On the last day of March, Sen. Cory Booker delivered a record-breaking marathon Senate speech, spending over 25 hours criticizing President Donald Trump’s administration, “its reckless actions, attempts to undermine our institutions, and disregard for the rule of law.” The move was lauded by Democrats, especially in the electorate, who had grown increasingly frustrated with the party’s apparent lack of an appropriate response to the Trump administration’s constant, flagrant violations of democratic norms.
Booker’s speech not only broke records but also turned the page for the Democratic party after a recent streak of weakness. What it did not accomplish, however, was effectively opposing any of Trump’s or the Republicans’ moves. In a time of weak resistance to the administration’s actions, one speech is hardly enough to move the country forward. Instead, it embodies a larger trend of performative actions by Democrats in the face of diminishing support from their base.
What Booker correctly emphasized in his speech is that many Americans do agree broadly on both their individual aspirations and cultural beliefs. Data from the 50th edition of the biannual Harvard Youth Poll reveals that the American youth’s goals and beliefs are far more similar than commonly purported. The differences that prevail between the parties boil down to ideological battlegrounds, where the Republican party peddles bigotry in attempts to stay in power, and Democrats fail to muster any legitimate opposition.
These culture wars not only allow debates to fester that should never be platformed at all—namely, those regarding the civil rights of certain groups—but they also distract us from meaningfully working to solve the issues we agree on by siphoning our energy into petty two-party bickering, embodied in the current Congress.
If there is one thing Americans agree on, it is their desire for economic opportunity. As the Harvard Youth Poll found, surveying over 2,000 young Americans ages 18-29, financial security is of prime importance for youth, with 86% responding that it is important to achieve financial security in their lifetimes. This was fairly even across party lines, as was the goal of home ownership, which ranked as the next most important for young Americans, with 74% saying that owning a home was an important goal for their future.
This comes at a time of increasing uncertainty about the economy, an issue that has been escalating under a prolonged cost-of-living crisis. CNN found in 2024 that “the monthly payment needed for the median home increased by more than 100 percent, while median household income rose just 12 percent.” This reality is especially troubling in a time when home ownership is both an important goal for America’s youth and ever more challenging to achieve for renters. Today, the average homeowner has a net worth 38 times greater than their renter counterparts, signifying the widening wealth gap between those who have achieved home ownership and those who are still striving for it.
Recently, President Trump’s tariffs have rocked the economy even more, threatening a stock market spiral amidst the president’s lack of clarity. Even with the president’s backtracking on many of the most shocking tariff rates, the baseline 10% rate still threatens the economy. With such a turbulent economic backdrop, the bipartisan dream of financial security and home ownership demonstrated by the poll feels farther and farther away.
When it comes to defining American identity, young Americans similarly agree on some fundamental aspects. For example, the plurality of parties agree that “individual rights and freedoms” are one of two central tenets of American identity today, including 44% of Democrats and 33% of Republicans. Nonetheless, young Americans fall prey to ideological battles over several other aspects of American identity, demonstrating the power of partisan rhetoric in turning baseline human and civil rights issues into culture wars.
Despite bipartisan consensus on individual rights and freedoms, the two parties diverge when it comes to the other values they prioritize for national identity. Young Democrats next prioritized “diversity and inclusion,” with 28% selecting it as a central tenet, and “democracy and civic engagement,” with 22% viewing it as an important element of American identity. Amongst young Republicans, 27% selected “economic opportunity and upward mobility” and 19% selected “patriotism and national pride.” Responses of young Americans from both parties highlight the translation of party rhetoric into beliefs about what it means to be American, polarizing youth along party lines despite their overlapping views about what is important in their futures, both economically and culturally.
Respondents were likewise divided on the status of women in the U.S. despite some initial concurrence. While 34% of young Americans agree that women are pressured to succeed in the areas of career and family simultaneously, the parties had opposite views on which area women were unfairly pressured to prioritize. 32% of Democrats said women felt pressured to prioritize family over career success. Young Republicans felt the opposite, with 25% feeling that women were pressured to succeed in their careers rather than prioritize family, in contrast to just 3% of Democrats. The split in these views further emphasizes that social beliefs are the dividing factor between young members of the parties, despite their initial agreement that women are feeling pressure in the fields of career and family.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts were another flashpoint, with 69% of young Democrats believing that DEI promotes fairness, compared to only 17% of Republicans. Again, this demonstrates the stark divides that Democrat and Republican politicians are driving in their platformed debates over hot-button issues.
Debating the validity of DEI programs legitimizes the argument that they are unfair, a view that completely ignores the reality of systemic racism and inequality in the U.S. and instead elevates falsehoods. These ideological debates thus validate a Republican-led point of view that consistently dehumanizes women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, and many more marginalized groups. Instead of working to effectively campaign on truly progressive paths in addition to countering bigoted rhetoric, Democrats have instead channeled their energy into performative acts, detracting from the important work that the country demands of them.
Both the Harvard Youth Poll results and party debates reveal just how disconnected our politics are from our values. While young Americans would ultimately like to see the country move in a united direction toward greater economic opportunity and protections of our fundamental rights and freedoms, we are instead sidelined by divisive debates over cultural flashpoints such as women’s roles and DEI programs. What Americans really need from politicians is meaningful work to ensure that financial security, economic stability, and personal liberty are possible for all of us. That dream may be naive, but it is certainly more promising than the standstill we face if we only dwell on our differences.
Associate Culture Editor
