One pollster sees “flashing red” signs on youth turnout as Gen Z and millennial voters, who are not satisfied with either party, could again play a decisive role in the next election.
Yeah, they are sooooo pissed off that they couldn’t be bothered to show up at the polls in the last election.
6 years ago Bernie Sanders, one of the most left-leaning candidates in our modern history, ran on a platform that depended on the youth vote. He was utterly destroyed in the primaries because the youth vote never materialized. And this type of thing has happened time and time again.
In the last election, it should have been especially important for the youth what with an endless stream of school shootings, anger toward inaction on climate change and the whole student loan debacle. These are all massively important topics for the youth - or at least they should be - and they couldn’t be bothered to go out and vote in full force. Something like 75% of the youth of this country sat this election out. 75%. That’s pathetic.
But now all of a sudden they are going to act pissed off?
Our oldest (tuned 18 in Dec) wanted to register to vote right away and was voting in midterm elections this spring. Our youngest is 17 and he’s already looking forward to being able to vote in the presidential election next year. It seems like them and their friends are absolutely wanting to get out and vote and they’re all very much liberal and we’re in a county in PA that was Trump +16 in 2020.
And yet they take out their frustrations by posting funny memes on Reddit or snarky comments on Twitter… in other words - gestures that mean nothing. Dumb memes don’t change policies. Voting in numbers does. My generation never had the size of people to ever go up against the Boomers, and yet this younger generation does and time and time again, they prove to be utterly useless. They can go bury their heads in their phone and think watching TikTok all day will solve anything.
@Hazdaz Mostly agree, though they do seem to be mobilizing - at least far better than we (I’m a Millennial) ever did. Long term engagement will probably remain a problem, but we’ll see.
You don’t miss the bus just because it doesn’t go directly to your location. You take the bus that gets you closest to where you want to go. Biden is that bus right now.
That’s a nice way of putting things, quite honestly. Unfortunately this younger generation can’t even get on the bus without their emotional support animals, it seems.
In fairness, 6 years ago plenty of Gen Z were not of voting age yet. The oldest portion of that generation is 26 this year. Also, back then there was a level of apathy to politics that really allowed plenty of shenanigans. Until COVID, that was the general consensus that politics were for their parents or for their grandparents. The last 6 years have shown otherwise, and recent voting turn outs in red states show a swing of younger activism.
I do think dragging millennials into this conversation does weaken that argument though as that generation has been majority voting age for over a decade. They’ve been shown to have an intense outrage culture but the lack of commitment to do anything about it, which thankfully the activism and general “fuck the establishment” attitude the tide pod kids have might actually make a difference this time around.
Also, Bernie dropped off the ballet before anyone could vote for him when the Democratic party didn’t consider him their primary pick. I like the guy and did write him in myself (and most likely he would’ve won had he remained on the ballet), but the removal of him as a “default” candidate in our system is why so few voted for him, thinking their votes would either ultimately not make a difference, or that they would allow the opposition (whichever side) to win by not voting within the lines.
Add in that many younger voters and many of us who are independent aren’t allowed to vote in the Democratic primaries at all. Not to mention that the media have also been actively lowering visibility of any Democratic presidential candidate who hasn’t been a decade+ dedicated fall-in-line Democrat.
Clinton was basically sold as the only candidate running for months before the primaries started and presented as much to fight Bernie’s popularity through most of the primary season. Marianne Williamson, who is supported by a large percentage of younger folks for the 2024 elections, isn’t even mentioned while Biden is listed essentially as having no competition. Just like the gerrymandering propping up Republicans in many locations, the deck is stacked against anyone who isn’t already backed by the established parties. Trump broke through, though using a combination of what nearly helped Bernie break through but also fully supporting the angry activists that didn’t think the Republican party was ddoing enough at the time.
Seriously, unless you have open primaries in your state don’t do the dumbass thing that my contemporaries did back in the day and play the “I’m edgy, I’m an independent” act.
You know you aren’t going to be voting Republican, just register Democrat and vote in the damn primaries and help the rest of us get these crappy moderates out.
Being registered doesn’t tag you with a scarlet letter, you just get some annoying texts every once in a while, nothing like being a registered Republican which is both a blessing and a curse, and mailers your get anyways. So please do the rest of us a huge favor and get your and your friends to register and participate in the primaries so we can push back on the narrative that moderates are the only ones that can win.
She’s also a horrible person. She promoted woo woo alternative medicine and said diseases were just a “psychic scream” from our body because we didn’t love it enough. Gay men dying of AIDS stopped taking their medicine because they thought taking it meant that they didn’t trust their body. They died thinking they just didn’t love themselves enough.
And when she was asked about this, she became super defensive and abrasive. A normal person who finds out their words have inadvertently caused suffering would be horrified by it. Instead, she claims she didn’t say what she directly wrote in her book.
Fair point, but she is getting a lot of notice and support from the younger crowd and the fact that she doesn’t even get listed in the mainstream media (while Trump and RFK Jr get publicity), which adds to why the younger generations are just completely disillusioned by the media and both parties. Remember how Hilary’s mocking of Sanders’ supporters was normalized by the media and even publicity since then, which makes many think that we dodged a bullet with Hilary losing, even though Trump was far far worse because both look like narcissistic jerks that gave us no real options in 2016 to anyone under 50 (and quite a few older than 50 at this point, I suspect). Having one side seem so far right that they make them look like part of the Nazi party doesn’t help the Democratic party get away from clearly being to the right of Reagan Republicans of the 1980s in most cases. We just have a much slower descent to corporate rule instead of at least trying to reverse it.
On the one hand, that’s just how primaries work. The field winnows down to 2-3 candidates, and then the others drop when it becomes mathematically impossible. Democrats also have a system that tries to award delegates based on performance, not winner takes all. There typically can’t be an insurgent candidate unless they are the clear favorite.
But on the other hand, and more importantly, why do primaries have to work this way? It makes no sense to me that we space out primaries like this, and let the results influence votes. Bernie probably would’ve done better in '20 and worse in '16 if we had all the votes the same day. Trump wouldn’t have been a thing. There is some value in having drawn out races, because it lets you learn about candidates you didn’t know beforehand and they grow a base of supporters.
