this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
1668 points (90.0% liked)

Political Memes

5483 readers
3149 users here now

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

Be civilJokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

No misinformationDon’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

Posts should be memesRandom pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

No bots, spam or self-promotionFollow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TheFonz@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Oh, I see. We're being pedantic with words. I guess I should have been precise in my language for people so people like you can have cause to split hairs. What I meant to say is "the majority of leftists don't vote" and this is well researched and supported by the numbers. Does that make you feel better? It doesn't matter if conservative youth don't vote, since the majority of the older population skews moderate or conservative. Both conservative and left youth can stay home, but that's how we get where we are.

Edit: also, it doesn't matter if conservative youth don't vote. Youth vote skews left. If younger people OVERALL showed up to vote we would have more progressive candidates. I think we're really struggling with stats today.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You didn't give any numbers to support your claim, just a different claim.

To support the claim of leftists not voting, you need numbers showing that leftists don't vote, not young people not voting.

I hope this helps!

[–] TheFonz@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The numbers are clear. I'm not sure where the break down is happening.

  1. Young people constitute the predominant portion of the left base, especially if you account the far left. In other words, lefties and far lefties make an overlapping Venn diagram with young people. They are the same population.
  2. Young people do not vote.

Conclusion: 3. The current electorate is composed of old people that tend to skew conservative. Those people show up to vote -every time.

Where is the contradiction?

More info from Pew 2022 election polls:

Age and the 2022 election Age continues to be strongly associated with voting preferences in U.S. elections. Nearly seven-in-ten voters under 30 (68%) supported Democratic candidates in 2022 – much higher than the shares of voters ages 30 to 49 (52%), 50 to 64 (44%) and 65 and older (42%) who did so. Compared with 2018, GOP candidates performed better among voters who turned out across age groups.

Also:

Older voters turned out more reliably in both elections – and continued to be largely loyal to Republican candidates.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)
  1. You have not proven this.

  2. You have proven this.

Even if you did prove 1, you still aren't tying not voting to leftists, but young people.

[–] TheFonz@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

For the last five decades, younger people have been trending left:

Statista

Edit: Just that most recent bar (gen z) should solidify this point. Despite a predominant portion being represented by Gen Z, we still only ave a slim majority in the House (and minority) in the senate. How do you explain that if your point is that left leaning people show up to vote?

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Young people swing liberal, or even left. That doesn't mean the left is majority youth, or that leftism is what is tied to not voting, as opposed to youth.

I genuinely don't understand why this is a difficult logical hurdle for you to overcome.

[–] TheFonz@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Maybe I should be more precise in my language. I’m starting to realize that my rhetoric is a bit too general for social media and I’m painting with broad brush strokes to favor brevity (and I’m also tired). I never intended to say the left is predominantly youth, but rather that most youth skew left. If the youth showed up to vote, we wouldn’t have a slim majority in the house thus making any legislative progress almost impossible because of moderate democrats like J. Manchin — who are clearly representing their electorate— blocking any progressive bill. This topic is really well studied, I’m not sure why we’re even arguing.

Eligible Outsider Left were 9 percentage points less likely to vote in the 2020 presidential election than the average adult citizen and 11 points less likely to vote than the average Democrat or Democratic-leaning citizen. Only about two-in-ten (21%) say they follow what’s going on in government and politics most of the time.

From: Pew Research

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sure. I agree with that. That's not what you were originally saying, but if you're retracting the initial and inserting this statement, we agree.

[–] TheFonz@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

I think I can sort of meet you half way. I don't think the numbers detract a whole lot from my original point. Sure, many lefties vote, but if a significant portion of the Democratic electorate does not participate, that's already incapacitating it to a degree. Imagine what we could accomplish if we had supermajority in both houses and didn't have to cater to moderate Dems like Sinema or Manchin? Imagine if we could primary actual progressive candidates and young people showed up to the ballot. Instead we are left with an insular slim majority in only one of the houses.