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You may ask and I may not answer.
But think about what you said. They pursue the voters that vote for them. When most of your voters are older then yeah, you cater to them. But I also think you grossly underestimate how much they DO actually do for younger voters.
Read Jacobin #40 for some perspective.
Sometimes it may seem this way but it really isn't. We get some of what we want. The equation is simple: Get some of what you want under a dem administration or most of what you don't want under a republican administration.
Our system is such that nobody gets 100% of what they want 100% of the time. So what you aim for is to get a party in with a platform that at least allows some of what you want to happen. By throwing up your hands and saying "well the dems are just as bad" and thus not voting you are essentially making it impossible for any of what you want to happen. If Trump wins you can kiss a supreme court majority goodbye. If Trump wins you can look forward to gutting any effort to promote renewables and hold the oil industry accountable. You can look forward to no woman being safe with her medical choices. The list here is enormous.
Meanwhile Biden has accomplished a lot. I don't like many of his policies, but I'm not blind to the good his administration has done. I think you are, so let me remind you of just a few:
Take any one of these things and imagine the opposite. That's what will happen under any republican administration.
You may not like Biden and I totally get that, but NEVER EVER think your vote doesn't matter just because you don't get exactly what you want. We got a decent amount and we CAN get more. Get Biden elected and then (a) be politically active for local and state elections; (b) protest: it works.
If that was true, after Obama flipped a bunch of red states, the party would have moved to younger more progressive candidates. Hell, they'd have done it after Bill.
Instead they kept running the same candidates that lost to Obama. Even tho by then they were older and even more out of touch.
Meanwhile the DNC has consistently made changes that limit the chances of a popular candidate against the party's pre selected pick.
Like, I'd have to ignore the last 30 years of American political history.
Clinton and Obama were two of the youngest presidents we've had, and they ran the most progressive campaigns since FDR and killed it.
It took trump in office for an older moderate to win, but that's consistently the type of candidate the party props up.
And youre acting like those are things that are solved...
It took Bernie pulling Biden left for him to promise to solve some of those things, and he failed to meet his promise. Most are just crumbs that we recently got only because the election is coming up.
Voters want more, and more voters would come out for the candidate
Huh? That completely doesn't follow.
Maybe I wasn't clear. Let me try again: When you know that only a tiny fraction of 18-30 year olds are going to even vote, you don't bother putting forth policies that appeal to them. Instead, you put forth policies that appeal to the largest percentage of voters you can hope to get. So Obama and Hillary both balanced a more progressive agenda against the need to attract voters. They knew for example, that universal healthcare was popular among younger voters but not popular with boomers and even a large chunk of Gen X. So which did you think they went with?
It's not rocket surgery, it's basic math.
This is true. But are you gonnna just throw up your hands or are you going to do something about it? Do you think not voting or not voting for Biden will make it more or less likely you will get a Dem candidate that appeals to you down the road? There's a decent possibility you will get NO Dem candidate at all.
I have to be honest. I think you are ignoring the power you have. That WE have. It was absolutely not Bernie that helped Biden do anything. It was Biden recognizing that folks like us want a more progressive agenda and using Bernie to help make the case that he was in fact leaning in that direction. He has to acknowledge some of the progressive agenda to win younger votes but at the same time he has to appeal to the far larger chunk of folks who will, you know, actually vote.
I also think you are expressing a point of view that is rather troubling to me. That you think you will get everything you want instantly out of our political system. Change is incremental and slow. It is built one piece at a time on a foundation of Democratic party wins that allow us to appoint judges and enact legislation that maybe doesn't get where we want to go in the first pass, but allows it to happen the next time. Younger folks have trouble conceptualizing this, and it's understandable - your time scale is smaller.
So if you want to see change you need to: 1. Vote EVERY TIME; 2. Protest and push for progressive policies; 3. Support younger candidates; 4. Acknowledge this is a long game.
Except they do when they get a good candidate...
Biden coasted with them last year because he was only known as Obama's VP and his TV appearances back then.
But young people are idealistic, they have standards.
If we run a candidate that meets those standards, we don't lose any votes. We even gain some from older demographics because some people keep their ideals.
The only negative to running popular candidates is it upset donors. And instead of doing that, the DNC keeps making new loopholes so they can donate even more, because it's the only way to get the unpopular candidates.
This system is Ludacris like it's from St Louis, we've gone straight past plaid, and most people seem to be completely fine with it.
When it can be sooo much better if we just stopped accepting that politicians have to suck.
Which is exactly my point and exactly the problem even if your assertion is not well supported by the data.
"We'll only vote if you give us our perfect ideal candidate" - ignoring that (a) you can't get everything you want in a candidate; (b) other people get a say too; (c) getting a directionally ok candidate is far better than getting a directionally bad candidate; (d) "good" candidate is a highly subjective assessment. Not all folks 18-whatever are all that progressive.
