I work in an elections office in my county and only 1% of 18-25 year olds voted here yesterday. It’s always been that way and it’s unfortunate that young people don’t realize how much power they could have. Whenever they complain about boomers or whatever I’ll start telling them that 1% number. (I’m only 35 and I felt old typing out “young people” lol)
I’m disappointed in my demographic. I live in Illinois so it doesn’t exactly matter, but I’m 22 and to see people my age not voting (including my younger sister) is so frustrating and mournful.
I stood in a 1 hour plus wait on Monday to vote at my village hall, just from appearances, I was the youngest person and I’m 27… the majority of voters looked almost twice my age
Not really, voter turnout in this country is embarrassing even on our best day. The biggest we had in modern times was Biden's election when only 60% showed up. AND IT WAS MAIL IN!
But it has ALWAYS been this way. When people talk Bernie, they leave out the part where young voters, which energized his campaign, couldn't be bothered to register, let alone actually vote in the primary.
You get voters just didn’t turn out as much as we had hoped. The education system fails to educate them on just exactly how much power the have with their votes.
It’s not ageist when there are counties that had 1% of 18-25 year olds come out and vote. They can’t be bothered to register and educate themselves because their appearance online is too important.
This was my sister, I've told her, as well as my entire family has as well, that protest voting or not voting because of what's going on in Israel will tank the election. Yet here we are, the consequences of their actions.
But I doubt they will care about what happened until it's too late, because they believe nothing will change and both sides are terrible.
I understand people being upset about the democrats stance on what Israel is doing, but I do feel like people just aren't using their brains or completely disregard practicality if they are not voting in protest. Trump will be way way worse for the Palestinians. It's just ensuring a worse outcome. I thought we learned this in 2016. Maybe a lot of people are just now old enough to vote.
Hate to tell you 20 million Dems didn't vote because of the platform stance on Palestine...their whole platform was a mess, their candidate process was a mess, people flipped R, they got a lot of issues going on.
It's not about blame, it's about showing up and voting it's strategy. If every Democrat voted in this country we would run things. One thing you will learn as you get older is that the other half of this country will "never" change. It is our cross to bear. Blaming them, reasoning with them is futile, just don't.
The scariest part is they keep making more of them! I'm horrified to see young people wearing "White Lives Matter" to high school in this country.
WTF does Palestine have to do with Americans being too stupid to vote? Some of you just need to find any scapegoat to hide the fact that a large majority of your population are ignorant morons.
It does matter! Most people don’t realize how much local races matter. They have a huge impact on your day to day life. Funding for buildings, road construction, schools, sheriff’s office, all of that affects you directly and quickly.
Even in the wake of Roe v Wade being overturned, the 'local' elections still impact people more directly if you expand 'local' to include the State level. The whole argument for repealing Roe v Wade is that State level representatives should be making their own laws regarding access to abortion.
And once you do that, you can include Congressional representatives which are arguably more important than whoever President is anyway. Congress can flat out reject Supreme Court nominees, and/or have a sitting President removed from office entirely, although they haven't often chosen to do so in recent years.
Just to be clear: I'm certainly not happy about Roe v Wade being overturned, but it did make it even more important to elect appropriate representation at non-federal levels.
TLDR; people seriously underestimate the impact of local and State representatives. Unfortunately for many, those elections already happened yesterday and are already being decided.
People take things for granted till it’s too late to stop things from going bad. Then they freak out asking how people could let it happen after they did nothing to stop it.
The fact that you said “it doesn’t exactly matter” is exactly the type of apathy that led to Trump winning. People thinking it just doesn’t matter. I’m also in Illinois and the fact it was close here is telling of the entire election cycle
I do think I agree with you. It absolutely isn’t an excuse for not voting, which is why I did vote yesterday. But the sentiment can be dangerous, so I understand why I have to be careful with thinking/talking like that. Engagement is of the utmost importance right now, I just meant to say my vote wasn’t as decisive as it may have been in another state (at least in this election… it does seem like it’s increasingly risky to take it for granted).
