It's election season in America, a time that draws our attention to the challenges facing the nation and the world.

Hello, I'm Magdalena Larsen.

And I'm Calvin Cochran.

Welcome to Shifting Democracy.

This is the first of a four episode series produced by Lafayette College students, the Policy Studies Program and PBS 39.

The four episodes take a hard look at the issues, the candidates and the democratic process from the point of view of Lafayette students.

The Shifting Democracy Series continues.

A partnership between PBS 39 and the college's policy studies program, a collaboration that builds communications, teamwork and problem solving skills.

Our 2022 election broadcast is made possible by generous gifts from two Lafayette alumni, Bruce McGinn and Christopher Kane, as well as with the support of Lafayette's Gladstone T Whitman 49 Fund.

For many college students, the 2022 midterm election will be their first opportunity to vote in a federal, state or local election.

Well, this election make differences in their lives.

Is Gen Z paying attention at all?

Where are young voters getting their information about politics?

What are the issues that matter most?

Shifting Democracy examines these and many other questions surrounding the 2022 elections.

Issues that legislators and policymakers will confront in the years ahead.

The series consists of 430 minute episodes three leading up to Election Day and one post-election follow up.

We begin with a basic point of reference.

What are the most important issues on voters minds in fall 2022?

John Brownlee and Brenna Riley describe what voters are saying nationally and how that compares to the top issues among Lafayette's two.

Many polarizing topics have energized younger people to become more politically active to determine what topics young voters are most passionate about.

We surveyed students on the Lafayette College campus.

Our analysis was based on Gallup's monthly survey that asked What is the most important problem facing the country today?

We set out to see how the college students results compared to those nationally and what was on the minds of our peers.

I definitely say it's political polarization.

There really aren't like bipartisan solutions to like domestic issues anymore.

Or even like international.

Like problems.

Right.

Russia, Ukraine.

There's not that much bipartisanship even for that.

The polarized issue of political sides.

Exacerbates problems without solving them.

I think.

It's gun control.

And abortion.

The violence issue in Philadelphia has become an increasingly worrisome problem.

I think injustices in terms like race, gender, sexuality, it all trickles down into our education system housing, gentrification.

I think it probably be trauma of migrants coming to the U.S..

I think the.

Biggest problem in this country today is inflation.

I think that the most important problem facing this country today is income, income inequality.

I think climate change is a really, really important problem that we need to face.

Today because.

Our future generations are at stake.

The survey showed some stark differences.

Inflation ranked as the number one concern in the National poll.

Among Lafayette students, just 3% of those surveyed identified it as a major issue.

The top issue for college students, climate change was 17% of young people pegging that as number one in the National Gallup Survey.

Climate change didn't even make the list, with at least 4% of survey respondents and the national survey.

Racism was a top issue for 4% of people on Lafayette's campus.

11% identified racism as a pressing issue.

Overall, Lafayette students found climate change and political polarization more important than inflation and government leadership, which were the nation's biggest concerns.

We asked Professor Caroline Lee about these differences and if they are important.

So when you look at voters preferences and what they think are the top issues for them, that's going to vary by a lot of different demographic characteristics.

So age is one of those, but it's going to vary by race.

It's going to vary by gender.

And that's because people's experiences are going to determine what's really important to them.

So if we look at climate change, it's going to affect you a lot more than it affects my 80 year old mom and dad.

If you look at social justice movements in the last couple of years based on Trayvon Martin, all of those all of those kinds of movement, activity, interest in the issue, you know, you're going to see concerns about racism among younger voters in ways that you wouldn't see with older voters.

Is this normal or is this new?

What's normal is people and young people being concerned about the issues that affect them.

And so it's normal to see some dynamic movements.

So you do see these these changing in response to what politicians do to try to answer people's concerns.

And so on the one hand, that's normal.

What's different, I think, and this is where my research comes in, is how young people have gotten much more involved more recently in political participation.

So you see a rise in voter participation of young people in your age group.

You see it at Lafayette, you see it nationwide, right.

