It helps if your two choices for president aren’t Father Time and the Orange Rage Demon.
Father Time and the Orange Rage Demon sounds like a great B-movie, though 😄
Start casting. Troma films will have a script by this afternoon.
panics and casts his cats in the lead roles
Emily and Charlotte weren’t thrilled either…
I’m pretty happy with my casting for the rest of the Republican party, though:
Correction:Full Moon, not Troma!
Or some bosses in Dark Souls.
You dropped your p
My father eloquently described it as a battle between “a zombie who doesn’t know what room he’s in and the reincarnation of Zhirinovsky”.
Don’t believe the hype, FUCKING VOTE!!! Volunteer to give rides for those that can’t make it to vote otherwise.
Believe this hype; You can make a difference.
I lived in Florida in 2000. If I had recruited a couple friends, and I knew people who would have been down, and we drove vans back and forth to the polls all day…
512 votes would have made a difference.
Awesome job!
What I mean by don’t believe the hype is people tend to not vote when they think they’re going to win in a landslide. Which of course, they would IF they vote. We ended up with Dementia Don the racist rapist with 34 felonies that can’t complete a coherent sentence because Hillary was kicking his ass in the polls so voter turnout was lower.
Regardless, VOTE
On a side note: Just the fucking fact that people would need a ride to vote also shows that
a) Voting is too damn hard in the US. I know that the Republican party has been working (and keeps working) hard on making voting nearly impossible, because less votes is better for them, but seriously: make voting easier.
b) The US is extremely over dependent on cars. In the Netherlands almost nobody would drive their car to go vote, you use a bike. Why? Because the cities in the country are designed for people first, not for cars first. Start modifying your cities to not require cars. Add bicycle roads, actually invest in public transportation, add pedestrian walk ways. The US sucks for human beings, it’s awesome for cars.
Voting is too damn hard in the US.
It’s too damn hard in certain states.
I’m in California, and am signed up for vote by mail, which anyone can do. Ballot gets mailed to me well in advance, I can take my time filling it out and researching down ballot issues, and plop it in a mailbox when I’m done.
It’s criminal to me that this isn’t the norm.
I live in Colorado, and I feel the same way about this. I love the way voting works here. This should be the norm. It should be REQUIRED at the federal level that this is an offering in every state in the land.
Any state that is not doing this does not care at all about the democratic process, IMHO, given there are outstanding examples of states that do.
There are loads of states that don’t want democracy, they want a theocratic republican dictatorship and if they can’t get that through voting they’ll get it through cheating, just like Jesus taught them.
Voting is bullshit here, thanks to the republikkklowns. I’m hoping when the VP becomes president, we can remedy some of that.
Your point on the cars. Your example country is 237 times smaller than ours. .42%. We have 342 million people compared to their almost 19 million. What works there won’t work here. It would be great to step up public transportation but that’s not the end all answer.
Nonsense. India’s population is far greater than the US, and they can do better elections than the US. Saying that you can’t do bicycle roads in the US because what works in the Netherlands doesn’t work in bigger countries is, again, nonsense. Mexico is adding bicycle roads. Canada is. Why can’t the US?
Where the hell are you? My city just added a bunch of bike roads, but that’s going to work great in the country isn’t it? Nothing like riding a bike twenty miles to town to grab some groceries and ride back in the rain or snow.
The vast majority of the population lives in small, medium, and large cities where you can easily commute the < 1.5kilometer / 1 mile walking, or the < 10 kilometers / < 6 miles on a bike Whether you go to work, a store, whatever, that’s easy for the vast majority of people world wide. If done well, public transportation would be a great option for larger distances.
I’m not advocating banning cars outright, I’m advocating pushing sustainable transportation, we can reduce traffic by 70-80%, it’s a huge chunk of CO2
This is what I did for the 2018 midterms. Some of my friends didn’t really get why I was so adamant, but I dropped their assess at the church and let them vote. It do work.
Yes, I was like “Oh, thank christ” when i saw this headline, but also fear this is right propaganda to relax voters. VOTE!
make it a landslide
That’s the only way that democracy is not in imminent danger.
If fascism is only beaten by the same tight margin that more sane and humane (but still neurotic and cruel) conservatism was for the second presidential election in a row, that means that the second largest party in the richest and most powerful country in the world being a fascist party has become the norm rather than just an unusually persistent aberration.
