Editor’s Note: Gun Pulse, formerly an email newsletter from The Sentinel meant to cover the battle over the Second Amendment in our nation, is now exclusively available on our website.
David Hogg, a youth gun control activist, was elected as a vice chair for the Democratic National Convention, a move that comes as the Democratic Party tries to win back young voters.
The activist was elected with Pennsylvania Democratic State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta and AFL-CIO National Campaign Director Artie Blanco to occupy the three vice chair positions. Hogg, who is twenty-four years old, is the first member of Generation Z to serve in leadership for the Democratic Party, which is struggling to appeal to young voters, especially young men.
Hogg appealed to Democratic Party leadership with an emphasis on his young age, saying during a campaign speech that “we must show our young people we give a damn about them.”
But supporters of the Second Amendment observed the positions espoused by Hogg against the right to bear arms. That includes one post in which Hogg contended that “you have no right to a gun,” claiming that the “modern interpretation” of the Second Amendment in a way that applies beyond state militias “is a ridiculous fraud pushed for decades by the gun lobby.”
Hogg has also supported defunding the police, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and labeling the National Rifle Association as a “terrorist organization.”
The selection of Hogg to serve as a vice chair indeed comes after young voters swung dramatically toward Republicans in the last election. President Donald Trump won a decisive 56% of young men, while he only won 41% of the demographic in the election four years ago.
Hogg has tried to position himself as a voice that can explain why young men are hesitant to support the Democratic Party, but he concluded in one post last year that the “epidemic of male loneliness in this country and the ensuing commodification through social media of misogyny” are the ultimate reasons why progressives are suddenly failing to connect with young men.
The activist instead recommended that Democrats should “provide positive examples of what actual masculinity looks like that is not defined by putting down women or other people.”
