It's been a big couple of weeks in US politics, with Donald Trump's attempted assassination and Joe Biden announcing he will not contest the next election dominating headlines in Australia and around the globe. But how engaged are young Australians with what's going on?
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00:00I think people would be surprised at just how tapped in a lot of young people are into
00:06U.S. politics.
00:07But I mean, when you think about it a bit more closely, it's probably not that surprising
00:11because it's hard to avoid U.S. politics right now.
00:13I mean, not only is it one of the most consequential elections in world politics, but we've had
00:19two massive events recently with an assassination attempt and Biden stepping down.
00:24And I think something that is often overlooked is that the U.S. is very much still at the
00:28centre of the universe when it comes to pop culture.
00:31So if you think about the kind of movies that young people are watching, sports, influences
00:36that they're seeing on social media, and with how divisive and extreme a lot of the conversation
00:42around U.S. politics is now, it's something that they're seeing a lot and it's hard to
00:47avoid.
00:48And I think we see that reflected in a lot of the kind of responses that we get from
00:52young Aussies.
00:54And we can watch some of those now.
00:56I think it's just like really crazy that Trump got shot because I don't think anyone
01:00would go that far because they don't want him to be resident.
01:04I'm interested to see what's happening.
01:06And a lot of people would be interested since Australia is such a diverse country.
01:09We have people from all over the world, including America.
01:13I think it'll affect decisions made on the country, no matter what way it goes.
01:18It'll be a bit scary to see where it leads.
01:21American politics is just entertainment at this point.
01:24That's one opinion I've heard quite a bit and I can kind of see where it comes from.
01:29We seem pretty far away but we're actually very connected with America and it could really
01:34affect a lot of things that happen here like trade or migration and stuff like that.
01:38A lot of young Aussies are aware that this will have a big impact on Australia and wary
01:45to an extent.
01:46There's the old saying that when America sneezes, the world catches a cold.
01:50I think people are aware that what happens in US politics has a knock-on effect here.
01:55We've seen US politics really dominated by a lot of culture war topics, especially in
02:00the past couple of years.
02:01And we see that filtering into some of the conversations that we're having in Australia.
02:05And I think a lot of young people are wondering if Trump comes in as the next US president,
02:12are we going to see a bit of an uptick in the kind of populist rhetoric, policies, politics
02:16in Australia?
02:18If Kamala Harris becomes president, how is that going to have an effect here?
02:22I think the bottom line is it's not just Australians paying close attention, it's young Australians
02:27paying close attention.
02:29And not just young Australians but young people around the world are going to be paying very
02:33close attention to what's happening in November.