Man I hope so. I remember thinking the Republican party was dead and would have to move towards the center back in 2008 when Obama was elected and had a super majority in the Senate. But rather than pivot, the GOP dug their heels in, obstructed as much as possible, and went even further to the right.
It became the norm in Vietnam and was confirmed under Reagan. The rest was just waiting for the WW2 survivors who remembered the dogwhistles to die.
This is a problem, but another problem is that today’s politicians have learned to do fascist stuff without a fascist party. Accountability and transparency.
I hope she picks a good VP and not wet blanket like democratic establishment would want.
It appears she’s looking at people who could swing a purple state, so that probably won’t excite anyone hoping for a progressive ticket.
Almost as if you need to win before you can do anything at all.
Like it or not, the reality of the electoral college.
You can win in multiple different ways, not simply picking a purple state moderate. The whole reason there’s a story about “more youth voters like Harris” is because more youth voters could help her win. And the youths notably live in every swing state.
The youth are not historically known for showing up to vote.
That’s what the media says, but kids these days are showing up more than their parents were at their age.
I just hope it’s enough.
There’s an increasing trend, though. The last couple elections have been pivotal. Sucks we didn’t turn out in 2016, but we’re learning. Young women telling young men you ain’t getting laid while abortion is illegal. LGBT+ saying you won’t take our healthcare. New parents saying we need universal childcare, college students saying debt forgiveness is essential.
I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but I know I’ll never miss an election again, at least
“The youth are notorious for low turnout. That’s why Kamala Harris (and possibly her VP) increasing their turnout isn’t important.”
More like being popular with a demographic who doesn’t show up to vote hasn’t historically been a good way to win elections.
If they actually show up this time, awesome.
Biden literally won in 2020 with strong youth turnout while Clinton lost in 2016 with a weak one. Historically, youth turnout is extremely important for Democrats, and people continually dismissing their value will only harm that effort.
https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/half-youth-voted-2020-11-point-increase-2016
And yet they’re excited right now because the party was responsive to their concerns.
Let’s hope they stay excited.
Let’s hope the party remains responsive, then.
Smoke and mirrors. Right now we need the clearest path to victory, not a path. The Right has their strengths and one of them is throwing wrenches into things. Can’t throw a stick into my spokes if my bike doesn’t have any.
And youths are also notorious for not turning out too.
And yet, they seem motivated to vote for Harris because the party stopped lecturing and listened instead.
I feel like i heard those same people say she was too moderate before.
Funny how that changes.
And yet they rallied behind her. Guess the centrist narrative about progressives wanting absolute perfection and purity testing everything to death was horseshit from the very beginning, and that progressives are willing to accept a reasonable compromise candidate when the party isn’t too stubborn and arrogant to listen.
Now since we’re talking about things people said before Biden dropped out, where’s all the chaos that Biden stans were predicting?
It’s so frustrating people don’t get this. Progressive politics is stringing together election victories. The US system is designed to require longer term horizons to enact significant change. And we saw precisely why when we survived Trump’s term.
Tim waltz seems like a good pick. Seems to have a bit of the Bernie, no-bullshit, authenticity that plays well with independents.
My preference is as follows:
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Mark Kelly - Pros: Astronaut/Navy Combat Pilot; will pull veterans and people voting for novelty. He generally has moderate policies and won a national race in a battleground state. His Senate seat is safe because Gov. Hobbs (D) can appoint another Dem to fill it.
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Pete Buttigieg - Also a veteran, oxford/rhodes scholar; one of the best debaters in D.C. Coming from a Cabinet position so does not risk any loss.
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Whitmer - Contrary to some, I like the idea of doubling-down on women in this post-Roe, MeToo era. She brings a lot to the table, but she’s no longer in the running as she (a) both publicly and privately declined, and (b) she like Shapiro would be better off carrying their respective battleground states without either state feeling like they’ve been abandoned.
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Jon Stewart - He won’t do it, but hear me out: Viral excitement; strong debater; cross-over appeal to veterans & first-responders thanks to his decades of helping them. The Zelenskyy of our nation. Counter lies and half-truths with satire and mockery.
I DON’T think Harris should pick Cooper, Beshear, Walz, or especially Newsom.