I think the best path is to have multiple rounds of voting, over time, for each state. Hold a debate week 2, over multiple nights if the field is large, and then every state votes on week 6. Candidates below X% total are removed from the race. Have another debate with those who remain, and then another vote, and drop the lowest candidate(s). This should capture the best of everything.
I love how young people are simultaneously nonvoters who can be ignored and a vital constituency who must vote in every election even though they’ve been ignored.
So which one is it? Are they apathetic voters who are to blame for every loss, or insignificant nonvoters who can be safely ignored?
If it’s the former, the party should realize that its lack of action on important issues is costing them badly needed votes and behave accordingly. If the latter, the party shouldn’t blame the insignificant margins when they lose.
This is the type of arrogant attitude that drives away young voters. The democrats have had 15 years to get ANYTHING done on guns, climate change, health care, and student loans and they didn’t do jack shit. It’s not they’re “all of the sudden” pissed off, they’ve been pissed off.
The first democratic primary I voted in one of the main issues was a single-payer health care system supported by Hilary Clinton and single-payer public option supported by Obama. With a super majority in the senate and a majority in the house they still couldn’t get shit done. Now they can’t even endorse medicare for all as a party.
Obama was the candidate of tackling climate change, was in office for 8 years, still didn’t get shit done.
Biden campaigned on student loan forgiveness, still didn’t get shit done.
So what did 15 years of voting for democrats get me? A party that moved further to the right. Guess I just need to vote harder?
At some point, if you’re Charlie Brown and Lucy keeps yanking the football away you have to be an idiot to keep trying to kick it.
Youth will begrudgingly vote for democrats because it’s the least shit option they have, but don’t pretend like they’re actually voting for any meaningful change.
Honest questions, I would love to be wrong on all these.
What did they get done on guns? Mass shootings are almost double what they were in 2016, gun violence is still out of control.
Climate change? The Paris climate accord? The one that was non-binding and Trump just walked away from? Are you talking about tax credits and carbon taxes? We’re still on a freight train to climate disaster. There isn’t a lot of time for slow progress on this one.
Health care? Are you talking about Obamacare? I was actually ecstatic when this passed, I have pre-existing conditions that meant that I couldn’t even get health care, so at least I could get a plan now. What ended up actually happening is I was forced to pay monthly for a plan that didn’t actually cover anything short of getting hit by a bus, and that the insurance could deny any treatment my doctor suggested. I guess that’s something?
Student loans? That just got struck down by the supreme court, which other democrats like AOC were sounding the alarm about happening when it was first announced.
I consider getting something done when the problem is solved, not half-measures that make little to no meaningful progress.
I say this as someone who actively organizes for democratic causes, I canvas, I phone bank, I give any time I can afford to this stuff. It’s really hard to get people motivated when you can’t point to any meaningful progress on these issues, and it’s even harder to enact change when people who agree with you can’t even see that meaningful change hasn’t occurred.
I’m pretty deep on energy so I can speak to some of this.
There’s record investments going on right now in research on energy efficiency, thermal energy storage (duck curve), and renewable energy sources. Heat pumps are almost too trendy. It’s been nuts seeing the number of projects getting funded for research that never had a chance in the last administration. This research isn’t just theoretical, there is heavy interest in feasibility studies and impacts on implementation. This is especially true in engagement with smaller and medium sized businesses. We’re talking discounts of 50-70% (sometimes free).
There’s actually quite a few programs that exist federally for decreasing energy use and/or energy intensity (which in most cases means less carbon emissions) for industrial energy users. With the Biden admin, the outreach game has fundamentally changed and there has quite possibly never been this level of excitement before in the space. There is so much money in play here for businesses (we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars per qualifying business per year) that professionals will recommend free federal programs before doing their own professional energy audits. Even with professional services, the government is still putting out major incentives.
The feds are even focused on giving experience in energy efficiency work that it could be done with an associate’s degree with job experience included instead of a traditional four year college. In some states, this is a free education.
There are tax incentives for buying electric cars, government fleets are moving to electric, revisions to CAFE standards and attempts to mitigate the loopholes that SUVs thrive in within it.
For larger businesses, tax incentives are not slow. They can be the deal breaker on whether the project happens at all. Discussing tax incentives, incredibly good loan programs, and grants can fundamentally change the tone of conversations. All of these topics are not theoretical, I am speaking from experience in conversations I have personally led. Shifts from “this is way too expensive” to “ok, we would be stupid not do this project.”
If you want further reading, concentrated solar power, combined heat and power, and hydrogen based energy are all popular and growing fields right now due to government investment in research and implementation. And again, I’m not talking pure theory here, these projects are actively being implemented in real scenarios right now. Heall, filtering biogas to produce methane is ridiculously profitable and reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas companies will literally pay waste water treatment plants to hook into their lines.
Drives me nuts when people talk about lack of climate progress. Sure, we haven’t become carbon neutral in two years, and there hasn’t been a fancy international agreement lately, but saying progress is slow or not getting done is a hot take. There is a lot happening right now and it isn’t always advertised. The energy efficiency industry, as far as I am aware and experienced, has never been this excited. We used to make arguments to businesses that energy efficiency was important, would save money, increase resiliency and so on. Now, they actively reach out.
I do not see this as impatience, I understand people are upset. It is difficult to see decades of work (many of these programs first started in the 70’s) on something I am very passionate about disregarded as inaction. That is the source of my comment. Slow? Yes. Underfunded? Historically yes. Inaction? No.
Believe me, if we could get carbon pricing started tomorrow, I would be exhilarated. Let’s kick up nuclear again.
Thanks for your well researched and thoughtful response, I really do appreciate it.
What I hear from most young people on the ground is global emissions are still rising, and climate catastrophe is already happening.
People won’t care about industrial energy efficiency when they don’t have a place to live because a wildfire destroyed their house. A tax break for an electric vehicle means nothing to a young person who can’t even afford a car loan. I can tell you of people I tried talking into getting their heating/ac/gas stove replaced with a heat pump/electric oven and tax-credit and were told they simply can’t afford the up front cost of replacing their HVAC or gas stove.
Climate change is here and it’s going to take a massive unified effort, democrats have to think bigger than tax breaks and loans.
Thanks for your well researched and thoughtful response, I really do appreciate it.
Of course :)
they simply can’t afford the up front cost of replacing their HVAC or gas stove.
