Young people must not lose hope in democracy

Want to ruin an election canvaser's New Year? Bring up Varadkar's or Martin's popularity problem with younger voters.

The victim may start furiously tap-dancing about this outreach plan or that policy achievement, but he has seen the polling trend line. He has heard the focus groups. He knows the latest crop of 18-year-olds plus does not feel the Fianna Fáil/Fianna Gael love. Many are threatening to sit out next year's election. Some are flirting with supporting Sinn Féin — or a third-party indie riding a wave of populism.

And even if only a few of them follow through, the rotating Taoisí and their parties could be in big trouble. In multiple recent elections, younger voters might have saved Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael from disaster. Their votes propped up the status quo and staved off meaningful change. In 2024, their creeping alienation has the Civil War parties spooked: the most pressing concern for our main parties is, what will it take to entice these voters?

Courting the fidelities of successive generations is not a new question. The Irish political world, especially the large parties, has long been searching for a secret formula for winning younger voters to their ranks. Strategists sweat over which issues members of this cohort care about, which candidates they connect with on social media, and how best to reach them through the latest platforms. They commission focus groups and polls, start Instagram accounts and hire consultants. Some might call it political planning, but it looks like desperation at the beginning of 2024.

Millennials don't just expect different things from candidates than older voters; they approach the entire concept of voting differently, generally making persuading and mobilising based on traditional party loyalties harder. Civil War loyalties are the stuff of history books.

The professionals obsessed with this issue pour over data and analysis, shifting priorities and suggestions. Even the bits they think they have figured out can morph as new platforms and crises emerge. All that, of course, is on top of the concrete systemic challenges of getting younger people registered for, informed about and comfortable with voting in general when their lived reality seems so detached from the political process.

And yet, there are a few recurring sub-themes that emerge when you examine the attitudinal research and listen to feedback. After so many years of floundering, these insights won't suddenly fill the depleting ranks of our two main parties. Or necessarily save the Medusa's head of Civil War parties' grasp on power. But they shed light on some of the more amorphous reasons younger Irish are so hard to turn out election after election – and can maybe point a way forward for a country whose political system seems ossified.

First and foremost, young people in Ireland today are politically aware but not tied to intergenerational fidelities. The sooner the Civil War dinosaurs realise this, the better their chances at long-term relevance rather than extinction. This generation doesn't turn out for institutions or traditions but for issues and values.

Younger Irish voters may lean more liberally than their elders, but that does not mean they intrinsically want to join a well-oiled system. And while their politics are generally to the left of the main parties' centre of gravity, this isn't merely a matter of ideology. It's a more profound mismatch between their expectations of government and the actuality of governance in Ireland.

Parties are ageing institutions, increasingly out of touch with a generation who do not recognise themselves in the old Civil War divide. Our incumbents' increasingly autocratic approach to governance has guaranteed that they have little trust in most major Irish institutions, and it's hard to get more establishment or institutional than an ageing political party. Certainly, among the new voters I know, maintaining their independence from and scepticism of a compromised political establishment they feel is not working for their generation is a point of pride.

Today's increasing right and left homogenisation can make parties even more unappealing for younger voters. They do not relish picking tribes or taking responsibility for defending one party and creating an enemy of the other when the differences seem so negligible. Theoretically, left-wing parties try desperately to split the centre, while theoretically, centre-right parties try to ape the left. If they are in bed together and peddling the same agenda, what possible difference does political fidelity make in their individual lives?

Younger voters also are less inclined to turn out simply because they like a candidate's personality or public persona. There is a need for more inspiring leadership and visionary charisma; the great warhorses which characterised our Republic's birth are a distant footnote. But more often, they are driven by issues that speak to their lives, core values or experiences – if they are not motivated by the problems, even the slickest political marketing will fail to turn them out.

The most contentious current example is the housing and affordability crisis, which has emerged as a red-hot electoral force since property prices and rents exploded beyond young people's reach in recent years. Younger voters express anxiety about the practical repercussions of this crisis in their everyday lives and fury at the Government's inaction to solve it. The inertia angers them but also threatens their ability to transition into independent adulthood in the way previous generations took for granted. The issue has clarity, immediacy and tangibility that appeal to younger voters abandoned by the market.

Younger voters' focus on issues and values rather than parties and candidates raises the question of whether referendums could be a way to engage them and propel them to the polls. Supporting policy stances on ethical issues seems more straightforward than weighing multiple parties' and candidates' pros, cons and broken promises. Direct democracy also feels less tainted by the establishment than voting for institutional players whose principles seem to shift with the wind.

Supporting a candidate, any candidate, means accepting that person's quirks and flaws along with the good parts. It requires painful compromises and balancing multiple concerns and priorities. The longer the candidate's record in public office, the more variables to consider. Have they walked the walk or just talked the talk while in power? What skeletons lurk in their closet? These equations get endlessly complicated for younger voters who reject the team mentality of party voting. But it's not just about knowledge - the candidates need to inspire more passion in them to participate actively. The Dáil as a debating chamber is immensely dull.

Younger voters also tend to be more progressive than older ones, and progressives, by definition, want the government to do more, change more, and make more radical progress — their utopianism clashes with the humdrum reality of the status quo.

We cannot ignore that the rotating Taoisí haven't exactly racked up significant accomplishments either - their records are more defined by timidity and obeyance to Brussels than reform. But expectations are also an inextricable factor. When reality sets in, younger idealistic supporters are not shy about expressing their disappointment and dismissing the government as more of the same.

Even with the increasing number of Independents, most voting in Ireland still calls for choosing between flawed candidates representing ossified parties. Younger voters are much less likely than older generations to have resigned themselves to this and curbed their expectations and idealism. So where does all this leave campaigns and, trickier still, establishment parties desperate to win over younger voters?

For a start, younger voters must be reminded that their votes still matter, even if the system treats them unequally. The past decade is full of examples globally of newly engaged youth participation changing electoral outcomes. But they need to see concrete changes their participation can effect, not just vague promises of jam tomorrow.

Our young need to be reminded of the intrinsic value and fragility of democracy by learning the potential damage that can result if, through disillusionment, they opt out entirely, ceding the field to excessively dominant and entitled hereditary forces or in contrast, fringe or reactionary forces. That threat is especially pressing with unpredictable electoral coalitions likely to emerge in an increasingly fractured political landscape. It is vital to communicate the right balance of inspiration and warning without talking down to younger voters or taking their votes for granted.

Superficially mirroring young people's language and ideas is doomed to fail. Candidates old and new must clarify they genuinely understand and share younger voters' values, even if they see different paths toward realising their vision of a better society. Parties must encourage grassroots campaigners to engage meaningfully with young people on the issues rather than talk at them.

Everyone from civil society groups to parties old and new to individual candidates must enforce the message that democracy and government can still achieve great things - that the future needn't resemble the past. If young voters lose hope in the very possibility of progress, Ireland's political establishment will atrophy or spiral into fractions.