Mark Kelly was one of the people giving standing ovations and clapping away at Bibi’s speech to Congress. That really made my stomach churn.
… Ah yeah, that is kind of a bummer.
It’s fucking so obvious that it boggles my mind that people are still gunning for him and buttigieg and shapiro. They are all power-hungry neoliberal freaks, I don’t understand how this is really in contention at this point. Basically the only thing she can do on the campaign trail is talk, and appoint a rather meaningless VP slot to show her allegiance to some kind of politics that actually gets people out and voting. If she chooses some moderate scumbag because they’re in a swing state, that’s like the fastest way for her to piss away all the good will she’s built up so far. It’s crazy, I don’t understand it.
I like your list. I think Mark Kelly is the obvious best choice and I hope she lands on him. Novelty factor is strong, it would be foolish to underestimate the astronaut card. He balances the ticket well and might also help win Arizona.
Jon Stewart would be absolutely hilarious, though. If nothing else than for a potential VP debate with alleged couch fornicator Vance.
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Bernie Stewart 2028! Or Stewart Colbert 2028?
AOC Stewart 2028
John Stewart would be history’s ultimate press secretary.
Mark Kelly looks good on paper, but his pro genocide and lukewarm stance towards unions is a wet blanket. Do people find him genuine?
People, no. Democratic bots, yes.
lol I love that I have both these accounts tagged as suss tankies.
Lol, I’m an anarchist.
Love when y’all tell on yourselves though.
Ah yes, how reassuring. Thanks, I’ll update my tag.
Thank you for not including Shapiro and not risking a swing state getting a Republican governor
That guy has such an unfortunate name. I hear Shapiro and I immediately think of the right-wing pseudo-intellectual professional troll Ben Shapiro and wonder why the fuck would anybody want him on a ticket. I’m learning to not have such a visceral reaction to the name, but association is a bitch to overcome.
Mark Kelly is a great choice. Kamala needs someone who can win over the vets. Apparently Captain Bone Spurs still holds some sway with them.
Especially when he’s like the exact opposite of Benny boy. Maybe it would work in the opposite direction, though: People think it’s actually Ben Shapiro and vote for Harris because they think there’s some conspiracy to take over the presidency.
Honestly, I’d change my name.
Veterans are now a critical voting block for the Democrats? Not “young people” or “Hispanic voters”? Veterans?
I wouldn’t call them critical, no, but every vote matters. Especially in a demographic like former armed services. They represent a collective of voters across all 50 states and their voting trends are pretty unified in solidarity for candidates that recognize them and cater to their issues and interests. Sure, some are party hardliners and will vote D or R no matter what, that’s true of any homogeneous group of people.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/118684/military-veterans-ages-tend-republican.aspx
Every vote matters, but every voting bloc isn’t equally valuable to pursue. Whenever I’ve been on a military base with a TV running, there’s a 90%+ chance it’s playing Fox News. Trump called John McCain a loser for being captured and they voted for him anyway. If a veteran VP was going to turn the tides, there are already dynamics that would have a much greater impact.
Yeah I like all the battleground state governors, but I think for that reason, and for letting them continue to successfully run these states helps carry them. You also don’t want state residents to feel abandoned or used with them leaving for VP. They’re instrumental right where they are.
Mark Kelly is my favorite option too. If nothing else he is cool as hell and has that “great to have a beer with” quality. He’s also very white. None of these things should matter but he’s a great balancing choice for her presidency.
This is a good list.
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Walz is a great governor. I don’t want to lose him as one, but I do think he’d be a great pick
We get Peggy Flanagan as a replacement. She rocks. Bonus points for getting a native American female governor as well
I think Tim Waltz would be a great pick. Full authenticity. A no nonsense and non flashy Midwestern white democrat from a rural district who lead a surprisingly progressive agenda. Count me in
Timmy has been a great governor for our state.
So great
That’s actually why I don’t want her to pick him. He’s been a great governor and I want him to stay here.
If you felt “meh” about doing the utmost to avoid Trump, you might just be an idiot,
Remember, if they’re voting in their first election this year, there’s a decent chance they were under ten before Trump emerged on the scene as a politician. They don’t remember what it used to be like. They think this is normal.
Shit, you’re absolutely right but I never thought about it that way.