I’m not as knowledgeable about residential, but there is some work here as well. There are some recent programs focused on weatherization, for example programs to reinsulate homes at no cost or to install new doors, but these are smaller and I believe means tested. Residential is hard because there just isn’t that much work to do that makes sense financially. For carbon, it is probably easier to enroll in a local utility’s green power programs and reduce/eliminate beef consumption than replace windows that aren’t broken. This is one of the biggest reasons why industrial energy is the focus because a home’s energy use (say, 200 kWh based on some of my apartment bills) is negligible compared to modestly sized businesses that consume millions of kWh annually. This is part of where progress in energy efficiency disappears.
I do have a colleague working on getting combined heat and power systems into homes, but we haven’t talked enough for me to comment much on it other than there is interest.
democrats have to think bigger than tax breaks and loans.
This is where alternative energy systems and investments in energy infrastructure come into play. Investments in research, feasibility, implementation.
People won’t care about industrial energy efficiency when they don’t have a place to live because a wildfire destroyed their house.
To be fair, in my experience most people don’t care already :). I have family members who call my job a joke, unfortunately. But yes, the inescapable results of our actions or lack thereof over the last two centuries of industrialization will continue to catch up. Every year another community burns up in my state and every year someone is ready to blame it on anything but climate change.
Compromise often results in a half-measure. I mean do you want to live in a democracy where unfortunately you have a lot of people who “want” (lots of misinformed/idiots imo) to ignore climate change or private insurance, etc, or do you want a dictator to take over and “fix” it all? Why are we pointing the finger at the Democrats not fully fixing any of those issues when the GOP is the exactly the reason for the half-measures.
That said, I think without the pressure from progressives on Biden and central Dems, you don’t even get an attempt at student loan forgiveness. Or whatever he’s going to do to try and workaround the BS scotus ruling. So I’m not against holding the democratic party accountable, just that no one ever holds the fucking GOP accountable and it gets a bit tiring to see people shit on Biden or dems in general for not being able to be as progressive as they want. There is another half of the US that unfortunately does not agree with you (or me).
People point the finger at democrats because they campaign on getting these things done, republicans don’t.
They have had real opportunities to get these things done, like I noted about single-payer healthcare in 2008. There was a clear mandate from the voting populous, a filibuster-proof super majority in the senate and a 31 seat majority in the house and compromise was made because the house caucus of Blue Dog Coalition of democrats didn’t want it, not republicans.
Biden just had a majority in the senate and house for two years and a mandate to act on student loans through filibuster-proof reconciliation. He was stopped by two democrats, not republicans.
They didn’t even repeal the Trump tax cuts that he campaigned on, which also could have been passed through reconciliation. Again, stopped by two democrats.
Child tax care credits were taken away in the budget , not by republicans, but by a single democrat.
You can say “Well, NO republicans voted for any of those things” but that’s exactly what the republicans were voted in to do.
So because 1-2 Democrats held up progress you’re going to support the party that had all 49-50 members opposed to your goals?
I empathize with your frustration with the Democratic party but voting 3rd party only puts the Republicans in power. The most useful thing to do within the current voting structure is to use the Primary Elections to try to nominate a more radical senator or representative that thinks like you.
So because 1-2 Democrats held up progress you’re going to support the party that had all 49-50 members opposed to your goals?
Jesus Christ, centrists need to stop this. Not everyone who is mad at Democrats for a decades long pattern of “ooooops! Just enough Democrats killed that progressive thing! lol vote harder!” supports Republicans.
What, you didn’t know? The way to drive youth turnout is to constantly scold them for any criticism they have of the democratic party and blame them for any defeat.
I think the issue is the definition of “supports”.
If you take your (valid) frustration out in the general election then yes, you are supporting republicans in a very material way. For example voting for a 3rd party or not voting (e.g. helping a republican win).
If, on the other hand, you get involved in primaries and donate to candidates that better align with your goals, even to the point of forwarding dems that might lose in the general election then you’re not supporting republicans — you’re instead supporting the left side of the dems (and are willing to lose if you need to). The idea is similar to how the radical right wing has captured the republican party. Do the same for your position.
What really annoys people (it pisses me the fuck off) are people that see the dems lose by a vote or two, because some fuck dem sided with the republicans, and therefore decide that both parties are the same or that their best bet is to support republicans more. Its such a lousy non-nuanced view that it just highlights why the black&white super right wing “fuck nuance” people are winning.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support republicans and won’t vote for a third party. But I completely empathize with disaffected youth voters and see where they’re coming from.
I do vote in local elections, in fact my local party just won a special election to get one of those like-minded candidates to city council!
Like, there’s been a Democratic president for 11 of the past 20 years, and of those 11 years half of them democrats had unified executive and legislative control. And with that, gun violence has gotten worse, climate change has gotten worse, Roe was still overturned, the voting rights act was gutted and not fixed and any number of other issues. The democratic party message is always “vote for us, we’ll make things better!” and we’re just sitting over here like Charlie Brown. We’re pissed off because we have voted for Democrats and things aren’t better.
Problem is we haven’t voted in enough Democrats. We either need 60 senators or 50 senators who will kill the filibuster. Without either, we’re stuck. We can only do things with budget reconciliation.
Democrats did have 60 Senate votes, for about 2 months because of runoffs and deaths. In that time, they passed Obamacare. And it would’ve had single payer too, if not for Lieberman’s vote being required.
If we give Democrats 60 senators or 50 who will kill the filibuster, and things still don’t get better, I’ll agree with you completely.
Well yeah, because most understand the broken system takes a lot of time to fix and it can’t be done if you have a deadlocked Senate. People who want to fix the system focus on getting us 50+ senators willing to end the filibuster or 60+ in general. People who just want to bitch and moan say no one is trying to fix the system.
And if they don’t vote because I’m not inspiring them to, they are quite literally sitting on their asses bitching and moaning.
The democrats have had outright control of the senate for six of the past twenty years, they had caucus control (for lack of a better term) of the senate since January 2021. If they wanted to end the filibuster, they could have.
For the record, I’ve voted in every presidentialand midterm election - and most primary and local elections too - since 2003, voting almost straight democratic every single time. So I’ve toed the party line for damn near 20 hears.
Wasn’t the House and Senate controlled by Republicans during most of Obama’s years? You voted for a Democratic president, cool, but that doesn’t mean jack shit if Congress is controlled by the majority Republican vote.
