https://www.teenvogue.com/story/heres-why-gen-z-voters-might-opt-out-in-2024
In a matchup between Biden and Trump, many young voters say they might choose silence.
In a matchup between Biden and Trump, many young voters say they might choose silence.
Fuck this strawman, every single (voting age) gen z person i know has already talked about voting in this election. Even if it’s just voting for “not trump”. When one candidate is actively claiming they will operate as a dictator “day one”, you have a lot of incentive to vote. Especially when you haven’t already been living with crushed dreams for decades.
Especially when you haven’t already been living with crushed dreams for decades.
Yeah, Democrats haven't worked their magic on Gen Z yet.
Refusing to vote for an imperfect candidate in order to stop a fascist takeover doesn't sound very smart. "We can't have our specialest most perfectest prezzy so lol get fukked every1."
Neither does ignoring their concerns and saying they should just vote for Biden because he's not trump.
It's true, and they should.
But we have literal decades of evidence showing that "what are you going to do, vote Republican ?" Is a bad strategy and if we want engagement we need to actually do things or at least try
Think of it this way
By the next election one choice isn't eligible anymore, and the second will likely be so buried under court cases he won't be able to.
So it's more of a "finish what was started" and hopefully by the next election we'll finally have some new people to worry about.
4 years is a long time...
And we literally just used that excuse 4 years ago and are going to have the exact two candidates...
And history shows we'll likely still have to pick between two elderly out of touch white men in another four years.
One will probably be actually evil again, and the other will likely think changing anything is too rash of a decision and things are changing to fast already.
The entire point of running for office is getting people to vote for you, that's why the party places so much importance on large corporate donations.
But when a moderate candidate can't get voters energized because they're too pro business and won't help Americans, suddenly it's the Americans fault.
Maybe we should re-evalute if "bringing millions from corporations and billionaires" is really more important in a candidate than "people like this person and want to vote for them".
We keep running historically unpopular candidates in the general and then getting mad they're not popular with voters.
Why keep doing it over and over again?
Why keep doing it over and over again?
Because these corrupt politicians deliver big time for their donors. For recent examples, just look at the massive $2 trillion in tax cuts for the rich and corporations Trump passed. That was pretty much his only legislative accomplishment. And then Biden made those cuts permanent. (Ok, not exactly, he raised them back up a small amount by closing a couple loopholes but not close to what they were pre-trump).
If the established power structure won’t allow outsiders to run, and the donors always get what they want, I ask this question instead:
Why would things ever change from here?
The problem is there's too many people hoping for the perfect candidate, who will champion their progressive vision, who will guide us into a utopian future. People want their vote to feel good.
But that's a pipe dream. That person only exists in fiction. Real politics is messy, because it's a group endeavor, and you will inevitably have to get your hands dirty if you want your voice heard, or else lose your voice to people who are glad you stayed silent.
That's a weird way to complain that voters want higher standards than:
I'm not trump!
Telling them they're wrong clearly isn't working, so again:
Why keep doing it over and over again?
Why not run a candidate voters like and/or identify with?
Why run geriatrics with decades of political experience if once elected they say that experience is worthless and they won't try to change congress's minds on any topic?
Why not elect a young progressive that will at least try and highlight the people fighting against helping the American people?
I honestly don't understand why the current DNC makes any sense....
Hey, I feel you. But I don't see what alternative we have. We can wish for something better, but like I once heard an author say, we will often lose on the way to progress, but that doesn't mean the progress isn't worth those losses.
Yeah, sure.
But in that quote they're still trying for progress...
Which is my point. We'd get more votes if we ran people that tried and failed than running people who say they can accomplish things during a campaign, then call voters uneducated in our political process when we complain they haven't even tried yet.
All we need to do is make realistic promises in what a candidate can do, and try for things even though we don't think it'll work.
Voters hate not trying, but we understand failure.
