Growing population in America’s highly educated enclaves has led to huge gains for the Democratic Party. And it’s changing the electoral map going into 2024.
Republicans are at war with young people in general. It honestly looks like they are actively TRYING to lose as much of the youth vote as possible:
Young people deeply feel the existential dread of climate change. Republicans still deny the basic facts about it, and fight all attempts to mitigate it.
Young people understand that their lives have been destroyed by student loans at rates and amounts unheard of in the past. Republicans not only have ZERO empathy, here, they are actually delighting in cruelty about it. They actively tried to add RETROACTIVE interest charges to student loans as we reach the end of the pandemic loan freeze, on top of their efforts to make it virtually impossible to have loans forgiven for public service.
Young people are less religious than ever, while the right wing is using the court to turn us into a theocracy.
Young people have progressive attitudes about LGBTQ rights, and the Republicans are centering their 2024 campaign on a contest of how bigoted they can be in this area.
While I agree with all this, the issue is that young people in general are also some of the least likely to go vote. Who cares if you lose the support of a block who isn’t going to vote anyways.
We’re seeing a slow rise in voter participation but even in one of our most active elections ever (midterms 2022 had a whopping 52% participation!), <35% of eligible youth (18-29) actually voted compared to ~58% of 45-64 and ~68% of 65+.
It’s really sad to think about where we could be if just 50% of the youth range had voted in 2020 and 2022, might have had Dems in control of both the house and senate.
Add in that’s why they’re against Mail in voting and making voting day a national holiday like most other countries.
They’re trying to speedrun oligarchy and theocracy, legalize more gerrymandering, and consolidate power because they’re slowly losing votes, and that means this is the best chance they’ll have, for the rest of their party’s existence.
It’s even worse than that. In my state, some polling places are in the lobby of retirement/nursing homes. My polling place is. I have to drive/bike a mile to vote while Gertrude can just roll her Rascal scooter into the elevator and go vote for the loudest person on her TV.
In quite a few states, including mine, we have a pamphlet sent out with all of the people you’re voting for, a picture of them, and their statement of what they’re going to do. You can vote any time and drop it off or mail it in by a certain date to be sure it gets there. You get a tab that has a bar code on it to check if it got there. Every state should have this, this should be federally mandated.
Yes - Vote by Mail is an absolute win for democracy. It’s no secret why the GOP rabidly opposes it.
That said: It’s also difficult to demand at a federal level.
The US Constitution delegates running of elections to the States, though it does allow Congress to claw back that delegation “by appropriate legislation.” You saw some of that regulation in various things like the Voting Rights Act. Congress, if it had the political will, could pass laws to declare how elections are run in all 50 states.
It would be a hard-fought battle, though, and eventually end up in the Supreme Court, which, these days, would laugh, rule 6-3 against it, and say, “Whatta gonna do 'bout it?”
The realistic solution is the long-term one. Everyone needs to vote, not once every 4 years, but in every election, and especially local elections. City, County, and State elections matter more. These are the races that govern your day-to-day lives. Stop electing Republicans to local offices and start electing people who respect our form of government and have, at least, a modicum of honesty, or enough shame to keep their corruption under wraps were we don’t have to know about it.
I agree with everything you said, but honestly we have to try. If we try for the federal level, then everyone will at least know about it. I don’t think some states know enough to fight for it.
There are absolutely people who are prevented from voting if the location is too far and they don’t have a car. That’s part of the argument that voting locations shouldn’t be at college campuses. Students there are much less likely to have a car and therefore can’t go very far. One politicians argument was literally that the college students would roll out of bed, vote, and go back to sleep.
Closing polling locations and forcing mass amounts of people to use one location is also a valid reason. Not getting time off is a valid reason. A lot of people in the restaurant service industry work double shifts days in a row, especially in management rolls that can easily add up to the entire early voting period. Disallowing bussing from churches does disenfranchis people, primarily POC, which is the point.
There’s a reason Republican politicians enact these things. Because they do prevent people from voting.
I’m sick of Democrats whining about young people. They’ve literally never voted at high rates, the fact they you’re even entertaining the idea of 50% turnout is pure fantasy.
