4mo ago

“If Young Voters Voted at the Same Rate”

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A lot of the far right are millennials and Gen Z. While the proportions in different generations are different, this isn't purely a generational thing. The implied message is that we can "wait them out," but that is basically just the same as doing nothing. We can't do nothing. We have to motivate people to vote, and then get them to volunteer and have them get others to vote.
If that's what the map would look like if younger generations voted like 65+, then go get those people voting so we get that map next election.
- That's such a great point.
  I've been hearing this bullshit "Wait them out" message for 30+ years. There is no waiting out bad ideas and propaganda. You have to fight it with truth and activism.
  
  There's also no waiting out groups who have no intention of maintaining even a semblance of a democratic Republic with participation, balanced arms of government, and blind justice.
  
  But the exact same politicians have been in power for those 30+ years as well.
- A blue map doesn't feel very good when the results are continued genocide, republican border bills, and "the most lethal military in the world".
  I'm not saying don't vote blue, but lets not pretend young voters have much to be excited about.
- Listen, one side supports holocaust and wants endless wars with no Medicare4All or minimum wage increases, and the otherside wants the same. The literal only candidate not to stick to that script is insane Trump who is problematic for all his own reasons. The real lesson is people would rather not vote than support someone shitty, and call me crazy but that I live in NYC and only see more Trump Flags and literal looks of disgust when mentioning Harris, has me pretty convinced shes gonna lose really badly, like this might be in history books next to to failure.
  
  Ok you can go back to Truth Social now, you've done your part
  
  “Literal looks of disgust” probably when you’re at the local Nazi bar and say her name. NYC will overwhelmingly vote blue so you’re just being delusional. 🌻🌻🌻
  
  Hey is your again. Trying for gold in the “worst takes” Olympics? Trump flags are everywhere because these racist idiots left them up since 2016.
  
  and literal looks of disgust when mentioning Harris
  this is because republicans live in a false reality, they are delusional.
  
  “I live in NYC and only see more Trump Flags”
  ROFL…
  I bet you see them hanging from windows of NYC walk ups and on the backs of lifted taxi cabs rolling cole

I heard this about Gen X and Millennials. Don't rely on this at all. Educate young people and help them get to the polls. We may not get another chance at this.
- I think it's still true for us. They predicted we would turn more conservative as we aged, which hasn't really happened.
  
  I hope you're right. I'm so tired of seeing evil win time and time again.
- I think Gen Z stands a real chance. We're the first generation where the majority of us have had the Internet from birth, or at least long enough to not remember a time without it. We're super connected all around the globe, and with more diversity in groups comes less bigotry.
  Younger people are way less bigoted now then they were in my childhood (early Gen Z, barely not a millennial thank God). When I was in elementary and middle, everything not cool was called gay. Everyone called everything they didn't like gay. It was completely synonymous with bad. A couple parents in my town recently got riled up cause a kid got a days suspension for using gay as a derogatory term against a gay kid. Most young people around here will tell you that he should've gotten more. In my day the other kid would've been suspended before the asshole.

Democratic voters are unreliable. They could probably get everything they wanted if once a year they took an hour or two out of their day to go vote. Instead they’ve let Republicans take over in a large number of counties and we have to deal with all these fucking jackasses in Congress blocking anything from happening. Democrats and youth voters would rather removed and whine about Republicans than actually just vote when it matters.
- democrats are useless af when they have a majority.
  get a preferential voting system so ppl can actually vote for who they want without shooting themselves in the foot.
- Democratic voters would be winning if it wasn't for gerrymandering. The fact is, they are playing against a loaded deck.
  
  America would be winning if we didn't have the south desperately trying to drag us back to the century when they were last proud.
- "Democratic voters" are unreliable because Democrats do not deliver, simple as that. Public healthcare, cannabis legalization, not-funding-a-genocide. Kamala is promising none of these things. Kamala is promising that America will have the most lethal military in the world. Kamala is promising America will support Israel's "right to defend itself". Kamala is promising a "secure border".
  Barring Tim Walz and a few policies, Kamala is running a campaign that the republicans of the Bush era would support wholeheartedly. Democrats consistently run campaigns on the premise that they are better than republicans, then quietly shift their policies towards the right. 4 years ago the they ran on not caging children and ruthlessly deporting families, now they're running on "strong border" rhetoric.
  Stop blaming voters for the Democrats inability to run on and enact good policy.
- youth voters would rather removed and whine about Republicans than actually just vote when it matters
  Back when Bernie ran and lost the nomination it was argument after argument of young voters who removeded and whined and claimed they either weren't gonna vote or vote 3rd party out of protest.
- There are a lot more reasons for why young people don't vote as much than just them being lazy. For example, young people move a lot more often than old people, so they have to update their voter registration. And if they don't do that those two hours of their life they have to take off are meaningless.
  Also, I highly doubt I'd get everything I wanted even if Democrats ran the entire country from bottom to top, because what I want isn't terribly popular even among Democrats.
  