Nobody's gonna vote for a guy who says "I'm not going to be able to accomplish anything because we have an undemocratic system owned by big business." Because that's what Democratic candidates would have to say if they told the truth.
The party and a lot of politicians are...
But not the system as some abstract concept.
They'd just have to be willing to hold everyone accountable regardless of party.
If a Dem keeps voting against the platform or even worse preventing a vote behind the scenes, put em.on fucking blast.
Let the whole country know, shit isn't being accomplished by these people.
Exactly. Politics sucks. It always has and always will. Our system of government sucks and can't be changed. The only thing we get to choose from in the voting booth is "Bad" or "Worse."
The sooner kids realize this the more they'll be willing to participate in the fucked up system we're stuck with.
Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried...
To be fair the specific US system of democracy is a lot shittier than most other Western systems of democracy. There is a lot of reform that can and should be done on it.
The issue is that Gen Z has clocked onto "to what end?" The GOP is going to run a fascist in every presidential election for at least the next decade, maybe until the party collapses. This is the second election in a row where Gen Z has had to "suck it up because democracy is at stake." They're not idiots, they have a strong suspicion that they'll be told to suck it up again in the election after. Is it any surprise that they're not interested in a system that has told them to shut up and do as they're told?
Its especially rough to ask Gen Z to vote for the guy who amped up our oil production to record levels. We cant afford to wait 4 more years on climate and Biden doesn't give enough of a shit about the climate. He was utterly inadequate to the moment 4 years ago, and he hasn't gotten better. I'll still vote for him but centrists you've fucked us, thanks.
The problem is, I'm almost 40 and have been hearing this my whole life. And the Democrats keep moving further right.
So do Republicans, and there's still about a 50-50 split between in terms of voting power. It appears the median American voter has been moving right, as horrifying as that thought is.
And the Democrats keep moving further right.
That's not true at all. Quite the contrary in fact.
Biden is the most progressive US president in modern history. Maybe still not as progressive as you'd like, but nevertheless Democrats are slowly moving to the left, not right.
This is the thing with people who are too impatient for incremental progress. Progressives are, by definition, more progressive than the average. So when everyone else is not keeping pace with their ever-evolving standards they think those people are running backwards. And then they call for burning down the whole system because they want their cake now or else no one can have any ever.
They truly can't see how far things have actually come. Anyone who says the Democrats keep moving further right has no idea what the 20th century was like.
It's easy to not give a F when you live at home and work just to buy fun stuff for yourself.
So you mean everyone? Who doesn't live at home and doesn't buy fun stuff for themselves?
I walked into that one. Meant to say live with parents. And I did mean work just to buy fun stuff. It's different for a lot of young adults but I think most of their paychecks go towards recreation instead of necessities.
Okay, thank you for clarifying. I remember being young and having less responsibilities, I made significantly less money than I do now but nearly everything I made went towards recreation aside from my cell phone bill and saving for a car. I didn't actually start building a real savings till I was in my early 20's when I finally made enough to move out.
Anecdotal, I know, But I think it's important to keep in perspective that young adults are new to spending and saving, and because they're young and have no experience, we don't yet trust them with big responsibilities, so they get entry level, low paying jobs to start out with. They might not get savings options for retirement, and barely make enough to bother with it, honestly.
But being new to making money at that age, part of that process is learning to spend and save responsibly. That usually means a few years of just recreational spending and maybe a few minimal bills before reality sets in and they take on more responsibility. I don't think that's a bad thing, a lot of that recreational money from younger people props up all kinds of industries.
Would it be great if we all saved from a young age, Absolutely! The sooner the better. But at that age, young adults still gotta grow up a little bit before they really think about that stuff. And personally, I think they should take that extra freedom and lack of responsibility and spend it with their friends, before life and other responsibilities get in the way.
Nothing against their spending habits. I think it's good for your early experiences with working, usually poor, get offset by the fact more of that income is disposable. As you get older though you'll see less and less disposable income (as a percentage) and you pay greater attention how politics can affect your standard of living.