The fact is that zoomers vote at higher rates than every other recent generation did at the same age. We wouldn’t have won 2020 without them.
It’s almost like some people are trying to depress turnout with how much pointless whining they do about everyone under the sun… except the DNC and incompetent establishment leadership of course. Somehow low turnout is never their fault.
Why wouldn’t I complain about my fellow peers being slacktivists and not voting? I vote. I encourage my peers to vote. But so many can’t be bothered and then turn around and complain when the GOP wins and passes shit/blocks good legislation. I refuse to be content with <35% turnout just because it’s better than the past. It’s not enough to outvote the older generation which trends conservative, so it’s not enough for me.
Bitch about the DNC suppressing just about all truly progressive candidates who would be more likely to get out the younger vote. It’s not like voting takes place (or doesn’t take place as it may be) in a vacuum.
Oh 100%. I wanted Bernie so bad and won’t forgive them for what they did in 2016 or 2020.
But bitching about the DNC suppressing progressive candidates and bitching about young voters not voting are not mutually exclusive activities. Pretty easy to do both.
Even if people are turned off by the modern DNC, the alternative are fascists. By not voting you’re indirectly supporting the fascists. That’s why we ended up with 4 years of Trump and then barely a majority for the Senate. Now we’ve lost the house. If dem voters could see the bigger picture and hold their nose and vote, we would be in a much better place to be pushing for progressive policy instead of just trying to defend basically civil rights.
Best solution is to go to the voters physically and get them registered. Setting up on college campuses with local voting groups or even setting events in high schools who are going to have people turning 18 for voters groups.
Who cares if you lose the support of a block who isn’t going to vote anyways.
It sure looks like Republicans care a lot about making it harder for them to vote. Wonder why, since Democrats keep saying they don’t vote. That certainly couldn’t be a bogus justification for not supporting progressive policy that would appeal to younger voters, could it?
Their wont be future elections once they have consolidated power. The problem isnt just the republicans being fascists. It is also the democrats appeasing them and being happy with their economic policies. From the outside the US elections look like a choice between outright fascists, and a far right party with lgbt rights.
As long as the incitors and enablers of the 6th of january insurrection are still not in jail, because prosecutors are too afraid of angering them, then you will lose. You cannot win in an election against the violent criminals that don’t recognize election results. You can only win by prosecuting them for their crimes and tucking their leaders away for good.
Conservatives didn’t start out aiming for fascism, it came upon them by short sightedness and history.
Their ideals are dying and their voters are dying. They’ve painted themselves into a corner where any concession is a voter death warrant. And it’s one hell of a downward spiral. (Same goes for religion, but that’s another topic.)
None of them view themselves as fascists, but fascist strategy is all they have left. They don’t know this, they’re just going for what works in the short-term. Used to laugh about it. But now that the cornered animal is fighting back, it ain’t so funny.
I had thought maybe they would back up the truck a bit, given their tanking poll numbers over the last 2 decades. Instead they fought back, doubled down. Liberals have an opponent with nothing to lose, and that’s scary.
And take this from an older guy, in some respects liberals are moving too fast, demanding too much. Humans take time to integrate new ideas and ways of life. Go too fast and they get reactive, fight back like we’re seeing. Yes, even if we have sensible, moral and obvious ideas, we gotta slow it up a bit. I could go on about that for pages.
Anyhow, this is the most important thing I’ve ever read regarding our differences. Yeah, it’s Cracked.com, but there is wisdom to be had. No one can argue that it’s a bad idea to understand your enemy, right? (And I use “enemy” very loosely here.)
He is indeed. Biden is persevering on both student debt and sick days for rail workers. I’ll not fault him for either. Both are commendable. He needs to crow a lot louder about both. Particularly the sick days, since everyone got to see Biden the strikebreaker and too few people even know about the sick days.
He’s not only trying, he’s trying again. He’s not just giving up forever after encountering one little setback.
I wish more Democrats would show the same level of persistence.
