Absurdity
Republican Pundit Warns High Youth Turnout Threatens Traditional Boomer Supremacy
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
SCOTTSDALE, AZ. Conservative commentator and podcast host Dale Hutchins appeared on the Right Direction Network on Tuesday to deliver what he described as "a sober, data-driven warning" about the existential crisis facing the American system of governance, which he defined as the system where people his age make the decisions.
Hutchins, 67, has built an audience of roughly what his producer calls "an enthusiastic core" by arguing that political stability depends on voters with what he terms "seasoned perspective," a quality he defines in his self-published companion workbook as requiring a minimum of four decades of homeownership and at least one strong opinion about the capital gains tax.
"These kids have no stake," Hutchins told host Brent Collier, who nodded in the specific way that means he is being paid to nod. "They just got here. They don't understand what we built. They don't understand what we're protecting. You wouldn't let someone walk into a board meeting and start voting on things their first day."
He then paused and added: "Unless they inherited shares. That's completely different."
Hutchins first raised the alarm in a November post titled "The Surge," in which he warned that turnout among voters under 30 had reached levels not seen in decades, calling it "a demographic incursion" and recommending that his readers contact their representatives, their county clerks and, in one passage, their doctors.
The proposed Civic Maturity Threshold, which Hutchins stressed is "not disenfranchisement, it is curation," would bar voters under 54 from participating in any election touching Social Security, Medicare, the mortgage interest deduction, or noise ordinances. Voters between 54 and 62 could participate in local elections only, with a laminated provisional card, subject to renewal.
Hutchins acknowledged that the age of 54 was chosen because it is how old he was when he first felt, in his words, "fully formed."
"I looked around and I thought: I get it now," he said. "And I think most people would agree that I got it around 54."
Right Direction Network did not ask who those people were.
Frank Delgado, 71, a retired insurance adjuster from Mesa who called into the program, said he supported the proposal wholeheartedly and had already written to his congressman twice, his HOA board once, and his grandson's college orientation office with a formal objection to a voter registration table that had been set up near the dining hall.
"They were offering free pizza," Frank said. "That's coercion. You can't bribe someone into democracy."
Frank did not mention that his own first vote, in 1974, was cast in exchange for a ride from a man named Gary who wanted him to vote for a specific county assessor.
Hutchins has received pushback from several constitutional scholars, none of whom he acknowledged by name, citing what he called "the bias inherent in having studied a document written by people who have been dead for two hundred years and therefore have no skin in this."
He did, however, cite James Madison, twice, in support of his argument, without apparent awareness of the tension.
At one point, Hutchins described the Founders as "basically boomers, if you think about it," which Collier agreed with using the same nod.
The segment ended with Hutchins announcing that he is developing a five-part online course called "Your Vote, Your Responsibility, Your Age," available for $189, or $149 with a promo code, which he said would be distributed via an email list he described as "self-selecting, which is the whole point."
Hutchins then asked Collier whether the show's streaming numbers had gone up.
Collier said they had.
Hutchins said that was because people were finally paying attention.
He was 54 when he first started streaming.
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