As a Canadian philosopher once noted:
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!
“The logic of not voting for Joe Biden in 2024 is that the Democratic Party is supposed to be accountable to young people and diverse communities.”
Such an adorable take. I used to think they were accountable, too. That they gave a shit what I thought and would do things that I approved of, or have a good reason not to. That voting actually sent a message.
Give this kid another decade and he'll be as hopeless as I am.
Then there's this guy:
“[I’ll say], ‘Hey, you want to buy a house after college, right? You want to have a good-paying job after you graduate, right? You want to be able to have access to health care?”
I really don't think voting is the best way to get these things. Especially when Democrats never talk about access to health care, just health "coverage."
What voting for Biden will get you is more boring government. That's about the only thing voting will get you that you actually want.
This kid actually gets it:
And then there’s the Electoral College. For Lillian, it’s difficult to feel like her vote matters in a state that has gone blue since 1980 and a rural county that generally swings red. "The whole [voting] thing is a symbolic gesture,” she says. “If we had a more direct voting system, I would participate more. The Electoral College is scum.”
Want people to think voting matters? Make their vote actually matter. Outside of swing states votes for president just become meaningless statistics, especially since you don't need the popular vote to win the election.
Will the silence be loud enough to create actual change in how the Democratic Party approaches the youth vote in future elections[?]
It never has been, and it never will be.
Dems not talking about healthcare is kinda not true is it? The US has the ACA and coverage means expanding who has access to the ACA and at what tarrifs.
The ACA was supposed to have a public option. But the health insurance companies got Lieberman to kill that. Now whenever I hear a Democratic politician talk about health care it’s about making sure everyone has “coverage.”
Pay very close attention when you hear them talking and you’ll hear it. But people don’t need health insurance, they need health care. And the coverage Dems keep pitching often gets between people and care.
But the health insurance companies got Lieberman to kill that.
It was designed to be jettisoned from the beginning. Lieberman was just the rotating villain at the time.
If you listened to Democratic politicians you'd think everybody loves their health insurance company and wants to have one. I just want to go to the doctor when I get sick and not go bankrupt. I want people with chronic conditions to get the things they need without fighting a company they're paying hundreds of dollars a month to.
Health insurance is a rent-seeking industry that massively inflates our health care spending while making that care have worse outcomes. But Democrats keep insisting we want health coverage and not health care. When someone asks them about health care they immediately use "health coverage" in their response.
Its infuriating and I hate that I have to vote for these people.
I don’t believe the kids will abandon their own future but human are dumb as. Fuck when it comes to emotional decision making so who can say
It isn't just Gen Z. My own parents are tired of the bullshit, lesser of two complete won't do fuck all for Americans and are talking about opting out of 2024 because they don't want an old guy doing not a lot of them in middle America but don't want to vote for a criminal racist either.
That was a fun conversation about how you don't have to like the old guy, I don't really either, but fuck me if you'll roll over and let a literal fucking Nazi in the office by not voting for ineffective.
As a leftist, it's important to accept that the Dems will never, ever, ever move to the left unless there's massive grassroots organization such as Unionization and Socialists winning local elections.
People who abstain from voting as protest, however, still think ironically that voting is anything other than loss prevention. If everyone sits out and protests, literally everyone on the Dem side and Trump wins in a landslide, and Trump manages to keep elections for 2028, the Dems still won't move to the left.
That's why voting as a leftist is about loss prevention, rather than gaining material change. The movement leftward comes from upsetting the entire 2 party process by flipping the table itself. Mass Unionization and taking of key seats is exactly how you (non-violently) upset the process and force concessions or enable third party to be theoretically viable.
Until then, however, any leftist not voting Dem in the federal election is sorely misguided.