I am sorry I had trouble getting over Biden saying interracial marriage is wrong, like what did he do for me? Oh not be Trump? Like its feeling like people vote for whatever, i know soooooo many people who would vote for Trump over Biden, but voting Kanye is just stupid 🙄
There’s a lot to bitch about as far as Biden goes, which makes it even more weird when people make up fake shit to be outraged about. I felt the same about Clinton.
While I agree those that vote are getting older. The reason young people don’t vote has nothing to do with not wanting to vote, it’s the GOP constantly change the rules and places of voting.
Young people not voting has been a cliche forever. This really is nothing new, unfortunately. Its actually been getting better in recent elections but still is one 50%of 18-25 which is low. And republicans know this.
Fascism is a suicide cult. All forms are ultimately self-destructive because it’s an irrational exploitation of humanity’s tribal instincts. Your brain’s default mode is ‘ingroup good, outgroup bad.’ What people naturally do with language and reasoning is justify those beliefs by working backwards. They’ll stick the word “because” in the middle. That’s not the same thing as having an argument… or an opinion. It’s a slogan. It’s signalling to other members of the tribe, so they’ll rally and fight, instead of backing down or splitting off.
I’m continually in awe at how somebody can still insist climate change is a hoax in 2023 💀 Like damn you haven’t even moved onto the downplaying stage you still think it’s outright not real?
Yeah, considering you can pretty much feel the effects almost everywhere on the planet these days, it’s an absurd position lmao.
Even if I knew nothing about climate change, I would have noticed the stark differences in summers and winters. Even if you weren’t paying attention at all, you were bound to notice something. Sometimes it has been too drastic, and too unprecedented, to just ignore.
Climate change is a hoax. It’s ridiculous to think we can destroy mother nature when we did not create the climate system and certainly have no control over it. It’s really simple. The earth has been alive longer than we have been in existence.
And nowhere in your sentence is a real argument. Your just saying, all of this was here long before us, so its impossible for us to destroy it. An old tree was there long before me. It’s still possible for me to destroy it.
I think there are scientists way knowledgable than you and me combined on matters climate change that think it’s not real but am not hear to persuade you into any line of thinking. Believe whatever you want to believe.
You realize that virtually all climate scientists agree climate change is real and human caused? NASA says so. Either you’re a troll or not paying attention.
I love simple answers to solutions too but this is a terrible example. Besides if my arm breaks today, it will revive itself back to form after a few months.
Republicans are at war with young people in general. It honestly looks like they are actively TRYING to lose as much of the youth vote as possible:
Young people deeply feel the existential dread of climate change. Republicans still deny the basic facts about it, and fight all attempts to mitigate it.
Young people understand that their lives have been destroyed by student loans at rates and amounts unheard of in the past. Republicans not only have ZERO empathy, here, they are actually delighting in cruelty about it. They actively tried to add RETROACTIVE interest charges to student loans as we reach the end of the pandemic loan freeze, on top of their efforts to make it virtually impossible to have loans forgiven for public service.
Young people are less religious than ever, while the right wing is using the court to turn us into a theocracy.
Young people have progressive attitudes about LGBTQ rights, and the Republicans are centering their 2024 campaign on a contest of how bigoted they can be in this area.
While I agree with all this, the issue is that young people in general are also some of the least likely to go vote. Who cares if you lose the support of a block who isn’t going to vote anyways.
We’re seeing a slow rise in voter participation but even in one of our most active elections ever (midterms 2022 had a whopping 52% participation!), <35% of eligible youth (18-29) actually voted compared to ~58% of 45-64 and ~68% of 65+.
It’s really sad to think about where we could be if just 50% of the youth range had voted in 2020 and 2022, might have had Dems in control of both the house and senate.
Source: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/new-voter-turnout-data-from-2022-shows-some-surprises-including-lower-turnout-for-youth-women-and-black-americans-in-some-states/
Young people have jobs
Old people are retired.
Voting is on a Tuesday.
One of the underlying reasons for turnout is pretty simple.
Add in that’s why they’re against Mail in voting and making voting day a national holiday like most other countries.
They’re trying to speedrun oligarchy and theocracy, legalize more gerrymandering, and consolidate power because they’re slowly losing votes, and that means this is the best chance they’ll have, for the rest of their party’s existence.
