Anyone supporting Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as a "Democratic" candidate for POTUS in '24 is in
the same category as the MAGAts: willfully ignorant self-centered political terrorists.
They don't want to build; they want to tear down.
They don't want to elect; they want to defeat.
How could a rational person who agrees with most of our long-held Democratic ideals even CONSIDER voting for a candidate who is backed by the likes of Bannon and associates with malignant trolls like Stone?
Elections are about making a choice, not making a statement. Pull your heads out, people!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Or worse than Dems?
Most people who remember the Kennedys are boomers who are already MAGA minded. They’re not the most thoughtful bunch.
and the white voters in those groups really went Trump. White women broke for Trump at a far higher rate in 2020 (+7% to +11% depending on the poll) versus 2016 (+2% to +3%).
Around 57 million Boomers voted, so Trump netted (depending on what poll you look at), 1.85 to 2.85 million more votes than Biden from just the Boomers. When you add in the oldest third of Gen X and all the voters older than Boomers, Trump netted 2.75 to 4.25 million more votes than Biden from those cohorts. Split difference and call it a 3.5 million Trump net gain. That is half the size of Biden's 7 million overall popular vote win, so the under 50 crowd truly carried the day for Biden (over 10 million net more voted in favour of Biden).
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/the-2020-election-shows-gen-zs-voting-power-for-years-to-come.html
https://edition.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/national-results
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/
The 2020 Election Was a Breakthrough Moment For Young Voters
https://time.com/6049270/2020-election-young-voters/
But 2020 was a breakthrough moment for the youngest American voters. Last year, I covered how the rise in Millennial political engagement would shape the country in my book, The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For, which is out in paperback this week. Voting data from the election shows that young voters are already reshaping the contours of American politics.
For starters, there are simply more of them. According to new data from the Democratic data firm Catalist, Millennials and members of Gen Z—which together make up the American adults born since 1981— now represent 31% of the electorate, up from 23% in 2016 and just 14% in 2008. Meanwhile, the voting blocs that have long maintained an iron grip on American political power are receding. In 2008, Baby Boomers and older generations (American adults born before 1964) made up 61% of the electorate; by 2020, they were only 44%. “That’s a permanent change,” says Yair Ghitza, chief scientist at Catalist. “And it’s only going to grow from there.”
Young voters also had record turnout: roughly 50%, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University, a jump of 11 percentage points from 2016 and likely the highest youth voter turnout since the voting age was lowered to 18. According to Harvard’s annual Institute of Politics poll, 36% of young people now consider themselves politically active, up from just 24% in the year after Barack Obama was elected in what was supposed to be a watershed moment for young Americans. Biden won roughly 60% of voters under 30, which helped power his wins in key states. According to CIRCLE, the net youth votes in Biden’s favor exceeded his margin of victory in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, four battlegrounds he flipped.
In the same way that Millennials were shaped by their experiences at the dawn of the 21st century, from 9/11 to the election of Obama and the economic recession, it’s clear that the last five years have dramatically shaped how young voters see their role in American politics. Gen Z in particular is stepping into the political arena after being antagonized by Trump, radicalized by the reckoning over racial justice, and demoralized by a year of virtual schooling due to Covid-19. “I think there’s an urgency, specifically to Gen Z,” says John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. “Millennials are the tip of a spear: their values are significantly different than the values that preceded them in Gen X. Millennials have opened up important conversations around inequality, around climate, around BLM, but now Gen Z is seizing that opportunity, expanding it, and calling it their own.”
snip
Half of Youth Voted in 2020, An 11-Point Increase from 2016
Our analysis of youth voter turnout nationwide finds wide variation between states and underscores the importance of electoral laws and policies that help grow voters.
https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/half-youth-voted-2020-11-point-increase-2016
We estimate that 50% of young people, ages 18-29, voted in the 2020 presidential election, a remarkable 11-point increase from 2016 (39%) and likely one of the highest rates of youth electoral participation since the voting age was lowered to 18. Our new estimate is based on newly available voter file data in 41 states—AK, DC, HI, MD, MS, NH, ND, UT, WI, WY do not have reliable vote history data by age. This analysis replaces our earlier estimate, released immediately after Election Day, which estimated a 5 to 11 point increase in youth voter turnout compared to 2016 based on data available in that moment.
In recent weeks, we released youth voter turnout in all available states by region: West/Southwest, South, Midwest, and East/Northeast. Those analyses offer more details on several notable states and have now been updated with the latest data. Our estimates of youth voter turnout rates in more than 80% of states are in some ways a tribute to young people’s commitment to political engagement and action in 2020, and their impressive ability to navigate a changing electoral landscape during a global pandemic. The data also allows us to zoom out, look at trends in youth voter participation, and draw some conclusions about what is and isn’t working to broaden and diversify the youth electorate. We pay special attention to laws and election administration policies that affect the ease of casting a ballot in each state—from voter registration to vote-by-mail, which can always impact youth voter turnout but may have had especially large effects in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic shifted election processes across the country.
Turnout rates for youth ages 18-29 are displayed on the map. Hover over each state to also see turnout for ages 18-19. No data available for states shaded gray.
