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.
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.
There is no “free speech and the internet” as free speech is a right granted by select governments. What you are saying isn’t free speech, it’s actually showing a lack of education and possibly a mental health issue or brain damage.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Middle aged people turn out to vote and they also have jobs. You do not have an excuse for not voting unless you are physically prevented, eg your town placed voting machines on the second floor of a building with no stairs and you are in a wheel chair, or because it is your conscious choice to not support either candidate.
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.
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?
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.
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 🙄
nymag.com/…/joe-biden-record-on-busing-incarcerat…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.
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.
There is no lie, I just don’t have a soundbite for you, please tell who you would vote for? And/or your opinion on Kanye West, the whole start of this convo, because I think its insane people rather fight for status quo than real change like how someone defending Biden’s racism might be interpreted as bootlicking, or worse suggesting Trump is better cause he isnt Biden.
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.)
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.
The medium term goal is to get rid of voting entirely
bush 2 was the revelation. They don’t even need to gerrymander to manipulate the electoral college if they can just get it in front of a court that will side with them. trump was openly counting on that but couldn’t even run a close enough race to take it to the courts. And that is why they are continuing to do everything they legally can get away with to insist on “election fraud” and the like. Same with insisting “the United States is not a democracy, it is a republic”.
And because so many Democrats continue to rather re-litigate Bernie 2016 rather than focus on local elections? It is just a matter of time.
College towns aren’t even changing. Republicans are sprinting towards christian nationalist fascism and the people with any exposure to people slightly different than themselves (like near college towns) aren’t falling for the lies perpetuated by rightwing social media and fox news.
Enrollment in colleges and universities, as far as I understand, has gone way down. Every university in my state has dropped enrollment by about 15% over the last 10 years. I’ve read that roughly 50% of colleges and universities in the US are expected to go bankrupt and close in the next 10 or 20 years due to this little thing called the internet.
A lot of younger people do not feel the need to go get a college degree when much of the material and certifications can now be secured through online courses.
Also, college is no longer needed for IT, we can start to treat it like a trade. “Computer Scientist” and “Information Technologist” are very clearly different things now that computers are such a commonplace thing.
I absolutely agree. There seems to be very little incentive for colleges and universities, and even community colleges, from keeping their tuition and cost at a reasonable level. Tuition in the United States I believe has outpaced inflation by something like 700% over the last 20 years.
Universities have spent a lot of money investing in shiny new non-academic facilities, like sports arenas and administrative buildings, when their core mission should have been addressed.
The other pressure that his increased tuition is the fact that the federal government would guarantee all of the student loans that an 18-year-old would need to float in order to graduate college. And unfortunately, now we have millions of Americans who are stuck and long-term debt that may last their entire life. These colleges and universities have largely taken advantage of their students by assuming that they have an infinite tolerance for debt…
Idk man I think there’s reasons why personalities like Andrew Tate get attention. There’s young men that relate to him.
Not saying I agree but just pointing out people should be mindful that there’s probably an equal and opposite force for every blue voting area or trend in the US.
I’m certainly willing to hear that and entertain the prospect but I’d consider it banter otherwise. Tate has a documented pyramid scheme that incentivizes young people to sell some product and sign up that he profits from.
As far as the classic ideals of what a man is and Tate pushing that, my point was that I think there is a demographic of young men 13-30 that hear his messaging and use it as a place of rationalizing far right leaning conservative views. I’d even go as far as it’s young impressionable men that are hearing it maybe during their college days - that would otherwise be swing voters.
I got a buddy that works in construction for example that loves Tate but votes blue. However a lot of views Tate has align with Trump or DeSantis campaign points. If you want to correlate that with Russia given Trump’s relationship with Putin, I’d buy that.
That’s gonna be tough. Saying this as a recent M.S. graduate of a FL university, I got the hell out. I’m starting a PhD program very soon, but there’s absolutely no way I’m doing it in a state where I’m reasonably worried that the next piece of legislation is going to result in Desantis’ brownshirts arresting me for thought crimes. Red states are dangerous places for academics.
