The College Fix

College students—a key constituency that helped propel Obama to victory in 2008—sat out yesterday’s midterm elections. If the president’s apparent frustration with his base is any indication, he may already be blaming a lack of enthusiasm among students, as well as liberals in general, for what will likely be significant Democratic losses.

He should lay the blame squarely on his own shoulders. Young voters did not turn out to rescue the president’s party because Obama has broken the fundamental promises he made to them. From the wars abroad to the War on Drugs, civil liberties, and gay rights, he did the exact opposite of what students wanted.

Take Iraq and Afghanistan. There are wars going on in these countries—wars that college students despise. They protested them during the Bush reign. They voted for Obama so that he would bring the troops home. Two years later, Obama seems more likely to go to war with Iran than to leave Afghanistan sometime in the next century. And he wonders why young people aren’t excited about him anymore?

Then there’s the War on Drugs. With high-profile Republicans like Ron Paul and Gary Johnson leading the charge to end this costly, pointless mess, the right is slowly coming around to a pro-legalization mindset. Even Glenn Beck is open to its decriminalization. Young people, though, have always loathed the War on Drugs, and expected Obama to be sympathetic to their view. He had, after all, admitted to trying pot, just like the two presidents who preceded him.

But expectations for a more sensible drug policy were dashed by Obama’s continued use of federal SWAT team raids on medical marijuana dispensaries. Then came Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement last month that the federal government opposed California’s Proposition 19, which would have legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, and will continue to arrest people for nonviolent personal behavior no matter what the states do. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein co-chaired the No on Proposition 19 campaign.

Most college students have tried marijuana and many use it regularly. Yet the president and his party want to arrest them for this and also, somehow, earn their vote.

In yet another example of Obama’s complete betrayal of the youth, his administration’s record on civil liberties is abysmal. After eight years of President Bush’s relentless expansion of executive power via warrantless wiretapping, enhanced interrogation, military commissions, extraordinary rendition, and secretive provisions of the Patriot Act, college students were relieved to finally have a president in office who said he opposed all these things—emphasis on the word said. Nearly two years into his presidency, things don’t look much different on the civil liberties front. “If there has been change in the civil liberties context, I frankly don’t see it,” said Anthony Romer, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, at a conference over the summer.

By some accounts, Obama has respected civil liberties less than the Bush administration. The current White House believes that during wartime, it is legal to carry out targeted killings against anyone it defines as an enemy of the state, whether such enemies reside at home or abroad. The government has also argued that this practice is not subject to judicial review because of the danger of leaking state secrets. As Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum noted in a blog post on the subject, “Obama is not only claiming a license to kill; he is asserting that the license can never be revoked, suspended, or even examined by the courts.”

College-aged voters don’t like when the government spies on people, kidnaps them, kills them in secret, and refuses to talk about it. Still, Obama asked for their vote.

For more disappointment with Obama, young people can turn to gay rights. While Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell might be nearing its end, the president’s record is decidedly mixed. When a federal judge ruled against the policy last month, the White House asked for an emergency stay of the decision to prevent it from taking effect. Obama continues to support civil unions, not gay marriage, while doing pretty much nothing to advance either.

Republicans are no different on most of these issues, and college-aged voters certainly won’t be flocking to the GOP anytime soon. With nowhere to turn on the wars, executive power, and gay rights, young people stayed home. Who can blame them?

Robert Soave is a Goldwater Institute fellow and a member of the Student Free Press Association.

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