I agree completely, and I'd argue that the consistent inability of the youth to mobilize at any point in the past 100 years has been a major contributing factor that keeps the Democrats from caring much what they think. For better or worse, if you abstain, you prove that you're not worth the effort. Every time they try something big like MTV's Rock the Vote campaign in the 1990s, they get burned by the lowest youth turnout in the modern era. Obama targeted Millennial voters hard, but it turns out his victories had more to do with swaying young voters than driving more turnout. Midterm youth turnout literally never gets much above 30%, and 2018 was the first time Millennials got even close to the turnout of boomers and Gen Xers.
When the left sits out, the right wins. And when voters sit out, parties leave them behind. Political parties will chase likely voters every single time, and if you're not a voter, your opinion doesn't even register to the leaders of this country. How even could it, if you don't participate?!
The inability to move the needle on student loan forgiveness and school shootings is going to hurt him to some degree.
But at the same time, it's not like Trump is going to even ATTEMPT to do anything about student loans or school shootings.
We need to be clear with non-voters, the issues that are driving you to sit out are not the issues you should be worried about.
Joe Biden is selling weapons to Israel! Yes, weapons they don't actually need to commit the war crimes they are committing.
Meanwhile Trump:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/16/politics/trump-american-jews-israel/index.html
"No President has done more for Israel than I have."
Here's what you should be worried about:
Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are both well past retirement age. Trump could very well ask them to step down so he can appoint someone younger.
He already did that with Justice Kennedy.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/donald-trump-justice-anthony-kennedy-retirement
That would give Trump 5 picks on the Supreme Court and lock in a dystopian nightmare of rulings for the rest of our lives.
How has he been unable to move the needle on student loan forgiveness when substantial amount of loans have already been forgiven and more are in the works? Not being able to forgive 100% of them counts as being 100% unable to do any of it?
This is only the most recent one
the only way that effort will continue is if Biden or another Dem is in office because there’s no way the GOP will help.
You’re absolutely right, a LOT of Biden’s wins people act like it didn’t happen, and if it did and wasn’t exactly what they hoped for it’s trash, etc.
Conservatives can do no wrong to their base, but dems must be perfection or they’re just as bad to a lot of d voters
Pretty much. They’ve been litigating the issue and doing what they can within the constraints they have, but apparently it amounts to nothing to entitled people.
Well yeah, conservatives are screeching lunatics who are incapable of rational thought. It's great that most supporters of the Democrat party are critical of its many, many shortcomings and failings. I don't think the issue is that Dems demand "perfection," it's that we want to see change. In my mind, erasing small pockets of student loan debt is one of the worst ways to invigorate your base, because the only people who are excited by that are the ones who just got their loans forgiven. I'm sure those people view Biden's efforts as very successful, but you can certainly understand why all the ones who haven't had any forgiveness think the program is a failure.
Maybe, just maybe, if instead they were trying to systematically make higher education more affordable by changing regulations, thus reducing the need for federal student loans in the first place, people would be more generally positive. To my knowledge, there has been no work in that space by the Biden administration.
In my mind, erasing small pockets of student loan debt is one of the worst ways to invigorate your base, because the only people who are excited by that are the ones who just got their loans forgiven.
Centrists in his own party didn't want debt forgiveness. Kept arguing that the President couldn't forgive student debt via executive order. Biden listened to progressives and forgave student debt broadly, like you and I both want. The Supreme Court shot it down, using arguments that centrists helpfully spent months providing them. If Biden had acted like most Democrats at this point, he would have given up forever on the issue, announced he tried, and dusted off his hands in satisfaction of a job not done.
Biden didn't do that. He moved on to forgiving what he could using the methods at his disposal. He didn't give up. He's done what I would have expected from an actual progressive in the same circumstances. Not gonna lie, it helps that it was blocked by the illegitimate conservative Supreme Court. Debt forgiveness has not been blocked by Biden's own party (for once. yet.), but I suspect that's due more to lack of opportunity than anything else.
In any event, I do not fault Biden on this. He did the right thing and continues to do the right thing.
The improvements that have been made apply to a TINY minority of people and even in that group, they may not qualify. On top of that, continuing to ask people to pay isn't REALLY "forgiveness" now, is it?
