Similar improvements for Trump among younger voters were cited in CNN’s 2024 exit polling of more than 22,000 voters. In the last election, Biden beat Trump in this demographic by 23 points. This year, Harris’ lead over Trump among those aged 18 to 29 was 13 points, a 10-point dip in the key demographic.
I’ve been sus about people proclaiming that somehow certain “generations” (we all would do well to remember that the idea of “generations” is a rather suspect one: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11277726/millennials-adam-conover) were somehow just inherently better, more savvy and media aware than their elders. There is no reason to believe that just because you were on the 'net since you were a baby, and had smart phones nearly your entire life that you are somehow immune to all logical fallacies inherent in such things.
I for one am not buying it. If anything, boomers, Gen X, and millennials have set up platforms and have been influencing people in the Gen Z age range (as well as Gen Alpha) to buy into totally toxic, moronic and just plain wrong things. Someone is watching all that algorithmic content, and it’s not all Gen-X or boomers or even all Gen Y.
Whether it’s to buy into qanon/pizzagate bullshit, or buy into tankie narratives about “genocide joe” so that they either flat out vote for a dirtbag like the convicted felon, or vote third party, or sit at home, all of those outcomes help the Republicans. If the Republicans can capture these people young, they’ll have them consumers for life - just like other brands strive to do.
They fucked themselves. Trump will absolutely further the killing of the planet with reckless abandon.
I’ve been saying this for a long time. Before Trump even. The left could not rely on liberal youth defaultism forever. I hate being right.
What really drove it home the direness was nobody else has been seeing it. Culturally younger people are just different some how. I mean every generation has its idiosyncrasies but people just couldn’t get past that idea. Sounded like I was speaking in tongues to them I’m sure.
I could not put my finger on it. It’s not the current slate of political issues like housing or whatever. It predates this. I used to chalk it up to internet skull fucking kids minds in ways the older generations cannot grasp.
I had hoped the political mega minds would be able to hone in on these things. Turns out they’re all fucking clueless. Just winging it.
Yes. It’s shit like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson and Youtube and Facebook and Tiktok and so much more…boomers had their parents yelling at them about the “boob tube”, but the algorithmic skew is soooo much more insidious than even the worst television could have hoped to be.
It’s rather common to point this out these days, but people talk about experiments where you spin up a new VM (use Proxmox or what have you, or maybe use a container even), and just click into Youtube and let it run its course…and they get pushed toward right wing content eventually.
I sure do wish that Gen Y, Gen Z, Gen-A and whatever is coming next are somehow smarter, immune to the usual emotional strings that are pulled, know how to spot logical fallacies better than anyone that came before, are more auto didactic, and actually know how to “do your own research” more than anyone that came before…but my cynical self knows that is just wishful thinking. Without a stellar liberal education, they’ll be just as prone to the manipulation as any other set of people.
Everything has to be a meme. Lower taxes, healthcare, or racism isn’t exciting. Couches, weird, eating pets and out of context outbursts get way more engagement. Mostly, because people have given up.
I don’t think they’ve given up because the issues the care about matter to them but it has to be communicated in the form of inside joke meme-speak. Republicans seem to have cracked this nearly a decade ago. That’s how long a head start they’ve got on Democrats. By now they’ve thoroughly indoctrinated a generation with their own baseline.
I think what’s breaking older peoples minds is how far fetched all of this is. Not only do the kids speak in coded language. They cannot be reached by speaking normally to them. You have to use the codes.
Keep in mind that part of the reason I think they’ve given up is because there’s no reason to believe the promises made will ever be delivered. They may care about taxes, but you’d probably get more engagement by making an AI generated tiktok video of a dinner table splayed with food in the image of rich oligarchs. There just isn’t much left but the jokes, it’s not code - it’s that if everything is going to be bullshit, it might as well be entertaining.
Apparently young Americans don’t want a future.
People who supported a genocide shouldnt be lecturing anybody about anything after their poor campaign platform alienated the voters and lost the election.
Young Americans know to Never take advice or criticism from people you dont respect.
