YoBuckStopsHereBiden confronts a 'pissed-off generation' of young voters who may be decisive in 2024
HazdazYeah, 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?
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.
Marianne Williamson
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.