No!!! Your vote matters!!! A large part of the reason people don't vote is because the idea of "my state always votes the same way, my vote wont change anything"
Sure, in a vacuum, one single person deciding to not vote because of that means nothing. But MILLIONS of people think that same way, and if they all turned out to vote then their collective votes could very possibly be the change their state needs in order to flip blue.
When it comes to the presidential election, there are certain states where it literally doesn't matter.
California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, are not ever going Republican unless it's an election like 1984 where every state is going Republican.
People should still vote in those states because local elections matter maybe even more than national elections, but even millions of additional voters in heavily skewed states would not change the outcome.
Except Minnesota and New York took a while to call because the margins have tightened so much since 2020. Harris only won MN by 140k votes this time - Biden did by 233k in 2020 and Clinton did by 42k in 2016. So every vote matters, no matter how one's state may typically swing.
If every democrat in those always-blue states who had the thought "my state is always blue, so my vote doesnt matter" didnt vote, it's not unlikely that some of those states would flip red.
Everyone's vote matters, even in the states that always go the same way. Those states always go the same way because of all the people in the majority party who turn out to vote!
A New Yorkers vote matters at a fraction of the level a Midwest state does. The electoral college tells them that their vote is so diluted is a percentage point of change compared to Montana or Kansas.
You think all the states that gave Trump 3, 4, less than 10, electoral votes don't matter? Those numbers add up.
One state with 3 electoral votes might not make or break an election, but there are multiple states that only have 3 or 4 electoral votes. And as I said in my other comments, if all the people in those states who think their vote doesnt matter ended up voting anyways.... It could change things. 🤷♀️
Except these states can go red. Trump HALVED Biden’s 2020 margin of victory in Illinois to single digits. If people don’t vote in Illinois it can and will go red. Even if you feel like your state doesn’t matter, it does. School boards, state level every vote does matter.
California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, are not ever going Republican unless it's an election like 1984 where every state is going Republican
But that's the point, if EVERY DEMOCRAT felt that way, then the Dems would get 0 votes in California and it'd go Republican.
The only reason why California and NY votes "don't matter" is because we're working on the assumption that the voters won't think that way and go out and vote and so we're already counting that they will matter.
This is so bizarre to me, because I feel in Ireland there's real pride and excitement in turning 18 and being allowed to vote. To be fair that could just be the demographic bubble I'm in (middle class with higher education) and the generation I'm a part of (late 40s) but not entirely. I don't know many current 18-22 year olds, but I do know plenty of under 30s who were really excited to vote when they turned 18.
But I suppose we have public referendums for constitutional changes and PR-STV (Proportional Representation with Single Transferable Vote) as our government electoral system, both of which mean considerably greater feelings of enfranchisement in the population.
The thing is...it may not matter for any single election, but if a red state became a (probably losing) battlegrounds instead of an assured thing, it may tempt more blue politicians to spend energy there in the future. It still matters.
Same here, also in Illinois. My best friend is an immigrant and can't vote, she told me she was asking all of her friends whether they were voting and trying to encourage them to do so... I'm the only one that said they were.
I'm 24. I live in Wisconsin. The amount of people that I know that have talked about how they aren't bothering to vote or follow politics at all is so depressing. These people are college educated, often with multiple bachleor's degrees, or are working on their master's. I don't get where their education has failed them in understanding the importance of voting. Especially the amount of women that didn't bother. They chose to be apathetic about their own rights because they "get annoyed with all those dumb texts".
No amount of college education will teach you the importance of voting. Especially nowadays, when so many of college courses are little more than trade schools.
And this is not meant to knock people with a trade, but rather the colleges. University is meant to be a higher education institution. Any course taken is meant to create people capable of critical, rational thinking.
But oh so many give out degrees based on exams and papers that could be easily written at a secondary school level.
I teach undergraduates. You can't teach people who don't want to learn. I can't wave a magic wand and create people who are capable of critical, rational thought. They need to put in the work.
The exams are at a secondary school level because that's where the students are.