Al Franken was dealing with a runoff and legal challenges and wasn’t seated until July 7th 2009, bringing the roster of the Senate to 58 Dems and 2 independens who voted with them. They finally had the supermajority a year and a half into Obama’s first term - but not really even then.
Ted Kennedy was on medical absence from the Senate from June 9th 2009 until his death in August, so they didn’t have the votes to kill a fillibuster. It wasn’t until September 24th that an temporary appointee filled the seat until the special election won by the Tea Party on January 10th.
The Senate met on a total of 65 days in which Obama had a supermajority.
Now the Democrats had a safe majority in the House and a filibuster-proof supermajority of 60 in the Senate. That scenario lasted only four months before fate intervened. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts died on August 25, 2009, leaving the Democrats, once again, with 59 seats (counting the two Independents). Exactly one month later, on September 25, Democrat Paul Kirk was appointed interim senator from Massachusetts to serve until the special election set for January 19, 2010 – once again giving the Democrats that 60th vote. But the intrigue was just beginning.
With the supermajority vote safely intact once again, the Senate moved rather quickly to pass the ACA – or ObamaCare – on Christmas Eve 2009 in a 60 – 39 vote (Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning chose not to vote since he was not running for reelection). The House had previously passed a similar, although not identical bill on November 7, 2009, on a 220 – 215 vote. One Republican voted “aye,” and 39 Democrats were against.
So even starting with a republican inspired corporate funding healthcare bill, scrapping single payer and still not getting a single republican vote, and only passing on a tenuous super majority.
I will grant you that they tried, and many probably had good intentions, but I think it’s important to realize that the democrats had very little opportunity and in that window couldn’t succeed in getting us even close to other industrialized nations healthcare outcomes. They seem to have an apparent unwillingness to actual contend with the issues they are legislating, and fail to utilize political power and strategy in ways that will actually solve problems.
We see this today with the supreme court. The Heroes act allows for complete waving of student loan debt, without application by the debtor, completely within the authority of secretary of education. Rather than swiftly, and decidedly removing debt, they build a means tested website that came online months after they announced it, was forced to pause because of predictable court cases brought against it, waited as it was push through a blatantly packed court system, and ultimately died to a disgustingly corrupt supreme court that allowed a state to claim standing for a company without their knowledge, and claimed that ‘modify’ doesn’t mean to reduce by 10k.
I vote democrat because might as well, but I really wish people wouldn’t come on here pretending they just have had to struggle their whole way through the system when it is their own incompetence, arrogance, passivity, and failure that leads to the constant roadblocks to their effectiveness.
One of the problems with inexperienced folks is they don’t viscerally understand these sorts of issues. To them they voted a dem into the presidency and everything is just supposed to happen while they fuck off and do nothing until the next presidential election. Later they start to realize that they have to vote every couple of years, maybe, but it takes even more time and attention before they see the nuances of slim majorities and fillibusters and all that.
Democrats have only had 60 Senate seats for 2-3 months in that entire 15 year timespan. And in that time, they passed Obamacare – which would’ve had single payer, if not for the 60th vote they needed.
I’m a young voter too, but I’m frustrated with my compatriots. Bernie had the perfect platform for young people. You couldn’t ask for better. And young people still didn’t turn out in massive numbers. Why should any politician cater to them if they aren’t going to come out for a platform they has everything they want, championed by a genuine candidate?
EDIT: Significantly rewrote the comment. I was stressed by irl events and took it out here to be far more rude than I should’ve been.
I’m glad that the prevailing opinion seems to be that both parties aren’t the same, and even though Democrats are imperfect they’re our best chance right now.
There’s nothing wrong with people bemoaning that or criticizing them to be better. What raises my eyebrow is when I see people who use that to defend their lack of voting.
What raises my eyebrow is when I see people who use that to defend their lack of voting.
What bothers me is the people who take any and all criticism as advocacy for not voting, voting third party, or voting republican in cases where it’s not happening at all.
It’s all over this thread, and people who are just dissatisfied with Democrats’ anti-progressive fuckery are being routinely greeted with greater vitriol than the guy who was spreading anti-trans bigotry. Which says a lot about how centrists view progressives versus how they view fascists, and which ones they’re actually interested in opposing.
What raises my eyebrow is when I see people who use that to defend their lack of voting.
What bothers me is the people who take any and all criticism as advocacy for not voting, voting third party, or voting republican in cases where it’s not happening at all.
I mean this is the flip side isn’t it? Overly critical, not critical at all, they’re just two sides of the same coin. Both are bad. And you have bad actors who are purposely trying to promote one or the other.
The fact of the matter is that we’re scared. None of us want to see Republicans win. We’re afraid of what’ll happen if they do. That fear makes us all enemies of each other over the slightest difference, worrying that it means the other person will permit Republicans to win.
Let’s step back, and recognize that most people in this thread want the same thing. Hell, they pretty much want the same political outcomes as well.
Maybe we can get kids to get out and vote if democrats actually start doing something for the people instead of coddling corporations and sitting on their asses while republicans strip away our civil rights.
But instead, the Republican party is full of nazis and the Democrats are collaborators who use the outrage of younger generations for fundraising.
Oh, you mean like trying to save access to abortion?
Or tuition relief?
Or school food vouchers?
Or sane gun laws?
Or just in general pro-science based policies on vaccines or climate change?
Or an endless list of other things that Dems are indeed trying to do but they are met with a Red Menace that will stop at nothing to make any of those policies get through.
Oh, is that what you mean?
Because clearly one doesn’t understand that we live in a democracy where there are 2 political parties and if one is willing to undermine the rule of law and the foundation of our democracy to get their way, then you won’t get your tuition relief or any other pro-worker, pro-consumer, pro-sanity policies passed.
We don’t live in a dictatorship where one person can simply decree for things to happen. We NEED cooperation to get things done. One side is trying, the other side is fighting any and all progress in pretty much every policy.
A huge problem is lack of accessibility and education regarding the process. It’s even worse in primaries and although democrats benefit from greater voter participation in the general, they wouldn’t during primaries as they have no interest in helping candidates like Bernie by improving that aspect.
Younger generation has more knowledge that they can pull up within seconds than any generation in the history of mankind. And when it comes to voting, there has never been more states that allow early as well as mail-in voting.
But please tell me again how there is a lack of accessibility and education.