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/16/how-to-qualify-for-bidens-fast-tracked-student-loan-forgiveness.html
"The SAVE option reduces the monthly federal student loan payments for undergraduate borrowers from 10% of discretionary income to 5%, and shortens the timeline to forgiveness for those with small balances from the usual required 20 years or 25 years. Those who took out $12,000 or less in their undergraduate or graduate postsecondary studies get any remaining debt erased after just a decade."
So:
We're still going to ask you to pay, you just have to pay 5% of your income instead of 10%.
If you took out student loans less than $12K (who DOES that?) the debt can be erased after 10 years instead of 20 to 25 years.
That's not forgiveness. That's not what people are looking for.
There's a Gen Z kid that I was talking to who said she liked Trump because he's so funny and crazy, and that was literally as much as she knew about him, just the stupid antics. I was horrified, like, "You've got to be kidding?" I hope I did a good job explaining how bad he was for the country, but sometimes I wonder about the kids today. Get off my lawn.
How politically aware were you at 18-20-something years old? All I remember from my first vote was Bush sounds like a cowboy, and I'm not into cowboys. Gore was the familiar one, and he and Clinton didn't seem too bad during my childhood, so I voted for him. I was way too busy trying to get high and laid to think much deeper than that. I'm sure today's kids are still into that, plus the added stress and depression of growing up in this modern world. I am so glad social media and a constant connection weren't a thing until I hit adulthood.
I didn't realize the consequences of someone's vote until we invaded Iraq for....reasons. I too thought it was a game that would never affect me personally.
I was extremely politically aware when I was 20. I was involved in activism and political organizations and all that stuff.
And that's where I met the leftists, and like every leftist, I found them extremely annoying. So no more political activism for me now, just... you know, voting the right way and getting into the occassional argument with fashy friends and family, like normal people do.
I see your point, though. People tend to think nobody gets convinced of anything because they are set in their ways, but the normies just get the vaguest echoes and politically active people just don't get a good view of what's going on.
If you don't vote, you may lose the opportunity next time. Fascists don't exactly like democratic voting systems.
Politics is messy. This just sounds like a bunch of over-privileged naive people who are afraid to get their hands a little dirty.
Your vote isn't a valentine, it's a chess move.
I blame the whole “voting changes things” culture. We tell kids that voting and politics means something and then when they learn how it actually works they get disheartened.
If we lower their expectations I bet they would vote more. Drop the idea that government will be responsive and filled with intelligent statesmen. Forget about any sort of relief or change. Vote for the one who will make politics boring. Vote because these idiots don't know anything and couldn't govern their way out of a paper bag.
Voting clearly does change things. It's how we got Trump, and he changed a lot of things for the worse. It's how Texas got Greg Abbott and Florida got Ron DeSantis, both people who've been changing things a lot.
Maybe you can't get the charges you really want, but it's just as important to prevent bad changes.
Oh yeah, telling people, "Oh don't worry, nothing will change and we will head endlessly into the climate change cliff! Your future is fucked and nobody cares to enact change, all you can do is creep further into corporate dystopia while voting for people who do nothing to stop it." Great plan, I'm sure that will galvanize young voters.
I mean, if you want to tell them differently, how do you expect they'll react once they know that what you're telling them is a lie?
Sounds much more like propaganda to sow intergenerational infighting (and it's working), to me.
The whole "boomer" rhetoric was that kind of propaganda as well. It is all effective means to divide and conquer voting blocs who, regardless of age, should be united against Republicans, and it works very well.
"For nothing." Lol.
Yeah, surely they're not trying to remove him for clearly and obviously violating the 14th Amendment, which bars insurrectionists from office. Or trying to put him in prison for stealing top secret documents, lying about having them when the National Archive requested he return them multiple times, showing them to people without clearance, and trying to systematically cover up evidence that he had them. Or asking the Georgia Secretary of State to "find him" the votes he needed to win in 2020.
