Democrats need to focus on young people in the 2018 midterm elections before it’s too late

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Colin Allred in Texas are inspiring young Democrats and liberals to organise and get involved in local politics in a way that the US hasn’t seen since Barack Obama was first elected in 2008. One way to motivate young voters to participate in the electoral process is to campaign discussions around more universal issues like student debt reform – a 1.5 trillion-dollar crisis-level problem that spans the political spectrum of the young electorate. A decent turnout from this demographic in the 2018 elections could be the decisive factor in determining the direction the country takes on priority issues for young people, such as undoing rollbacks on civil and human rights and environmental policy, gun control, socially progressive US Supreme Court nominees, student debt reform and immigration policy. Let’s hope that young people show up to #Resist in November and that the 116th Congress is more representative of popular views and progressive world trends, instead of the avaricious, self-serving and extremist right-wing approach to politics that has come to define the 115th.