It’s even worse than that. In my state, some polling places are in the lobby of retirement/nursing homes. My polling place is. I have to drive/bike a mile to vote while Gertrude can just roll her Rascal scooter into the elevator and go vote for the loudest person on her TV.
In quite a few states, including mine, we have a pamphlet sent out with all of the people you’re voting for, a picture of them, and their statement of what they’re going to do. You can vote any time and drop it off or mail it in by a certain date to be sure it gets there. You get a tab that has a bar code on it to check if it got there. Every state should have this, this should be federally mandated.
Edit: Also, you can vote naked and in bed.
Yes - Vote by Mail is an absolute win for democracy. It’s no secret why the GOP rabidly opposes it.
That said: It’s also difficult to demand at a federal level.
The US Constitution delegates running of elections to the States, though it does allow Congress to claw back that delegation “by appropriate legislation.” You saw some of that regulation in various things like the Voting Rights Act. Congress, if it had the political will, could pass laws to declare how elections are run in all 50 states.
It would be a hard-fought battle, though, and eventually end up in the Supreme Court, which, these days, would laugh, rule 6-3 against it, and say, “Whatta gonna do 'bout it?”
The realistic solution is the long-term one. Everyone needs to vote, not once every 4 years, but in every election, and especially local elections. City, County, and State elections matter more. These are the races that govern your day-to-day lives. Stop electing Republicans to local offices and start electing people who respect our form of government and have, at least, a modicum of honesty, or enough shame to keep their corruption under wraps were we don’t have to know about it.
I agree with everything you said, but honestly we have to try. If we try for the federal level, then everyone will at least know about it. I don’t think some states know enough to fight for it.
Fkn vote like your life depends on it. It does. Call on sick if you have to.
deleted by creator
Which means exactly nothing in an at-will work environment like most states in the US
What? Voting is on a tuesday. Why on earth is that?
historic reasons. Of course one party will definitely fight tooth and nail against any attempt to change that
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/7
Because that’s when the law says
last daysit is.It’s Tuesday because a bunch of farmers had to travel a long way (2+ days) to the town for polls, and we can’t have them miss church on Sunday.
edit: never trust mobile autocorrect
It’s always on a Tuesday.
deleted by creator
There are absolutely people who are prevented from voting if the location is too far and they don’t have a car. That’s part of the argument that voting locations shouldn’t be at college campuses. Students there are much less likely to have a car and therefore can’t go very far. One politicians argument was literally that the college students would roll out of bed, vote, and go back to sleep.
Closing polling locations and forcing mass amounts of people to use one location is also a valid reason. Not getting time off is a valid reason. A lot of people in the restaurant service industry work double shifts days in a row, especially in management rolls that can easily add up to the entire early voting period. Disallowing bussing from churches does disenfranchis people, primarily POC, which is the point.
There’s a reason Republican politicians enact these things. Because they do prevent people from voting.
I’m sick of Democrats whining about young people. They’ve literally never voted at high rates, the fact they you’re even entertaining the idea of 50% turnout is pure fantasy.
The fact is that zoomers vote at higher rates than every other recent generation did at the same age. We wouldn’t have won 2020 without them.
It’s almost like some people are trying to depress turnout with how much pointless whining they do about everyone under the sun… except the DNC and incompetent establishment leadership of course. Somehow low turnout is never their fault.
Why wouldn’t I complain about my fellow peers being slacktivists and not voting? I vote. I encourage my peers to vote. But so many can’t be bothered and then turn around and complain when the GOP wins and passes shit/blocks good legislation. I refuse to be content with <35% turnout just because it’s better than the past. It’s not enough to outvote the older generation which trends conservative, so it’s not enough for me.
Bitch about the DNC suppressing just about all truly progressive candidates who would be more likely to get out the younger vote. It’s not like voting takes place (or doesn’t take place as it may be) in a vacuum.
Oh 100%. I wanted Bernie so bad and won’t forgive them for what they did in 2016 or 2020.
But bitching about the DNC suppressing progressive candidates and bitching about young voters not voting are not mutually exclusive activities. Pretty easy to do both.