That you see these jumps in 2014 and 2016, even in 2018, during a midterm election in 2020.

So you do see this rising participation in in voting, but you also see rising participation in other kinds of political engagement.

And that's things like participating in a rally or march.

So those numbers were very low pre 2016 likes or single digits and those of triple those are now of in 2020 more like 27%.

Right.

So we do see a lot of change there.

That's something new and interesting.

Does this have a long term significance?

It does.

You know, if young voters can really affect an election and if they turn out with an interest in those issues to elect candidates that are you know, that are pushing those issues, if the youth vote turns out the youth vote can actually change the outcome of an election.

Latinos are reshaping America, accounting for more than half of the nation's growth.

They also constitute a major voting group.

Andre Rivera recently attended the Pennsylvania Latino Convention in Allentown and spoke with leaders from the Lehigh Valley.

They had a lot to say about the key issues and how it Haenow voters will shape the 2022 midterm elections.

Right now we are 1.1 million c latinos in pennsylvania.

So definitely we have an opportunity to make a difference.

We have 32 million latinos that are going to be eligible to vote for the first time in the midterm election.

So the Latino voice and the Latino vote is going to be critical on who gets elected in November.

Oh, well, Latinos are a growing political force.

Since 2018, they have accounted for 62% of the nation's total growth in eligible voters.

It is a complex group with varying political priorities, party affiliations and levels of participation.

We explore these and other issues.

When the annual Pennsylvania Latino Convention came to Allentown a few weeks back.

So speaking about political participation, what do you think are some of the barriers to Latino political participation and how has it changed?

I think that it's it's different for different generations of Latinos.

I believe that Latinos that have been born and raised in their ethnic countries may have had still a bad taste, if you will, about voting and about trusting government in that they always carried that with them.

I believe that some of the barriers with regard to Latino participation has to do with a lot of the countries that we come from.

Many, many people within Central American community, for example, they may have a negative association with elections because they saw turmoil in their countries as a result of of elections.

But I believe it's important to reeducate our Hispanic voter bloc and have them understand that elections really form a way for them to be involved.

Thank you, John.

He's amazing.

And I Edith Gutierrez Hall Baker is the founder of the La Huda.

Collective, a. Lifestyle brand that celebrates Latino culture through art and fashion.

What do you think that are the issues that are most important for Latino voters in this upcoming election?

I think the issues that are important to the Latino voters are health care, education.

The financial barriers that we face.

I think that we need to create pathways for opportunities for our communities to grow.

Latino representation matters.

And I think that the more we get to see more Latinos elected that makes a difference.

You know, in my case, I was the first Latino woman ever elected in Bethlehem City Council, and not because I was the first one running.

Many tried before and we just couldn't make it.

And the minute that I became elected, that shifted the energy.

I think many Latinos see social issues as the reason as to why they're getting involved.

Over the last couple of years, we have seen a lot of engagement around health care, around local economy as well.

So what are some issues that you think Latinos are politically divided and as a community?

Oh, that's a good question.

So I think, you know, there's important women's rights are on the line right now.

And I think it's important for Latinos to understand that we need to make our voices heard.

And politically, I think there is some divisiveness from the older generation, the new generation.

You know, when it comes to abortion, Latinos are heavily divided when it comes to the abortion issue, when it comes to the death penalty.

Latinos are heavily divided.

Well, I think that we have politicized so many issues this days in our life, in our lifetime right now, that it has hurt us a lot.

You know, the the changes on the abortion, for example, it is something that a religion have made.

It made it difficult to to really even talk about it.

I think that the older generation is a lot more conservative because they do come from countries where state and religion were one in the same.

But with the younger generations, some of them have more liberal stances on many political issues.

And so I think that it's important to not see that as as a weakness or a division, but to understand that they have different points of view.

Different points of view.

The idea that Latinos are a monolithic group, that all the same or share the same priorities is more and more dissipating.

So that's a very old school way of thinking, right?

And so the Latin community is vast and it's beautiful, but we are very different and we all want to make sure that we celebrate.

