My concern is that young voters are underrepresented in elections and how do we get them out to vote? Most of the issues facing the country today will affect young (35 and younger) residents and yet they tend to be the least likely to vote. I admit to being a Dem and notice in my community it's mostly older conservatives who come out.

I think they’re just louder. I don’t feel the need to put 30 yard signs that clearly scream party over people.

This is so true. What's really interesting is that young people are taking an interest earlier and earlier in politics and while they are all over social media defending their rights, they still do not turn out to vote. Voting is the most powerful tool that can be used to defend what they believe in.

I think it's just because they don't truly understand the impact that these people in office have in their lives. I'm 42 now, but I didn't cast my first vote until I was 26 for the same reason. As you get older, you start to realize that the decisions made in Washington and in your local Capitol building really affect your life, your future, and your wallet.

This is true based on actual surveys and my own anecdotal experience working polls. It's one of the big reasons people want election day to be a holiday so that young working people can get to the polls.

I also have to admit that progressives I feel undermine the process of trying to engage young voters with the "mainstream dems are just as bad as republicans" noise which creates a disaffected voting bloc. How many posts revolve around "don't vote for mainstream dems because it rewards the party that didn't choose our specific candidates". Most importantly for the current state of our country I want to point out the large volume of the "protest vote for Bernie Sanders and/or don't vote at all" in 2016.

I know of at least mother of a HS senior who's son is working on getting all of his friends to vote.

It’s because we are tired of a bunch of old ass men and women running the country. They don’t understand or even have a clue as to how hard things are today.
The generation running the country went to college and was guaranteed a job. Housing was much more affordable. Jobs paid a livable wage based on the economics of the time. Not the case anymore and the politicians, both democrats and republicans, are very disillusioned with these facts. This is why the youth doesn’t care. Millennials are the first generation who will have less wealth than their parents. This is well documented. Not to mention Gen Z who only cares about being TikTok famous.

I mean, did you see how a group of kids filed a national lawsuit against the state of Rhode island because of the terrible civics education?

I really agree with this. I'm a parent of 20 somethings and this was a major topic of discussion with my kids. I get the dissatisfaction with the Dem party but watching progressives condemn everything and not reaching anyone outside this limited sphere to vote for them or work with them is concerning. Everyone should listen to the concerns of others even if you don't agree so you can understand them

That's also a great point, they're more interested and they realize the importance of politics but still don't turn out. I am constantly texting my kids and their friends during election season (and I pretty much leave them alone the rest of the time) to get them out but I wonder what else can be done.

>My concern is that young voters are underrepresented in elections and how do we get them out to vote?

I like that this question has the answer inside it. The needs and views of younger voters are disproportionately underrepresented because they don't show up. 2020 was the highest voter turnout in like 60 years and probably the easiest one to vote in with practically every state making early and mail voting an option.

Turnout among 18-24 year old people was still under 50%.

In midterms and primaries and normal years, that turnout gets a LOT worse.

There's not really an easy fix to that turnout. You can't force people to care. Unless we wanna do something like reinstituting the draft and maybe being a bit more aggressive internationally, I don't really think there's some magic way to compel younger people to care about issues. You would think climate issues alone would be enough, especially since today's crop of younger voters grew up with that looming over their heads, but still....48% in 2020. It'll probably be even lower in a couple weeks.

This is one of my main complaints, the people running this country (and this state) are generationally much older then the majority of their constituents. I am a firm believe in term limits although there are arguments for and against. But when politicians make a career out of political life, they don't understand what people are going through. Older people esp are dismissive of the modern concerns and really have no idea the younger people are up against. If the young don't vote, the old will always vote for self preservation.

That is the shit that will help. Resisting apathy and frankly peer pressuring people. People who sit out and refuse to participate because they don't like a candidate or their candidate didn't win or whatever the reason really needs to get more pushback. Normalize yelling at your friends who try to sit it out.

Yeah - it's disheartening to me. It shouldn't be like this esp in state with so much diversity and density.

Yes I recall that. Whatever happened? Honestly its not just kids, I've had convos with older adults who have no idea the difference between federal, state and local govt responsibilities. It's scary.

Vote out the Democrats. They have ruined this state.. A wet sock would have been better for business than Gina and Dan

>one of the big reasons people want election day to be a holiday so that young working people can get to the polls.