Jesus, we’ve let these kids down. This is all they’ve known through their adolescence…
There will be an entire branch of psychology opened up for kids who were born between 2006-2021. War, climate change, Trump, COVID, more war, more war? On its own, the fact that they’re not spending every waking hour in ceaseless screaming is worth writing a few papers on.
I mean…lots of kids have had to deal with worse…my main frustration is that we could have given them so much better with relative ease.
My grandparents were born in the 30s, growing up in the Great Depression (all but one, who had the awful luck to be born in the Philippines, and instead of the depression, got to experience brutal Japanese occupation). That’s far worse than what American kids as a demographic are growing up with now, but that was entirely out of the hands of their parents to avoid.
I feel like for today’s teens, it’s not that bad, but it’s bad because of selfishness and greed rather than huge national or global tragedy.
I don’t know that the two events are particularly comparable. The misery level might be higher for people like your grandparents, but the fact that some of what’s going on now is happening inside the house during Thanksgiving dinner and another good chunk of it is being shown and talked about on YouTube as it happens, and a lot of people who are supposed to be protecting them aren’t… The circumstances, access, and response is worse, even if the misery itself isn’t as bad.
Still, I guess that illuminates how the “suffering Olympics” isn’t super helpful to these discussions. Every generation has something, and just because another generation also suffered doesn’t mean that this generation’s suffering is invalid.
maybe your worldview is a liiiitle bit too US-centric, or at least too 1st-world centric? Ah, don’t worry your mediocre little head about it!
We’re literally talking about young US voters. This thread is about US politics. I recognize that Americans’ americentrism online runs the gamut from annoying to problematic to outright jingoistic, but in this case I’m pretty sure I accurately recognized the topic at hand. Surely well enough not to merit an ad hominem.
aka the dumbest take.
Jesus, we’ve let these kids down.
Yes, and people call them idiots for wanting better than a Hobson’s choice between “genocide” and “more genocide.”
Just look at what happened when someone listened to them.
but but “gene o’side” LMAO
Thank you for the illustration of my point. Biden isn’t running anymore. You can abandon your support for genocide. If you want to.
You mean real genocide or tankie illusional genocide? Because I’ll never support real muthafuckin’ G, but always point out the delusions of American antisemites like yourself.
You are glad that Netanyahu is committing genocide.
Like all centrists.
Fucking yikes. That’s terrifying.
Young people are not renowned for their wisdom.
Yeah, kids are allowed to vote (and go off to war, and get themselves into crippling debt) at 18 but their decision making doesn’t mature until after they’re 25. Maybe adulthood should start a little later.
Something, something, rent a car. I definitely had something for this. Come back to me.
I can imagine it. I probably have made the same argument.
Their elders have done such a bang up job, eh. So much wisdom and here we all are blaming and knocking young people having to inherit all this bullshit.
speak for yourself
Neither are boomers, but we’ve spent the past 4 decades doing every last thing those shitheels want.
not really.
Then who have we been listening to? The party has been gleefully ignoring anyone who didn’t watch the moon landing live.
Until just recently when Biden stepped aside.
Yes, but. Let’s not circle the firing squad.
Not before they have voted.
Voting is not your utmost. It’s the bare minimum.
To whoever downvoted this: You won’t make it in life.
Biden wasn’t the utmost to avoid Trump.
Good.
Shocker, few can relate to an octogenarian running for office.
It has nothing to do with his age. His brain is on vacation. Bernie Sanders is older than Biden, but if he were the nominee we’d see the same enthusiasm as we’re seeing for Harris.
This is the way. Age is just a number. Until it isn’t. Biden could probably, with all the team around him, finish out a second term. But the demands of looking sharp in situations like debates (which are not really great tests for doing the job, but it’s part of the performative bullshit clown show we put on for the low information voters and they will decide elections in our stupid system) was going to sink any chance of him winning this fall.
And Bernie apparently has all his faculties and has the EQ to understand the plight of many Americans. Counting someone like Bernie out only because of the number of times they went around the sun? Impossibly stupid. And, as I keep emphasizing, more and more likely to become entirely irrelevant as things like age reversal come online.
I wanted Bernie in 2016 but the dem party leadership decided no on him. I think he would have crushed dumpy. I can totally see him showing up dumpy on the debate floor in place of Biden, but I don’t think he should run in 2024. Wish he was the pick in 2020.