Youth Voting Increased Across the Country
Half of eligible young voters cast a ballot in 2020. However, as is the case in every election cycle, youth voter turnout rates varied widely across the country: New Jersey (67%), Minnesota (65%), Colorado (64%) and Maine (61%) had the highest statewide youth turnout rates, while South Dakota (32%), Oklahoma (34%), Arkansas (35%), and New Mexico (39%) had the lowest. Numerous interconnected factors shape whether youth electoral participation is high or low. These include the competitiveness of elections, how much (or how little) campaigns and organizations reach out to young people, the state’s civic culture and civic education policies, the demographic composition of the youth population, and state voting laws—which are discussed in greater detail below—that can either facilitate voting or pose barriers for youth. Because there’s no single reason why youth voter turnout may be high or low in a state, and no silver bullet if it’s the latter, it is crucial to examine these and other factors that may be at play in order to expand the electorate.
Turnout in 2020 was much higher than in 2016, when we estimate (using the same methodology) that 39% of young people cast a ballot. This sizable, 11-point increase builds on young people’s momentum from 2018, when youth turnout was record-setting for a midterm year. State-by-state turnout increases between 2016 and 2020 were 9 percentage points on average, but also varied widely. The largest increases in youth voter turnout were in New Jersey (+22), Arizona (+18), and California and Washington (both +17). Notably, with the exception of Arizona, all of those states automatically mailed absentee ballots to all registered voters without voters having to request them. No states saw a decrease in turnout, and in only one state (Louisiana) did the youth voter turnout rate remain flat, at 42%, between 2016 and 2020.
snip
what I recall. Thanks for sharing!
Our youth give me hope. 
primaries (potentially).
RFK Jr is a fucking nutter on multiple issues.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Anti-Vaccine Film Targeted To Black Americans Spreads False Information
‘The New Apartheid’? Conspiracist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s latest anti-vaccine film spins real history of medical racism to scare Black Americans into rejecting COVID shots
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/08/1004214189/anti-vaccine-film-targeted-to-black-americans-spreads-false-information
When a filmmaker asked medical historian Naomi Rogers to appear in a new documentary, the Yale professor didn't blink. She had done these "talking head" interviews many times before. She assumed her comments would end up in a straightforward documentary that addressed some of the most pressing concerns of the pandemic, such as the legacy of racism in medicine and how that plays into current mistrust in some communities of color. The subject of vaccines was also mentioned, but the focus wasn't clear to Rogers. The director wanted something more polished than a Zoom call, so a well-outfitted camera crew arrived at Rogers' home in Connecticut in the fall. They showed up wearing masks and gloves. Before the interview, crew members cleaned the room thoroughly. Then they spent about an hour interviewing Rogers. She discussed her research and in particular controversial figures such as Dr. James Marion Sims, who was influential in the field of gynaecology but who performed experimental surgery on enslaved Black women during the 1800s without anaesthesia.
"We were talking about issues of racism and experimentation, and they seemed to be handled appropriately," Rogers recalls. At the time, there were few indications that anything was out of the ordinary — except one. During a short break, she asked who else was being interviewed for the film. The producer's response struck Rogers as curiously vague. "They said, 'Well, there's 'a guy' in New York, and we talked to 'somebody in New Jersey, and California,' " Rogers told NPR. "I thought it's so odd that they wouldn't tell me who these people were." It wasn't until this March that Rogers would stumble upon the answer. She received an email from a group called Children's Health Defense — prominent in the anti-vaccine movement — promoting its new film, Medical Racism: The New Apartheid. When she clicked on the link and began watching the 57-minute film, she was shocked to discover this was the movie she had sat down for back in October. "I was naïve, certainly, in assuming that this was actually a documentary, which I would say it is not. I think that it is an advocacy piece for anti-vaxxers," Rogers says. "I'm still very angry. I feel that I was used."
The free, online film is the latest effort by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the founder of Children's Health Defense. (He's the son of the former U.S. Attorney General Robert "Bobby" Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.) With this film, Kennedy and his allies in the anti-vaccine movement resurface and promote disproven claims about the dangers of vaccines, but it's aimed squarely at a specific demographic: Black Americans. The film draws a line from the real and disturbing history of racism and atrocities in the medical field — such as the Tuskegee syphilis study — to interviews with anti-vaccine activists who warn communities of color to be suspicious of modern-day vaccines. At one point in Medical Racism, viewers are warned that "in black communities something is very sinister" and "the same thing that happened in the 1930s during the eugenics movement" is happening again. There is lengthy discussion of the thoroughly disproven link between autism and vaccines. For example, the film references a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism rates as evidence that African American children are being particularly harmed, but in reality the study did not conclude that African Americans are at increased risk of autism because of vaccination.
The movie then displays a chart claiming to use that same CDC data — obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request — to make a connection between vaccinating Black children and autism risk. The findings in the chart closely resemble another study sometimes mentioned by anti-vaccine activists, but the medical journal later retracted the study, because of "undeclared competing interests on the part of the author" and "concerns about the validity of the methods and statistical analysis." (That study's author was also a paid independent contractor for Kennedy's group as of 2020 and sits on its board of directors.) The film also brings up a 2014 study from the Mayo Clinic that showed Somali Americans and African Americans have a more robust immune response to the rubella vaccine than Caucasians and Hispanic Americans. One of those interviewed in Kennedy's film then asks, "So if you have that process that could be caused by vaccines, why wouldn't there be a link between vaccines and developmental delays?" But the study's own author and leading vaccine researcher, Dr. Gregory Poland, says this conjecture is not accurate. According to a statement provided to NPR by the Mayo Clinic, the study demonstrated "higher protective immune responses in African-American subjects with no evidence of increased vaccine side effects" and that any claim of " 'increased vulnerability' among African-Americans who receive the rubella vaccine is simply not supported by either this study or the science."
snip
This is just a political stunt and it's going to backfire in slow motion. Steve Bannon is a chaos agent.