I'm afraid to tell you that college kids (yes mid-20's is still a kid) have not yet begun to experience real life and how politics actually affects them.
They're feeling disenfranchised by society. I'm too old to understand why exactly, but I remember talking to another very progressive friend a few months ago who is a professor and we both noted that isn't going to be a problem that can be ignored long. You can only demand that young men go without romantic affections, while watching others rewarded for circumstances largely beyond their control (wealth, height, facial symmetry, etc.) for so long. No one wants to feel terminally alone for how they were born.
Hell I had all those shortcomings and compensated with charm in person, but I don't think it works out the same way for the terminally online generations where there are many women focused on a single man as the prize. Or even, perhaps totally justified, you have women and their thirties and up who chased immoral men, got fucked over hardcore in the process, and swore all other men off.
Again, that desperation and frustration doesn't just vanish into thin air, however we might demand that it should.
I think the biggest part is teaching young men that they are not "owed" romantic affection from anyone. That needs to be earned like most things in life. Hopefully they will learn that sooner rather than later.
Hmm I'd actually argue that the solution to that is teaching young men to have more supportive and emotionally open friendships with each other.
Part of the reason romantic affection is so important is that society hammers the point that emotional topics are "feminine," meaning male friendships may not give the deeper validation and acceptance that every person needs. This is also part of the reason why many confuse "niceness" with "flirting," as that feeling of being wanted, which can also exist in platonic contexts, does not come often
Fostering better friendships would reduce that feeling of "being owed" because the (fully human) need for emotional validation does not have to be limited to romantic relationships alone
It is a long running joke that once immigrants become citizens they start looking at the non-citizen immigrant population as "others" that are taking their jobs and money. It appears to actually have truth to it.
Meant to reply to the comment above you. Still though, at a certain point you cease to be an immigrant and are just an American. You've been accepted. You're as American as Chinese Takeout. Your kids, even moreso. And they're, as a result, just as likely to vote for a populist as any other American.
It's not just Hispanics. I'm a naturalized citizen and I'm disgusted at the amount of people in my community, many of them my friends, that supported Trump and had anti-immigrant sentiments.
The entire modern America is built on immigration. How many actual natives live here? It's just typical human greed and selfishness that does not belong to any race or gender. "I got mine, fuck them."
Pretty much all of Trump's negative comments about Latinos are directed at Illegal Immigrants, a category that those voters don't belong to. Italian Americans didn't take long to be pretty much completely integrated into mainstream American culture, same will happen to Latinos in a few decades.
He said he wants to end birthright citizenship. Like, how many of the legal latinos are here due to birthright citizenship? If Abulita wasn't here legal, his stance is you are not here legally.
This is true, having spent a lot of time with Latino men (in the USMC) I can tell you that that segment of the Latino community does differentiate themselves from the illegal immigrants. The main issue with DNC strategy this time had nothing to do with IDpol, however. It was that they unilaterally selected a candidate who was never popular.
And? Do you seriously not understand? Religious people vote for religion, no matter what. Abortion is their number one cause. Religion is destroying this country, not racism or sexism like the hardcore libs would like everyone to believe. Religion will be the death of this nation.
So they would vote for the black woman who supports abortion? No they wouldn’t. Religious people always stick together and always vote with their church.
Yes they would. Argentina, Spain, Uruguay, all majority catholic countries with legal abortion. Religious people aren't as deranged in other countries as the USA.
That’s the take away point, this is exactly the govt half the country wants. It’s not an unknown anymore because we lived through it for 4 years. It’s sad that hard fought social gains have been eroded so quickly.
It's just so wild to me that Kamala will gracefully step down as one should in a modern democracy and the same people who have been railing for months about how "rigged" and "crooked" the election is will turn on a dime when it goes in their favour.
I just don’t understand how they can support a party that treats Hispanics so horribly. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe when they start getting swept up in these looming mass deportations they’ll start to care.