To be blunt, they want a day off for (mostly white) middle class office workers. There are definitely access issues for voting but it's easy enough to fix without a holiday that will still leave people working in retail, food service, hospitality and plenty of other industries without help.

• Make early / mail voting an available option with a range of times/days and adequate locations. Promote the fuck out of it because I'd bet a lot of people in Rhode Island don't realize they've been able to vote for a week.
• In denser urban populations, provide adequate staff, facilities, and equipment for voting. Fund elections properly. Even with one-day voting, it's a failure of our society that you have insanely long lines that always seem to occur in heavily non-white districts in cities. Have backup equipment for everything. Test shit. Staff properly. The lines never needed to be that long.
• Penalties for employers who actively try to deny their employees from voting. The longer the early voting window, the less you need this.

​

I'll happily accept a day off and all but if you want to actually solve the problem? Election Day as a holiday doesn't do the job nearly as well.

​

> I also have to admit that progressives I feel undermine the process of trying to engage young voters with the "mainstream dems are just as bad as republicans" noise which creates a disaffected voting bloc. How many posts revolve around "don't vote for mainstream dems because it rewards the party that didn't choose our specific candidates". Most importantly for the current state of our country I want to point out the large volume of the "protest vote for Bernie Sanders and/or don't vote at all" in 2016.

1000000% agreed. That hasn't helped.

I get the gripe but I don't think you can dismiss the old politicians or past results of elections without pointing out the culpability of young people in perpetuating that by disengaging or choosing to not participate. That's part of why those old people who are so disconnected keep getting elected and staying in office.

Term limits are definitely something that need to be considered in this country. Also a cap on max age for president!

It looks like it passed https://www.billtrack50.com/BillDetail/1272851

Term Limits tend to be well-meaning but bad for government as a whole as you end up with an entire support structure of staffers and such that constantly know more about the inner workings of the policy levers than the cycling elected officials, forming a shadow government.

Dems need candidates who actually appeal to young voters. Candidates who support medicare for all, green new deal, student debt relief, etc. Unfortunately, the Dems at the top of the ticket this nov in RI aren't talking about any of these issues.

Both system change and cultural changes are needed. On a system level, make it easy to vote, which RI kinda is good about, the voter info website is very good (could be better about non English languages) we have mail in ballots legalized and early voting. Still need Election Day to be a day off so there’s more accessibility.

The culture shift is a harder thing, it will take time to do that work of convincing people one by one how the systems work, that their vote counts, that they can make informed choices, just like any habit, it will take time and repetition on a community yearly scale.

I will also counter that I know many people who have said voting doesn’t work so I’m going to make change in other ways such as community organizing participating in actions and other stuff outside the legislative electoral system. My response has been always well voting is the bare minimum, it’s something to show up twice a year too. But I do want to highlight that some people have lost faith in government and have been working to strengthen this community outside the system.

Ideally we uncap the house, apply an alternative popular vote compact, and use mixed member districts to start. We no longer need to consider the size of the building and it's offices, Congress ran just fine virtually under COVID (The House, the Senate shut down because Mitch McConnell thought that it was unnecessary)

Curious how old you are?

https://rihumanities.org/program/ri-civic-health-index/ I'm quoting from this

While the case was dismissed due to lack of precedent, Rhode Island District Court Judge William Smith stated that the case ”does not represent a wild-eyed effort to expand the reach of substantive due process, but rather a cry for help from a generation of young people who are destined to inherit a country which we—the generation currently in charge—are not stewarding well.”

As one outcome of the lawsuit, the Rhode Island Department of Education agreed to establish a civic education task force, currently in formation. Furthermore, in 2021, the Rhode Island State Legislature passed the Civic Literacy Act, which requires all public high school graduates to demonstrate civics proficiency and offers students the opportunity to complete a student-led civics project. Implementation of these initiatives is currently in process, with the potential for current research to inform next steps, and with the final outcomes to be seen.

I think Seth Magaziner is but if you're looking at the governor's race, no they're not talking about it but that's outside their purview

That's hopeful, as I recall this was a bipartisan effort as well.

https://www.ncoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/RI_CHI_2022-FINAL.pdf

Further quoting

approximately 42% of respondents agreed that their K-12 civics education prepared them to be active members of their community;

29% indicated they would be extremely or somewhat likely to get involved in issues that affected their community;

Now again, this is where I'm curious about what the kids consider "getting involved" because think about those national news articles about all the kids coming together to out teachers that were sexually harassing other students. Is that "civic involvement" or "fighting against something that affected THEIR community"

That's a massive issue right? The trust in our Government by it's citizens is at an extreme low. A lot of that is based off of misinformation from various media outlets, but a portion of it is based in reality. Our Goverment has done some really fucked up things over the years, and it feels like fewer and fewer people are getting into office for the right reasons.

