I never said you can (or can’t) rely on youth to prefer Democrats.
What I said was that you should expect youth turnout to be relatively low, in general. Which is true.
In 2004, youth (18-24) turnout was 42%. The national average was 58%. Over 65 was 69%.
In 2008, youth turnout was 44%. The national average was 58%. Over 65 was 68%.
In 2016, youth turnout was 39%. The national average was 56%. Over 65 was 68%.
In 2020, youth turnout was 48%. The national average was 61%. Over 65 was 72%.
Politicians don’t go to where votes might be. They go to where votes have been. And looking at those numbers, it is entirely rational to favor policy changes that affect over 65s, because they are more likely to vote. Hence policies like reducing drug prices by allowing imports from Canada.
Except older voters overwhelmingly break republican, so you can’t win an election with their votes as a democrat. Other than that your logic is impeccable.
You win elections by winning votes. You can equally improve your chances by increasing your margin by 5% or by reducing your opponents margin by 5%. So even if Biden doesn’t have a majority of over 65s, he still needs to appeal to them.
The only people he doesn’t need to worry about are those who don’t vote.
We will see if the “get GOP voters who we’d prefer were our voters over the hippies who vote for us” strategy works this time. It did for Clinton and Obama on the re-election cycle, but they’re both VERY talented politicians who had capable teams that kept their bases MUCH happier while selling them out and a massive bank of democratic working class whites in the midwest who are now Trump voters.
Winning over republican voters will be especially hard for Biden. He has no political talent. He rode on incumbency for 40 years. That’s why Obama had to bail him out after coming in 3rd to 5th in every pre-SC state in 2020’s primary and why the DNC won’t allow there to even be a vote in many states this cycle.
Biden additionally has an overtly WAY worse team that can’t go a week without chaos like his Secretary of Defense ducking out for a nose job on the brink of WWIII while the deputy is in Puerto Rico on the beach without telling anyone. While this is probably going to be a record low turnout general election, so the dynamics could be ahistorically weird and maybe it will work out for you this time, historically low turnout has favored the GOP. Trump is literally a religious figure to these people. I’m skeptical his core of voters is going to stay home, and there are just more of them than there are of you relatively upwardly mobile suburban neoliberals who have decided the DNC is your team post-Trump. You delivered better than expected, but still losing, performance in 2022, so a low turnout election where Trump is actually on the ballot will almost certainly favor the GOP unless “actually the economy is good, you’re wrong” is a way more persuasive argument than it seems.
Yes, ultimately we will see if Biden’s strategy works.
That said, Clinton and Obama are hardly the only politicians who preferred the “appeal to independents strategy” over “get the lefties to vote strategy”. Democrats won many difficult statewide elections using the former strategy, most recently the Kentucky governor, the Georgia Senate, and the Arizona Senate races.
Meanwhile, the most prominent statewide/national politicians using the latter strategy were Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Warren won, but Massachusetts should not be a difficult election for Democrats to win. Whereas Sanders has shown that relying on lefty support won’t even win a national primary (and I consider “the 2016/2020 DNC primaries were rigged” as unpersuasive as “the 2020 presidential election was rigged”).
We were talking about presidential races, but I’m glad you’re finally falling back to state-level races because you realize you can’t make your case in a national race. I’m sure if our roles were reversed, you’d gladly vote and volunteer for a party that hates people like you and will never give your side a primary win, other than by occasional sheer hubris, for 30 years. I guess I’m just not as forgiving as you are. If you can keep the GOP at bay without us lifting a finger, I’d honestly prefer that. It’s not like I WANT to stand out in the November cold for 10 hours while I watch the GOP poll standers get catered meals and hope the SEIU or AFLCIO shows up with the grossest sandwiches you’ve ever seen around 5PM in the same week I walked 8 miles of city blocks knocking on doors for a center-right party that hates me, believe it or not.
I was talking about presidential races too. Then you said Obama and Clinton don’t count for some reason.
Does the 2020 election count? Or the fact that Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the last 30 years, relying more on winning the EC without actually having the most votes?
Because all of those things are evidence that the national Dem strategy is a good one. Time and again, liberals + independents > 50% of the vote.
And I have also volunteered for the DNC in multiple elections. Starting with Dukakis, in fact (even though I supported Paul Simon in the primary). But I still don’t expect them to “give” me a primary win. Wins have to be earned.
Finally, the DNC doesn’t hate you. They agree with many of your goals and want you to be part of their coalition. But being in a coalition means you don’t get everything you want, or even most of what you want. You get some of what you want, like everyone else. That’s not being “forgiving”, that’s being a realistic team player.
I was pointing to Obama and Clinton of successful reelection bids where they tacked right, but as I pointed out, they were better positioned to do that than Biden by virtue of greater individual talent, team talent, and a FAR more favorable midwest.