Are we to that?

Are everything that we have in common but also celebrate our different cultures and what we bring here in the United States.

Yeah.

Is not is that to say?

For me it is not.

And again, I think it is going back to how we have more for political issues.

Dad has affect the way Latinos are voting because that we are just saying this is what my faith tells me to do versus you know I voted, you know, this way because that's what the right thing is for everybody.

I think that we have been marginalized and divided by the the the theme, by the way, is presented to to our community.

The founder and chairman of the Pennsylvania Latino Convention has a message for all.

Do not take the Latino vote for granted.

Tell that to every individual running for office.

We have our own mind and we know what we want.

And we we want what is best for our community.

So don't think that Latinos are heavily Democrats and don't think that Latinos are heavily Republicans.

As a matter of fact, if you look at Latino millennials today, they are leaving both parties and they are becoming more independent so they can decide for the person and not necessarily for the party.

You know what I mean?

But I don't know if you.

The United States is mired in gridlock, so much so that even the media we consume is attacked and questioned.

Charlie Berman looks at where college students get their news.

How compared to prior generations, and whether students think their media sources are as biased as critics claim.

The Fourth Estate has played a pivotal role in the United States since its inception in recent years, as the country has become more polarized.

So is our perception of the media.

A Gallup poll last fall found that trust in the media is at its second lowest level since Gallup started tracking data in 1970.

Only 36% of people had either a great deal or a fair amount of trust and confidence in television and radio media.

That lack of trust is especially noticeable among Gen Z.

60% of individuals born between 1996 and 2012 say they are avid consumers of news, yet they are the generation with the lowest levels of media trust.

I asked Lafayette's students where they got their news and whether they thought of themselves as politically engaged.

I would say I follow it.

I don't put in say that I engage in conversation and a lot, especially publicly, I guess more privately, where I'm comfortable in expressing my views.

My friends call the.

News at least on a weekly basis, but maybe not.

Every day.

I follow the.

News more at home because it's usually playing on TV.

I feel like I don't really follow the news that often, unless.

It's for a specific.

Class that I'm in.

I'd say I follow the news pretty closely, probably check it every two days or so.

I think I follow pretty closely.

I try to make an effort to follow a bunch of news and media.

Outlets on social media.

But in terms of turning into the news every week, that doesn't happen very frequently.

A lot of my.

News comes from like e-mail alerts from different news places, but a lot of it.

Comes from TV.

Or social media.

Yeah, I would also say social media, probably a lot from Instagram and then also from my email news alerts as well.

Notifications on my phone from specific news.

Apps to.

Me personally, I like The Wall Street Journal from a business perspective.

And then I would say.

More just like online, like Instagram or stuff like that.

Usually social media.

And.

People.

That I trust, like.

Politicians and stuff.

Like that, what they share on their social media platforms and whatnot.

And a lot of social issues that are important to me, usually through word of mouth and just yeah, social media platforms for the most part.

Not surprisingly, for students, most of their news came from a social media source.

I asked what they had to say about whether that source was potentially biased in any way.

I definitely do think that it's biased, but I also feel like it's everyone's responsibility to not take things at face value and to look into them deeper.

I think pretty much.

With any media, it's going to be biased to some degree.

Yeah, from a certain extent, yeah, it could be.

But I try to believe everything, really.

These young people acknowledged bias in the media, even in the media that they regularly consume.

I wanted to figure out where they thought these biases came from.

People tend to trust media outlets that have ideals that align with their own already.

So sort of becomes like this echo chamber.

I've definitely fallen victim to that and I'm aware of it, but I definitely think that social media and news outlets are bias in certain aspects.

I would say if I enter a website or an article on a certain platform, I would kind of know already based on if I entered an article on CNN or on Fox News or The New York Times, I would know what I'm reading and take that into account before I read it.

As a final question, I asked students to compare their favorite media sources to those of their parents and which they thought was better.

I think I'd say.

Consume more types of news.

I guess I also follow like different news outlets, you know, greater access to social media platforms.

