Young adults, who comprise an increasingly influential voting bloc, are pessimistic about the state of democracy in the United States, according to new polling by Harvard University.
The data, released Wednesday, shows that only 7 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds believe the United States is a “healthy democracy” while 13 percent say it is a “failed democracy.” Another 39 percent describe the U.S. as “a democracy in trouble.” Just over a quarter of respondents said the U.S. is a “somewhat functioning democracy.”
The research team sees the results as a call to action, saying the nation’s leaders must pay more attention to young American adults.
“In the 2020 election, young Americans proved with their record-shattering turnout that they are a formidable voting bloc and eager to make their voices heard,” said Mark Gearan, director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “Our political leaders on both sides of the aisle would benefit tremendously from listening to the concerns that our students and young voters have raised about the challenges facing our democracy and their genuine desire for our parties to find common ground on solutions.”
Those concerns about democracy are echoed in sentiments about the nation’s outlook: 55 percent of young adults said they were “fearful” about the future of America, with only 44 percent saying they were “hopeful.”
In addition, only 18 percent said the nation is “generally headed in the right direction” while 45 percent said it’s “on the wrong track” while 37 percent were not sure.
These feelings lead to some dire predictions. One-third of young Americans believe they will see another civil war during their lifetimes, and one-quarter predict at least one state will secede. Forty-six percent of young Republicans think it’s more likely than not that there will be a second civil war, compared to 32 percent of Democrats and 38 percent of independents.
Young Americans believe that the nation needs to turn a corner, with 78 percent saying it is very or somewhat important that the United States is a democracy. Just 7 percent said it's not very or not at all important.
And a plurality believes the best way to achieve progress is through compromise: 43 percent said elected officials should “meet in the middle” while 21 percent want officials to pursue preferred policies “at the expense of compromise.” (Just over a third said they “don’t know.”)
That split carried across parties, with 49 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans agreeing that it’s better to compromise.
“After turning out in record numbers in 2020, young Americans are sounding the alarm. When they look at the America they will soon inherit, they see a democracy and climate in peril — and Washington as more interested in confrontation than compromise,” said IOP’s polling director, John Della Volpe.
An estimated 50 percent of people ages 18-29 voted in the 2020 presidential election, up 11 points from 2016, according to an analysis by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University’s Tisch College.
While the data tells a story about negative attitudes, there are a number of organizations seeking to create more opportunities for civic engagement about young adults. One of the newer groups in that space is GenUnity, which convenes aspiring leaders for three-month programs targeting the needs of their communities.
While the demographics have evolved from the first cohort, GenUnity started out by marketing to the 18-34 age group.
“The big thing that we focus on when we look at this demographic is there’s record high interest in getting engaged and playing a part in driving change,” said Jerren Chang, GenUnity’s co-founder and CEO. “Young people do care about these issues and do care about getting involved.”
The challenge to getting them more involved, said Chang, is creating an equitable model that allows people from diverse backgrounds to participate. GenUnity’s solution includes working with companies that will cover the costs of employees’ participation and developing flexible schedules.
“We’re bringing together a cohort of people from all different lived experiences. They bring different sets of values and priorities. That creates more inclination toward compromise,” said Chang. “I think that what we've seen in our programs is an ability for folks to work together in a way that would lead to what we think of as compromise rather than winner-take-all solutions.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026, in Munich, Germany.
Marco Rubio is the only adult left in the room
Finally free from the demands of being chief archivist of the United States, secretary of state, national security adviser and unofficial viceroy of Venezuela, Marco Rubio made his way to the Munich Security Conference last weekend to deliver a major address.
I shouldn’t make fun. Rubio, unlike so many major figures in this administration, is a bona fide serious person. Indeed, that’s why President Trump keeps piling responsibilities on him. Rubio knows what he’s talking about and cares about policy. He is hardly a free agent; Trump is still president after all. But in an administration full of people willing to act like social media trolls, Rubio stands out for being serious. And I welcome that.
But just because Rubio made a serious argument, that doesn’t mean it was wholly persuasive. Part of his goal was to repair some of the damage done by his boss, who not long ago threatened to blow up the North Atlantic alliance by snatching Greenland away from Denmark. Rubio’s conciliatory language was welcome, but it hardly set things right.
Whether it was his intent or not, Rubio had more success in offering a contrast with Vice President JD Vance, who used the Munich conference last year as a platform to insult allies and provide fan service to his followers on X. Rubio’s speech was the one Vance should have given, if the goal was to offer a serious argument about Trump’s “vision” for the Western alliance. I put “vision” in scare quotes because it’s unclear to me that Trump actually has one, but the broader MAGA crowd is desperate to construct a coherent theory of their case.
So what’s that case? That Western Civilization is a real thing, America is not only part of it but also its leader, and it will do the hard things required to fix it.
In Rubio’s story, America and Europe embraced policies in the 1990s that amounted to the “managed decline” of the West. European governments were free riders on America’s military might and allowed their defense capabilities to atrophy as they funded bloated welfare states and inefficient regulatory regimes. Free trade, mass migration and an infatuation with “the rules-based global order” eroded national sovereignty, undermined the “cohesion of our societies” and fueled the “de-industrialization” of our economies. The remedy for these things? Reversing course on those policies and embracing the hard reality that strength and power drive events on the global stage.
“The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending,” Rubio said, “because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.”
I agree with some of this — to a point. And, honestly, given how refreshing it is to hear a grown-up argument from this administration, it feels churlish to quibble.
But, for starters, the simple fact is that Western Civilization is an abstraction, and so are nations and peoples. And that’s fine. Abstractions — like love, patriotism, moral principles, justice — are really important. Our “way of life” is largely defined and understood through abstractions: freedom, the American dream, democracy, etc. What is the “Great” in Make America Great Again, if not an abstraction?
This is important because the administration’s defenders ridicule or dismiss any principled objection critics raise as fastidious gitchy-goo eggheadery. Trump tramples the rule of law, pardons cronies, tries to steal an election and violates free market principles willy-nilly. And if you complain, it’s because you’re a goody-goody fool.
As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said not long ago, “we live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” Rubio said it better, but it’s the same idea.
There are other problems with Rubio’s story. At the start of the 1990s, the EU’s economy was 9% bigger than ours. In 2025 we were nearly twice as rich as Europe. If Europe was “ripping us off,” they have a funny way of showing it. America hasn’t “deindustrialized.” The manufacturing sector has grown during all of this decline, though not as much as the service sector, where we are a behemoth. We have shed manufacturing jobs, but that has more to do with automation than immigration. Moreover, the trends Rubio describes are not unique to America. Manufacturing tends to shrink as countries get richer.
That’s an important point because Rubio, like his boss, blames all of our economic problems on bad politicians and pretends that good politicians can fix them through sheer force of will.
I think Rubio is wrong, but I salute him for making his case seriously.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.