Demonizing older voters

The BBQ Pit
41

I think another part of the problem is the sheer amount of change in the past 50 or so years. Sure, stuff had changed between my g-grandparents generation and my grandparents, but when my grandparents were kids, they were still farming with horses. Fashions had changed, there was a bit of new tech about, but they were still mostly doing the most of the same things that had been done for centuries in pretty much the same way.

Whereas just between me and my parents there’s been a huge change. My parents are still a bit unsure about the whole internet thing; they’ll occasionally buy something online, but they think it’s a bit experimental and risky and they’re not sure about it at all. The internet just isn’t important to their lives, neither of them have a smartphone and the wifi can go down for weeks before they think about fixing it. It’s more or less a silly extension of computer games with a few useful bits.

As an example of what this means to them; if I’m applying online for jobs and not getting interview offers, well, that’s the problem isn’t it? I’m messing about with the internet, not going there and handing the nice lady behind the desk a bit of paper, like I should be. They were told that’s how to apply for a job, and if I’m not doing that, well, it’s no surprise I’ve not got jobs as easy as them. Even if the places I’m applying to only accept online applications and there is no nice lady behind a desk.

After all, my mother has never applied for a job and not got it. I can show her all the job stats I want, but secretly she know it’s just because I’m not doing it right, like she was taught.

Deep down, I suspect a lot of older folks just think we’re all just doing everything wrong, because it’s not what they did, so whatever happens to the younger generations (except maybe their own descendants) it’s our own fault for changing things. They don’t think their generation changed everything, the kids who grew up after it was changed, that act differently in this new world, they’re the ones responsible.

42

Oh, there are those on this board that think that way.

I find

part particularly telling. Funny thing, in the 60’s and 70’s, the boomers were saying the same thing about “the greatest generation”. Don’t worry, if you’re lucky enough, the kids today will be moaning about how the Gen Xers and Millennials have messed up this world and the only reason is that old people (by then, Gen Xers and Millennials) are the only ones who vote.

43

ITT: People who don’t understand which forum they’re in.

44

Ah yes, “don’t trust anyone over 30.” :slight_smile:

They didn’t slice and dice the demographics in polls anywhere near the way they do now, but I think it’s pretty clear in retrospect that all us hippie/antiwar protester/etc. types were far from a majority of the Boomer generation, just a hell of a lot more visible. Also new and unexpected, at the time, so more newsworthy.

45

Yeah well, they’re old. What do you expect?

46

No, old white people have ruined everything. You guys are currently erasing last vestiges of American prestige. Baby boomer children were brought up in relative decadence. Your carefully manicured lawns and the dearth of people of color in your childhood are due to redlining and housing discrimination. Your existence forced millions of people of color to be corralled into ghettos where, for the most part, they were miserable and under occupation by your white supremacist police force. Then, in the 1960’s and early 70’s, you thots went around spreading sexually transmitted diseases, engaging in rampant drug use, rioting, protesting, assassinating, and being brown shirts for Barry Goldwater.

When the baby boomers got in government, they broke compromise with with their selfishness. For boomers, everything is zero-sum. Anytime there is personal struggle, these baby boomers give themselves tax cut over tax cut at the detriment to further generations. Now, people like me have to pay social security taxes to pay for boomer current benefits; but the boomers weren’t satisfied, the boomers deliberately increased the age in which non-boomers can claim SS benefits but exempted themselves. It embodies the boomer ethos “Good for thee, but not for me”.

Kuchiyose No Jutsu

Let them know, please.

The worse thing baby boomers have done is that they have spawned forth millions of offspring who lack empathy and compassion. Your grandchildren are referring to other white people as NPCs. Because baby boomers don’t play video games, you don’t quite grasp why calling another person a NPC is the embodiment of dehumanization. That’s some fucked up shit because even **I do not deny white folks their humanity. Probably won’t accept it but you boomers have set back race relations at least 50 years, maybe longer.

What’s worse, is that your offspring have/had it worse than you and, you don’t give a shit. You baby boomers cut the education funding for your own goddamned offspring. Your grandchildren go to a school where they have fear of being shot by their fellow (white) classmates. Stop.
Think about this. You have never had to fear that your classmate was going to go on a rampage; yet you tut-tut at their pleading for protection, their outrage, their walkouts, and their marches. Again, “Good for thee, but not for me”.

47

Reading the OP, it came to my mind that today’s equivalent of “Get off my lawn!” is “Get off my Facebook page!”
One problem which rich countries may increasingly have is that we have prolonged the period in which people decay before death and that medicine is better at keeping bodies basically functioning than keeping the brain and higher cognitive functions at a level that can control impulses like fear and engage in complex abstract thought.

There must be a lot of little old ladies whose prefrontal cortex has been atrophying and wasn’t ever that developed to begin with, sitting lonely and anxious in their kitchen at night, watching Fox News to hear about the terrorists and the illegals and the rapists and the gays and wasn’t the world simpler and a lot better before it all started to change.

Quasi-zombies may overwhelm us.

48

The Brexit vote was 61% leave for people over 65 compared to 25% for people under 25; Trump got 53% of voters over 65 and 37% of voters under 30. The demonized older voters can go fuck themselves.

49

Me too, except for one when I was taking care of an ill relative. (I was on the phone for over an hour to get my absentee ballot forwarded to me, but was ultimately unsuccessful.)

I’ve experienced polling lines that maxed out at maybe 10-15 minutes.