And seeing people on there which aren't necessarily established news networks differs me from my parents.

My parents get a lot of their media consumption from the TV, whereas I get it from social media or my phone and other stuff.

And I again think that a lot of the times my parents will take stuff at face value and be like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe that that's happening from a biased news source.

Whereas I would see something on my phone and then look to dig deeper.

I think our generation is more open to new like new opinions.

I think when it comes to my parents opinions and their views and the way they perceive news is kind of one sided.

My also ours is way more digital than theirs.

They read your research papers, listen to people talk on TV.

I guess I think I have more access to many more different types of ways to look at different viewpoints.

It's striking to find so much similarity in the ways students from all walks of life view media today.

Young vloggers consume social media for their election news in contrast to older generations.

They seem to acknowledge media bias even seem to accept it.

On one hand, that acceptance could be a cause for concern.

On the other, awareness of bias might lead to a more discriminating eye in where and how young voters get their news.

National polling data reveals striking declines in how much trust Americans place in a host of institutions.

MLSE and Kenosha.

I sat down with Lafayette Studios to explore the potential forces behind these declines and what might turn things around.

All right, guys.

Well, thank you for joining us today here at Fern on College Center in the Marlowe room.

You guys have all done our survey.

You know, the kind of topics we're discussing here.

We have elections coming up, elections in previous years.

Steve, we'll go to you first.

Well, I would say I still have a good amount of trust in our government.

I definitely feel that our vote matters a lot.

I can definitely understand some of the cynicism that we see in our in our, you know, in our day about why one may think that their vote doesn't matter, but I still do ultimately.

Yeah.

Thank you to Jordan.

I definitely understand that.

I definitely value the sentiment of having distrust in the government.

So I think it's really important.

I see a lot of value in local government as well.

Thank you, guys.

So you have some varying levels of trust in the government, things like that in the poll that we conducted, you had around 53 of Lafayette's in response saying that they had little, very little faith in Congress.

A little bit more on 54% said they had faith in the presidency.

So whether we're talking about the federal government or maybe local, what events have happened in recent years, it could be like a year or two years ago, two months ago that you feel you've either strengthened or weakened your faith in our systems.

PRIME You know, something that stands out to me as the events of January six, 2021.

I mean, I'm from outside of D.C. and I remember getting a call from my mom saying, they're rioting downtown.

Don't go downtown.

Stay where you are.

I remember watching it for hours on TV and it was just you know, it was shocking that something like that could happen.

But it's it's a you know, it is a representation of what happens when people become distrustful in government, when you have elected officials that so that distrust that's what'll happen.

You know, that must've been really scary for you guys, especially since you're so close.

I remember just watching in New York, there was some very scary stuff.

Jordan I would say, particularly for me, the overturning of Roe v Wade was extremely impactful for me in the way that I view government.

I remember exactly where I was and the people that I was with and that moment having so much value in my life because I know that impacts so many of the choices that I'll make for the rest of my life.

I know people were talking about deciding where they were going to move after they graduate, and there were certain places that were no longer an option for them.

Because of that, I think it was really impactful just understanding how widespread and how much it branch to so many small day to day choices that people were making.

So one of the questions in our survey and one of the questions in the larger national poll was like about trust in Supreme Court.

So from what you're saying, how would you rank your trust in our Supreme Court right now just as an institution?

I think that there are a lot of rules and regulations and a lot of red tape on the way that choices are made and decisions are made throughout the Supreme Court.

Also, the fact there isn't a lot of turnover and it doesn't feel like the values of the American people are being reflected in the Supreme Court is something that causes a lot of distrust for the decisions that they're making, especially because they're so impactful to everyone who's living in America currently and even abroad.

A lot of the ramifications of what's happening in the Supreme Court, those decisions being made are going to impact not only international monetary policy, but also international policy from a political lens as well.

Jordan mentioned this earlier, but the ideas of local political communities, stuff like that, clearly there are different levels of government.

And largely when we talk about faith and trust in our government, we do talk about kind of the Supreme Court, the presidency, you know, things like that.