This country can never be run properly until Citizens United is repealed. We MUST get money out of politics.

I always think local govt works, you can go to your local board or council or whatever and have a one on one conversation there. But I also think politicians and people in power are more accessible in RI compared to most other states. Voting on local issues is where someone can actually see the difference voting makes.

I completely agree. Also to note, most 16-18 year olds are pushed to focus on COLLEGE APPLICATIONS. They are stressed the heck out to even think about making a difference. Even then, they can't get invested because they're most likely going to be moving out of state for school. I'm curious how many 18 year olds in RI are transplants or grew up here.

Heres a crazy stastic for yah, in RI, we are number one in the country for frequently speaking to and spend time with friends/family, but rank very low for speaking to friends/family/neighbors about political/social issues and volunteering/participating in groups.

[maybe I should post the graphic in the subreddit as its own post, its very interesting]

we need a strong culture shift to talk to each other more!

Seth unfortunately doesn't support any of those policies I named. He's obviously still way better than Fung and we need to get him in office, but he's not doing much to court the youth vote.

>Term Limits tend to be well-meaning but bad for government as a whole as you end up with an entire support structure of staffers and such that constantly know more about the inner workings of the policy levers than the cycling elected officials, forming a shadow government.

There are not enough upvotes in the world for how dead accurate this is. Every time I see a politician/pundit/person I like and respect be on board with term limits, a part of my soul dies. It's the ultimate "nice idea unless you think about about it" idea that solves nothing and makes existing problems even worse.

Lowkey I think a lot of young voters are going for Fung and Kalus

Based on what?

32 with a mortgage and car payment.

I don't disagree that the candidate choices could be better in countless examples but "young voters" isn't a significant voting bloc. It just never has been historically and it's silly to pretend there's some magical candidate who can change decades of data showing that young people really just don't vote at the same rate that older age groups do.

Plenty of campaigns have tried to focus on those issues and voters and usually lose badly in the primary stage.

And how did the governor affect those?

It "works" in the Executive because the entire job is managing a legacy bureaucracy and most of the people who get into the position have met and interacted with most of the ones that can't easily be replaced.

The fact that you think having a mortgage and a car payment at 32 is something to be proud of is part of the problem. You should be able to graduate college, put a down payment on a house, buy a car. Instead you graduate college with so much overwhelming debt you can barely afford to eat and can’t move out of your parents until your 35. This country is a mess.

Funny because in almost every measurable way, (education, healthcare access, obesity, pregnant children, etc) red states are always the worst.

I'd almost argue that it's not even great in the executive branch. It was an overcorrection from a wildly popular president that couldn't be unseated until he died in office and a wildly unpopular vice president took over.

To me, it's just inherently undemocratic to automatically disqualify a choice that might be the most popular one. I could see the logic a little better for a governor but for the U.S. Presidency, most people would not even want to keep going after 2 full terms. Maybe if you had the double-whammy of a world war and a great depression again, I could see someone not wanting to abandon ship in crisis, but that job would burn most people out.

If you look at the 2 term presidents after FDR, none of them even would've tried to go for a 3rd term if the option was there. It's a self correcting problem federally because that job has stress factors none of us can imagine.

Indeed, but it's still acceptable in the position. Expanding the house and instituting rotating benches in the Federal Court system would go a long way in fixing the things we claim we want term limits for.

So, I agree with the first part of your statement (term limits are bad), but your rationale is weak.

First, Congress has defunded its own staff capacity since the Gingrich era, so the ability of Congressional staffers to become a "shadow government" is limited.

Second, you actually want a set of staffers with deep expertise in what they do. Like, that's good for government; experienced people who know how to move bills through committee can greatly enhance a young congressperson's ability to pass legislation. Congress' own decision to weaken this is a massive problem, and it's part of why more and more power has concentrated in the hands of party leadership in Congress, because they have the best staff.