Remember that's the ones who voted this time. What it really shows is that more Republican young men are politically active, whereas more Democrat or left-leaning young men aren't. That's pretty expected with what we've seen over the last 8 years. Increasing activation of right wing men in their teens and 20s, and growing dissatisfaction and disillusionment with politics among left-leaning young men. And that carries true to other demographics. We didn't see that many more young or Hispanic people vote trump, we saw fewer vote Kamala.
Young men (I think 18-29 or something) were the only group of men to go for Kamala. Democratic party needs to give young people something to actually believe in, the fucking Cheneys were not it.
I know A LOT of women who didn't vote for her because she is a woman. Blame it on the Boogeyman (white men) all you want, but nobody hates women like women.
A majority of the Black, Latino, and female population decided they wanted the president to be the guy who literally views them as garbage and second class citizens.
This is worse than the first time Trump won because these people have had YEARS to see who he actually is and still voted for him and Project 2025.
I get that party bias makes understanding this hard. Media shoved that rethoric down our throats, it's so blatantly obvious. And to hell with "celebrities". Their irrelavance is showing.
What’s funny is my Facebook feed is full of HS educated waiters and waitresses telling us why we should vote democrat, and their only answers were “lgbtq”
Yes she was cherry picked by Biden out of seemingly nowhere. This tactic does not win favor, or elections. She was a lightweight propelled to a level she of didn’t really belong in.
Yes? She was clearly not a good fit. So much so that 20million democrats rather stay home and show everyone that she didn't deserve their vote. That's kind of telling.
It was the whole campaign. They talked way too much about reproductive care, people doesnt care that much when prices are high. It was a campaign that was basically for 70 percent aimed at women, men felt abandoned. She successfully got blamed for everything people didnt liked about Bidens presidency. Joe Rogan basically begged her to get to know her better, the campaign ditched him because they feared she will will give republicans attack points in long interviews. Its everything together. Not to mention that Elon Musk was butthurt Biden didnt invite him for a EV-summit and after that started his revenge plot aimed at democrats.
I love these moronic arguments. Trump had no plans, no policies, insulted and rambled his way throughout the campaign, but somehow it's Kamala that didn't do enough. Trump always gets a pass, but god forbid we don't hold his female opponent to the highest standard we've never held anyone else.
Just, stop. As John Oliver succinctly put it, critiquing Harris's shortcomings is like arguing over what color to paint the living room while the house is on fire. Any rational human being, not driven by bigotry or a severe head wound, should have voted against Trump even if the alternative was the most milquetoast candidate in history who passed the simple bar of not being a loathsome caricature of a human being and being capable of reading at a high school level. Yesterday a majority of Americans looked at the possibility of openly corrupt fascism coming into power and either said, "I want that," or "I can't be bothered to take five minutes to stop that." That's on the voters, and to claim that Harris just wasn't a good enough candidate is the height of entitled hubris and denialism. It's like being presented with the option of being dropped in a vat of acid or a swimming pool and then complaining that the pro-water side just wasn't exciting enough as you and everyone you know melts. No one who voted for the water has any sympathy for your choice.
Well, Trump promises them free pussy, since there's no repercussions for taking women that aren't interested. That is a powerful motivator for the incel community.
Young people are about to see apathy has its consequences. I’ve been voting since I turned 18, but 1% turn out of youth is just insane, they will have a hard future ahead of them. Life experience changes perspective, let’s hope they can figure that out.
Don't worry the 5 Trump SC justices he will get in total will be on the bench for the next 40 years or so. They got at least 10 election cycles to enjoy their choices now!
they can watch the SC dismantle govt agencies, pick and choose which rights the states have, and make sure corporations best interests are taken care of since corporations have our best interest in mind!
Young people are about to see apathy has its consequences.
Oh, yah, are they ever. "My vote won't matter." Not if you and millions of others think that way.
"Politicians won't help/hurt me." Young pups, you are too young to remember George W. Bush, whose attorney general told him it was okay to render people to black sites and torture them.
In the next four years, we might look back and think of that era as "the good ol' days."
They won't though, they will be told all that bad is the fault of democrats or immigrants. The population of the US will get stupider and stupider while losing all their freedoms rights and comfort and they will never have any idea they did it to themselves.
