Perspective & Youth Voter Turnout

I'm shocked at how low the youth turnout has been. I was totally expecting greater engagement. I don't think they realize how bad we are all being screwed. Bottom line is, if we don't get the youth involved, we are going to struggle instead of conquer.

I think the issue is perspective. Think about when you were 17-18 years old (I'm mid 30's) and trying to navigate the college admissions and student loan environment. I don't know about anyone else, but at the time, my only concern was getting into school and getting approved for the loans it was going to take. I assumed this was the route and everything was how it was supposed to be.

Looking back, with perspective, I now realize how screwed up the whole system is and how the skyrocketing costs and lifetime of debt burden has done major damage to several generations and it's only getting worse.

I guess my point is, that younger people don't have the perspective to realize they are being forced to participate in an unbalanced, unfair system and by the time they realize it doesn't have to be the way that it is, it's too late to do anything different for themselves. This is evident by the stories of people not going to caucus because of a class, or test, or a shift at work. That one class is a grain of sand in their lives and they sacrifice the long term play for other peoples short term expectations.

The opposite is also true for the older generations. From their perspective, you worked summers, paid for school and maybe finished paying for it for a year or two after graduation. Married your college girlfriend, bought a house, had 3 or 4 kids and life was golden. They don't realize how out of control things have become, $30,000 to $200,000 for a degree! But those numbers don't mean anything to them because their minds are tainted with their personal experience and that's the lens they view our situation through, we need to change peoples lens. We need to show both the youth and the older generations just how out of balance and screwed up things have become.

Perspective is everything. How can we change the perspective of a nation to view reality with a clear, focused lens?