As I pointed out, in 2020, Biden promised MANY things to the left, such as HBCU debt forgiveness, expanded child tax credit, raising the minimum wage, etc, making an appeal to the left and young voters. They had a MASSIVE outreach strategy aimed at Bernie voters to get them to not stay home after they rigged the primary, as they overtly knew that was a concern.
Their current “shut up and vote for us while we start WWIII” strategy in 2024 is quite different from 2020, and I would argue far less likely to succeed. Do wins have to be earned by the party’s actual base, but votes not have to be earned by the party? That seems VERY much like you are a subject of the DNC, not a voter.
The DNC’s insider superdelegate leadership only pretends to support goals. Their only actual goal is to raise money to spend on political ads the PR execs who run the DNC can make a cut on, and loyal dems who never ask for any accountability only play into that. This dynamic only leads to a republican advantage long term because their brand of corruption actually relies on winning so they can quid pro quo corporations while in power. If you don’t demand that the DNC wins, they actually have no specific incentive to do that, they can raise more money on the outrages that result when the GOP is in office delivering on issues with 20% popular support for THEIR base.
Biden has delivered on most of his main campaign promises: control COVID, restore the economy, invest in green infrastructure, and lower drug prices. His main broken promise was to reform immigration.
He has forgiven over $100 billion in student debt, as well as spent over $3 billion on HBCU debt relief / tuition breaks. I also credit him with the recent upswing in union membership, due to aggressive lawsuits by the NLRB against Starbucks, Tesla, etc (and yes those actions more than outweigh his handling of the BNSF strike).
He didn’t raise the minimum wage, but raising the minimum wage has been part of the DNC platform since at least 1988 (when Dukakis ran). I don’t fault him for not having the necessary Senate supermajority, same as every other president.
The current strategy is not “shut up and vote for us while we start WWIII” (for one thing, very few people are worried about WW3). If anything, the current strategy is “We delivered a lot of things that Democrats wanted”. Which is true, even if the message isn’t getting out.
Finally, of course I hold the DNC accountable for winning elections. They have exceeded my expectations on that part, I would not expect >50% of vote in nearly all national elections. They got a majority even when running less charismatic candidates like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.
And if Biden provided a few things I wanted (he has) and Democrats are still capable of winning a majority of the vote (they are) then I don’t care at all about the inner workings of the party.
I never said you can (or can’t) rely on youth to prefer Democrats.
What I said was that you should expect youth turnout to be relatively low, in general. Which is true.
In 2004, youth (18-24) turnout was 42%. The national average was 58%. Over 65 was 69%.
In 2008, youth turnout was 44%. The national average was 58%. Over 65 was 68%.
In 2016, youth turnout was 39%. The national average was 56%. Over 65 was 68%.
In 2020, youth turnout was 48%. The national average was 61%. Over 65 was 72%.
Politicians don’t go to where votes might be. They go to where votes have been. And looking at those numbers, it is entirely rational to favor policy changes that affect over 65s, because they are more likely to vote. Hence policies like reducing drug prices by allowing imports from Canada.
Except older voters overwhelmingly break republican, so you can’t win an election with their votes as a democrat. Other than that your logic is impeccable.
You win elections by winning votes. You can equally improve your chances by increasing your margin by 5% or by reducing your opponents margin by 5%. So even if Biden doesn’t have a majority of over 65s, he still needs to appeal to them.
The only people he doesn’t need to worry about are those who don’t vote.
We will see if the “get GOP voters who we’d prefer were our voters over the hippies who vote for us” strategy works this time. It did for Clinton and Obama on the re-election cycle, but they’re both VERY talented politicians who had capable teams that kept their bases MUCH happier while selling them out and a massive bank of democratic working class whites in the midwest who are now Trump voters. Winning over republican voters will be especially hard for Biden. He has no political talent. He rode on incumbency for 40 years. That’s why Obama had to bail him out after coming in 3rd to 5th in every pre-SC state in 2020’s primary and why the DNC won’t allow there to even be a vote in many states this cycle. Biden additionally has an overtly WAY worse team that can’t go a week without chaos like his Secretary of Defense ducking out for a nose job on the brink of WWIII while the deputy is in Puerto Rico on the beach without telling anyone. While this is probably going to be a record low turnout general election, so the dynamics could be ahistorically weird and maybe it will work out for you this time, historically low turnout has favored the GOP. Trump is literally a religious figure to these people. I’m skeptical his core of voters is going to stay home, and there are just more of them than there are of you relatively upwardly mobile suburban neoliberals who have decided the DNC is your team post-Trump. You delivered better than expected, but still losing, performance in 2022, so a low turnout election where Trump is actually on the ballot will almost certainly favor the GOP unless “actually the economy is good, you’re wrong” is a way more persuasive argument than it seems.
