海角大神

Millennials could sit out this election. What鈥檚 that mean for party politics?

This election will be formative for many Millennials, who are unimpressed with the candidates and unfaithful to the parties. Some say they could reshape governance.

听A new poll finds that enthusiasm about voting in this year鈥檚 election has slipped among Millennials, even as broad majorities say they favor Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The survey, performed by USA Today and Rock the Vote, shows Mrs. Clinton , compared to Mr. Trump鈥檚 20 percent and a combined 9 percent for Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. A dislike of both major-party candidates, widespread across the electorate, is especially accentuated among young people, who aren鈥檛 convinced enough by the third-partyers to cast a ballot their way. And 46 percent say that their vote 鈥渄oesn鈥檛 really matter鈥� 鈥� up from 37 percent at the beginning of the year.

鈥淐ertainly, this is not an election that鈥檚 going to teach young people to have a great deal of faith in American political processes,鈥� says Kay Schlozman, a political scientist at Boston College, in an interview with 海角大神. 鈥淚 worry about that. I know that democracies work better when they trust each other and they trust the government.鈥�

Such lukewarm support of Clinton might underscore Millennials鈥� lack of deep partisan identification, despite their propensity to lean Democrat. In 2014, that a full half described themselves as independents, around the听highest level in 25 years of polling on that question. It also resurfaces questions about how the political landscape 鈥� including the clout of the two major parties 鈥� might be altered by young people鈥檚 inclinations.

For years now, researchers and journalists have prophesied a sea change in the role of governments and political institutions once Millennials come of age.

鈥淲hat Millennials have in store for the political system is revolutionary,鈥� . 鈥淢aybe worse.鈥�

A generation of socially liberal young people for whom community service is second nature, but who are skeptical that the government can resolve social problems, could look more to smaller-scale, high-tech solutions from the private sector and NGOs, wrote Mr. Fournier. And some experts told the Atlantic that they could envision a breakdown of the two-party system in which much of government comes to serve as little more than a series of platforms for citizen start-ups.听

Others predict a similar devolution in voter turnout among Millennials. A 2014 report from research firms Quinn Thomas and DHM Research on state-level measures on marriage equality and education reform. But their participation would be circumscribed, they concluded.

鈥淟ong-term, [M]illennials may disproportionately participate in key ballot measure initiatives, but not participate in electing specific candidates or supporting partisan party platforms,鈥� they wrote.

Yet political parties remain strong, points out Dr. Schlozman, with grass-roots activism robust and voting split increasingly along partisan lines, and electoral laws stacked against the emergence of third parties.

Millennials鈥� distrust of institutions and preference for civil-society over government solutions, she suggests, might be no more than a continuation of a trend that extends back into previous generations.听

鈥淚t is a generation that has thus far shown itself to be disdainful of politics, cynical about political parties and more likely than any other age group to support third-party candidates,鈥� about Generation Y, or those who came of age in the 1980s and 1990s. 鈥淩acially diverse鈥� and 鈥渟ocially liberal,鈥� the magazine wrote, Generation Y-ers were 鈥渆ngaged in the life of the community and expect to improve it.鈥�

This electoral season, says Schlozman, might indeed give Millennials extra reason to distrust institutions. But what makes them distinctive might actually be quite familiar.

鈥淭hat whole story,鈥� she says, 鈥渨e heard half a generation ago.鈥澨