  4 years ago the dems ran on not caging children at the border, now Kamala is running on how she's going to sign a republican border bill and "secure our border".
  Is it really that hard to imagine why some voters might feel apathetic about voting for democrats?
  
  I wouldn’t say it’s even necessarily laziness, probably just general apathy with anything remotely political and using Democrat ineffectiveness as an excuse that “nothing will ever change”. Change is slow and takes committed effort, year after year, seemingly nobody has time for that.

Well then where the fuck are they?
- A lot are disenfranchised by voter ID laws and weird residency requirements around college campuses. Others just don't realize the exceptional time we are in because their entire adult life has been marked by encroaching fascism and that seems normal.
  
  Or have their vote struck because of conflicting address history, more common among renters (who tend to vote more blue, “coincidentally”)
  
  Or can't vote because of their working hours
- They're too edgy to vote and if they can be bothered vote third party
- They're watching harris totally support genocide.

The young ones will become smarter and vote more often. But they will also get older ... Hmmm
- Millennials tend to become more progressive as they age (probably has something to do with realizing how much inequality sucks and understanding the reason why it's happening)
  
  "What radicalized me? 31 years of watching half my country embrace hate"
  
  Also we get older but see our chances of retirement aren't going up.
  
  Yes I hope so too.

I still don't get how Boomers (and a bit of the Silent Generation) were super left wing in the 60s, but by the 80s or even the late 70s they became super right wing. Not sure if it's just a USA thing or not, either.
- Because they weren't. There was a vocal minority who was super left wing in the 60s, but the huge majority were as reactionary and conservative as they are today. Hippies weren't really representative of their generation, they are just the most iconic. Remember that Nixon not only got reelected, but reelected with a landslide.
  
  And Reagan had like a 48 or 49 state landslide.
- I don't know how many people think this way, but I once heard a quote: "If in your youth, you don't vote left, you don't have a heart. If when you're older you don't vote right, you don't have a head."
  I don't think that quote says anything good or true, but if there are a lot of people who think that way, well...
  
  That quote has been changed a bit, but in it's original form I think it was Churchill.
  And the general idea is that as you age your idealism is tempered by practicality, as well as having adapted to the situation and built something of a life of your own, so you've gradually moved from the camp of "very little to lose/give up in exchange for all these benefits" and toward the camp of, "you know what, I'm doing okay, I've figured out a way to make it work, and I'd rather 'the system' just leave me alone at this point, since I'll be footing the bill for things that aren't even going to benefit me that much".
  Obviously it's a lot more complicated than that, but that's the gist.
  It's also worth remembering that "liberal" and "conservative" meant something different mid century than they do now. Especially with the MAGA influence.
- I think the shift in political affiliation had something to do with Regan and the de-regulation of many different business sectors by the republicans in the 80's and 90's.
  It became 'easier' to make money and with lower taxes those people got to keep more of it (at the expense of other Americans). So as these boomers started getting out of college in the late 70's and 80's they could now become stock brokers, bankers, real estate brokers, etc instead of a 9 - 5 factory worker. And those were the industries that were getting a lot of lower regulations from republicans so why not vote for their best interest and leave the left wing ideals to someone else.
- Lead poisoning and propaganda

As someone from a small European country, it still seems weird to me that you need to encourage people to please go vote. Because where I live basically everyone is required by law to show up at a voting station(but not required to vote, you don't have to cast a valid vote just show up). While it is off course not the perfect system, I think it is still better than hoping non extremists show up to vote. It probably also helps that we don't have a 2 but about 8 party system.
- There's a number of reasons for this like the electoral college and voter suppression.
  The electoral college basically means that all of a states votes go to the winner of that state. If you're casting a minority vote in that state it's very easy for it to not affect the outcome in any way, unlike if the winner was determined by popular vote where every vote mattered. This is also why we see presidents elected even though they receive less votes, which further undermines the system.
  Then there is rampant voter suppression, usually in Republican controlled areas. There is a strong correlation between more people voting and Democrats getting elected so Republicans try to make it as difficult as possible for people to vote, especially people who are likely to vote Democrat. So they pass voter ID laws, restrict mail-in voting, close polling places and shorten polling hours. In these areas people might have to spend hours traveling to a polling place only to stand in line for more hours before they can cast their vote.
  Add in that voting takes place on a work day when it should probably be a national holiday, the two party system, and other stuff and it's easy for people to feel lukewarm about voting.
- While there are many parts to consider, and everyone loves to make fun of Republicans for the whole "muh freedoms" thing, ironically, I want to point out that part of truly being free is the freedom to not be required to vote or even show up.
  That said, it's stupid as fuck and everyone that can should absolutely be there casting their vote.
- There isn’t a two party system. It is only bipartisan because such a system generally reduces to two in a polarized and popularity system. even though through state or province they will often pick a 3rd party, sometimes those people will decide that their 3rd party doesn’t have a chance they just do not want to see an opposing party win so they’ll vote via popularity vote instead of their preferred 3rd or 4th party. They settle. And I’m not sure a rating system would reduce the chance of that happening either.

“If”

cries in deep red

Animals always fight harder when they're cornered.