Even if people are turned off by the modern DNC, the alternative are fascists. By not voting you’re indirectly supporting the fascists. That’s why we ended up with 4 years of Trump and then barely a majority for the Senate. Now we’ve lost the house. If dem voters could see the bigger picture and hold their nose and vote, we would be in a much better place to be pushing for progressive policy instead of just trying to defend basically civil rights.
Best solution is to go to the voters physically and get them registered. Setting up on college campuses with local voting groups or even setting events in high schools who are going to have people turning 18 for voters groups.
It sure looks like Republicans care a lot about making it harder for them to vote. Wonder why, since Democrats keep saying they don’t vote. That certainly couldn’t be a bogus justification for not supporting progressive policy that would appeal to younger voters, could it?
They’re fascists. Their only goal is to seize power at any cost. Future elections may be the only chance to stop this, honestly.
Their wont be future elections once they have consolidated power. The problem isnt just the republicans being fascists. It is also the democrats appeasing them and being happy with their economic policies. From the outside the US elections look like a choice between outright fascists, and a far right party with lgbt rights.
As long as the incitors and enablers of the 6th of january insurrection are still not in jail, because prosecutors are too afraid of angering them, then you will lose. You cannot win in an election against the violent criminals that don’t recognize election results. You can only win by prosecuting them for their crimes and tucking their leaders away for good.
Conservatives didn’t start out aiming for fascism, it came upon them by short sightedness and history.
Their ideals are dying and their voters are dying. They’ve painted themselves into a corner where any concession is a voter death warrant. And it’s one hell of a downward spiral. (Same goes for religion, but that’s another topic.)
None of them view themselves as fascists, but fascist strategy is all they have left. They don’t know this, they’re just going for what works in the short-term. Used to laugh about it. But now that the cornered animal is fighting back, it ain’t so funny.
I had thought maybe they would back up the truck a bit, given their tanking poll numbers over the last 2 decades. Instead they fought back, doubled down. Liberals have an opponent with nothing to lose, and that’s scary.
And take this from an older guy, in some respects liberals are moving too fast, demanding too much. Humans take time to integrate new ideas and ways of life. Go too fast and they get reactive, fight back like we’re seeing. Yes, even if we have sensible, moral and obvious ideas, we gotta slow it up a bit. I could go on about that for pages.
Anyhow, this is the most important thing I’ve ever read regarding our differences. Yeah, it’s Cracked.com, but there is wisdom to be had. No one can argue that it’s a bad idea to understand your enemy, right? (And I use “enemy” very loosely here.)
https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about
Removed by mod
Maybe Republicans can inspire young voters to vote against them, since Democrats consider appealing to young voters to be beneath them.
Joe Biden is at least trying to do SOMETHING to reduce student debt.
Not enough, but something.
He is indeed. Biden is persevering on both student debt and sick days for rail workers. I’ll not fault him for either. Both are commendable. He needs to crow a lot louder about both. Particularly the sick days, since everyone got to see Biden the strikebreaker and too few people even know about the sick days.
He’s not only trying, he’s trying again. He’s not just giving up forever after encountering one little setback.
I wish more Democrats would show the same level of persistence.
I am sorry I had trouble getting over Biden saying interracial marriage is wrong, like what did he do for me? Oh not be Trump? Like its feeling like people vote for whatever, i know soooooo many people who would vote for Trump over Biden, but voting Kanye is just stupid 🙄
When did Biden say that? I haven’t been able to find a source.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/joe-biden-record-on-busing-incarceration-racial-justice-democratic-primary-2020-explained.html Lol my downvotes show how right I was, choosing between geriatric racists is more normal than voting Kanye because hes “crazy”. People will see dogwhistles in everything but where they actually are.
You claimed he was against interracial marriage. The article you linked never mentions it.
You were lying.
There’s a lot to bitch about as far as Biden goes, which makes it even more weird when people make up fake shit to be outraged about. I felt the same about Clinton.
You are not “insert race here” if you do not vote for Biden, enjoy your platform
Counterargument to this, from the viewpoint of the gqp:
America is getting older, so the boomer vote ends up counting more. Young people don’t vote.
