Voters born in the '90s need to get a clue

[SlackerInc]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Millennials ain’t your allies. They didn’t sign on to your army. They didn’t take an oath. They didn’t put on a uniform. They aren’t on your team. There are no teams.

Sure there are teams. They are not as well organized as they ideally could be, but they are there no matter how much you try to deny them. They even have official registration with the state in most places (how many teams can say that?) along with national committees, state and county branches, automatic ballot access, etc.

Furthermore, you are picking a strange time in history to make this claim. People are increasingly chafing against actually saying they belong to one party or another, that is true. But acting like it? Pew has a detailed report on how well-sorted the parties have become in recent years, and how many more people now follow one party or the other down the line on pretty much every issue. And The Fix at the WaPo has a nice series of graphs showing how split ticket voting has all but disappeared just in the past decade.

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

But they are under no obligation, legal or moral, to maintain a coalition that they’ve decided doesn’t serve their ends.

Bringing up “legal” obligations is a canard–a straw man, really. But a moral obligation? You bet your sweet ass there is.

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Make no mistake: I absolutely want everyone to vote for Clinton. But your way of arguing for it is terrible, both illogical and counterproductive.

I can only assume then that you also abhor the way President Obama is campaigning (I obviously do not):

“I get frustrated hearing folks say, ‘You know, we’re so excited with Barack, we love Michelle, they take Hillary for granted,’” Obama told syndicated host Frankie Darcell. “This is not a reality show. This is not something where it’s all flash and fizzle.”[…]
“If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn’t matter who we elect – read up on your history. It matters. We’ve got to get people to vote,” Obama said. “I will consider it a personal insult – an insult to my legacy – if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote.”

Whether you are personally comfortable with this approach or not, it must actually be, contrary to your claim, both logical and productive, because they have actual number-crunching geniuses planning all this stuff with the help of massive amounts of granular research on voter behavior and state of the art computer modelling.

@RTFirefly

No.

Most demographic groups are largely the same people over time. Were you black in 2012? You’re still black now. Hispanic? Asian? Ditto. College-educated? There’s some new ones with each graduating class, but for the most part the same people.

But 18-24 year olds? They’re not the same people. You can’t say if they’re supporting Hillary as strongly as they supported Obama, because 57% of them couldn’t even vote in 2012.

The 18-24 year olds who voted for Obama in 2008 are now 26-32 year olds, and apparently supporting Hillary now just as strongly as they supported Obama then. The 18-24 year olds who voted for Obama in 2012 - 57% of them are 25+ now, and again, are apparently ready to vote for Hillary the way they voted for Obama. So you apparently have a beef with 22-24 year olds, plus a bunch of first-time voters who didn’t support anyone four years ago, so it can’t be said that they’re not doing now what they did then.

Good point. *Great *point. You got me there. :o

@davidm

This argument doesn’t have to be about age. I know a very liberal guy in his 50s who constantly rails against Hillary and, if I had to guess, will be voting for Stein, if anyone. I know a woman who’s even older who thinks the same way. Both are impervious to logic and reason.
Maybe our ire should be directed towards the “all or nothing” type of voter of any age rather than just the young people who, after all, will mostly be voting for Hillary.

Absolutely. I have one of those in my own family: my mother. She is in her seventies, and she was voting for Ralph Nader back when few people knew he was running (1996). She actually served on a board with Hillary Clinton back in the '80s and had a positive impression of her then, but has come to the conclusion in the interim that she has not only sold out or whatever, but that someone has “gotten to her”. :eek: She was of course bigtime for Bernie, is hardcore against TPP, etc. Because of the things she forwards me, I have learned that the far left is doing its level best to keep up with the “alt-right” in terms of dark, convoluted and conspiratorial mutterings.

So, yes: anyone of any age or race whose sympathies lie left of center (or, arguably, even a little right of center) should be voting for Hillary. If their sympathies are significantly right of center, they may have a tough choice this time around, and I wouldn’t blame them for choosing either way (I’d just blame them for being right wingers to begin with). If they are left of center, and do anything other than vote for Hillary, they are either a fool or a traitor, probably both. And the fundamental point of this thread is that this group includes a lot of college-age kids, although there’s certainly plenty of blame to direct at Bernie Sanders for poisoning impressionable young minds. I have a feeling he knows this, and is feeling a bit sick about it, so hopefully he’ll do his best to make it right–although I’m not sure if he can get that toothpaste back in the tube.