I woke up to half a dozen people criticizing me for supporting lowering the voting age to 16. But before you send a similar note my way, you should know I think the actual voting age should be 12. rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
(The link above is to a piece I wrote for Rolling Stone right before the 2016 election arguing for a 12-year-old voting age.)
And not for nothing, but if the voting age were 12, Donald Trump probably wouldn't be our president right now.
Also, a warning: If you tweet at me in response to the first tweet in this thread to tell me why you think 12-year-olds shouldn't have the vote, I'm just going to tell you to read the essay before you respond.
Also also: If your argument for why kids shouldn't vote is "their brains haven't developed yet" or something similar, you should know that I think imposing cognitive ability tests on voters is an appallingly bad idea.
I should do a whole thread on this stuff, but if I start it now it's going to eat up my whole morning. If you're interested, remind me later, or tomorrow.
But before I go, if your argument against 12-year-olds voting is that politicians would pander to children and as a result we'd get horrible, irrational outcomes because kids are stupid, three things.
First, kids aren't stupid. Go talk to them. You might learn something.
Second, enfranchising under-18s wouldn't disenfranchise over-18s, you doofus. Kids would be a tiny slice of the electorate, and would have no power to do anything absent a coalition with a near-majority of adults.
And third, adults brought us Trump. Enfranchising kids likely would have gotten us Clinton. Clean your own house.