But some folks have had to wait in line for over 2 hours. Lots of folks in fact, generally in less well-healed communities. Have you had that experience?

Voting should be easy. Human nature being what it is, voting should be roughly as easy for some as it is for others. That is in no way the case in the US. There’s no good reason not to have voting registration as a part of getting a driver’s license for example. The US is way behind other advanced countries in this regards, and it should be a source of shame for those who value democracy. Or worse, pretend to.

50

It’s been required by law, for registration for federal elections, for a couple decades.

51

Good point, but enforcement is spotty. From your link: Voting rights organizations argue that some states have not been complying with the National Voter Registration Act. In several states, organizations such as Demos, Project Vote, Campaign Legal Center[14] and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law have filed lawsuits or sent pre-litigation letters. In some of these cases, this has resulted in changes in compliance by states. I thought I saw a colored map somewhere comparing state voting issues. Meh.

Googling and shifting claim:

2015 Vox article: 19 maps and charts that explain voting rights in America. It could use an update.

2014 New Yorker article on states restricting voting rights: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/interactive-map-the-war-on-voting-rights Ditto.

2018 Roundup by Brennan Center. That’s better, though a little too focused on 2018 legislative developments. Voting Laws Roundup 2018

52

They are not. You are having to deliberately read something into what they say in order to come to that conclusion. As you mention, they are talking about the record, not the people.

What if they showed white people in the background while talking about racism? What if they showed straight people in the background when talking about homophobia. Would you assume it was an attack on all white people or all straight people?

They’re being told that the current group of old people have, as a group, not produced the world they want, so they should step up, rather than letting the bad ones control everything.

Old people are no more under attack by these ads than are white, straight cisgender men.

53

Here, let me fix that for ya:

“Older voters need to get off my xeriscaped front yard.”

54

Here, let me fix that for ya:

“As for people who don’t vote, they shouldn’t be allowed to buy Double half-caff pumpkin spice soy lattes with three pumps of cinnamon, room for cream, and a cranberry scone for a year.”

55

This thread really needs more data, to really bring the point home. There’s a pretty compelling reason there are so many get-out-the-vote campaigns for younger folk. If we assume that the current administration is a disaster (an opinion largely shared on this board, with a few exceptions), increasing young (age 18-29) voter turnout by even modest amounts can singlehandedly turn the tide.

Old people (defined as 60+) turnout at ~70% in presidential years and ~60% in mid-term years. This is a 60% higher rate than millennials.

At the same time, they are between 76% and 120% more Republican than millennials.

There’s about 7.2M seniors 60+ in America right now. A blended average of ~65% of them turn out at any given election (averaging the lower mid-term years with the higher presidential years), so that’s 4.7M going to the polls. ~50% of them will vote Republican as of 2017 data, so that’s 2.35M Republican votes at the polls.

However, there’s 54M folk between ages 18-29 in the US right now. And they are the least Republican by age cohort, being only 17% R and cumulatively 60% D or leaning-D. However, they turn out at a blended rate of 25%, for 13.5M voting annually. As of 2017, ~60% vote D, so 8.1M of those are going to be D votes.

If 18-29 turnout increased to only half age 60+ turnout, and became 32.5% instead of 25%, 17.6M would be voting (10.5D). That extra 2.4M D votes just cancelled out the age 60+ R votes!

Just imagine all those young voters turning out in the last presidential election - instead of losing the popular vote by 2.8M, Trump could have lost by 5 or 6M and still won because of the electoral college!

Of course, bringing young voter turnout still higher than that is the real dream, because then you can really swing the raw numbers enough that D’s have a chance to win even in a lot of our triple-rigged ultra-gerrymandered districts. But just a modest increase means they could indeed cancel out all the ladder-yanking seniors screwing everyone who won’t be dead in two decades, and anything above that gives this country a real shot at sanity.

So if you’re really interested in swinging the tide, you too should be encouraging the younger voters you know to vote, in this and future elections, because it only takes a small population-wide increase in turnout to see big effects.

56

I’m old. Young people today have every reason to be angry at my generation. More power to them. Don’t let us decide your future. We did a horrible job.

57

…

For example! More states should pass Automatic Voter Registration. That means that if you interact with governmental agencies (DMV mostly), you are automatically registered to vote unless you opt out. Thirteen states have approved this plan, including Georgia, Alaska and West Virginia.

58

This is a scandal. I’m outraged that there isn’t more outrage against it. I applaud the people who waited two hours, but if it were me (and many others, I’m sure) I’d turn around and go home when I saw the lines.

How can America be said to have a functioning democracy when the Republiopathic dictatorships deliberately suppress the vote in certain districts with methods like this? What do Brickhead and the other supporters of fascism here say about it?

59

Long lines are indeed an abomination. I doubt I’ve ever waited more than 15 minutes, and usually not close to that–and that in a racially diverse small city, in a county run mostly by Republicans (but a state dominated by the Dems).

On the other hand, my son and his partner did early voting today in Chicago–not exactly a hotbed of Republicanism to say the least–and reported that they waited in line for an hour and a half. :eek:

Which is only to say, party shenanigans may often, even usually, be the problem, but they are not the whole story.

60

Every single voter, every single person is an individual, as well as a member of any number of cohorts based on age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, “race” and many more. Do you belong to any group from whose general behavior you would wish to dissociate yourself? Are you, for example, a member of a generation that only votes at a rate of 25%? Does the irony not burn when you consider that?

By all means get the young people to vote. But you don’t have to teach them hatred and division to do it.