Kids might just turn (comparatively) more conservative with age. I think that's what has been happening for a while
- I think it's not quite the case that people get more conservative as they age. It's that policies and goals throughout society tend to get more progressive with time – as we learn more about our needs and those of others – while personal ideologies tend to crystallize with age. When one generation solves a problem, the next generation starts looking for new problems to tackle. The trouble is that we have to do that while dragging the previous generations, kicking and screaming, towards something more broadly beneficial to society because they think they've already got it all figured out. The evolution of our understanding of the world doesn't end with our generation, no matter how much effort we put in. 🤷
  
  I was m9re conservative when I was younger because I was an edge lord. Lol.
  
  I agree, that's what I meant with "comparatively".
- Kids have turned out to vote Democrat and the promised change did not manifest. Remaining in status quo without progress does not motivate them to vote.
  
  I think usually people are more keen to vote with age, but not sure if that's the same with every generation
- Pretty sure the white privilege has dried up for that outside of the most racist places.
  
  What do you mean?

Texas and Florida, oh my.
- But not Ohio, wtf
  
  The gen alpha kids know why
  
  Ohio is gerrymandered to hell, for one. Not sure on the rest.

Why are there three shades of blue and only two shades of red?
- The key got cut off I think. 538 has a standard key for predictions. Darker colors are "lean" and lighter colors are "solid". So it's confidence. Looks like I'm this example there are no states with the medium style of confidence for Republicans.
  
  Looks like you're right, however it's darker colors mean solid and lighter colors mean lean or likely.

Pretty big if.

Honestly, I'm surprised Utah is red.
- YouTube hasn’t converted all the Mormons yet

If only there was one very global event currently close to the heart of genZ that might influence their willingness to vote for Kamala Harris, who has openly supported the continuation of said global event at the convention of a PAC dedicated to the continuation of said global event.
Maybe there are other particular issues that affect genZ which the democrats have consistently ignored up until election season.
Maybe the assumption that Democrats are owed votes is the reason they're having such a hard time with the republicans?
- Great points. Take the non-responsive downvotes with pride.

Mighty big leap in logic to assume all those youngsters would vote democrat. More Democrat Vs Republican bullshit. Ya know what it would look like if we had "no confidence" as an option? No one other than biden would have actually won presidency in the last 40yrs. That's what would happen if our voting system was fixed. Not some imaginary blue wave for k Harris. That's literally opium pipe dreams. Not voting is more indicative of hating the voting options than it is of apathy. They fear the actual will of the people, its why we won't get a candidate we choose.
- Mighty big leap to assume that whoever made that map hasn't surveyed young people and taken the observed distribution into account.

They said the same thing about millenials, then they get older, get jobs, and families, and bills, and bitterness, and many look for people to blame and shift right.
- Except millennials have only moved left as they've gotten older.
  Political leaning is determined by material conditions and culture. The conditions that moved the boomers to the right do not apply to millenials
  
  Except millennials have only moved left as they've gotten older.
  
  Not yet.

The National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) published by Pew Research in July shows people under 30 lean Republican over Democrat party identification. That's the first time the NPORS has reported that fact.
Breaking out those registered to vote, Republicans under 26 beat Democrats by over 29% (63.8%R to 34.3%D). So, not only do young people generally lean Republican, but by petty staggering numbers when looking at those actually registered to vote. Young people are more conservative now than they have been in many decades.
This was pretty big news a month ago. Gen Z might be coming for someone, but it might not be who you think.
- From the NPORS
  About two-thirds of voters ages 18 to 24 (66%) associate with the Democratic Party, compared with 34% who align with the GOP.
  There is a similarly large gap in the partisan affiliation of voters ages 25 to 29 (64% are Democrats or lean that way vs. 32% for Republicans).
  Voters in their 30s also tilt Democratic, though to a lesser extent: 55% are Democrats or Democratic leaners, 42% are Republicans or Republican leaners.
  What are you talking about?
  
  A poll that didn't count Democratic Socialists for Democrats but counted Nazis for Republicans.
  
  There was a recent poll about how the differences between 18-29 women and men have been the widest ever, with women become more liberal and men becoming more conservative. Maybe that's what they were referencing.
  
  I'm talking about the more recent (and more comprehensive and granular) data from NPORS:
  "In April, for example, Pew Research Center released data showing a continuation of the familiar pattern in party identification — more liberal to more conservative as the age of respondents increased.
  Earlier this week, though, Pew released the most recent iteration of its big, comprehensive National Public Opinion Reference Survey. The NPORS is a benchmark poll that uses a number of different methodologies to ensure responses, including phone, online contact and direct mail. And, as The Washington Post’s Lenny Bronner found after parsing the data, it found a much more complicated interplay between partisan identification and age."
  You can read the numerous articles on the data from NYT or the Washington Post if you'd like.
- A couple of things:
  Biden was still the candidate, and a lot of young people were angry with him at the time
  Younger people are less likely to identify or register with any party (but will still likely vote in one particular direction). So focusing on the results by party identification isn't that useful.
- Among voters who are willing to complete a survey for two dollars

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