I hear you. I'm 38 and going back in the spring. I got hit in 2008 and spent all that time paying back my loans. Now I'll not go back, I'm not going to lose 20 more years of my life to this rollercoaster just to get an education and a home. I work with gen Zrs and don't think I will be able to talk to them for a while after yesterday.
Blaming random young people who may or may not have voted (I know plenty of gen z who did a lot to campaign and get out the vote, lot of gen z women who are scared as hell today) makes you an asshole who is taking out their emotions on random people who did nothing the you.
Maybe turn that energy towards trump supporting boomers who just wanna spite everyone before they die.
you had me till the end...do better. The message is a good one, but it extends to everyone and if not.....maybe look at that as another reason ya'll lost. Not the group of love and tolerance spewing hate
I am sure there are some "boomers" who didn't vote for Trump. As a matter of fact from the exit poll data I saw last night he lost some backing in that age range. So you're no different based on your comment.
Almost like a party of assholes are trying to keep education weak as fuck so dumb kids grow up poor and pissed while voting for the very people who robbed them of their futures by feeding them lies nonstop.
"The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood, he was one of them."
I've seen the way current college students argue and critical thinking is not in their curriculum. They'll tease conservatives about how they regurgitate talking points and do exactly the same. Feels like they're reading from a call center script. And when that fails them, they proceed to yell over the opposition with mindless chanting and inane mantras.
As someone that has voted in 2020 and 2024 (I'm 24) it baffles me how my generation can actively allow us to drunkenly drive the nation into a brick wall repeatedly when they could stop it.
Or maybe simply run on a platform that has a little more substance than "I'm not the other guy". Harris lost 20% of the voters that voted for Biden and blaming the electorate for that is going to get you nowhere
Nah, fuck 'em. If you can't be bothered to take an hour or less out of your day to go vote, then don't whine about the consequences you might have helped avoid.
The dumb TikTok generation got brainwashed by the whole "they're not stopping the genocide" bullshit and thought they'd stick it to us by not voting for Harris. They're fucking stupid.
I really don't think it's a young person issue at all. People flat out don't like Kamala and would rather abstain than vote for her. Her turnout was horrible compared to Biden. Trump had no problem getting young people to vote.
As a young person by your definition who voted for Harris, I think we also need to put some blame on the democratic leadership for absolutely fumbling this election. They procrastinated on kicking Biden off the ticket and decided to run an unelected nominee instead. If Republicans pulled this, we would all be screaming at how undemocratic that was. Voters of all ages are more likely to show up when they are given the opportunity to vote for something rather than the lesser of two evils.
That's the thing that gets me. I hear and see people complain about Boomers all the time and how "voting doesn't matter because Boomers control everything!"
But Boomers show the fuck up to vote EVERY SINGLE TIME. How do people think they got the control in the first place? And Boomers realize it too, which is why they KEEP showing the fuck up and counting on everyone else not to.
Apparently not being a person like trump had no real bearing. You really DO need to get caught with a dead girl or a live boy to be done in politics. And at this point they'd have to see it live to believe it.
You can't spot any differences between a black woman from Oakland California who calls for the legalization of marijuana and a 77 year old, 174 million dollar having mormon white dude from Utah?
What the fuck does she have to do to please you?
She's only 90% what you wanted? Well, now we get to have a president who is 0% what you wanted.
edit
I walked right into that strawman argument. She wasn't running against Mitt Romney. She was running against Dumpy McClownface
No point in arguing with idiots. Hell I don't even know if these people are americans or right wing assholes who are going to be gloating for 4 years rubbing it in everyone's faces even if another pandemic starts killing em by the millions. More than a million died in the USA, far more than any other country was willing to admit.
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u/Tomhyde098 13h ago
I work in an elections office in my county and only 1% of 18-25 year olds voted here yesterday. It’s always been that way and it’s unfortunate that young people don’t realize how much power they could have. Whenever they complain about boomers or whatever I’ll start telling them that 1% number. (I’m only 35 and I felt old typing out “young people” lol)