Every non GOP person needs to leave these dangerous states and then we do all the things to the remaining GOP populace that speaking of violate the T.O.S. of this site / forum.
The US also needs to rethink the way the electoral college works. Cos those GOP states still have ability to set federal law that apply to all.
I’ve been rather hoping that Cali starts to discuss secede from the union (I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find one the the far right states tried to do it first).
Are they really though? Everyday there is a new “GOP IS LOSING!” article but they are still restricting abortion, attacks LGBT people, and changing curriculums to racist dog shit
are they losing or do we just say that to make ourselves feel better about doing nothing about the encroaching fascism?
I feel like they’re losing in a sense that the old generation is dying out and are afraid of the younger new generations making a move. They’re winning in the sense that it’s way easier to manipulate people through the Internet and social media than ever.
It was the mishaps of the internet effect and social media, being inherently hierarchical and non-democratic, “owners” of virtual space dictating communication to be a-political, under the preface that people get along when they are a-political. It is the same generation that you see as winning to be the motor for losing. The reason you can’t develop democracy on the internet is that “the internet” doesn’t exist over public space but is solely built on private space (land or wire doesn’t matter). It is always the host, not the tenants, that place the rules for being on or off.
The age-polarization was a dillemma for many generations it was always a false polarization. Unless you would consider an anarchist/libertarian community of equals participating in decision processes, all hierarchical systems of organization will float the elders to the top and youth to serve in the bottom. Whether it is GOP, or a communist party, a club, or anything else, when do you find anyone young at the top. And by what means do you expect that someone younger will be more democratic, and less of a fascist?
Little column A, little column B. They’re losing the demographic war, and if the trend continues without any outside influence, they are a dying party. Because of that, they’re resorting to fascism to hold onto power with a dwindling minority. That is, their dwindling power in a fair system is leading them to turn to more drastic measures to retain power. We’re watching them take off the fig leaf of acting as if they are bound by laws and norms.
Does the “demographic war” mean a damn thing when they can still push their agendas with no resistance? Would it mean anything when the VAST majority of cops and service members support them? It feels nice to be the popular kids but does it mean a damn thing in the end
Well, that’s kind of the point. If something isn’t done to stop their fascist power grab, then no, it means nothing. But, the important thing is to realize that anti-fascism is still the majority, even if it has no power.
Also, quick edit to add that it’s important to remember that the military is a class-based system. The majority of the service members who are Republicans are enlisted, i.e., of the lower class. The officer corps, the ones who actually make decisions, is more evenly split. In fact, if I remember correctly, there’s a slight majority of officers who are Democrats. I’d wager the reason for that is that officers are required to have a college degree, and there is a correlation between education and party alignment.
With the democratic party moving as far to the right as it had, there was little room for the rep.party to move to, other than where it is now.
This is the US political system’s reaction to the popular uprising of the Trump years, the transition of Occupy-xyz to BLM … It is like America of the 30s reacting and ending in the AmeriKKKa of the 50s.
One thing that the American left has way overlooked is the power over 80% of the population that Sunday morning propaganda and indoctrination has. Zombies like Biden can be drawn out of the alter closets and dropped as saviors of a crisis.
The health of the democratic tendencies of the US was evaluated by the revolution the Snowden revelations created. Since there was none, consider the corpse cold and stiff.
And that’s the reason they’re fighting so hard now. They know it’s a matter of time when even the lines on a map that have benefitted them so heavily start to erode as all the GOP diehards just die easy from old age.
The GOP isn’t a party that really gains traction. Old people die off. As people age they’re not becoming conservative at the rate they used to. It’s not an attractive proposition to join a party that has hated you most of your life and is filled with reprehensible people
So there fighting hard now while they still can. They’re putting on judges barely out of college who will be there forever. Rigging voting laws. Ignoring voting maps.
Power is there goal and they’re holding on as long as it’s possible.
They’re even trying to change the laws to stop the inevitable collapse of their shitty shrinking party. Trying to give states the right to basically throw an entire federal election because they know they’re going to lose.
30% of 18-29 year olds voted in the last election, while almost 70% of seniors (65+) voted.
