[ SECRET POST #4319 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4319 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 17 secrets from Secret Submission Post #618.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: well

[(Anonymous)]

voter turnout in that age bracket is historically low and we have an abnormally high level of "troll" and "alt-right" voters that actually go out and do so, so actually it's pretty accurate

Re: well

[(Anonymous)]

Yes this. Motherfucking slacking millennials are the reason why this country is finished.

Re: well

[(Anonymous)]

Whoo hoo! It's a party!

Do you want to build a snowman?

Re: well

[(Anonymous)]

Do you want this to be true?

Re: well

[(Anonymous)]

Hey man!

Another shot of vodka?

Re: well

[(Anonymous)]

Youth consistently have lower voter turnout across many generations, that's not a millenial thing. And there's no real evidence that an electorally significant group of millenials are voting for conservatives, compared to previous generations - if anything, the opposite.

Look. If you want to point to the reasons that Trump won, in purely electoral-political terms, it basically comes down to two things - comparatively poor turnout from the base, and suburban white rust belt conservative-moderates breaking for Trump. White suburbanites probably broke for Trump mostly due to a combination of the shitty Comey letter, and biased reporting, and sexism, and because they tend to lean conservative anyway. So that one is not super complicated to explain.

With lower turnout, that happened for a variety of different reasons. First, generally lower voter enthusiasm across the base as a whole, due to the fact that a very popular presidential nominee in Obama had been replaced with a relatively unpopular one in Clinton. This was not unique to the youth, it was not particularly the fault of Bernie Sanders, and the Green Party had very little to do with it. Second, Republican voter suppression. Third, a somewhat bad campaign by the Clinton camp, which did a really poor job at messaging, a really poor job at finding policy positions that resonated with the base, and a really poor job at directing resources (both advertising and GOTV) into the places that they were needed.

And you can say, all you want, that people need to vote no matter what. And it's true. People should vote no matter what. But we also need to accept that things like messaging and candidates do matter when people make their choices. People are more likely to vote for candidates they respect, trust, and believe in. These are known realities of politics. The point of living in a democracy is that you can't just ram shitty candidates down peoples' throats and demand that they vote a certain way, because they actually will not do it. If you run a campaign that is shitty, you have to own that if you lose. If you don't do a sufficient job of convincing people you're going to help them, it's going to be fucking hard to win.

Again, it's absolutely true that people should vote Democratic no matter what. But it's not enough, in terms of placing moral responsibility, or in terms of stopping it from happening again, to just leave it there. You can't just say "people need to vote no matter what" and stop. It is also necessary to think about what needs to be done to earn the votes. The Democratic Party has to bear some responsibility for earning peoples' votes, even though it is also true that people have to be willing to vote for the pragmatic option. You should be going out of your way to make people want to vote for you, and helping them to do so, not yelling at them and putting the entire weight of the Trump presidency on their shoulders.

Ultimately, the primary group of people who should take the blame for Trump's election, above anyone else, is people who supported and voted for Trump.

Re: well

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

This is a really well reasoned and well organized comment, kudos to you.

And really, the actual percentage of people in the US that voted for Trump is about 20% (~63m out of ~323m). About 27% if you only count the estimated voter eligible population (~230m). About 46% of those who officially voted (~48% voted for Clinton). They estimate that voter turnout was actually slightly higher than 2012 (55.4% vs 54.1%), though down from 2008 (57.4%).

But, I do think maybe we can put a little blame on the electoral college, here, which is, was, and always has been a pretty bad idea for democratic voting.

Re: well

[(Anonymous)]

That many voters have to trust and respect candidates rather than platforms and will not vote rather than vote for the lesser of two evils is why I wish voting (and civic education for a couple of years in high school) was mandatory in the US.

I would still expect a certain percentage of spoiled ballots, but I think if habitual non-voters stopped thinking of voting as an optional, somewhat elitist activity and were educated about the differences between the parties’ platforms (and what they historically actually follow through on in office vs discarding as unrealistic campaign rhetoric), Trump would not have won. Especially as universal suffrage for every citizen (including those born to non-citizens, fuck you Chump) over 18 would make voter supression way harder.

Also I have the usual “get money out of politics, we need ranked-choice voting, jfc why are we not spending federal money and time making sure our voting system isn’t easily fucked with by Russia/whoever feels like it” wishlist.