Third, you do not have to worry about a shadow government. The US has two branches full capable of usurping Congressional power all on their own; the President and the Supreme Court. And that's part of what's actually occurred. As Congress gets weaker and less capable of making decisions, more and more policymaking is made by the President (via executive order) or the Court (via decisions). This is a really bad outcome. The Constitution only provides for one deliberative, decision-making body: the United States Congress.

Term limits stand to worsen all the current effects, as they generally have in states that have adopted them. The fear here should not be that some anonymous staffers are running the government from within Congress, it's that the two least-representative and least-transparent branches of government will be setting policy.

That's an interesting statistic. I know that from growing up here, the rule was always, never talk about politics or religion, but I've always felt in recent years that the rule no longer applies since everything in our world is now politicized.

Everything in our world was always political. Not talking about it led to assumptions that politics is separate. Now that we’re talking more about it, we can see the nuances of how government and policy affects our everyday lives.

my company (globally recognized) pays about 19 hour great benefits to start with nothing more than HS diploma and you reach pay max in 4 years, about 26 hour. the young kids (millennials) come in ,if they show up, if they show up on time, and demand to be able to wear air pods and sit in a chair. they have no regard for quality work or any interest in bettering anything. totally self centered "theres no I in team" mentality. I actually fear for the future of some industries seeing this generations absolute lack of work ethic. nobody should owe their soul to the company store but you are not worth what you think you are.

It's made everyone segregated and even hate each other in some cases though.

I'm not sure about everything. Take masks for example. Something that got politized that had no business being portrayed that way.

I'm not sure which situation is worse. In a perfect world, we could disagree on something and come to a compromise, or find equal ground, but it's nasty out there.

https://twitter.com/allanfungri/status/1578850095499743232?s=46&t=heuzsEQZ8mtg6PKecyCJqg

Ah your wording threw me off. You mean polarization, or when a topic is turned into a “support this or you’re bad” such as masks. Because pandemic response and public health is political, we have had responses to pandemics before and providing vaccines. You’re right that it was turned into an “issue” rather than being okay let’s put into policy that we will follow the best guidelines for responding to a pandemic. (Which again, is a political act)

If we as a culture practice talking to each other about difficult subjects rather than saying “just never talk about politics or religion” then it would get easier. It’s a skill to be able to have discussions with people. That’s a skill we all need to work on.

I’m not that big into politics, but every time I see something on the RI subreddit about “voting is important” or “get out and vote” and someone comments anything that isn’t endorsing the ‘right person’ they get downvoted to heck.

It kinda seems like people are really saying “vote for my person” not vote in general.

Just saying from someone outside looking in.

Everything’s ruined yet you seem to be doing fine. Maybe stop blaming your own personal failure on the government?

That’s simply not true and you are grouping an entire generation based off a few bad eggs that you have had. Also top pay of 26$ an hour isn’t Jack shit in today’s economy. Basic house that needs 50k of work put into it cost 350k minimum. Not to mention the insane cost of used cars, groceries, insurance and everything else. Wake up to reality. We don’t live in the same world that you grew up in.

You were right about 2 things.

1. Proving my point that an entire generation of people still think we live in the 90s and are completely out of tune with the realities of todays world.

2. We don’t want to sell our souls to companies that have no problem dropping us at a moments notice, not giving an appropriate amount of time off, and refuse to pay a living wage.

The take-away? Do a little digging. Listen to a debate, figure out if the candidates are aligned to values you believe in.

Choice = Freedom.

A vote for Fung is a vote for Trump.

Your choice.

Informed voters are more important.

I don't live in district 2 so I won't be voting for him. I'll vote for David Cicilline but I will be splitting my ticket for a couple R's on the ballot.

Here's the thing - you are not going to fix it by not voting.

sure, but engaging young voters is the topic of this thread

The politicians have failed kids with a completely inadequate education system.

"No one represents us." - The largest voting group in the country that only partially votes.

Why? Because they're naive and easily influenced?

I remember history was the big stressor for me in 9th grade.

Really useful that class was; how often I had to know Tutankhamun's family.

Civics would have been much better.

I’m voting red

And if you don’t believe in any of them? I’ve only abstained a few times, but I think it’s important for people to also realize that it’s not exactly right to shame people if they’ve educated themselves and elected not to participate.

It's also hard to even get on a ballot.

I tried running for Cranston council in July and couldn't get enough signatures to be nominated.

Most folks wouldn't open the door for me because they thought I was selling solar panels.