Yes, ultimately we will see if Biden’s strategy works.
That said, Clinton and Obama are hardly the only politicians who preferred the “appeal to independents strategy” over “get the lefties to vote strategy”. Democrats won many difficult statewide elections using the former strategy, most recently the Kentucky governor, the Georgia Senate, and the Arizona Senate races.
Meanwhile, the most prominent statewide/national politicians using the latter strategy were Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Warren won, but Massachusetts should not be a difficult election for Democrats to win. Whereas Sanders has shown that relying on lefty support won’t even win a national primary (and I consider “the 2016/2020 DNC primaries were rigged” as unpersuasive as “the 2020 presidential election was rigged”).
We were talking about presidential races, but I’m glad you’re finally falling back to state-level races because you realize you can’t make your case in a national race. I’m sure if our roles were reversed, you’d gladly vote and volunteer for a party that hates people like you and will never give your side a primary win, other than by occasional sheer hubris, for 30 years. I guess I’m just not as forgiving as you are. If you can keep the GOP at bay without us lifting a finger, I’d honestly prefer that. It’s not like I WANT to stand out in the November cold for 10 hours while I watch the GOP poll standers get catered meals and hope the SEIU or AFLCIO shows up with the grossest sandwiches you’ve ever seen around 5PM in the same week I walked 8 miles of city blocks knocking on doors for a center-right party that hates me, believe it or not.
I was talking about presidential races too. Then you said Obama and Clinton don’t count for some reason.
Does the 2020 election count? Or the fact that Republicans have only won the popular vote once in the last 30 years, relying more on winning the EC without actually having the most votes?
Because all of those things are evidence that the national Dem strategy is a good one. Time and again, liberals + independents > 50% of the vote.
And I have also volunteered for the DNC in multiple elections. Starting with Dukakis, in fact (even though I supported Paul Simon in the primary). But I still don’t expect them to “give” me a primary win. Wins have to be earned.
Finally, the DNC doesn’t hate you. They agree with many of your goals and want you to be part of their coalition. But being in a coalition means you don’t get everything you want, or even most of what you want. You get some of what you want, like everyone else. That’s not being “forgiving”, that’s being a realistic team player.
I was pointing to Obama and Clinton of successful reelection bids where they tacked right, but as I pointed out, they were better positioned to do that than Biden by virtue of greater individual talent, team talent, and a FAR more favorable midwest. As I pointed out, in 2020, Biden promised MANY things to the left, such as HBCU debt forgiveness, expanded child tax credit, raising the minimum wage, etc, making an appeal to the left and young voters. They had a MASSIVE outreach strategy aimed at Bernie voters to get them to not stay home after they rigged the primary, as they overtly knew that was a concern.
Their current “shut up and vote for us while we start WWIII” strategy in 2024 is quite different from 2020, and I would argue far less likely to succeed. Do wins have to be earned by the party’s actual base, but votes not have to be earned by the party? That seems VERY much like you are a subject of the DNC, not a voter.
The DNC’s insider superdelegate leadership only pretends to support goals. Their only actual goal is to raise money to spend on political ads the PR execs who run the DNC can make a cut on, and loyal dems who never ask for any accountability only play into that. This dynamic only leads to a republican advantage long term because their brand of corruption actually relies on winning so they can quid pro quo corporations while in power. If you don’t demand that the DNC wins, they actually have no specific incentive to do that, they can raise more money on the outrages that result when the GOP is in office delivering on issues with 20% popular support for THEIR base.
Biden has delivered on most of his main campaign promises: control COVID, restore the economy, invest in green infrastructure, and lower drug prices. His main broken promise was to reform immigration.
He has forgiven over $100 billion in student debt, as well as spent over $3 billion on HBCU debt relief / tuition breaks. I also credit him with the recent upswing in union membership, due to aggressive lawsuits by the NLRB against Starbucks, Tesla, etc (and yes those actions more than outweigh his handling of the BNSF strike).
He didn’t raise the minimum wage, but raising the minimum wage has been part of the DNC platform since at least 1988 (when Dukakis ran). I don’t fault him for not having the necessary Senate supermajority, same as every other president.
The current strategy is not “shut up and vote for us while we start WWIII” (for one thing, very few people are worried about WW3). If anything, the current strategy is “We delivered a lot of things that Democrats wanted”. Which is true, even if the message isn’t getting out.
Finally, of course I hold the DNC accountable for winning elections. They have exceeded my expectations on that part, I would not expect >50% of vote in nearly all national elections. They got a majority even when running less charismatic candidates like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore.
And if Biden provided a few things I wanted (he has) and Democrats are still capable of winning a majority of the vote (they are) then I don’t care at all about the inner workings of the party.