Bruh, the fuck are you on?
The fun part about people like you is that literally TREASON is not a reason to not vote for him. Which is why we have laws against that shit.
Who cares if he sold state secrets to Saudi Arabia, possibly endangering American lives. He seems like a stand up guy to me!
Literally violated some of the biggest laws in the country. So blatantly that literally everyone saw it.
"For nothing"
I don't know where you get your information, but I guarantee it's a terrible source. You think the fascists are opposing fascism, and that the people who tried to do a coup to steal democracy did nothing wrong.
Every time I see articles like this it just reminds me of 30 rock.
I wonder what billionaire feudalism propaganda servitor ordered this article written? Someone from the WalMart clan? Koch Bros? Who?
I guess it's just easier to blame the boomers for the state the country is in, comparing to bothersome things like exercising your right to choose. Kids. Go figure.
And them not seeing that having the right to even abstain is at threat.There may not be another election next time.
Young voters are going to make both parties hate them like we did when we voted in Obama. That was a great time. Watching dems and cons alike be low key racist for 8 years was such a huge reveal.
Let’s do it again but harder this time!
Gen Z wants to opt out and choose irresponsibility because a decision is too hard or not to their specific liking? Wake me when there’s actual news.
It's definitely not the majority but having spoken with my cousin and his friends I get it. Why even bother voting things aren't getting better so why try? Voting for the best of the worst is just defeating as you know you'll still be working 2 or 3 jobs just to put food on the table. Plus people literally can't afford to take time off to go vote they need the money. Some of them are trying to support their sick parents or even kids.
Because of Project 2025 and what that would mean for the future should Trump & Co. win.
This logic would apply in past elections, but when an authoritarian fascist is banging at the door everyone has a responsibility to actively hold it shut
Let the fall of the American empire begin. If we think our way of Life is worth fighting for then we’re gonna actually have to fight for it.
I've been voting third party for decades now. If enough others do we can make a difference.
I'll vote 3rd parties when we implement RCV or STV, until then it just supports the greater evil.
When both candidates are too evil to vote for then this is the rational choice. Your vote is counted and so people see it when they look. Many minor parties have gotten everything they want without ever winning - when the vote margin between you and an opponent is just a few percent, attracting those who care enough too vote for a third party makes a loss into a win.
Sure other voting systems give more power to other votes, but you still get power.
If you consider Biden too evil to vote for, I don't know what to tell you, He's been one of the best presidents we've had recently and the resurgence of unions we're experiencing is thanks to him.
He’s one of the best presidents we’ve had recently
Considering his cohort I don’t think that’s saying much. We’ve had a lot of shitty presidents. Most of them, actually.
You can tell the terrible ones because they have an R next to their name. Clinton, Obama, and Biden have all been at the very least inoffensive and reasonable.
Oh, wait, that wasn't a sarcastic joke?
Damn.
Well, I guess if that's been going on for decades at least it's a vote that can be safely discounted. Also no, it won't make a difference. At least not in the US. The math of it is demonstrably that it won't make a difference, especialy if you do it repeatedly. As the guy above said, you change the system so that it makes a difference first (which you may or may not get to via voting) and THEN it'll make a difference. Until then it's just performative absenteeism. Unless you are not in the US and instead live in a parlamentarian proportional system, in which case carry on.
It will only make a difference when third party candidates run for something other than president, where that party can establish a track record of getting something done in local and regional venues. Only coming out every 4 years does nothing to sway non-3rd party voters, particularly when it’s people like Jill Stein who very clearly demonstrate their sense of ethics isn’t any better and they’re just as likely to act in their own financial self-interests, and essentially dupe their voters into donations that get misappropriated. She’s even had at least one judge say as much in a ruling against her after the last election. We’ve been explaining this for many elections now, but you just don’t listen. Until then, 3rd party votes just amount to spoilers.
If enough people donated enough to charity, we wouldn't need social safety nets. But they won't, so we always will.