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That’s how voters are. Democrats love to stomp their feet and say, "But voters should vote the way we tell them to, because we’re right!"
Okay, maybe you are right, but if you want those votes, you have to give people what they want. And one of the things they want is a candidate who can speak.
Lots of people have a problem accepting that what’s “right” and “should happen” doesn’t mean jack shit. Just because your point is correct doesn’t mean others have to acknowledge or give a fuck
Unfortunately, in part, it does
Decisions are made on the margins.
Politics is like a pendulum. The further it swings one way the further back the correction is after the results are realized.
I don’t think the US can become a fascist nation. The business oligarchs have too much power and would quickly remove anyone who would be anything more than a puppet to control.
I mean, a core component in fascism is massive overlap between control of the government and the control of private interest, in return for politically backing fascists. Lobbying accompanied by mass privatization, basically. I think Mussolini is most infamous for this, but it also happened with Hitler. So, I dunno if that’s really a limiting factor.
How well have they done controlling donnie?
Also, I keep seeing the kind of politicians we get going further and further right, even though most Americans poll progressive on the issues, so I think money has a lot of power to consistently distort things and put the thumb on the scales such that it favors the radical right.
If you’re complaining about all the people who are now coming on board you should probably just stfu and get on board with the new nominee and face the facts that people calling for Biden to exit were right and you were wrong. That it did matter and it made a huge difference.
I honestly thought it was a bad idea to pivot to Harris but I was happily proven wrong. There’s so much excitement and energy surrounding her. Like a breath of fresh air. Glad to see it.
Woot woot!
She’s not perfect. Like she’s a cop and such.
Still, she’s not raping folks. She’s not grabbing them by the pussy…
It’s bad. But all y’all better get on board. It can be a whole lot worse.
She got behind the “defined the police” movement until she was added to the Biden team and had to back his administration’stances.
A former prosecutor who called out how overfunded police agencies are sounds like someone with pretty decent perspective from both sides. She understands both the value and shortcomings of law enforcement.
I’m getting tired of all this calling Harris a cop. She was a prosecutor but you’re equating her to ACAB.
Prosecutors are how you hold bad cops accountable, by prosecuting them. Do you condemn the prosecutors who put George Floyd’s murderers behind bars? (They were amazing!). Do you condemn the prosecutors who are holding accountable people like the Jan 6 insurrectionists, trump, bannon, giuliani, etc?
Who do you expect to do these things or do you not care if justice is done? I’m sick of this double standard.
I think people get too tied up with this idea of the “perfect” candidate
No candidate was, is, or shall be perfect.
Every politician that you have the opportunity to vote for will have some aspect of their past or their platform that you (or other voters) will disagree with in some capacity. And I fear that this need for perfection in their candidate is fertile ground for others to manipulate people’s attitudes towards not voting for an imperfect but otherwise good candidate.
I think people get too tied up with this idea of the “perfect” candidate
I think this is a strawman, given how much excitement there is for Harris, who is an acceptable compromise candidate.
Am I the only one sad because a “serious” publication allows a headline with “meh” instead of apathetic?
It’s in quotes, so I think they made it clear they were quoting something the young people might say.
I don’t know if they’re right that the 18-35s use that word very often, but I think that’s what they’re going for.
30yo here, I usually only use it to answer questions where I’m apathetic about the choices
What are you feeling for dinner? Meh🤷
Do 18 y/o’s actually say that though? I think the journalist might be taking into the trap of trying to be relevant to kids by saying shit we said when we were kids.
18? Yeah I doubt it
You’re not alone, there are hundreds of Lemmy users who hold equally vocal opinions over details irrelevant to the point.
Seriousness is a plague.
I certainly hope you are.
Less meh?
You mean they are showing less voter apathy
You mean they are showing less voter apathy
No, it means they are demonstrating a decrease in emotional detachment from the civil and democratic process of advocating for leadership.
emotional detachment from the civil and democratic process
Now I am curious how you define voter apathy
Oh, some good news. Finally!
Kinda. In the two-party first-past-the-post system, they were still not convinced they should vote which could actively make their futures worse. Knowing why that alone wasn’t a motivating factor (unless this is all people who want to vote AGAINST Harris (which I highly doubt)) is definitely worth exploring.