This has nothing to do with education and everything to do with apathy and a generation that has grown up with everything being handed to them. Now that they are old enough and society has asked them to step up and actually DO something, they completely and spectacularly fall apart.
Yeah, they are sooooo pissed off that they couldn’t be bothered to show up at the polls in the last election.
6 years ago Bernie Sanders, one of the most left-leaning candidates in our modern history, ran on a platform that depended on the youth vote. He was utterly destroyed in the primaries because the youth vote never materialized. And this type of thing has happened time and time again.
In the last election, it should have been especially important for the youth what with an endless stream of school shootings, anger toward inaction on climate change and the whole student loan debacle. These are all massively important topics for the youth - or at least they should be - and they couldn’t be bothered to go out and vote in full force. Something like 75% of the youth of this country sat this election out. 75%. That’s pathetic.
But now all of a sudden they are going to act pissed off?
Yeah, I don’t really buy it either. Gen Z and younger seem significantly more pissed off at Republicans, if anything. At least, they ought to be.
Our oldest (tuned 18 in Dec) wanted to register to vote right away and was voting in midterm elections this spring. Our youngest is 17 and he’s already looking forward to being able to vote in the presidential election next year. It seems like them and their friends are absolutely wanting to get out and vote and they’re all very much liberal and we’re in a county in PA that was Trump +16 in 2020.
@CafecitoHippo Very nice.
Yeah, they SHOULD be.
And yet they take out their frustrations by posting funny memes on Reddit or snarky comments on Twitter… in other words - gestures that mean nothing. Dumb memes don’t change policies. Voting in numbers does. My generation never had the size of people to ever go up against the Boomers, and yet this younger generation does and time and time again, they prove to be utterly useless. They can go bury their heads in their phone and think watching TikTok all day will solve anything.
@Hazdaz Mostly agree, though they do seem to be mobilizing - at least far better than we (I’m a Millennial) ever did. Long term engagement will probably remain a problem, but we’ll see.
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Sure thing Boris, whatever you say.
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Did he just sit around twiddling his thumbs for 4 years?
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You don’t miss the bus just because it doesn’t go directly to your location. You take the bus that gets you closest to where you want to go. Biden is that bus right now.
One bus is accelerating downhill with the pedal floored. The other is facing uphill but coasting downhill in neutral.
That’s a nice way of putting things, quite honestly. Unfortunately this younger generation can’t even get on the bus without their emotional support animals, it seems.
Because emotional support animals are such a bad thing…
In fairness, 6 years ago plenty of Gen Z were not of voting age yet. The oldest portion of that generation is 26 this year. Also, back then there was a level of apathy to politics that really allowed plenty of shenanigans. Until COVID, that was the general consensus that politics were for their parents or for their grandparents. The last 6 years have shown otherwise, and recent voting turn outs in red states show a swing of younger activism.
I do think dragging millennials into this conversation does weaken that argument though as that generation has been majority voting age for over a decade. They’ve been shown to have an intense outrage culture but the lack of commitment to do anything about it, which thankfully the activism and general “fuck the establishment” attitude the tide pod kids have might actually make a difference this time around.
Also, Bernie dropped off the ballet before anyone could vote for him when the Democratic party didn’t consider him their primary pick. I like the guy and did write him in myself (and most likely he would’ve won had he remained on the ballet), but the removal of him as a “default” candidate in our system is why so few voted for him, thinking their votes would either ultimately not make a difference, or that they would allow the opposition (whichever side) to win by not voting within the lines.
Add in that many younger voters and many of us who are independent aren’t allowed to vote in the Democratic primaries at all. Not to mention that the media have also been actively lowering visibility of any Democratic presidential candidate who hasn’t been a decade+ dedicated fall-in-line Democrat.
Clinton was basically sold as the only candidate running for months before the primaries started and presented as much to fight Bernie’s popularity through most of the primary season. Marianne Williamson, who is supported by a large percentage of younger folks for the 2024 elections, isn’t even mentioned while Biden is listed essentially as having no competition. Just like the gerrymandering propping up Republicans in many locations, the deck is stacked against anyone who isn’t already backed by the established parties. Trump broke through, though using a combination of what nearly helped Bernie break through but also fully supporting the angry activists that didn’t think the Republican party was ddoing enough at the time.
Seriously, unless you have open primaries in your state don’t do the dumbass thing that my contemporaries did back in the day and play the “I’m edgy, I’m an independent” act.
You know you aren’t going to be voting Republican, just register Democrat and vote in the damn primaries and help the rest of us get these crappy moderates out.
Being registered doesn’t tag you with a scarlet letter, you just get some annoying texts every once in a while, nothing like being a registered Republican which is both a blessing and a curse, and mailers your get anyways. So please do the rest of us a huge favor and get your and your friends to register and participate in the primaries so we can push back on the narrative that moderates are the only ones that can win.
She’s also a horrible person. She promoted woo woo alternative medicine and said diseases were just a “psychic scream” from our body because we didn’t love it enough. Gay men dying of AIDS stopped taking their medicine because they thought taking it meant that they didn’t trust their body. They died thinking they just didn’t love themselves enough.
And when she was asked about this, she became super defensive and abrasive. A normal person who finds out their words have inadvertently caused suffering would be horrified by it. Instead, she claims she didn’t say what she directly wrote in her book.
Fair point, but she is getting a lot of notice and support from the younger crowd and the fact that she doesn’t even get listed in the mainstream media (while Trump and RFK Jr get publicity), which adds to why the younger generations are just completely disillusioned by the media and both parties. Remember how Hilary’s mocking of Sanders’ supporters was normalized by the media and even publicity since then, which makes many think that we dodged a bullet with Hilary losing, even though Trump was far far worse because both look like narcissistic jerks that gave us no real options in 2016 to anyone under 50 (and quite a few older than 50 at this point, I suspect). Having one side seem so far right that they make them look like part of the Nazi party doesn’t help the Democratic party get away from clearly being to the right of Reagan Republicans of the 1980s in most cases. We just have a much slower descent to corporate rule instead of at least trying to reverse it.
On the one hand, that’s just how primaries work. The field winnows down to 2-3 candidates, and then the others drop when it becomes mathematically impossible. Democrats also have a system that tries to award delegates based on performance, not winner takes all. There typically can’t be an insurgent candidate unless they are the clear favorite.