Young or old; it's tough to break into their club.

I'm going to try again in 2024, this time I'll take advantage of the voter demographics spreadsheets they give out.

are you kidding ? i made this pay and own 2 cars and a home bought 3 years ago with 0 down with all the trimmings. just because the majority of your generation thinks you deserve a CEO pay package with janitor credentials dont blame society or evil corporations. go open your own company and get real world insight. bitching that every unskilled job out there should pay enough to support a family of 4 isnt realistic. i live in todays world i know what it takes to make it and the generation you are worried about has alotta work to do.

...you're blaming people who couldn't vote 20 years ago for politicians that have been in power for 20 years?

...you're blaming this generation of young people for the young people of the 90s?

they are so special

like, oh my gawd

As someone who was treated horribly and harassed for using my vote if it’s not for who the adults want, I’d rather blow my vote then be harassed and bullied. I know at least 20 other people my age who agree. Stop bullying opposition and we will vote.

I don't see how that's a problem? The politicians job is to use the knowledge of that staff to accomplish their stated goals. The staff knowing more than the politician isn't... bad. Unless the goal is just to make sure the politician in question is always the smartest person in the room by removing all the other smart people...

Edit: Oh i see

> forming a shadow government

That's not what a shadow government is, because if the elected official feels that way, they can always fire their staff members. Shadow government can't just be fired by an elected official. They are the people runing agencies - without term limits OR having been elected.

Term limits on un-elected agency positions would ALSO stop shadow government as well as solve the generation gap problem.

$26 an hour!

That would have been $15 an hour in 1999!

Source

Does that sound like a lot to you?

> bitching that every unskilled job out there should pay enough to support a family of 4 isnt realistic

Uh, no, it's literally what minimum wage allowed from 1950-1980.

Minimum wage was mathematically created to be the amount where one person could support a wife and children.

it hasn't been that for the last... 25 years, tho.

> i made this pay

When, in 1999? Because $26 an hour in 1999 is... $46 an hour today.

Source

You're ignoring basic inflation.

You made THE EQUIVALENT OF $46 an hour when you were young, and pay people THE EQUIVALENT OF $15 an hour now, and think it's the same?

Do some basic math and stop blaming us for wanting what our parents had.

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Thank you for the back up. I don’t have the energy to prove to this asshole how wrong he is.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Haha you really are just digging yourself deeper and deeper.
CEO pay really?
Your “top pay” of 26$ an hour is not even 55k a year. Thats assuming you pay holidays. 55k is not anywhere near enough money to afford everyday expenses in todays economy. 55k take out taxes, insurance and 401k assuming you offer that, that doesn’t even leave 40k leftover.

You need to wake up to reality. 20 years ago 55k would have been respectable, today that 55k should be 80k if not more. Oh and for the record, I do have my own company. You know why I have my own company, because I learned a long time ago that your generation doesn’t pay a livable wage. Your way off old timer!

I grew up in the '70s, and we were not guaranteed a job at all. I can remember 2000 people lining up to apply for 150 jobs. I was stunned in the '90s when I applied for three jobs and got a callback from all of them, I had never had to choose between jobs before.

However, as a general rule, people in politics are from the class who did not have to struggle for employment. But some of them understand what that means, and make an effort to prevent it . Vote for them.

I think 8th grade was the only year I had “civics”. Every other year was world or US history. Had an elective in HS that focused on WW2 Germany/The Holocaust. Another elective on criminal justice. Another elective for anthropology.

I don’t think US history ever made it past the 30s.

Johnston High, class of 2003.

You're misreading me. "Young people" means people who are young at a given time. This isn't about 1 specific generation, much less the current one.

It's every generation and nothing's really going to change until that 18-24 voting bloc shows up and forces it to change going forward. Each successive one is a little screwed by the previous one.

If that 18-24 year old group started showing up at the 75% rate that senior citizens showed up at, it'd take exactly 1 election cycle to break that trend.

All voters are important! VOTE!!

>Congress has defunded its own staff capacity since the Gingrich era, so the ability of Congressional staffers to become a "shadow government" is limited.

More than staffs of congress, I'd worry that legislation is basically going to be dictated by industry interests.

Millennials aren't "young kids". It's a generation that ranges from late 20s to early 40s.