That’s true, but it doesn’t stop this from being good news
In the two-party first-past-the-post system, they were still not convinced they should vote which could actively make their futures worse.
Who knew that regarding them with undisguised contempt wasn’t convincing?
If they want to have a future, a lot more of them should get to feeling zero “meh” about voting for not donnie.
They just showed the party what to do in order to get them excited to vote.
The party listened to their concerns, and they fell in line instantly. All the party has to do to get voter enthusiasm is to listen to the voters.
You don’t get enthusiasm by ignoring people’s concerns. That’s how you get apathy and resentment.
I’m sure it has a bit to do with voters being especially loud about this issue.
I know I wrote both my dem senators (Warren and Market), my dem rep, and my dem governor (Healey), asking them to support Biden resigning a couple days after the debate. And I’m probably not alone on that.
I mean, political donors pulling support of Biden after the debate did grease the wheels for that transition.
Yes, but look at what his exit accomplished. All the people who were saying that we should ignore the concerns of young people because they don’t vote? Welp, young people are getting excited to vote because their concerns have been heard and addressed.
Compare this to where they were when Biden was refusing to step down.
Yes, I get why the party did what it did. Still - voting for someone based solely on something like age and color, when the alternative is donnie, is exceedingly reckless.
Do you think that’s the reason? They’re more likely to vote because the party abandoned its all too usual “Here’s the candidate we like. Fuck you, you’re voting like we tell you to because you have no choice lol.” messaging.
Morale matters.
Do what the voters want and they’ll vote for you. Not the ass-backwards “vote in perfect lockstep for us forever no matter what we do, and maybe someday we’ll think about starting the process of evaluating giving tentative consideration to half a baby step towards something tangentially related to what you want, implemented over the course of 10 years” that was centrist conventional foolishness since at least 1992.
You could argue the same thing about Kamala. Maybe even more so, to be honest.
I wanted Biden to step aside as well, but mostly because of the optics and narrative about “Biden so old” and low information voters like this.
Yeah I’m sure the party that brought them in the situation they are in to begin with is their only hope for a future. It definitely represents them and their interests and not the billionaires, hence not addressing any of the real pressing issues in the world that the new generation cares about.
That’s a funny have hat you have. I’ve got a grey one I cut the label off. Refuse to be owned like that. You shouldn’t be owned by someone. Make your way free. It’s a fight. I tell you this with love.
Not sure I understand what you are saying here.
Sorry! I poisoned myself on accident and was talking out of my head. Sorry if I caused offense.
She should just pick Clooney as VP so we can be done with it already.
Keanu Reeves
ACT 1, The GOP kills his puppy…
It would be hard to attack Keanu without looking like a douche
That would just be unfair to the Republicans, so definitely the best choice
Amal Clooney, preferably. That lady is a major badass.
Though I think putting two women on the ticket would be a death knell unfortunately.
Mostly joking, I don’t think she’s an American citizen.
Though I think putting two women on the ticket would be a death knell unfortunately.
doubtful; harris/whitmer would be great; but whitmer has already ruled it out
Would be a great team, absolutely. But this is the United States. Getting one woman elected at that level is difficult enough. Unfortunately there are lots of people who would stay home if it’s an all-woman ticket.
Sucks but it’s true.
Kind of bothers me that her age and gender are such deciding factors for some. I think some of these people would have voted mtg if she ran.
The party demonstrated responsiveness to voters’ concerns for the first time in decades.
I’ve been thinking about this story for almost a decade.
Right after the 2016 election, there was a panel with the creative teams behind US TV’s biggest political dramas. Veep, Scandal, West Wing, House of Cards, and other shows. All the panelists agreed on one point; if they’d presented a fictional character who said they ‘liked soldiers who didn’t get captured’ the networks and advertisers would have demanded that the character be shown to lose the election and be hated by all sides.
We can’t pretend that voters will do the right thing
this is a more surface level take than actually saying “i will vote because she’s a woman”
How so? I am glad she is running she has shifted things back in favor of democrats. I just think if someone would have really cared about what would happen under another four years under trump they would have voted biden anyway.
I wonder if I can find the same kind of article about younger voters and conservative politicians on Twitter or Facebook
Probably, but it’s going to be based on anecdotes. This one actually has polling.
Yes you can
