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Parallels and Patterns: George Orwell’s 1984, Hitler’s Nazi, and Trump 2.0

Young voters are frustrated with their options for 2024

Young voters are frustrated with their options for 2024
Nicole Norman
By Nicole NormanNov 08, 2023
Nicole Norman
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Norman is a graduate student journalist for Medill on the HIll, a program of Northwestern University in which students serve as mobile journalists reporting on events in and around Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON – No incumbent president running for re-election has ever lost in a primary, but that did not stop some college-aged voters from filing into an auditorium on a mid-October evening to attend a campaign event for a Democratic candidate other than Joe Biden.

Long-shot candidate Marianne Williamson ran a failed congressional campaign in California in 2014 and made a short-lived run for president in 2020. This time around, she is running on a platform of liberal economic reforms and is currently polling under 10 percent. However, despite her low ratings, her status as only one of four challengers to President Biden drew the attention of some voters.

“I really respected the things that she said, you know, standing up to the candidates in the previous election,” said Cooper Uncle, 19, who was too young to vote in 2020. Not excited about a potential rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, he attended the event at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., to be more informed about his options.

While Williamson faces extremely long odds and failed to pack the room at George Washington, her candidacy reflects voters’ growing drift away from traditional, party-centric candidates and frustration with their current options.

“When the chaos happened in 2020, I was motivated to vote because I saw the election as the lesser of two evils,” said Kaitlyn Brown, 21, another attendee. “I'm hoping that maybe I can actually see a good candidate.”

With a year until the election, recent polling found 67 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters want someone other than Biden to be the party’s nominee in 2024. Despite this, Biden lacks any serious challengers, leaving many young Americans – one of the Democrats’ most important blocs of voters – feeling unenthused.

“I think the Democratic Party needs to pivot and we need some more directions to go in with some younger candidates,” said Uncle. Other than Biden and Williamson, the primary contest includes Rep. Dean Phillips and media executive Cenk Uygur.

Voters under the age of 30 have been crucial to Democrats in the past and to Biden’s win in 2020, according to experts. In 2008, a higher percentage of young people, 66 percent of voters under 30, cast their ballots for Barack Obama than any other age group. In 2020, youth voter turnout increased in every state except Louisiana where it remained flat.

While young Americans have not always voted for Democrats in large numbers, their support for the party has been especially prominent in the past few decades, said Abby Kiesa, deputy director of Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a nonpartisan research organization focused on youth civic engagement. Young people’s activism on issues like gun violence, racial justice and climate change has energized them to vote for more left-leaning politicians.

“We've seen the White House take action on some of these issues as well,” said Kiesa, speaking to the importance of young voters.

However, this same age group has also begun to drift away from registering with political parties. Nearly two in five voters younger than 30 identify as Independent or “something else,” making them the largest bloc of voters to not identify with Democrats or Republicans.

“There's a huge desire for some new expressions of politics. But it's a totally monopolized business. It's very hard to break in. It's very hard to create alternatives. It's a closed system,” said John Opdyke, president of Open Primaries,a nonprofit organization focused on enacting open primaries in the United States.

However, Kiesa said it may be a mistake to judge young voters’ role in the upcoming election by their enthusiasm for the presidential candidate. She predicts that young people will not be kept away from the polls because there are other issues drawing them there.

“I think it's a reasonable thing for anyone of any age to be frustrated with politics in the United States right now,” she said. “During the 2022 election, there was all of this talk about young people's approval rating of Biden and what effect that would have on turnout and everything, and turnout was fine.”

Fifty-seven percent of young voters said they are motivated to vote in the 2024 election and 53 percent say that they would consider a third-party candidate.

Kiesa points to high turnout among young voters in the past few elections as a hopeful sign.

“Parties have not been good shepherds of democracy, so solely focusing on parties to do turnout work and registration work is not the way that we’re going to reach full participation or more inclusive participation,” she said.

For voters like Becca Delbos, 19, casting her vote for any Democrat is better than not voting at all.

“I can't really imagine myself in a situation where I wouldn’t vote for the Democratic candidate on the ballot,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I’d be happy to vote for Biden, but I think it’s important to vote either way.”


