It’s much easier to get 65% turnout when it’s a candidate we can get excited about.
You might notice there are a ton of candidates on your ballot who aren’t running for president
Change starts from the bottom, not the top.
Young people aren’t voting = political parties seeing no reason to appeal to them.
Older generations vote, so politicians who appeal to older generations get promoted over ones who might otherwise have broad appeal.
Don’t complain about there being nothing but geriatric candidates if you’re only engaging in National level races and not taking part in local, regional and state elections that are spring boards for the younger politicians to rise up the ranks to get onto the national level.
You want to see change? Vote. In every election you’re eligible to vote in. And get all your friends and co-workers to do the same. Doesn’t matter if it’s for city council, school board or senate races. Just fucking vote.
when the dem party ran a candidate that young people liked, we went out and voted for him. so it’s not the young people’s fault that they don’t vote, it’s that the party doesn’t care enough to put forward a candidate that young people actually can get behind.
Not to defend dems strategy but look at 2010 for a prime example of what my post above was talking about. ACA is exactly what young voters wanted, what dems pushed for in 2008 and was exactly what GOP ran against in 2010. And in 2010, young voters didn’t show up, so all the congressional members who pushed it through got unseated by conservatives eager to rip it apart and stonewall anything else Obama did.
So yes, my point stands. It’s because young voters do not vote, especially not in midterm years between presidential elections that we aren’t getting politicians who appeal to the under 50-60 block. Because even when Dems go all out and give them everything they want, they still don’t show up at the polls to maintain momentum, and Dems lose a ton of ground. So can you blame them for making the choice between getting once in a generation power plays to change the status quo then go right back to letting GOP rip everything apart piecemeal and load the courts with conservative judges, or pick safer bet candidates who appeal to the ones who regularly turn out to vote even if progress only comes in bite sized changes they can slip through with aid of moderates and independents?
The math is there, you just have to look at the entire equation. GET OUT AND VOTE. EVERY ELECTION.
Not really? The highest turnout for under 25s over the last 58 years was… in 2020 (~50%), when it was literally the same matchup . And that’s still significantly lower than other age groups (62% 25-44, 71% 45+).
There was a small bump in 2008 (assuming you mean Obama), up to 49%. But in 2004 when John Kerry was the candidate the turnout was about 47% so not like. A huge change. And nobody remembers John Kerry.
Looking across the pond, in 2019 when Corbyn was head of the labor party and ran on a lot of lovely progressive issues, the turnout under 24s (they use slightly different brackets) was… Just over 50%
It kinda seems like young people just don’t vote at very high rates, period. So it doesn’t make a ton of sense to focus on them over other groups if you actually want to get elected and hold power.
Young people aren’t voting = political parties seeing no reason to appeal to them.
Older generations vote, so politicians who appeal to older generations get promoted over ones who might otherwise have broad appeal.
And that works great until the old farts start dying and the young people the party spent so long alienating don’t trust them for some fucking reason.
So the fun thing is that you get older every year. So does everyone around you. What seems to actually happen is that as younger voters age they realize that they should actually vote* – in 2000 32% of the 18-24 bracket voted. By 2020 those people are at the upper end of the 25-44 bracket [the census has wonky ranges], and 55% of them voted.
This trend has been going on back as far as there is data. There is no ‘until’.
And if those numbers seem really low to you - yeah they are. For comparison about 70% of people 64+ have voted every presidential election year, back to like the 80s. And it’s even worse for midterm years! In 2022 people 64+ voted at about a 2.5:1 rate to people under 25.
*in fairness there’s also the factor that as people age they tend to have more stable lives, more ability to take time off, etc. And there are states that DO make voting hard on purpose (notably all governed by the same party). Reasons why supporting early voting, mail in, mandatory time off, etc. Are all also very important. But in much of the US it’s not particularly difficult and people still don’t do it.
I’d agree but when the other candidate is Trump the excitement should be at max level for you, or I’ll have to think you have a secret agenda.
people have short attention spans. and the media circus isn’t helping Biden’s cause. I’ll hold my nose this time and vote biden, just like i did with hillary, but not everyone will do that. a lot of people are going to skip voting, and you shouldn’t blame them, you should blame the democratic party for not putting forward the best candidate for the job.
People are dumb, people are uneducated, people have short attention spans, people are undecided, but people also don’t know if they should vote in the face of a realistic takeover of the US by a fascist movement scenario. Maybe it’s time we take away democracy from people who are actively disengaging from it. Once Trump is president again, it will be too late. End him and everybody who follows him.
Its not secret. I want to dissolve the two party system and force the legacy political parties to compete in a free market of ideas. If they arent competitive because their muscles have weakened from long use of First Past The Post voting as a crutch… that’s on them.
His record is great, and the alternative is the end of democracy.
What more do you want
His record is great
i’m want to assume that you mean his record for the last 3 years because the last 51 years has been very bad; but even those 3 years were hit and miss.
but then again, if you only look at the last 3 years of his life, kissinger was a pretty good guy too.
the best thing biden has going for him is that he’s not trump. and that’s not sustainable.
I’ve heard this before. What do you people mean when you say “end of democracy”?
He’s on record as talking about not being restricted to a third term. SCOTUS has ruled that he can do no wrong, specifically in the context of him being brought to trial for asking for the vote to be rigged in his favour, but also for inciting armed insurrection against the United States government in order to keep him in power after the rules said he should go. He has talked, out loud, about being a dictator on day one and said that he should be allowed to order the death of people who oppose him. You could argue that Russia is a democracy, but the kind of “democracy” where political opponents are murdered and vote counts are changed in favour of the leader are better called dictatorships.
The thinking is that Trump will do something for the republicans to remain in power permanently.
Not clear what that something is.
Be “excited” about the prospect of trump.
Edit: /s or whatever. Vote blue or get trump.