YoBuckStopsHereRepublicans Are at War With College Towns. And They’re Losing.
flossdailyRepublicans 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 the 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.
New voter turnout data from 2022 shows some surprises, including lower turnout for youth, women, and Black Americans in some states
The 2022 midterm election results made plain that the predicted “red wave”—in which Republicans were expected to win by huge margins in the House of Representatives and take over the Senate—did not occur. In fact, Democrats gained an additional Senate seat, and while Republicans took control of the House, it was by a modest nine […]
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. Yet Dems still come on here and shit on them for God knows what reason.
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.
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.
TwoGemsBest 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.