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What Is No Longer Legal After the Supreme Court Ruling

  • Presidents may not impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Court held that IEEPA’s authority to “regulate … importation” does not include the power to levy tariffs. Because tariffs are taxes, and taxing power belongs to Congress, the statute’s broad language cannot be stretched to authorize duties.
  • Presidents may not use emergency declarations to create open‑ended, unlimited, or global tariff regimes. The administration’s claim that IEEPA permitted tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope was rejected outright. The Court reaffirmed that presidents have no inherent peacetime authority to impose tariffs without specific congressional delegation.
  • Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
  • The president may not use vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language—such as IEEPA’s general power to “regulate”—cannot be stretched to authorize taxation.
  • Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
  • Presidents may not rely on vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language, such as IEEPA’s general power to "regulate," cannot be stretched to authorize taxation or repurposed to justify tariffs. The decision in United States v. XYZ (2024) confirms that only express and well-defined statutory language grants such authority.

What Remains Legal Under the Constitution and Acts of Congress

  • Congress retains exclusive constitutional authority over tariffs. Tariffs are taxes, and the Constitution vests taxing power in Congress. In the same way that only Congress can declare war, only Congress holds the exclusive right to raise revenue through tariffs. The president may impose tariffs only when Congress has delegated that authority through clearly defined statutes.
  • Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Balance‑of‑Payments Tariffs). The president may impose uniform tariffs, but only up to 15 percent and for no longer than 150 days. Congress must take action to extend tariffs beyond the 150-day period. These caps are strictly defined. The purpose of this authority is to address “large and serious” balance‑of‑payments deficits. No investigation is mandatory. This is the authority invoked immediately after the ruling.
  • Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (National Security Tariffs). Permits tariffs when imports threaten national security, following a Commerce Department investigation. Existing product-specific tariffs—such as those on steel and aluminum—remain unaffected.
  • Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Unfair Trade Practices). Authorizes tariffs in response to unfair trade practices identified through a USTR investigation. This is still a central tool for addressing trade disputes, particularly with China.
  • Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Safeguard Tariffs). The U.S. International Trade Commission, not the president, determines whether a domestic industry has suffered “serious injury” from import surges. Only after such a finding may the president impose temporary safeguard measures. The Supreme Court ruling did not alter this structure.
  • Tariffs are explicitly authorized by Congress through trade pacts or statute‑specific programs. Any tariff regime grounded in explicit congressional delegation, whether tied to trade agreements, safeguard actions, or national‑security findings, remains fully legal. The ruling affects only IEEPA‑based tariffs.

The Bottom Line

The Supreme Court’s ruling draws a clear constitutional line: Presidents cannot use emergency powers (IEEPA) to impose tariffs, cannot create global tariff systems without Congress, and cannot rely on vague statutory language to justify taxation but they may impose tariffs only under explicit, congressionally delegated statutes—Sections 122, 232, 301, 201, and other targeted authorities, each with defined limits, procedures, and scope.

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The Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed that the annual deficit narrowed. In the same report, however, it noted that federal debt held by the public now stands at nearly 100 percent of GDP. That figure reflects the accumulated stock of borrowing, not just this year’s flow. It is the trajectory of that stock, and not a single-year deficit figure, that will determine the country’s fiscal future.

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The deficit is politically attractive because it is simple and headline-friendly. It appears manageable on paper. Both parties have invoked it selectively for decades, celebrating short-term improvements while downplaying long-term drift. But the deeper fiscal story lies elsewhere.

Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt now account for roughly half of federal outlays, and their share rises automatically each year. These commitments do not pause for election cycles. They grow with demographics, health costs, and compounding interest.

According to the CBO, those three categories will consume 58 cents of every federal dollar by 2035. Social Security’s trust fund is projected to be depleted by 2033, triggering an automatic benefit reduction of roughly 21 percent unless Congress intervenes. Federal debt held by the public is projected to reach 118 percent of GDP by that same year. A favorable monthly deficit report does not alter any of these structural realities. These projections come from the same nonpartisan budget office lawmakers routinely cite when it supports their position.

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