• TheFonz@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Correct: Young people are overwhelmingly left, and young people don’t tend to vote. Where is the contradiction?

    For comparison: conservatives are overwhelmingly older, and older people universally show up to vote.

    I must be stupid and maybe I’m missing something. Walk me step-by-step where is the contradiction.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      The statement was “leftists don’t vote,” not “young people don’t vote.” Leftists aren’t only young, and conservative youth don’t vote either.

      • TheFonz@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        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 [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          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
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            8 months ago

            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 [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago
              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
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                8 months ago

                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 [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                  8 months ago

                  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
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                    8 months ago

                    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