But on the other hand, and more importantly, why do primaries have to work this way? It makes no sense to me that we space out primaries like this, and let the results influence votes. Bernie probably would’ve done better in '20 and worse in '16 if we had all the votes the same day. Trump wouldn’t have been a thing. There is some value in having drawn out races, because it lets you learn about candidates you didn’t know beforehand and they grow a base of supporters.
I think the best path is to have multiple rounds of voting, over time, for each state. Hold a debate week 2, over multiple nights if the field is large, and then every state votes on week 6. Candidates below X% total are removed from the race. Have another debate with those who remain, and then another vote, and drop the lowest candidate(s). This should capture the best of everything.
I love how young people are simultaneously nonvoters who can be ignored and a vital constituency who must vote in every election even though they’ve been ignored.
Talk about getting things ass backwards.
So which one is it? Are they apathetic voters who are to blame for every loss, or insignificant nonvoters who can be safely ignored?
If it’s the former, the party should realize that its lack of action on important issues is costing them badly needed votes and behave accordingly. If the latter, the party shouldn’t blame the insignificant margins when they lose.
This is the type of arrogant attitude that drives away young voters. The democrats have had 15 years to get ANYTHING done on guns, climate change, health care, and student loans and they didn’t do jack shit. It’s not they’re “all of the sudden” pissed off, they’ve been pissed off.
The first democratic primary I voted in one of the main issues was a single-payer health care system supported by Hilary Clinton and single-payer public option supported by Obama. With a super majority in the senate and a majority in the house they still couldn’t get shit done. Now they can’t even endorse medicare for all as a party.
Obama was the candidate of tackling climate change, was in office for 8 years, still didn’t get shit done.
Biden campaigned on student loan forgiveness, still didn’t get shit done.
So what did 15 years of voting for democrats get me? A party that moved further to the right. Guess I just need to vote harder?
At some point, if you’re Charlie Brown and Lucy keeps yanking the football away you have to be an idiot to keep trying to kick it.
Youth will begrudgingly vote for democrats because it’s the least shit option they have, but don’t pretend like they’re actually voting for any meaningful change.
If you ignore everything the Democrats have in fact done on those topics, then sure, they haven’t gotten ANYTHING done.
Honest questions, I would love to be wrong on all these.
What did they get done on guns? Mass shootings are almost double what they were in 2016, gun violence is still out of control.
Climate change? The Paris climate accord? The one that was non-binding and Trump just walked away from? Are you talking about tax credits and carbon taxes? We’re still on a freight train to climate disaster. There isn’t a lot of time for slow progress on this one.
Health care? Are you talking about Obamacare? I was actually ecstatic when this passed, I have pre-existing conditions that meant that I couldn’t even get health care, so at least I could get a plan now. What ended up actually happening is I was forced to pay monthly for a plan that didn’t actually cover anything short of getting hit by a bus, and that the insurance could deny any treatment my doctor suggested. I guess that’s something?
Student loans? That just got struck down by the supreme court, which other democrats like AOC were sounding the alarm about happening when it was first announced.
I consider getting something done when the problem is solved, not half-measures that make little to no meaningful progress.
I say this as someone who actively organizes for democratic causes, I canvas, I phone bank, I give any time I can afford to this stuff. It’s really hard to get people motivated when you can’t point to any meaningful progress on these issues, and it’s even harder to enact change when people who agree with you can’t even see that meaningful change hasn’t occurred.
I’m pretty deep on energy so I can speak to some of this.
There’s record investments going on right now in research on energy efficiency, thermal energy storage (duck curve), and renewable energy sources. Heat pumps are almost too trendy. It’s been nuts seeing the number of projects getting funded for research that never had a chance in the last administration. This research isn’t just theoretical, there is heavy interest in feasibility studies and impacts on implementation. This is especially true in engagement with smaller and medium sized businesses. We’re talking discounts of 50-70% (sometimes free).
There’s actually quite a few programs that exist federally for decreasing energy use and/or energy intensity (which in most cases means less carbon emissions) for industrial energy users. With the Biden admin, the outreach game has fundamentally changed and there has quite possibly never been this level of excitement before in the space. There is so much money in play here for businesses (we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars per qualifying business per year) that professionals will recommend free federal programs before doing their own professional energy audits. Even with professional services, the government is still putting out major incentives.
The feds are even focused on giving experience in energy efficiency work that it could be done with an associate’s degree with job experience included instead of a traditional four year college. In some states, this is a free education.
There are tax incentives for buying electric cars, government fleets are moving to electric, revisions to CAFE standards and attempts to mitigate the loopholes that SUVs thrive in within it.
For larger businesses, tax incentives are not slow. They can be the deal breaker on whether the project happens at all. Discussing tax incentives, incredibly good loan programs, and grants can fundamentally change the tone of conversations. All of these topics are not theoretical, I am speaking from experience in conversations I have personally led. Shifts from “this is way too expensive” to “ok, we would be stupid not do this project.”
If you want further reading, concentrated solar power, combined heat and power, and hydrogen based energy are all popular and growing fields right now due to government investment in research and implementation. And again, I’m not talking pure theory here, these projects are actively being implemented in real scenarios right now. Heall, filtering biogas to produce methane is ridiculously profitable and reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas companies will literally pay waste water treatment plants to hook into their lines.
Drives me nuts when people talk about lack of climate progress. Sure, we haven’t become carbon neutral in two years, and there hasn’t been a fancy international agreement lately, but saying progress is slow or not getting done is a hot take. There is a lot happening right now and it isn’t always advertised. The energy efficiency industry, as far as I am aware and experienced, has never been this excited. We used to make arguments to businesses that energy efficiency was important, would save money, increase resiliency and so on. Now, they actively reach out.
Drives me nuts when people mischaracterize anger fostered by decades of inaction as impatience.
I do not see this as impatience, I understand people are upset. It is difficult to see decades of work (many of these programs first started in the 70’s) on something I am very passionate about disregarded as inaction. That is the source of my comment. Slow? Yes. Underfunded? Historically yes. Inaction? No.
Believe me, if we could get carbon pricing started tomorrow, I would be exhilarated. Let’s kick up nuclear again.
Thanks for your well researched and thoughtful response, I really do appreciate it.
What I hear from most young people on the ground is global emissions are still rising, and climate catastrophe is already happening.
