We also asked which of the following higher-echelon jobs they found most appealing: business executive, lawyer, school principal or member of Congress. Serving as a member of Congress came in dead last, with just 13 percent of young people choosing it. It placed first on the least-desirable list.
The fact that young Americans do not want to run for office cannot be divorced from their perceptions of the political system, which could not be much worse. Eighty-five percent of our survey respondents did not think that elected officials want to help people; 79 percent did not consider politicians smart or hard-working; nearly 60 percent believed that politicians are dishonest; and fewer than 30 percent said they thought that candidates and elected leaders stand up for their convictions.
These negative perceptions are reinforced by the attitudes of the adults with whom high school and college students regularly interact. Three out of four respondents, for example, said they had never received any type of encouragement from their parents to consider politics as a path to pursue. And parents were, by far, the most supportive of such an endeavor. Only 17 percent of people in our sample reported receiving encouragement to pursue politics from a friend, 12 percent had from a teacher or professor, 5 percent from a member of the clergy and 4 percent from a coach. Put simply, these citizens have no interest in encouraging the next generation to aspire to enter the electoral arena.
This political profile of the next generation should sound alarm bells about the long-term, deeply embedded damage contemporary politics has wrought on U.S. democracy and its youngest citizens.
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