Here’s Why Gen Z Voters Might Opt Out in 2024
Here’s Why Gen Z Voters Might Opt Out in 2024
www.teenvogue.com
Here’s Why Gen Z Voters Might Opt Out in 2024
In a matchup between Biden and Trump, many young voters say they might choose silence.
101 comments
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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
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Yes it is because there is an alternative... And that alternative isn't a good one.
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The problem is, I'm almost 40 and have been hearing this my whole life. And the Democrats keep moving further right.
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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.
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And the Democrats keep moving further right.
That's not true at all. Quite the contrary in fact.
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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.
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what is considered left is moving left much faster than the policy.
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As a Canadian philosopher once noted:
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!
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Let me know once it's time to start keeping things equal with hatchet, axe, and saw.
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“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.
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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.
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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.
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Oh look, more "everybody's doin' it" propaganda
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And thus democracy will die
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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Sounds much more like propaganda to sow intergenerational infighting (and it's working), to me.
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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.
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As someone else in the comments called it, it's "Everybody's Doing It" propaganda.
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I didn't know using the constitution to remove trump was unconstitutional?
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"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?
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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!
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Literally violated some of the biggest laws in the country. So blatantly that literally everyone saw it.
"For nothing"
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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I'd vote for President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho. He seems like a fun guy!
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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.
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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.
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Lots of people are very politically aware that that age. I was. My girlfriend was.
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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.
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Every time I see articles like this it just reminds me of 30 rock.
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Or Bullworth...
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I wonder what billionaire feudalism propaganda servitor ordered this article written? Someone from the WalMart clan? Koch Bros? Who?
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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.
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And them not seeing that having the right to even abstain is at threat.There may not be another election next time.
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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!
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What a load of absolute "muh both sides" nonsense.
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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.
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Because of Project 2025 and what that would mean for the future should Trump & Co. win.
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because things can get much much worse? also mail in ballots exist?
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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
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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.
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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.
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I've been voting third party for decades now. If enough others do we can make a difference.
- Gen X.
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I'll vote 3rd parties when we implement RCV or STV, until then it just supports the greater evil.
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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.
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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.
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If enough people donated enough to charity, we wouldn't need social safety nets. But they won't, so we always will.
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Biden supporters kicking and screaming like babies.
No more vote blue no matter who.
DNC will become irrelevant if they don’t change their ways.
Young people aren’t forced to watch the same three television networks like the older generations. Thank goodness.
If dems don’t like it and they need the young peoples votes, then maybe they can change their strategy.
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Young people need to reconsider how much worse things will be for them specifically, if Trump gets back in office and appoints more judges, etc. Young people have more time left to suffer in this life than most of us.
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And that happens after donnie takes power?
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and some are not allowed to vote because of laws and policies crafted over the years by politicians like Biden and Trump
101 comments
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.
Yeah, Democrats haven't worked their magic on Gen Z yet.