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Izzy Killeen's avatar

I was knocked for six by the revelation that you're younger than 9/11. Who knew our boy was so *smol* lmao. I feel ancient being born in the previous century now 🤣

More substantively, the truth is setting us free once again. I was swept up in the anxiety that our generation had swung permanently to the right, so this story of what's actually up with us and how it's all fixable was tremendously encouraging.

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Eric Deamer's avatar

Good lord. I'm fucking 52. Maybe I shouldn't be here? I hate learning stuff like this

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Izzy Killeen's avatar

No, you totally belong here! The leftist struggle transcends age and generation.

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Eric Deamer's avatar

Thank you

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Eric Deamer's avatar

I was 28 on 9/11!!! He's not even 28 now!!!

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Izzy Killeen's avatar

Damn kids don't know they're born. /s

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Andrew Jensen's avatar

Same. I so often agree with Josh’s perspective that I had been unthinkingly assuming he’s a millennial socialist like me. If he’s actually too young to rent a car, then, on the subject of US electoral politics in the past 75 years or so, he’s an even more impressive autodidact than I’d thought.

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ReadingRambo's avatar

EDIT: It appears I have been owned by facts and logic and should have kept reading before posting this

>While Trump’s strength among the shrinking pool of old and white voters might have been enough for him to narrowly win in 2016, it was said, his inability to win the voters of the future meant that he and his movement were living on borrowed time.

How do people still believe this? Young voters have been voting more heavily Democratic for *decades*, and yet somehow Democrats never inherit the Earth. You could probably chart a pretty direct relationship between the rise of young voters voting heavily Democratic and the Democratic Party's fall from being the only viable national political party in the country to a party barely able to win power for a couple years every once in awhile. Not that there's a causal link, but it could not be more obvious that this has always been a fantasy!

And it's not even that people get more conservative as they age, conventional canards be damned. It's that *more people vote* when they're older. The youth vote skews liberal because young liberals are more educated and engaged in politics, or because politics has a direct impact on them. This does not mean, and has never meant, that their *generation* was more liberal. It just means the future Republicans are playing beer pong and not thinking about politics.

And you'll hear Democratic operatives complain about how they can't drive up youth turnout, and you'll hear them talk about that as a literal reason to ignore young voters, because there's no value in it. I heard these things all the time when I was still in that life. But of course you can't juice turnout when you're only ever talking to the people who already turn out! The Democrats don't know how to talk to the beer pong morons, which is why they were all such easy pickings for Joe Rogan.

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M Harley's avatar

Really good point noting the difference between generation cohort who vote vs the generation as a whole. I do think it’s important to note that that the article suggests that the trend of youth voters consistently voting for democrats is overblown, and that Dems need to give them a reason to.

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Samuel Lipson's avatar

My throat is ready (for voiceovers)

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Matt's avatar

Do you know what the youth vote was like downballot? You talked about Dems taking statewide office in states Trump won, and downballot Dems outperforming Harris. Could that be the youth vote?

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ettingermentum's avatar

I couldn't find specific numbers, but downballot Democrats generally did outperform Harris by the most among traditionally Democratic demographics, especially among those who were the least tuned into the campaign. That likely included a lot of young voters. We also do know that they backed Dems by Obama/Clinton/Biden era margins in 2022, although the types of people who turn out in midterms vs general elections are very different

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ReadingRambo's avatar

I saw this headline in the startup newsfeed page of my internet browser and assumed it was some anti-woke teenager complaining about Hamas.

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M Harley's avatar

Solid article but the mobile site is fucking terrible. It’s field with ads and pop ups that make it almost impossible to read

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