“By lowering the federal voting age from 18 to 16 years of age, my amendment would enfranchise young Americans to help shape and form the policies that will set the course for our future…They have a stake hold in our democracy and deserve to have a stake at the ballot box.”
Although the amendment failed 125-302, it did receive 125 Democratic votes. That is a majority of Democrats in the House. Given that this wacky idea has that much support, you can be sure it will pass the House at some point in the future when Democrats have a larger margin than they do today.
Of course, this is obviously a terrible idea if you care about the good of the country. Very few 16-year-olds pay any attention to politics, kids at that age have famously bad judgment, and most 16-year-olds are leading sheltered lives. How are you supposed to have a sense of what the country needs when you live with your parents, don’t have a job (Only 30% of high school students are employed), and have never done any “adulting” in your life? The vast majority of 16-year-olds are completely and utterly incapable of being responsible voters, which explains why Pressley wants to give them the vote. People with bad judgment, who don’t work and don’t really understand the world make up a large percentage of the Democrat voter base already. 16-year-old kids would fit right in and make the same bad, life-destroying political choices that so many other Democrats do on a regular basis.
John Hawkins is the author of 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know and you can follow him on Parler here.
