Unless all these Gen Z kids actually fucking VOTE it won't matter, because Boomers fucking do.
Oh, you think the choices are trash? Well fucking vote in the primaries then. Get involved at a local level, and start promoting candidates that represent you. Don't just bitch and moan that the choice is between a codger and senile draft-dodger.
The reason nobody young is ever is involved with primaries is because it's driven by corporate lobbyists. How are the youth supposed to get involved with that when they are competing against billions of dollars? The choices will always be trash until we end the lobbying. It doesn't work with just promoting candidates that represent you. It involves massive sums of money that 99.9 percent of Americans will never touch.
Sanders came very close to winning the Democratic nomination two election cycles in a row, and his funding was largely individual donors, while Clinton and Biden were being funded by corporate interests. Sanders probably lost in 2016 because the DNC put it's thumb on the scale; he lost in 2020 because many primary voters didn't believe that he could win against Trump, and wanted a candidate that could peel away moderate Republicans. And that's a national level.
At a local level, there's a lot less money, so fucking start there, where it's not being driven by greed.
Sanders came very close to winning the Democratic nomination two election cycles in a row,
That is some revisionist history, because he did not. He did better than any openly socialist candidate has in 100 years, but because of the rules of the DNC was not actually in contention at any point.
When I was young, I participated in the primaries for Obama's first election (Texas...). I was more or less put in my damn place by the older members and not allowed to have an opinion. It was Hillary this or that and racist comments otherwise. Seriously, Gen Y & Z need to participate, vote, and get involved at the primary and electoral college level or nothing is ever going to change. Don't let those assholes decide who gets to run. I really really wonder what kind of impact those votes, in the areas that have true primaries, will have if we step up early.
If enough young people are showing up in the primaries, then the DNC can't easily silence them without also alienating all of their other constituents. And while the DNC wants and needs large corporate donors and PACs, they need people voting for them even more. That's why Sanders was so dangerous to them; if he had won the 2016 or 2020 primaries, despite the DNC openly hobbling him, he would have upended their internal power structure. (And the 2020 primaries were relatively fair; Biden was seen as a safe and moderate candidate by a large number of moderates who were more worried about beating Trump than getting a more liberal Democratic candidate.)
I live in the rural south. TBQH, I'd rather that most of the people around me didn't vote, since I'm pretty sure I know which way they're going to vote, and their votes will largely be to take away my rights.
Nothing changes because the people that say they want real, significant change never show up in enough numbers to get shit done. If gen Z really gives a shit, then they need to all get out and fucking work for it. I've voted in every election and every primary I've been eligible to, since turned 22. If 100% of the gen Z kids that are eligible to vote showed up to the primaries, they could get any candidate through that they wanted. Primaries typically attract far, far fewer voters than the general election does; in some states, primary participation is as low as 3% or eligible voters.
I think that one thing that would help is if your employer was required to give you paid time-off to vote in primary, local, state, and national elections, say, four hours of time, but only if you actually voted. I'll bet voting rates woudl skyrocket.
Vote. Seriously. (If practical: get involved, too). The U.S. is currently in the middle of a large shift of generational power.
Many of these changes are fairly recent:
2020 was the first federal election where the Baby Boomers didn't make up the largest voting generation.
It was only in 2016 that the number Gen X and younger voting numbers grew larger than the boomer and older numbers.
Those numbers had been possible since 2010. Despite having more eligible voters (135M vs 93M), the "GenXers and younger" only had ~36M actual voters, compared to ~57M older ones.
Looking forward, the numbers only get better for younger voters. There hasn't been a demographic shift like this in the U.S. in a long time (ever?). The current power structures can not be maintained for much longer. It is still possible for that shift to be peaceful. Please encourage the peaceful transfer: vote. Vote in the primaries. Maybe even vote for better voting systems. This time is unique, but change takes time. Don't let them fool you otherwise: that's just them trying to hold on to their power.
2020 had very flexible early voting and absentee voting and many people weren't going to work in person anyway.
Every prior year, being retired was a huge advantage for ability to go to the polling places and actually vote. It's easy to see how retirees would be represented disproportionately given that reality.
Believing that nothing has changed is the most privileged form of cynicism in these threads. At ever conceivable time scale, there is plenty of progress.
There will never be a utopia. There will always be something to improve.
RIght, people just need to pick up a book and look at statistics on racism, sexism, etc and realize it's better than it ever has been but the MAGAs are on the rise, panicking, and trying to set up a dictatorship with Trump, so go vote or lose it all.