Alarm bells are blaring for young Americans’ loss of civic pride.
A recent Morning Consult survey found that just 16% of Generation Z adults, ages 18 to 25, say they’re proud to be American and only 38% of all adults say they are “extremely proud” to be American — the lowest since Gallup’s poll began in 2001, pre-9/11.
The US military, meanwhile, suffered a staggering 25% enrollment deficit last year: Young Americans do not wish to serve a country they’re taught to be ashamed of.
Civic duty’s disappearance bodes poorly for America, and this is not a partisan issue.
Young people no longer value a nation they simply inherit.
Indeed, decades of psychological research demonstrate people value something more if they have a stake in creating it.
That is why I support a constitutional amendment to implement civic-duty voting amongst Americans aged 18 to 25.
This plan will increase the standard voting age to 25 while still allowing Americans to vote at 18 if they meet a national-service requirement (at least six months in the military or a first-responder role) or pass the same civics test required of naturalized citizens.
Tying civic duties to the privileges of citizenship is more familiar to Americans than it may first seem.
The voting age was only lowered to 18 in 1971 — justified by the military draft starting at 18 during the Vietnam War.
Even today every adult male in America is legally required to register with Selective Service after turning 18.
The Constitution expressly prohibits discrimination on attributes like race and gender, but it does not expressly guarantee universal voting.
This is intentional: We live in a constitutional republic, not a direct democracy.
The 14th Amendment specifically distinguishes the immunities of citizenship from the privileges of citizenship.
Voting is a privilege, and civic duty is a proper precondition for enjoying that privilege.
Critics will note young Americans’ voter participation is already problematically low.
They are correct: Only 23% of Americans aged 18 to 25 choose to vote today.
There is good reason to believe this minority would already be able to meet the criteria of civic-duty voting anyway, and by making the ability to vote at a young age a coveted privilege, voter participation in this group may actually increase.
This isn’t a foreign concept.
Take the IKEA effect: Psychologists have found people put greater value in things they have to work for or invest in.
Civic-duty voting is a far cry from the 19th- and 20-century abuse of literacy tests to indirectly disenfranchise minorities.
The civics exam required of young Americans would be identical to the one we already ask law-abiding green-card holders to pass for naturalization.
It’s no more discriminatory to an 18-year-old born in this country than to someone who’s been a decade-long taxpayer here but also can’t vote.
The test is not a requirement, either; the performance of minimal service to the country offers an alternative path.
And all requirements fall away at age 25 anyway — the same age by which young men are required to complete Selective Service registration.
Far from being discriminatory, civic-duty voting has the potential to restore civic equality that many Americans long for: A kid of a billionaire can’t vote if he misses the requirement, while the kid of an inner-city single mother can still be part of the special group that determines who governs our nation.
At a time young Americans are taught to celebrate their differences, civic-duty voting — in particular the service path — creates a sense of shared purpose and experience.
Other democratic nations including Israel and South Korea mandate national service, but that is not the American way: We cannot solve the absence of a desire to serve our country — or to learn about the Constitution — by forcing people to do so.
But by restoring civic duty through tying it to the ultimate privilege of citizenship and conferring it on young people accordingly, we have a better chance of accomplishing the same goal — and without a new bureaucracy that would be inevitably required to administer a mandatory national-service requirement.
America’s survival depends on our youth growing to love and respect this nation, and the dour state of their attitudes towards our country requires bold leadership to address.
From JFK to conservative icon William F. Buckley, fostering increased civic participation has long been a bipartisan ideal.
Civic-duty voting can only ever be implemented through constitutional amendment, which requires the assent of two-thirds of legislators in both chambers of Congress and three-fourths of state legislatures.
The high hurdle is a good thing: The process of debating the merits of a proposed amendment will itself catalyze a long-overdue conversation about not only reviving civic pride amongst young Americans but what it even means to be a citizen today.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a 2024 Republican presidential candidate.