This is, in fact, something that occurs more frequently in state legislatures that have enacted term limits. With less experienced legislators, they became more reliant on lobbyists of all types to actually draft legislation, which leads to a lot more corporate legislation.

yes , sorry young to me. Im 50.

And you pay your associates a living wage ? every employee you have makes over 26 an hour ? Wish i was way off but every day I talk to these kids I see the whole country being lost if this is the new normal.

and the current crop isnt worth that so ???

There is one capitalist ruling class composed of the ultra-wealthy and their interests. Our "two party system" is largely impotent pageantry designed to divide the population. Over the last 30 years, the only thing that is improving is the net worth of the top 1%. Every other material outcome is in sharp, steep decline as the wealthy class cannibalizes every public institution leaving no stone left unturned.

lmao.. again i dont want anyone in poverty but you need to have something to bring to the table also. you people think a burger flipper in 1950 supported a family had cars and a home.times have always been tough, every generation thinks the previous one skated. good luck times are changing and you are the future.. choose wisely because us old timers wont be here to bail you out.

I don’t think a burger flipper is a career goal, unless of course you own some high end restaurant and that’s been your life’s dream. I think the issue is a lot of millennials have no hope because they see wages capped at a certain number and they see the cost of everything else around them going up (not your fault or mine. Just the norm). Me personally, I went to school, now work in the trades because I make way more doing skilled trade work than I ever could have with my degree. Times aren’t what they used to be. Houses aren’t 200k anymore. They are double that. A decent used car is 15k minimum. Millennials see everything around them changing accept the wages. I agree minimum wage jobs should not be peoples goal in life. The reality is most people need much more just to afford the basic necessities. 26$ an hour is decent pay, but you also said that’s were is caps out. That’s likely something you can’t change, we both know how business and overhead works. At the end of the day someone isn’t likely to give their all for a job that caps out in the 55k range.

Nope.

How exactly did the Dems ruin this state? Not the individuals, but rather democrat policies. And which Republican policies would make the state a better place to live? Any party can have corrupt politicians, but the policies pushed by the Dems almost always lead to progress instead of stagnation.

I’m one of the older millennials and this entire rant is so beyond BS. Every millennial I know has worked so much harder than their parents for so much less.

Imagine being mad at someone for wanting to sit in a chair….? At some point you all need to stop blaming us for everything.

Also $19/hour isn’t great. It’s barely enough to support yourself on.

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They are but they need to make their own decisions not listen the the left and right

Shrugs. You've gotta live with their decisions. "If you don't vote, you can't bitch!"

Ain't nothing Rhode Islanders like to do more than bitch! :)

Rich and heartless or poor and brainless?

“I won’t vote until people aren’t assholes” is an impossible precondition so this is just a rationalization to never vote

I’d imagine that chose not to vote likely aren’t complaining all that often. Additionally, not believing in the candidates doesn’t discredit valid criticisms of elected officials. That’s such a simplified trope that ignores so many possibilities.

Try again. In the meantime follow the data at RI Secretary of States website. Talk to your local town clerk in charge of voting. https://vote.sos.ri.gov/ You need to find out what the issues are locally and attend local meetings. It's so important

I remember complaining that my history classes always ended at WWII (after skipping over WWI completely--I had no idea what it was about until I took a class in college). Today they sometimes seem to go to Vietnam at least.

The ending on WWII year after year actually caused me to hate WWII. Don't talk to me about it! It's boring! My father, who's own father fought in WWII, thinks I'm a heathen, but I'm just sick of it. There are so many more interesting history periods. Can we please learn something else? Hell, even in 20th Century America, there is a stuff of cool stuff my history classes never got to that I didn't learn about until college.

Wow, the former mayor having the support of some of former constituent's kids, who were definitely cherrypicked for photo ops, really says a lot about all kids in Rhode Island. /s

I read the council minutes occasionally.

But I'll try to attend physically.

>Not to mention Gen Z who only cares about being TikTok famous.

Don't fall for this trap. Every generation looks down on the next one as being the worst and it's part of the issue. The blame fell from Gen X to us Millenials and now we're helping shift it to Gen Z. Each generation has it's knuckleheads, don't define them all by it

This country will be so much better off when the boomers start losing their grip on it

Run for office, then! Or, inform the candidate closest to your values as to what they're missing, in your opinion. Or, move.

That needs to be a bumper sticker!

