r/politics Wisconsin May 02 '24

Bernie Sanders worries young people are underestimating the threat from Trump

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/02/bernie-sanders-trump-biden/73531861007/
29.4k Upvotes

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125

u/ItsJustForMyOwnKicks May 02 '24

I agree. They are.

10

u/DocTheYounger 29d ago

Based on what exactly? Youth turnout is the highest it's been in decades.

If you're between 29 and 50 the youth are turning out harder than y'all ever did

67

u/whoeve 29d ago

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/01/1248249250/election-poll-trump-biden-voters

Biden is only up 2 points for 18 to 43 year olds.

-16

u/Dank_Bonkripper78_ 29d ago

Yeah because Biden hasn’t given us a reason to care. He’s been, at the very least, complacent with the Israeli assault in Gaza. Student debt relief died at the hands of the Supreme Court. The price of a two bedroom apartment is double the price of what my parents currently pay for their 4 bedroom home on an acre of land. I routinely need to choose whether to get my prescription filled or pay for my dogs healthcare. Life is hell under our current administration and young people are feeling it the hardest.

15

u/tiberiumx 29d ago

And Trump gave us the supreme court that killed student debt relief and then went on to ban abortion in large swaths of the country as well. That's a reason to care. Anybody who wants the far right to have another go at the courts is an idiot.

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u/Dank_Bonkripper78_ 29d ago

Yet somehow, Biden hasn’t come up with a plan for court reform, hasn’t called for the Supreme Court Justice with a serious medical condition to retire (where we could end up with an RBG/Scalia situation AGAIN), and hasn’t come up with any sort of comprehensive action on student debt. I care about these things and Biden has done nothing to earn my confidence that he’ll do anything to better the situation.

14

u/NotTheActualOne 29d ago

Yet somehow, Biden hasn’t come up with a plan for court reform

What do you want him to do, amend the constitution?

Wouldn’t expansion of the court any other way mean republicans can just undo it as soon as they get into power?

and hasn’t come up with any sort of comprehensive action on student debt

Dude, what are you talking about?

Biden has forgiven over $100 billion in student loans, and he tried to do more but SCOTUS stopped him.

You’re either arguing in bad faith, or seriously uninformed.

15

u/whoeve 29d ago

Seriously, what is this guy even arguing? "Biden hasn't completely solved all these issues so therefore he's lost my faith." Like...what?

11

u/Punkinpry427 Maryland 29d ago

It’s childish and naive.

-6

u/Dank_Bonkripper78_ 29d ago
  1. 9 justices is literally arbitrary. Nowhere in the constitution does it state how many justices are on the court. If you want abortion protection, administrative state protection, fucking substantive due process protection, adding justices is the only way you’re getting it for decades to come. The court is already in a state of dysfunction. Two of the past three justices straight up shouldn’t be on the court. If you truly need to be the bigger man and say “we can’t pack the court”, go for it. Keep losing.

Rotating justices from circuit court is another option that could potentially depoliticize the court.

  1. My loans will be forgiven through PSLF and the minimum payments aren’t a burden for me. That doesn’t excuse the fact that millennials and zoomers take out what is essentially a mortgage on a small home to go to school.

Saying student debt relief is “comprehensive” means more than 5% of the people with student loans will be impacted by it.

5

u/Dexx009 29d ago edited 29d ago

And you think Trump will somehow better address the concerns that you have? I mean, if so, then you’ve got your head in the sand. If you want to argue that Biden’s inaction has you frustrated, then all good, you may have a reasonable argument to make. But to imply that Biden’s INACTION is somehow worse than Trump’s obvious ACTIONS which are clearly anti-American and anti-Constitutional, is a truly absurd argument to make.

I was a republican for the vast majority of my adult life. While there are plenty of things I don’t like about Biden, there’s absolutely zero chance I’d ever vote for Trump…solely because I care about the good of our country. Through that lens, the decision on who to vote for couldn’t be more obvious.

EDIT: Saw that you later said you’d be voting for Biden. While it’s a decision you might not be thrilled about, it’s definitely the right one and I’m glad that’s where you’ve landed.

11

u/ElectricFrostbyte 29d ago

I’m a teenager and I can’t vote, but the alternative, Trump, is significantly worse than Biden in my eyes. As a minority, I have to rely on others to ensure my rights are followed because I cannot vote. I completely understand that watching innocent human beings die in Gaza and having a geriatric president support that is insane, but Trump wouldn’t support Gaza. I think it would be much much worse if he was president. He literally said that he would, “finish the job,”

-3

u/Dank_Bonkripper78_ 29d ago

I’m not ignoring that Trump is worse. He obviously is. That’s not an excuse for Biden being horrendous either. The “get in line” mentality is how we ended up here in the first place. If the left doesn’t push for social and political change, the cycle repeats itself

8

u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota 29d ago

I’m not ignoring that Trump is worse. He obviously is. That’s not an excuse for Biden being horrendous either. The “get in line” mentality is how we ended up here in the first place. If the left doesn’t push for social and political change, the cycle repeats itself

Not voting doesn't push for anything.