I gotta admit you come across as rather entitled or at least rather immature. You are demanding the system cater exactly to your specific needs and refuse to participate if it doesn't.
The big ask right now is he stops funding a genocide and encouraging police actions against peaceful protestors...
To you that's "perfect ideal candidate"?
Bud, if you want to know what that would be for me, we're gonna be here for a while, it's a long list.
We're talking about what a demographic will do. Please stop getting personal.
If "don't find a genocide" is too much of an ask, that demographic will reconsider if they belong with that party.
Neither party is entitled to someones vote, that's the entire reason we have campaigns.
If a certain type of candidate can't get votes, but another will...
Why pick the unpopular one?
Shouldn't Dem primary voters vote for the candidate that will get the most votes in the general?
Isn't that the most rational course?
Edit:
To be clear, I mean the primary voters in the hand full of states that get to vote before the DNC declared it over.
And that's not NH anymore, because they kept voting progressive.
I wasn't trying to make it personal, but I do find the kind of attitude you display to be somewhat entitled. And it also displays an admirably idealistic but not very realistic view of the political system that we are stuck with.
You are not going to get that. As far as I am concerned the entire system is corrupt. The military industrial complex is far far too powerful, as are the neocon capitalist forces that essentially call the shots. Guess what? That doesn't get changed by sitting out an election. It doesn't get changed except over the very very long haul. If this were a Romney or somebody we're facing I might be more inclined to say heck ya, let's blow up the election... but the consequences of a Trump administration are incredibly dire. We don't have a choice.
Unpopular with you. Popular with a lot of people. It comes down to who can win the election and since Biden is the only candidate that has won against Trump, that's a good start. You may like to assume that the Dem party just runs with whomever is up next, but while there may be a kernel of truth to that (witness Hillary vs Bernie) it's not how they've won elections (witness Obama).
That's exactly what they are getting. And provably so. If the 18-39 demographic actually turned out to vote in the numbers that the 65+ group did, you can bet we'd be looking at a different candidate. But that's not what has happened, due in no small part to folks such as yourself holding out for the whatever your conception of a preferred candidate is.
Look, I completely agree with you about the candidates on offer. They suck. But if you withhold your vote you are not going to get better candidates... you will get worse because the Dems know you aren't going to vote so they may as well appeal to a demographic that will.
That's why you should vote blue no matter who, but support progressive candidates and protest policies you oppose.
You're still trying to have this conversation about me, and not with me about a demographic that you yourself described as fickle...
What do you think is easier? A candidate that gives that demo attention and they like?
Or getting all of them to stop being who they are?
Because if we try to change them, it's a never ending battle, every year more people turn 18.
If we just run candidates they like, and let them get politically active at a young age. They'll likely become lifelong Dem voters.
And if the party keeps evolving to meet the more and more progressive views of the next generation, republicans will never have a president again.
All it takes is the "moderate" members sacrificing and supporting candidates that will fix problems a little faster than they want, and we'll fix our problems.
Who's being rational here?
I'm sorry if you feel this is aimed at you and is personal. It's not, but we are debating and you are in a sense representing that demographic.
Specifically you display some traits of a demographic that has not yet learned that you at once have enormous power collectively and very little power individually.
For example you display the tendency of that demographic to think that the entire political system should revolve around them and their particular desires. That somehow our political system is zero sum and that everyone believes or should believe exactly as you do and that if you don't get 100% of what you want you have failed. You haven't failed at all! You got some of what you want and others got some of what they want. That's the success of democracy. And, crucially, that's your power.
So when you say, to paraphrase, "if only they just had candidates that are popular" you are really saying "candidates my demographic likes". I'm sorry, that's not how it works for the simple reason that there are other demographics and other cultural and political beliefs. AND... they vote more.
I think we should end it there although you are welcome to have the last word. But I want to say one last thing: We have made enormous progress and having lived that is a key difference between someone younger and someone older like myself. When I was in my teens I was assaulted and beaten for being queer. Another time I escaped being raped and probably murdered only by sheer luck. For the longest time I couldn't legally marry. All because of who I am. Now, as a queer and transgender person, I can literally go to at least a few work places and have them respect my pronouns and gender identity. I don't often fear for my personal safety. I even have our president publicly acknowledging this fact and speaking in support of who I am. And I'm happily married.
This is not everything and there is a lot of work left to do. But HOLY FUCK that is enormous progress in just a few decades.
You say that, but then
There's nothing I can say that can get thru to you. Which I knew when you wouldn't share your age demographic and got "snarky" about it. I gave you a bunch of chances rather than make the obvious assumption.
I guess I'll be "fickle" and have standards about who I associate with.