Do Younger Generations Have a Commitment to Democracy?

There are those articles that sort of shock us to think. I was reading an article in the May issue of the Foreign Policy Journal and there was a discussion on the commitment and belief that democracy is a desirable form of government. For Americans over 60% 2/3rds of people believe that democracy is their preferred governmental style while only 1/3rd of younger Americans did.

What? I had to take a double look!

There it was again! Apparently, younger generations have been exposed online to many different forms of government but don't have a real grasp of democracy. The problem is that we are not showing them the power of democracy...we have sort of perverted it within the political process.

While they may know the basics of democracy they have no idea what its like in non-democracies. They are disconnected from founding principles. I guess we should have kept some equivalent to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Democracy was formed in smaller communities and people knew each other and were accountable to each other. Now we are separated by "classism", education, elitism, and large cities that don't allow people to know each other.

In other words, we are separate societies with an elite and those who follow. While this may have been the case since the beginning it is even more obvious and apparent as people with higher skills are not given opportunities reserved for well connected inner circles.

The political process is increasingly being seen as a method of supporting large businesses and investors without concerning oneself with the needs of all Americans. As those companies are capable of moving anywhere they have lost a connection to the American people.

Changing this is difficult. We need a sense of community and accountability. People must have opportunities to succeed and should not be locked out from a better life because they were not born into the equivalent of an "aristocratic family". All members of society should be accountable to each other with values we all agree on. Wealthy democracies persist but we ever have a problem with our global position and wealth we may just become a poor democracy and everything will change. If we are to change the country we need to change the thinking at the top.