While I agree those that vote are getting older. The reason young people don’t vote has nothing to do with not wanting to vote, it’s the GOP constantly change the rules and places of voting.
Young people not voting has been a cliche forever. This really is nothing new, unfortunately. Its actually been getting better in recent elections but still is one 50%of 18-25 which is low. And republicans know this.
Fascism is a suicide cult. All forms are ultimately self-destructive because it’s an irrational exploitation of humanity’s tribal instincts. Your brain’s default mode is ‘ingroup good, outgroup bad.’ What people naturally do with language and reasoning is justify those beliefs by working backwards. They’ll stick the word “because” in the middle. That’s not the same thing as having an argument… or an opinion. It’s a slogan. It’s signalling to other members of the tribe, so they’ll rally and fight, instead of backing down or splitting off.
I’m continually in awe at how somebody can still insist climate change is a hoax in 2023 💀 Like damn you haven’t even moved onto the downplaying stage you still think it’s outright not real?
Yeah, considering you can pretty much feel the effects almost everywhere on the planet these days, it’s an absurd position lmao.
Even if I knew nothing about climate change, I would have noticed the stark differences in summers and winters. Even if you weren’t paying attention at all, you were bound to notice something. Sometimes it has been too drastic, and too unprecedented, to just ignore.
Meteorologists get the weather wrong all the time. All the time.
When did we start talking about the weather?
Extrapolate what I said into whatever you’ve been told about weather patterns and climate change.
This is some ignorant shit right here.
This is what happens when you drop out of school.
I mean, if anything meteorologists being bad at predicting weather patternsnisnproof of climate change fucking up standard weather patterns.
That’s not how logic works son.
Climate change is a hoax. It’s ridiculous to think we can destroy mother nature when we did not create the climate system and certainly have no control over it. It’s really simple. The earth has been alive longer than we have been in existence.
And nowhere in your sentence is a real argument. Your just saying, all of this was here long before us, so its impossible for us to destroy it. An old tree was there long before me. It’s still possible for me to destroy it.
I think there are scientists way knowledgable than you and me combined on matters climate change that think it’s not real but am not hear to persuade you into any line of thinking. Believe whatever you want to believe.
You realize that virtually all climate scientists agree climate change is real and human caused? NASA says so. Either you’re a troll or not paying attention.
You clearly haven’t done enough research on the topic.
You’re either a troll or you’ve had your brain freshly Zambonied, either way you’re not worth the effort to debate.
Stay in school kids or your brain becomes swiss cheese as seen above.
I didn’t create your arm, and I don’t control it, but I can absolutely break it.
I love simple answers to solutions too but this is a terrible example. Besides if my arm breaks today, it will revive itself back to form after a few months.
Found the fox news viewer
Please explain how we can add colossal amounts of CO2 and methane to the atmosphere but it has no effect. Are CO2 and methane chemically inert?
You may think you sound smart but I promise you, you haven’t even began to scratch the surface with that explanation.
I don’t think I sound smart, I would like an explanation please.
We are all waiting on your explanation. Lack of doing so shows your lack of education and you should admit you are wrong.
This right here. This is why the mods allow misinformation.
Good thing we are not on Reddit.
reddit also welcomes misinformation.
I’ll point out that you didn’t object when I correctly identified your misinformation as such.
No they don’t.
And, it’s not misinformation if it’s true that climate change/action esp the action part is a big lie and a hoax.
Yes, it’s practically all reddit is for anymore.
And since it’s false, you’re spreading misinformation.
Nope. I just haven’t bought the lie. You can call that whatever you want to call it. But that’s it.
Whether you buy the lies you’re spreading doesn’t matter. You’re still spreading them.
Provide proof to back up your point.
Yeah, just like basically a month of record high temperatures and more people dying of heat incidents than ever.
The bigger issue is the predatory nature of these loans and exhorbidant and exploitive interest rates.
What does that have to do with the original point 3?
Until they aren’t allowed to vote or exist right?
Nothing new. We have had heat waves way before the word 'climate change’s was even coined.
Cancelling student loans doesn’t fix this issue.
Google the meaning of the word.
This is nonsensical and you know it.