Young delegates find their place in aging Democratic Party

The youngest delegates attending the Democratic National Convention last week are maneuvering to find their place in a party that just nominated a presidential candidate, Joe Biden, who is nearly 60 years their senior.

At the first convention with a sizable representation from Generation Z, those delegates said they felt included by their older peers, even as they begin to mold the party in their own image.

“We are on the one hand still trying to advocate for pushes to the convention and to the Democratic Party that we want to see done better,” said Joseph Mullen, an 18-year-old delegate from Florida who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the primary. “At the same time, we are working with the [Democratic National Committee] and the convention.”

Mullen decided to run as a delegate in March when school went online and he found himself with some extra time on his hands and a knowledge of the nomination process from his AP Government class. He formed the Young Delegates Coalition, a group that met during convention week over virtual coffee dates and nighttime Zoom watch parties.

The group combined both Biden and Sanders delegates who said they found common cause on issues like climate change, student loan debt, gun violence and racial justice.

“These are the people maybe one day I’ll serve in Congress with,” Mullen said.

With many attending their first Democratic National Convention, those delegates gathered virtually to push for their priorities and consider their place in the Democratic Party.

Democratic leaders included younger delegates on party platform committees, a joint effort by backers of Sanders and former Vice President Biden. But many of the youngest, and most progressive, delegates said they were not satisfied with the final product.

LyLena Estabine, an 18-year-old Biden delegate from Kansas, said she appreciated that the convention was about balancing recruiting older, independent voters with incentivizing the progressive young left, though she voted against the party platform.

“I voted against the platform on the basis of ‘Medicare for All’, not on the intention to fail the platform, but to remind Joe and [Sen.] Kamala [Harris] that … this is an issue we can come back to after the convention,” Estabine said. “I do feel like Joe Biden really made an honest effort to listen to what people think.”

Eshaan Vakil, an 18-year-old Sanders delegate from Nevada, also decided to vote against the platform because it did not call for Medicare for All.

As a young progressive, he said he was disappointed in the lack of youth outreach vis-a-vis adopting progressive policy, but that he felt the convention featured young voices. At a youth caucus meeting, Vakil said Sanders praised Gen Z for its strong commitment to social causes and challenged them to mobilize their energy into both activism and votes — something that resonated with him.

Vakil said he wanted Democrats to live up to their rhetoric by supporting policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, but that it is also the responsibility of young people to create that platform, through agitation both inside and outside of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Mullen said the DNC has done a good job of making young delegates feel included, inviting them to submit testimonies and allowing them to do social media takeovers of various accounts. But at their watch parties, he and other delegates were frustrated by the amount of speakers who he felt were sparse on policy or out of touch.

Several delegates said they wanted to hear more from the Democratic Party’s rising stars, and especially from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose only appearance came when she nominated Sanders in a required formality.

Young delegates even had a bingo board that they used during speeches to mark off various things they liked and those that represented that feeling of pandering, such as references to a meme or fad or a politician they liked receiving minimal time.

“I want to see elected officials speak to us as if we’re at the same level,” Mullen said. “We’re just as intelligent on politics and policy as they are, and we don’t need to be spoken down to or condescended to because we are younger.”

Biden did take time in his acceptance speech Thursday night to directly address young voters, noting that they have only known “an America of rising inequality and shrinking opportunity,” and said he heard their voices on issues of economic, racial and environmental injustice.

While Biden was not Vakil’s first choice, he said progressives can still bring about their desired change by organizing under a Biden administration.

“The only way we can really get the world to change and see the change that we want, as progressives and as young people, is by mobilizing,” Vakil said. “That is definitely what we’re going to have to do for the next four years and the next eight years.”