So this article might be claiming that Republicans are losing a war against college towns, which basically is a war against young people, but if those young people don’t bother to vote, it can’t be that big of a loss for the GOP.
That’s true, but you also have to consider that the 65+ block is a smaller chunk of the population, currently pegged at 16.8% whereas 18 to 44 accounts for 35.9%. The moves the GOP are making are definitely upsetting the 30-somethings too, especially since they have been on the student loan treadmill for over a decade in a lot of cases. Depending on where you look (my quick glance was from Pew) the millennial voting block was roughly equal to the 65+ in sheer count. It just makes zero logical sense to keep pushing way past the point of diminishing returns on trying to get more of the boomer vote at the cost of nearly every other demographic.
It just makes zero logical sense to keep pushing way past the point of diminishing returns on trying to get more of the boomer vote at the cost of nearly every other demographic.
And yet that is what the GOP is doing because they know seniors are a dependable block that will go out and vote for them.
Based on your numbers, seniors represent roughly 50M people and when 70% of them vote, that’s 35M people. And a whole hell of a lot of them are Red.
18-44 year olds represent 108M people, but if only about 30% of them vote, then that’s only 32M people. That is less than what the seniors represent at the polls but more importantly, I guarantee you that there are FAR more divisions in that younger group than there are with Seniors. A FAR lower percentage of them vote Blue.
So by the math, what Republicans are doing is the right thing to do simply because young people just don’t vote. Americans are our own worst enemy.
That may be true, but what the article was really trying to point out was how increases in these college areas (and therefore college aged voters) is starting to make a big difference. The example they gave was that, at least in the most recent election, the area around Madison used to cancel out the red suburbs around Milwaukee, but now Madison is so strongly liberal that they out weigh those suburbs and therefore tip the scales in favor of Dems. If this trend continues, and if the Dems can replicate it in other swing states (big “if”), then it could change the way politics are played in America.
They want a whole separate nation. People are even actively relocating to rural areas to “get out of woke blue states”, just like people are fleeing red. It’s surreal to watch, and I can’t take my eyes off the train wreck that is American society.
I can’t blame people for leaving states that use the apparatus of government to enforce bigotry.
I know that’s why Republicans are so keen to enforce bigotry in the first place, but I can’t blame people for going places where they won’t be oppressed.
There’s a 30 acre plot of woods for sale behind my house. Somebody should buy it and sell 1 square foot blocks of it to people for something like $5 each.
Yeah, I know it’s not truly viable, but it would be awesome if it worked as a tactic to land ownership clauses.
There’s been a not-single-digit amount of arguments from the right lately that only people that pay taxes should have a vote because they’re the ones putting skin into the game.
Its like no one on the right ever picked up a history book.
We did all this already. We decided as a nation that it was dumb and moved on.
If all taxpayers can vote then a lot of young people who can’t currently vote would become eligible. Also, so would most non-citizens, including undocumented immigrants. What conservatives don’t realize is that most undocumented immigrants pay taxes (and generally get back less than they pay).
I think that the idea is likely those who have a net payment into taxes, rather than having it covered with credit or deduction. That might backfire though due to ultra wealthy tax avoidance.
I thought I read over a decade ago the main strategy in Republican campaigns is to convince young people to just not vote. As it’s easier to convince someone not to do anything than it is to convince someone to do something for you.
That’s why they like to promote the message that the Democrats are inherently ineffective as a party. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if they’re never given real power.
Which is funny because the parallel narrative is that the democrats are an evil manipulating government force hell-bent on destroying America. But then again the GOP is big on projection…
It’s amazing how often I see democrats blamed for Republican policy as well. “WHY DIDN’T THE DEMS PREVENT THIS!?” “Did you vote for them?” “NO! THEY FAIL TO STOP THE GOP FROM DOING GOP THINGS!” It’s baffling.
I mean, it’s both. Dems wouldn’t have to fix things if Repubs didn’t break them. BUT, Republicans exist, Republicans break things, and unfortunately the only other party is the one that has to fix those things.
Add comment