Because they are mostly paywalled (this one isn't) some truly insane op-eds are published in the WSJ that don't get much attention. This one should: removing voting rights from a 18-20 year olds (a group that happen not to support Trump). https://www.wsj.com/articles/eighteen-is-too-young-to-vote-11595977239
How do justify removing voting rights from a cohort who happen to disagree with you? Well, today's kids are just not mature enough to vote. Wow.
When I published op-eds in the NYT, they fact-check. So if I said "Today's 18 year olds are worse educated than teens in the 1960s" that would not have been included, b/c high school graduation rates are demonstrably higher. But in the WSJ you can just say what you feel is true!!
Also, just look in the journey in argumentation this para goes through.
*No harm in taking voting rights from 18-20 year olds because they don't vote
*We have worse politicians today, and uh, those kids who didn't vote can't be helping
Fails basic logic, but hey, this is the WSJ.
Op-ed writers generally have some relevant expertise. So the author, David Gelernter, presents himself as a computer science professor at Yale. But is that what is forming his views here? He is also a fierce critic of campus liberalism and Trump supporter (left unmentioned).
It is his conservatism, not his college experience, that shapes Gelerenter's proposal to strip voting rights from young people, e.g.:
"At 21 they are still barely educated, because history and Western civilization are taught so badly at most of our schools and colleges." and
Let's be clear about what this is: part of a rich history of denying the ballot from groups b/c they were not judged mature enough to exercise it: e.g., Blacks, women, and the disabled. Making rights subjective on your judgment of who is suitable means they are no longer rights.
As implied by Cas below: a Yale professor calling for the removal of the most basic speech rights in a democracy - the right to vote - from millions of people will not be categorized as cancel culture. Why? Cause it just isn't, ok. https://twitter.com/CasMudde/status/1289559528439050240?s=20
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