I didn’t see anyone blaming, I read that comment as saying that younger people significantly disagree with the Christian right, so if we could get more of them voting we’d be able to trounce the generally older folks who vote GOP.
It’s a little oversimplified though. If you look at the demographics of the last presidential election, there were lots of older people voting for Biden and younger people voting for Trump. Not the majority, but the difference isn’t as stark as a lot of people think.
I really am talking about primaries. There is a huge gap between who votes in primaries and general elections.
I think that even Republican primaries would be different if they had to cater toward a younger group.
And all the people that have responded are right. Boomers are a huge chunk of the voting bloc. But they don’t care about us and they won’t live long enough to see the repercussions. Overwhelming them in the primaries would help us more in the short term. I’m not sure we can make it another twenty plus years.
The only part I’ll take exception to is the “they don’t care about us” part. I’m a very liberal boomer, and I’m not at all alone. If you look at the election demographics, more boomers voted Trump than Biden, but the percent difference was small. Lots of boomers do care about housing costs, environment and climate change, living wages, etc. And it’s not just the ones who have trouble making ends meet.
The reality is “young people don’t vote” has been a dog whistle for blaming “kids” (gen z haven’t been kids for a while now.) for the way things are.
Lamentation about young kids not voting is just another way boomers have passed the buck on issues that have been a problem since before my parents were alive, and in any case, millennials and gen z have been voting at unprecedentedly high levels when we were “the kids” compared to prior generations when they were.
The reality is that boomers have dominated politics relative to other generations and a lot of the disengagement perceived comes from being outright ignored- nevermind being told that one is ignorant and should just shut up and vote the way they tell me to.
You want young people engaged, then engage them and expend effort on advancing their interests. Corpo dems always act like Bernie was a fluke. It wasn’t. He’s one of the few voices we have in the senate that doesn’t look at us as a means to collecting more bribes from corporations.
I didn’t see anyone blaming, I read that comment as saying that younger people significantly disagree with the Christian right, so if we could get more of them voting we’d be able to trounce the generally older folks who vote GOP.
It’s a little oversimplified though. If you look at the demographics of the last presidential election, there were lots of older people voting for Biden and younger people voting for Trump. Not the majority, but the difference isn’t as stark as a lot of people think.
This. I wasn’t blaming anyone.
I really am talking about primaries. There is a huge gap between who votes in primaries and general elections.
I think that even Republican primaries would be different if they had to cater toward a younger group.
And all the people that have responded are right. Boomers are a huge chunk of the voting bloc. But they don’t care about us and they won’t live long enough to see the repercussions. Overwhelming them in the primaries would help us more in the short term. I’m not sure we can make it another twenty plus years.
The only part I’ll take exception to is the “they don’t care about us” part. I’m a very liberal boomer, and I’m not at all alone. If you look at the election demographics, more boomers voted Trump than Biden, but the percent difference was small. Lots of boomers do care about housing costs, environment and climate change, living wages, etc. And it’s not just the ones who have trouble making ends meet.
Again, I said, “primaries.” Nothing to do with general elections.
I’m just using that data to show that the notion of boomers as overwhelming MAGA supporters is very far off.
Of course it’s far more complicated.
The reality is “young people don’t vote” has been a dog whistle for blaming “kids” (gen z haven’t been kids for a while now.) for the way things are.
Lamentation about young kids not voting is just another way boomers have passed the buck on issues that have been a problem since before my parents were alive, and in any case, millennials and gen z have been voting at unprecedentedly high levels when we were “the kids” compared to prior generations when they were.
The reality is that boomers have dominated politics relative to other generations and a lot of the disengagement perceived comes from being outright ignored- nevermind being told that one is ignorant and should just shut up and vote the way they tell me to.
You want young people engaged, then engage them and expend effort on advancing their interests. Corpo dems always act like Bernie was a fluke. It wasn’t. He’s one of the few voices we have in the senate that doesn’t look at us as a means to collecting more bribes from corporations.