People won’t care about industrial energy efficiency when they don’t have a place to live because a wildfire destroyed their house. A tax break for an electric vehicle means nothing to a young person who can’t even afford a car loan. I can tell you of people I tried talking into getting their heating/ac/gas stove replaced with a heat pump/electric oven and tax-credit and were told they simply can’t afford the up front cost of replacing their HVAC or gas stove.
Climate change is here and it’s going to take a massive unified effort, democrats have to think bigger than tax breaks and loans.
Of course :)
I’m not as knowledgeable about residential, but there is some work here as well. There are some recent programs focused on weatherization, for example programs to reinsulate homes at no cost or to install new doors, but these are smaller and I believe means tested. Residential is hard because there just isn’t that much work to do that makes sense financially. For carbon, it is probably easier to enroll in a local utility’s green power programs and reduce/eliminate beef consumption than replace windows that aren’t broken. This is one of the biggest reasons why industrial energy is the focus because a home’s energy use (say, 200 kWh based on some of my apartment bills) is negligible compared to modestly sized businesses that consume millions of kWh annually. This is part of where progress in energy efficiency disappears.
I do have a colleague working on getting combined heat and power systems into homes, but we haven’t talked enough for me to comment much on it other than there is interest.
This is where alternative energy systems and investments in energy infrastructure come into play. Investments in research, feasibility, implementation.
To be fair, in my experience most people don’t care already :). I have family members who call my job a joke, unfortunately. But yes, the inescapable results of our actions or lack thereof over the last two centuries of industrialization will continue to catch up. Every year another community burns up in my state and every year someone is ready to blame it on anything but climate change.
Compromise often results in a half-measure. I mean do you want to live in a democracy where unfortunately you have a lot of people who “want” (lots of misinformed/idiots imo) to ignore climate change or private insurance, etc, or do you want a dictator to take over and “fix” it all? Why are we pointing the finger at the Democrats not fully fixing any of those issues when the GOP is the exactly the reason for the half-measures.
That said, I think without the pressure from progressives on Biden and central Dems, you don’t even get an attempt at student loan forgiveness. Or whatever he’s going to do to try and workaround the BS scotus ruling. So I’m not against holding the democratic party accountable, just that no one ever holds the fucking GOP accountable and it gets a bit tiring to see people shit on Biden or dems in general for not being able to be as progressive as they want. There is another half of the US that unfortunately does not agree with you (or me).
People point the finger at democrats because they campaign on getting these things done, republicans don’t.
They have had real opportunities to get these things done, like I noted about single-payer healthcare in 2008. There was a clear mandate from the voting populous, a filibuster-proof super majority in the senate and a 31 seat majority in the house and compromise was made because the house caucus of Blue Dog Coalition of democrats didn’t want it, not republicans.
Biden just had a majority in the senate and house for two years and a mandate to act on student loans through filibuster-proof reconciliation. He was stopped by two democrats, not republicans.
They didn’t even repeal the Trump tax cuts that he campaigned on, which also could have been passed through reconciliation. Again, stopped by two democrats.
Child tax care credits were taken away in the budget , not by republicans, but by a single democrat.
You can say “Well, NO republicans voted for any of those things” but that’s exactly what the republicans were voted in to do.
So because 1-2 Democrats held up progress you’re going to support the party that had all 49-50 members opposed to your goals?
I empathize with your frustration with the Democratic party but voting 3rd party only puts the Republicans in power. The most useful thing to do within the current voting structure is to use the Primary Elections to try to nominate a more radical senator or representative that thinks like you.
Jesus Christ, centrists need to stop this. Not everyone who is mad at Democrats for a decades long pattern of “ooooops! Just enough Democrats killed that progressive thing! lol vote harder!” supports Republicans.
What, you didn’t know? The way to drive youth turnout is to constantly scold them for any criticism they have of the democratic party and blame them for any defeat.
I think the issue is the definition of “supports”.
If you take your (valid) frustration out in the general election then yes, you are supporting republicans in a very material way. For example voting for a 3rd party or not voting (e.g. helping a republican win).
If, on the other hand, you get involved in primaries and donate to candidates that better align with your goals, even to the point of forwarding dems that might lose in the general election then you’re not supporting republicans — you’re instead supporting the left side of the dems (and are willing to lose if you need to). The idea is similar to how the radical right wing has captured the republican party. Do the same for your position.
What really annoys people (it pisses me the fuck off) are people that see the dems lose by a vote or two, because some fuck dem sided with the republicans, and therefore decide that both parties are the same or that their best bet is to support republicans more. Its such a lousy non-nuanced view that it just highlights why the black&white super right wing “fuck nuance” people are winning.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t support republicans and won’t vote for a third party. But I completely empathize with disaffected youth voters and see where they’re coming from.
I do vote in local elections, in fact my local party just won a special election to get one of those like-minded candidates to city council!
Republicans fucked up every one of those things.
I guess?
Like, there’s been a Democratic president for 11 of the past 20 years, and of those 11 years half of them democrats had unified executive and legislative control. And with that, gun violence has gotten worse, climate change has gotten worse, Roe was still overturned, the voting rights act was gutted and not fixed and any number of other issues. The democratic party message is always “vote for us, we’ll make things better!” and we’re just sitting over here like Charlie Brown. We’re pissed off because we have voted for Democrats and things aren’t better.
Problem is we haven’t voted in enough Democrats. We either need 60 senators or 50 senators who will kill the filibuster. Without either, we’re stuck. We can only do things with budget reconciliation.
Democrats did have 60 Senate votes, for about 2 months because of runoffs and deaths. In that time, they passed Obamacare. And it would’ve had single payer too, if not for Lieberman’s vote being required.
If we give Democrats 60 senators or 50 who will kill the filibuster, and things still don’t get better, I’ll agree with you completely.
“Vote for the party that isn’t willing to change the broken system” isn’t the hard sell you think it is.
Well yeah, because most understand the broken system takes a lot of time to fix and it can’t be done if you have a deadlocked Senate. People who want to fix the system focus on getting us 50+ senators willing to end the filibuster or 60+ in general. People who just want to bitch and moan say no one is trying to fix the system.
And if they don’t vote because I’m not inspiring them to, they are quite literally sitting on their asses bitching and moaning.