But how involved do you guys, this coalition, feel in your local political communities?

Do you feel you have trust?

I mean, I know I'm from New York and a lot of people had faith in de Blasio back in the day.

But I wouldn't say I'm terribly involved in my local community.

I mean, for the last election, like I did, I sit down and I did my research on all the individual candidates, but it's kind of hard to see an impact on like kind of my day to day life.

One haven't been alive that long.

I can't really see like how these things change.

And also, I mean, we were teenagers not too long ago.

We're not focused on politics.

We're focused on what our friends are doing.

The advent of like constant media gives us that information about the the presidency, Supreme Court, Congress.

That makes it easier for young people who are, you know, technology fluent and enables them to to talk about the like kind of the bigger scope of issues.

And I think it's only a matter of time before that starts to trickle down to young people becoming vastly more involved in their local political system.

That would be pretty cool to see.

Steve, what do you think?

I wouldn't say that I'm too involved and I think that is also part of our news cycle, too, is there's a I think that there's a lack, depending on where you're from, there could be a lack of local reporting so that you aren't aware of what issues locally might affect you greatly that you may want to get involved in versus just a national issue, you know, with the Supreme Court or the president or something.

Yeah, good points.

Jordan I've always been someone who's been very engaged politically or just wanting to have a better grasp and a better understanding, something that really something I think about a lot is how the personal is political.

But I think that shouldn't deter people from at least stepping into some sort of role of responsibility to stay engaged with their community.

Because I think a lot of the issue and distrust that people may have might be just a lack of information and miscommunication.

Thank you.

So for our final question here.

We've talked about January six.

We've talked about the overturning Roe v Wade and across both the survey that we did here in Lafayette and the national survey that Gallup did, it's clear that that's post like recent years.

There's not a huge amount of trust.

There's there's so much going on.

There's so much negative stuff going on.

So I suppose kind of leave it on a high note.

What's kind of giving you hope in these these unprecedented times, if you will?

Did you see anything recently?

It's like that seems really cool.

We'll start with Steve.

I mean, I still believe that doctrinally our Constitution is a very well written and well thought out document.

And I think we'll be all right.

I think we just need more dialog and more be more willing to work across the aisle and more empathy and understand where each other are coming from.

Thank you.

Jordan Because politics is so deeply personal, something that really gives me a lot of hope in seeing that we're expanding seat at the table, that the people who are involved in these important conversations that affect my day to day life, your day to day life, those people are starting to have a wider diversity of thought.

And we're seeing more people getting engaged from their local communities, people who have a wide range of experience when it comes to being politically involved and being able to have that a larger net of people involved in government allows us to have more ideas flowing and more conversations that are really rooted in empathy and actual experience that people have rather than talking about larger issues as if they don't impact actual people in their day to day lives.

So I've been really excited to see people working in local and even federal government, people that look like me and seeing that they have experiences similar to my own and seeing that they're going to be caring about issues that I care about.

In terms of things that have like made me more faithful in the state of our democracy.

I think I believe it was Kansas who had like an overwhelming rejection of that constitutional amendment that was set out to ban abortion.

That means but if you look at the demographics of Kansas, it means that people are reaching across the aisle to vote against something that would take away rights from millions and millions of people.

So that is the sort of thing that gives me hope.

But I think it's important to note that, well, you know, I agree with you, Steve, that America is an ideal.

America's simultaneously like reaching for this ideal while also being this, you know, there's corruption, there's racism.

It's, you know, integrated into our fabric.

Well, everyone is reaching for that ideal.

It's important to note, and it's good to see that, you know, people or more diverse backgrounds are coming in and we're fighting that and we're all reaching for the American ideal from the ground up.

All right.

Well, thank you guys so much for taking time to talk with us.

Some really good insights, some really good conversation.

Thanks for coming out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so.

That's it for this installment of our show on behalf of Professor Mark Crain and the policy studies program at Lafayette College and our partners at PBS 39 and Lehigh Valley Public Media.

Thank you for joining us.

Goodnight.