An Open Letter To Joe Biden and Donald Trump
Written by Samantha Feinberg, Sandor Lorange, Santiago Mayer, and Logan Rubenstein — June 13th, 2020
Dear President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden,
We write to you today as student leaders urging you to do more on the issues that young Americans care deeply about. As we all know, young people don’t vote nearly as much as older generations, and while we aim to help increase youth voting throughout America with our non-partisan, youth-led organization, Voters of Tomorrow, we know that getting people to vote requires politicians to listen and act. We must see politicians running for office that speak to the issues that young people care about. We hope that this letter can detail some of those issues and serve as an olive branch to work together to increase youth turnout in the 2020 election.
Firstly, you must know that young people are terrified of an ever impending climate crisis, gun violence, underfunded schools, record levels of mental illness, and a country that spends billions more on missiles than its own citizens. The values of younger constituents have emerged from the world we have grown up in, and thus we believe that it is time for our elected officials to put the interests of the people over personal interests. According to a 2019 Harvard IOP Poll, 46% of young people say the government should do more to try to curb climate change, even if it comes at the expense of economic growth. It is an undisputed fact that human activities contribute to climate change, mainly due to the annual emissions of billions of tons of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other gases that deteriorate the world we are living in. This problem will not fix itself, as our population increases we are getting closer and closer to a complete climate catastrophe. Therefore, we consider the President’s intervention to be of the utmost importance. While today’s politicians will not have to live in the world they create — but we will. The choices you make now will impact our futures, and it is imperative that you keep us in mind when it comes to climate change. This is what we vote on.
Equally as important is the fact that young people’s education is being threatened by overbearing costs and a lack of financial assistance. We cannot allow costs to be a barrier for those seeking higher education, after all, today’s youth will be tomorrow’s leaders — eventually, we will be the ones running businesses, restaurants, politics, and all other aspects of the world and the economy. Not only should we invest deeply in the existing public education system, but we should also provide a pathway for young people to receive higher-level education. It is imperative that today’s youth get the education and the degrees they need for a successful future.
In what might be the worst failure by our government to protect its citizens, young people are forced to go through monthly mass shooting drills at their schools and live in fear of gun violence. We are the second generation to grow up with frequent school shootings and devastatingly frequent mass tragedies, a depressing reality for millions of students who stare in fear at the doors of their classrooms whenever a popping sound is heard. Young people deserve better than being taught to hide in closets, we deserve common-sense gun safety measures that respect the second amendment and save lives from gun violence. This is what we vote on.
Because of the dim future that we are facing, young people are being diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses at record-high rates. According to NiMH, young adults between 18 and 25 years of age had the highest prevalence of mental illness (25.8%) when compared to adults aged 26–49 years (22.2%) and aged 50 and older (13.8%). A multitude of reasons have caused our generation to see the greatest rise in diagnosed mental health within the past decades, which is why we believe that it is time that everyone’s healthcare plans cover medication, therapy, and other necessities for those facing mental health issues. An investment in mental health treatment is an investment in the future. Without adequate health, people can not reach their full potential, resulting in a lower functioning society that, ultimately, leads to a less functioning economy and a decreased amount of innovations.
Having a strong leader that represents the values of the younger generations is essential for a progressive nation and must not be ignored. Today’s youth demand that your policy and administration represent younger Americans and treat us with the same dignity, respect, and basic decency that generations before us have received. It is imperative that both of you acknowledge and empathize with the world our generation has grown up in and lived through. It is crucial that gun policy, climate policy, healthcare policy, and all other policies directly impacting younger constituents are focused on and given an adequate amount of attention.
The policies that you make today will shape tomorrow, they will shape our lives, and they will shape our future. These are what we vote on. Do not let us down.
Signed,
The Voters of Tomorrow
