Let Them Vote!

Plus a bonus round of links.

Political scientists are writing up a storm out there, and so with David unavailable today for his usual Wednesday slot I’m plopping in a half-week of links plus picking up a couple I missed from last week. I’ve said this before, but I want to emphasize it: I’m going to miss things, especially with the crazy amount of news in the news these days; if you’re a political scientist and you want me to link to your public-facing writing, please drop me a note! Meanwhile, I may or may not run another of these over the weekend, but figured I’d get to this set before they grow stale. And yes, I know there are bigger problems for democracy right now than what I’m writing about, but I’m sure I’ll return to those soon.

Before I get to the links, just a quick word about one of the good news stories from Tuesday, in which a 14-year-old middle schooler organized a walk-out protest against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

She should have the vote. The 55 students who participated in the walk-out should have the vote.

Teenagers should have the vote.

I’m not going to run through the full case for it today, but this new story points to the most obvious argument. Very few believe that teenage kids should not be allowed to exercise free speech, participate in election campaigns, write or call their representatives, or otherwise take part in politics the way that adults do. It’s legal, it happens, and there’s never been any movement to prohibit them from doing so.

And yet they aren’t allowed to vote. This makes no sense at all! If it’s okay for teenagers to influence political outcomes, including elections, in other ways then they certainly should be allowed the vote. After all, those other things potentially make a larger difference than anyone’s single vote. That we allow them, but not voting, is just out of habit and status quo bias.

I’m not arguing here for anyone younger than 13 to vote, but I continue to believe that had things been set up the other way around, with kids getting a vote at birth that their parents cast until the kids were old enough to do it themselves? We would think it was totally sensible and logical and we would be shocked if anyone challenged it.

And now for the good stuff:

1. Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way on authoritarianism in the US.

2. Lisa K. Parshal on Trump and OPM.

3. Carolyn E. Holmes at Good Authority on what’s actually going on in South Africa.

4. Henry Farrell on legalizing bribes.

5. Sarah Binder and Mark Spindel on Trump and the Fed.

6. Norm Ornstein on what the Democrats can do.

7. Robert Farley on weird Mexico.

8. Meredith Conroy on executive orders.

9. And Natalie Jackson on Trump and public opinion. Good item, and it’s important to be aware that Trump right now has right-side-up approval ratings and is on the popular side of some policy issues. That’s what Republicans in Congress who are sticking with him are seeing. It’s also true that his approval stinks compared to all other non-Trump new presidents; that there are quite a few positions he’s taken that are not very popular, such as slashing the Department of Education; and that even in the areas where he could have public opinion on his side, he’s taken some extreme moves rather than stick to the areas where the polls are relatively clear and we don’t really know how it will shake out.