Last week, I moderated a Zoom conversation that turned to Democrats’ huge opportunity with voters under 35 – the later Millennials and Generation Z.

I’m a Gen Geezer, and my generation should listen up.

The conversation was with state party Chair Anderson Clayton and Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who last month gave the best speech Democrats here have heard since Barack Obama in 2008 (link below).

On our Zoom, Fontes said of young voters:

“They are wide-eyed. They do not care about the proclivities of the past. They want to make solid changes. They are fired up. They’re voting in bigger numbers, and if we don’t grab hold of those folks and bring them into the party, they’re not going to have a rudder, they’re not going to have direction, and we’re not going to be able to harness that energy that they’ve got to push forward with our values and our ideals.”

I asked Clayton about being the first member of Gen Z (born from 1997 on, voters age 18-26 now) to be party chair in any state. She said:

“I’m hoping that my election transforms and changes what young people think that they are capable of in this party, that they don’t have to just be the door knockers and the phone callers. They can be the candidates. They can be the best people that are actively out there….

“This is about building a multi-generational party … bringing everyone into the party to really feel like their voices matter.”

Fontes is closer to my age than Clayton’s, but he had good advice:

“I get asked all the time. How do we talk to our young people? Don’t ask me how to talk to them. I’ve got three teenage daughters. They don’t listen to a word that I say. But what is important is, we’ve got to listen to them because they’ve got a very, very different experience in life than we do….

“We shouldn’t be speaking to them. We should be listening to them. We should be giving them the dignity and the respect that they deserve, and hearing what they have to say, and empowering them that way….

Clayton liked that:

“You don’t hear a lot of elected officials who are not young people honestly talking about listening to a younger generation and really taking what they have to say seriously….

“A lot of people look at me and say, ‘young people don’t want to be involved with politics. Why is that?’ Every young person I know it wants to be involved…because they know it is something that is going to define their lives.”

Data shows that when young people register, they vote. When they vote, they vote heavily Democratic. They’re with Democrats on abortion, climate change, school funding, LGBTQ+ rights and gun regulation.

We should be with them. We should reach out and pull them up in the party.

“MAGA Fascists” vs Democracy: https://talkingaboutpolitics.com/maga-fascists-vs-democracy/