Where Are These Young Voters' Aunties?

[babylonsister]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/4/11/2234605/-Where-Are-These-Young-Voters-Aunties

Where Are These Young Voters' Aunties?
Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 8:49:51a EDT
BlackGrannyRising

snip//

Oh, and you’re “just not into” President Biden? Good Lord, are you marrying the guy?!!?

So allow me to be a surrogate “Auntie” right here. You cannot allow your “feelings” to cloud your logic in this most important election. The future of our Democracy is at stake and the choice is as stark as it gets. Democracy vs fascism. Reproductive rights vs forced birthing and not being able to exercise our rights to make health decisions for ourselves. Working families- friendly policies vs policies that favor the 1%. The death and chaos of the first trump administration vs the professionalism and concrete accomplishments of the first Biden administration. Let’s help President Biden finish the job.

I could go on, but young people (and truth be told, some of y’all older ones too), please don’t make the mistake of letting your idealism override your common sense. Your vote counts! And if you want a chance to make YOUR vision of the world you want to see a reality, a non-vote or a vote for trump and the rethuglicans will cause that vision to not be realized.

Finally, to Black young people talking this nonsense: I have the last original poll tax receipt from 1965 that my late Mother had to pay just in order to vote. That was the LAW-just 60 short years ago. Fannie Lou Hamer, who was beaten almost to death just for registering Mississippians to vote, was my Mom’s contemporary. How DARE y’all even contemplate not voting!! Or even THINK about voting for that orange menace who called our ancestors’ countries “shithole countries?” What the HELL are y’all thinking!!?

Whew! I’d better end this now, because I feel an even worse rant coming on!! Just vote. When we vote, we win.

[FalloutShelter]

1. Auntie and Grannie here....

This is my message and I am delivering it at every family gathering even if it evokes eyerolls.

I would add : when I hear “Joe could die”, I counter with “That’s what we have VP’s for, and Kamala is great.”

I get sighs… “I don’t like Kamala.”

My closer is this:
“Okay, you don’t like any of the candidates… for REASONS. We can survive as a Democracy and retain our leadership position in global politics through four years of … let’s say whatever bad policy you imagine.
We CANNOT survive Donald Trump.”

🎤 drop. Boomer out.

[PatSeg]

2. Well said!

[Upthevibe]

3. babylonsister....

This is excellent!

Thank you for posting...

[Probatim]

4. Where are all the nephews and nieces of boomers who are voting for TSF?

I won't die on many hills, but the ageism directed at 20-somethings is pretty terrible on this site.

[bluesbassman]

7. It's not about them.

It’s about the ones who say Biden is a war criminal, or is too old, or any other “claim” that is making them say they’ll sit out the election or vote third party. Has nothing to do with “ageism” as this rant can be directed at ANY demographic that doesn’t understand that there are only going to be two choices come November, and voting third party, or not at all, puts all of our futures at risk.

[Probatim]

13. Most of the responses up until I posted were about the "feelings" or "reasons" this generation uses to

justify for not voting for Biden.

Imagine what it's like for a 25 year old, with a college degree, crushing student debt and an aunty who doesn't understand why they aren't married with 2 kids yet.

I don't blame any of them for checking out. I'm also convinced that's part of the plan - have groups like these kids remove themselves from the voting process because the system is broken or doesn't work for them. It's been going on for years and media, politicians, political organizations, churches, and peers all tell them the system is broken - so why wouldn't they say eff it, I'm done?

Now the adults (who should be on their side) are piling on and telling them to get over their reasons and vote - when they see little future to it.

Negative reinforcement doesn't work on dogs - and it doesn't work on people either.

[MagickMuffin]

17. Perspective is in order, as a boomer

There have been countless campaigns throughout my life that centered on cannabis legalization.

Election after election there were numerous campaigns saying that cannabis legalization was coming. It has taken over at least 40 years for cannabis legalization to start happening. However, it still isn’t a federal policy, yet.

So

People who are truly interested in change will vote to make that change happen. That change might take a very long time, but it can happen. The cannabis culture never gave up and fought for states rights and there are those fighting for cannabis laws on the federal level.



It will never happen if people refuse to vote for whatever reason. Defeatism isn’t really an option especially now when the very fabric of our Constitutional government is being destroyed from within by the party who favors Putin and Russia.

At that time abortion was still legal now not so much and it’s going to get worse if we don’t show up in massive numbers.

Please don’t sit this election out. It matters to everyone who lives here.

[DBoon]

29. In high school, I was sure cannabis would be legal soon

I never thought tht by the time it happened, I'd be too old to care

[leftstreet]

19. +1

Wow. Your frankness is refreshing

[Martin Eden]

22. You are correct about negative reinforcement. HOWEVER...

...assuming these young people are intelligent, it should not be difficult to intellectually understand this election has a binary choice that will profoundly affect the future they will inhabit.

