Could Millenials "Kill" American Politics? Or Is It Already Dead?

We live today in what may be one of the most polarizing times in American Politics. What if Millennials "killed" this polarization? Millenials could kill American politics, but only "if they cared to", according to a new article by CNN Article. American politics are dead and need to be revived into something of greater integrity. So, how should Millenials kill American Politics? The Millenials have started this process by not voting in great numbers. This may make Millenials the most rational generation yet! They know how low that little p value is, and they don't value either candidate at a great difference. Even +D is low! This group doesn't get much utility from voting, doesn't feel it is their civic duty, they estimate little p correctly, and guess what, they are very rationally ignorant. The marginal costs of knowing so much about so many political issues is so high, with all the marginal benefits of them being so low. This group cares about their student debts, high rental prices, and expensive insurance because knowing about these things provides them with great marginal benefits.

While this lack of voting by Millenials is rational, we must make voting rational in order to return to a more stable society. We must increase +D with expressive utility. This is something that the Millenials will react to, considering their heavy use of social media platforms. Assuming that this will cause a great voting increase in millenials, and considering the Baby Boomers die off, it is predicted that by 2020 Millenials will be the greatest proportion of America's population, and therefore have a great amount of voters and vast influence. This has policy implications that are drawn out below.

A and B are the Republican and Democratic parties right now, respectively. The X_1 axis represents liberal policy whereas the X_2 axis represents conservative policy. S_o is the status quo, which moves onto the contract curve between A and B, which is nothing new. I predict that the Republican party will become more centrist, maybe even slightly more liberal, than they are now once a spike in Millenial voting happens because the Millenials generally care more about social insurance, the environment, health care, ect, which is represented by the move from A to A'. As for the Democratic party, they will take a less drastic move up to B', showing a more centrist approach to liberal politics because in general, Millenials do not trust the government or respect traditional institutions as much as their preceding generations, shown by their low amount of people married and their low amount of people involved in religious practice. During this change, policy S will slowly move to S', which is not drastic. However, since the centers of the two circles are less far apart from A' to B' in comparison fro A to B, the two parties have greater utility, leading to the end goal of less political polarization and greater utility for both parties. This leads me to believe that minimizing the area within the two circles around the two party points at a tangent point between the two circles is essential to repair the American social fabric.

Article