Young people who don't vote are entitled morons who are getting the America they deserve because they can't do the bare minimum of showing up to a poll box let alone campaigning for anyone that they actually think represents their views. It amazes me how many people my age I see who say that oh no Bernie got cheated or whatever bullshit when half of them didn't show up to vote and all they do is sit in their own echo chambers all day and assume that most Americans hold the same views that they do. They don't recognize the importance of local elections and how much of an impact even the smallest School board race can have on a macro scale. They want the instant gratification of immediate change without having any understanding of how our American system of government actually operates whether it's just or not.

If you ever work on a campaign you'll realize that in local races and even in a state senate race most of the time you'll have a maximum of like five volunteers and for city stuff you might be the only person who bothers to show up. Literally all you have to do is put aside some time after work to go knock doors or make phone calls to make a measurable difference in the outcome of an election, and you can work on multiple campaigns at once of your candidate has a coalition of others who are also running. You need to try amd sway primary elections first and foremost. Your vote alone won't swing an election, but in many many many cases, your help on a campaign alone as a sole additional volunteer can easily swing a race or even multiple races. Don't tell me you don't have time if you spend your free time bitching about politics on Reddit or Twitter.

As a young voter, I feel disheartened about todays politics… it’s not about the people, it’s about the power/wealth that comes along with it. Republican, democrat, whoever it’s all about serving the interest of whoever is financially backing you. Didn’t vote in the last presidential election or local and I don’t intent on voting for this governor race either. I don’t believe in either candidate and don’t believe either party deserves my vote as a spite to the other.

Not sure if other 90s kids feel this way, but I’m nervous and anxious about what our political future holds if the landscape does not change.

What a privileged take on the matter, sure you’re a lot of fun!

What is your desired outcome? And how do you intend to achieve it?

Sort these by their ability to achieve your desired outcome.

- Do nothing

- Do nothing and bitch on Reddit

- Vote for a candidate

- Run for office

- Run away, move to another county, state, country where laws give you what you want.

I did say I’d rather blow the vote then be bullied, didn’t say I don’t vote or that I never would. I vote against what hurts me or my family, however if I were to share my beliefs I get harassed and called every insult under the sun. My point is I know plenty of people who don’t vote because of how hostile everyone is about politics. And unlike you, I can recognize why and not immediately go back to insulting or thinking lesser for their choice. Their human, start treating them like humans.

If it wasn’t some peoples entire lives, I’d say that your right, but some treat everyone based on their ideology and vote. as someone who needs therapists and has issues of my own that make living hard, the ability to just not say a word to those who ask me questions isn’t something I have. It tends to always end in me being treated subhuman, which for someone with my disability I’m VERY used to.

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It’s funny you claim I’m slinging shot when I’m saying not to blanket blame all people in a group for the actions of the loudest, but sure.

Politics is dealing with important things, and the internet is the internet, so sadly any political opinion can invite abuse depending on where it's expressed. It doesn't negate the importance of participating. And obviously there are plenty of people you'll never interact with on the internet who want to make their communities better, want you to vote, and also won't give you a hard time about your opinions.

Kids - don't feel peer pressured to vote for an asshole. Vote your conscience or stay home, it's a free country.

By not voting you'll never get the govt you want. Esp if you skip local elections. Local elections are more personal and you can speak with your local elected officials easily as compared to federal or even state.

Your anxiety over the future is for nothing if you're not voting. You should be worried.

I don’t feel a sense of confidence in either choice, how would I get the government I want if I vote for the “lesser of two evils” option? I can hear and understand your sentiment about local elections and you mention a good point. Truthfully, McKee or Kalus, I don’t really align with either of them so not sure where to go from there.

Also, not sure why I was downvoted when I’m merely providing my own opinion and thoughts on the situation.

You talk about anxiety in the future and do nothing to address it. You have 1 voice and have chosen not to use it. There are 3rd party candidates and occasionally some of them make really good arguments. But what exactly are you looking for? You also realize that no candidate will be 100% perfect, kind of like life itself.

I used my vote in the primaries, my candidate didn’t advance. I recognize neither candidate will meet my exact views and there will be concessions that must be made.

It's your choice. There are more than one elections happening. You could make a difference in any one of those. You could also ask candidates where they stand on your issue. By not voting even if your preferred candidate didn't advance, you're losing your chance to demand change. I say this as someone in my 60s. I just don't understand why you would allow us older people to dictate your future