[Probatim]

23. If intellect was the deciding factor, we wouldn't have had TSF as president - let alone running for a second term.

There are a lot of otherwise smart people in every generation who voted for that stupid sonofabitch for "reasons". They aren't printing articles about how they're choices are wrecking our democracy - but go ahead and tell these kids "if you were smarter, you'd know better".

[Martin Eden]

28. I wrote an observation, not a campaign message.

I understand that voters are not won over by criticizing them.

Just pointing out logic which should be obvious.

[IbogaProject]

5. That hamass attack smelled of manipulation

And I suspect Russian and GOP money is pushing all this "outrage" about Gaza. I am opposed to what is happening there, but I recall TSF being all supportive of Netanyahu and supporting the Israeli right wing by moving our embassy to Jerulsalem. We have to collectively smother the GOP nation wide then we can focus on moving further to progressive goals. Joe has be an awesome surprise, our first true middle class president.

[Mr. Evil]

6. Whenever I get the chance to talk to young people,

I tell them to think about what kind of society they'd like to have in 30 years. Then I tell them that they need to start voting for it right now. Because if they wait 30 years they may not even have a right to vote for anything at all.

When I was younger (and like most of my friends at the time) I didn't give a shit about voting. That was what our parents and other 'old' people did. We were just concerned about when and where the next party was. I could've voted in 1980 and I didn't. Look what we got.

[onecaliberal]

8. This story is propaganda.

There are not a lot of these people. Look at the elections in the red states. You know, from people who already voted. They didn’t need to talk about it, they voted to claw back the right to their own body. In a very big way.

[dsp3000]

10. I personally know people left of me who repeat genocide joe. It's exhausting.

Last edited Fri Apr 12, 2024, 12:54 PM - Edit history (1)

One of my good friends. Dunno what I can do to convince him to vote for joe this time. He's an "extremely online" individual and just got sucked into all of the footage of Israelis murdering kids. He's black, well off, voted for bernie in 16, joe in 20. These people DO exist

[onecaliberal]

12. Clearly they exist. They won't derail us.

[Silent3]

18. If the election is close (and it almost certainly will be) ANYTHING can derail us

I suspect there are enough such people to have an effect in at least the 1-2% range of the final vote, and that's all it often takes to lose an election. You can't dismiss the effect, you can only hope the effect is offset by other factors in our favor.

[Coventina]

11. I personally know some of them. They are for real. Tik Tok is non-stop "Genocide Joe." n/t

[Probatim]

14. Thank you - it's planted bullshit to keep voting blocs split apart.

[Hekate]

9. KnR, Babylonsister

[Wild blueberry]

15. Amen, sister!

Thank you.

[MiHale]

16. Grandma and Grandpa's too.

My granddaughter and her boyfriend…great kids, smart, entrepreneurs…so ‘news deficient’ gathering what they can from TikTok and others like that. They spent a couple days with us last summer…my wife and I showed them better places to glean stories from…they just didn’t know good sources. They appreciated it and now they even send us articles that they’re sharing with peers.

Plant a seed…farm the soil…watch it spread.

[babylonsister]

24. Nice to be able to

open someone's mind to the possibilities of what's actually happening.

I went to see my PCP this week, 45ish years old, mom, wife, yada yada. But
she watches NO news, has no clue about what's going on.

She and her kids are into horses; that's their focus.

Surprised, but whatever works. I'm disappointed

[Otterdaemmerung]

20. I'd call myself a "guncle" if I had nieces and nephews, but I don't. Nevertheless...

I was on a certain social media platform the other day that I frequent, and was reading comments on the account of a couple of great young (under 40) liberal activist/social media personalities. My fault isn't with them at all. They were enthusiastically hyping the Biden/Harris campaign's renewed push toward winning over LGBT+ voters. However, wherever there were negative comments, they were virtually pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide people objecting to Biden.

I had to interject, asking if they really, really thought that Trump would be more pro-Palestinian than Biden has been. Others decried Biden's age. I replied that I could indeed think of several up-and-coming Democratic candidates that deserve their shot, but we need to defeat Trump first.

I think a solid case could be made that Biden's been the best U.S. president since FDR.

[DLCWIdem]

21. Better way to phrase it is

Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

[Orrex]

25. But her emails.

[Captain Zero]

26. You be the change. You be the Auntie.

BabylonSister is my #1 DUer.

The rest of you are scrapping for number 2. But you should go for it!

[brush]

27. Brava, babylonsister. Great post. Love the passion. In total agreement.

[calimary]

30. I love this SOOOOOOOO much!

GREAT stuff, babylonsister!

[senseandsensibility]

31. Great post

K and R!