The democrats have had outright control of the senate for six of the past twenty years, they had caucus control (for lack of a better term) of the senate since January 2021. If they wanted to end the filibuster, they could have.
For the record, I’ve voted in every presidentialand midterm election - and most primary and local elections too - since 2003, voting almost straight democratic every single time. So I’ve toed the party line for damn near 20 hears.
Wasn’t the House and Senate controlled by Republicans during most of Obama’s years? You voted for a Democratic president, cool, but that doesn’t mean jack shit if Congress is controlled by the majority Republican vote.
His first two years he had a filibuster-proof super majority in the senate and a 31 seat majority in the house.
That’s not really true.
Al Franken was dealing with a runoff and legal challenges and wasn’t seated until July 7th 2009, bringing the roster of the Senate to 58 Dems and 2 independens who voted with them. They finally had the supermajority a year and a half into Obama’s first term - but not really even then.
Ted Kennedy was on medical absence from the Senate from June 9th 2009 until his death in August, so they didn’t have the votes to kill a fillibuster. It wasn’t until September 24th that an temporary appointee filled the seat until the special election won by the Tea Party on January 10th.
The Senate met on a total of 65 days in which Obama had a supermajority.
That’s not exactly right either
So even starting with a republican inspired corporate funding healthcare bill, scrapping single payer and still not getting a single republican vote, and only passing on a tenuous super majority.
I will grant you that they tried, and many probably had good intentions, but I think it’s important to realize that the democrats had very little opportunity and in that window couldn’t succeed in getting us even close to other industrialized nations healthcare outcomes. They seem to have an apparent unwillingness to actual contend with the issues they are legislating, and fail to utilize political power and strategy in ways that will actually solve problems.
We see this today with the supreme court. The Heroes act allows for complete waving of student loan debt, without application by the debtor, completely within the authority of secretary of education. Rather than swiftly, and decidedly removing debt, they build a means tested website that came online months after they announced it, was forced to pause because of predictable court cases brought against it, waited as it was push through a blatantly packed court system, and ultimately died to a disgustingly corrupt supreme court that allowed a state to claim standing for a company without their knowledge, and claimed that ‘modify’ doesn’t mean to reduce by 10k.
I vote democrat because might as well, but I really wish people wouldn’t come on here pretending they just have had to struggle their whole way through the system when it is their own incompetence, arrogance, passivity, and failure that leads to the constant roadblocks to their effectiveness.
One of the problems with inexperienced folks is they don’t viscerally understand these sorts of issues. To them they voted a dem into the presidency and everything is just supposed to happen while they fuck off and do nothing until the next presidential election. Later they start to realize that they have to vote every couple of years, maybe, but it takes even more time and attention before they see the nuances of slim majorities and fillibusters and all that.
Democrats have only had 60 Senate seats for 2-3 months in that entire 15 year timespan. And in that time, they passed Obamacare – which would’ve had single payer, if not for the 60th vote they needed.
I’m a young voter too, but I’m frustrated with my compatriots. Bernie had the perfect platform for young people. You couldn’t ask for better. And young people still didn’t turn out in massive numbers. Why should any politician cater to them if they aren’t going to come out for a platform they has everything they want, championed by a genuine candidate?
EDIT: Significantly rewrote the comment. I was stressed by irl events and took it out here to be far more rude than I should’ve been.
Don’t worry about it, everyone in this thread is getting heated. Rightfully so, these things are important.
I’m glad that the prevailing opinion seems to be that both parties aren’t the same, and even though Democrats are imperfect they’re our best chance right now.
There’s nothing wrong with people bemoaning that or criticizing them to be better. What raises my eyebrow is when I see people who use that to defend their lack of voting.
What bothers me is the people who take any and all criticism as advocacy for not voting, voting third party, or voting republican in cases where it’s not happening at all.
It’s all over this thread, and people who are just dissatisfied with Democrats’ anti-progressive fuckery are being routinely greeted with greater vitriol than the guy who was spreading anti-trans bigotry. Which says a lot about how centrists view progressives versus how they view fascists, and which ones they’re actually interested in opposing.
I mean this is the flip side isn’t it? Overly critical, not critical at all, they’re just two sides of the same coin. Both are bad. And you have bad actors who are purposely trying to promote one or the other.
The fact of the matter is that we’re scared. None of us want to see Republicans win. We’re afraid of what’ll happen if they do. That fear makes us all enemies of each other over the slightest difference, worrying that it means the other person will permit Republicans to win.
Let’s step back, and recognize that most people in this thread want the same thing. Hell, they pretty much want the same political outcomes as well.
I’m starting to doubt that.
Maybe we can get kids to get out and vote if democrats actually start doing something for the people instead of coddling corporations and sitting on their asses while republicans strip away our civil rights.
But instead, the Republican party is full of nazis and the Democrats are collaborators who use the outrage of younger generations for fundraising.
Oh, you mean like trying to save access to abortion?
Or tuition relief?
Or school food vouchers?
Or sane gun laws?
Or just in general pro-science based policies on vaccines or climate change?
Or an endless list of other things that Dems are indeed trying to do but they are met with a Red Menace that will stop at nothing to make any of those policies get through.
Oh, is that what you mean?
Because clearly one doesn’t understand that we live in a democracy where there are 2 political parties and if one is willing to undermine the rule of law and the foundation of our democracy to get their way, then you won’t get your tuition relief or any other pro-worker, pro-consumer, pro-sanity policies passed.
We don’t live in a dictatorship where one person can simply decree for things to happen. We NEED cooperation to get things done. One side is trying, the other side is fighting any and all progress in pretty much every policy.
A huge problem is lack of accessibility and education regarding the process. It’s even worse in primaries and although democrats benefit from greater voter participation in the general, they wouldn’t during primaries as they have no interest in helping candidates like Bernie by improving that aspect.
Younger generation has more knowledge that they can pull up within seconds than any generation in the history of mankind. And when it comes to voting, there has never been more states that allow early as well as mail-in voting.
But please tell me again how there is a lack of accessibility and education.
This has nothing to do with education and everything to do with apathy and a generation that has grown up with everything being handed to them. Now that they are old enough and society has asked them to step up and actually DO something, they completely and spectacularly fall apart.
We were talking about Bernie Sanders. Please tell me again how there is mail-in voting for party primaries.
Especially if you are not a declared Democrat.