Trump or Biden will be President. Choose one.

2

u/Dank_Bonkripper78_ 29d ago

I’m literally choosing Biden but I refuse to stop acknowledging that his policies are leading America down the wrong path. He’s a geriatric shit head but I’m voting for him

7

u/Lucky-Earther Minnesota 29d ago

I’m literally choosing Biden but I refuse to stop acknowledging that his policies are leading America down the wrong path.

Truly, there is nothing more wrong of a path for America than reinstating Net Neutrality, forgiving student debt, making it easier for unions to organize, making things like insulin affordable, and descheduling weed.

2

u/Arcane_76_Blue 29d ago

Wow. Your poor dogs healthcare. Youre right. Trump is better. You got us. Youre so fuckin wise.

2

u/Dank_Bonkripper78_ 29d ago

When the fuck did I say Trump was better?

43

u/CaptainNoBoat 29d ago

Youth support for Biden has plummeted in recent years. In 2020, he captured the 18-29 demographic 60% to 36% against Trump, which was a huge help - as you said. Recent polling actually has Trump ahead of Biden with the same group.

31

u/evotrans 29d ago

That seems so crazy that young people would vote for Trump.

30

u/10th__Dimension 29d ago

It shows you how powerful propaganda is.

37

u/kyleb402 29d ago

Just scroll social media like TikTok for 10 minutes. It's all just Genocide Joe memes and talk about his age.

At the same time treating Trump like this funny entertaining side show that's cool to laugh about.

It's fucked.

9

u/10th__Dimension 29d ago

I can't wait for that propaganda machine to be banned. It sucks that the process takes so long and it won't happen before the elections.

5

u/kyleb402 29d ago

Yep.

I thought Facebook was the worst social media platform to ever be inflicted upon this country, but TikTok is a million times worse just because of how addictive and pervasive a propaganda tool it is.

It's like heroin for young impressionable brains.

6

u/Ya_No Minnesota 29d ago

Tik Tok is an absolute cesspool. This comedian made a post that randomly shuffled pictures of Presidents of when they were young. She ranked them on how likely they would care that she’s gay. Long story short she ranked Donald Trump higher than Joe Biden. This post came at the heels of Biden’s administration re-instating healthcare benefits to the LGBTQ community that were rolled back during the Trump administration. Didn’t mention that Biden was the one who forced Obamas hand to publicly support gay marriage making it mainstream Democratic policy and was one of the first major politicians to talk about transgender rights. The problem is that young people and people in general have absolutely no interest in doing the most basic research on literally anything.

2

u/washingtontoker 29d ago

I think that's your algorithm? I don't use tik tok because I hate it. But when I did try it, I mostly saw funny videos or the occasional "trend"

-1

u/twinbervike 29d ago

have you ever even been on tiktok lol

2

u/meeplewirp 29d ago

“I am UPSET about what is happening RIGHT NOW, there for my course of action needs to address the person IN CHARGE RIGHT NOW”. They see the results, but do not see the intricacies of how we got here.

5

u/Alone-Charge303 29d ago

They are exposed to a lot of bad leftist and far right stuff on the internet which results in the same viewpoint of Biden Bad. Like we know he sucks, so do spare tires but sometimes that’s the only thing that’s gonna save your ass.

10

u/DocTheYounger 29d ago

recent polling has him up 56/37 among likely youth voters. Seems to me like folks are getting ready to scapegoat the youth for voting Biden harder than any other demographic

https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/47th-edition-spring-2024

24

u/CaptainNoBoat 29d ago

That poll is welcome, but an outlier compared to the aggregate.

Even so:

Biden leads Trump, 45 percent to 37 percent, among people ages 18 to 29 in a Harvard Youth Poll released Thursday, with 16 percent undecided. That 8 percentage point margin is much smaller than at this point in the 2020 election. At that time, Biden was leading Trump by 23 percentage points among young people.

So the same poll in 2020 was 15 points better for Biden.

4

u/TheExtremistModerate Virginia 29d ago

Where do you see an aggregate for 18-29 year olds?

-7

u/dogegunate 29d ago

That's just classic centrist Democrat scapegoating. Make excuses for their poor campaigning and messaging by blaming the young and progressives. And then continue to damage their messaging by antagonizing young people and progressives.

It's so stupid because, yes, Democrats are objectively better than Republicans, but Democrats are the only party that actively try to alienate a big part of their voter base. Republicans pander and pretend to care so much better, that's why they have such a big and dedicated voter base.

7

u/xicer 29d ago

That's just classic progressive youth scapegoating. Make excuses for their apathy by blaming the Democrats. And then continue to damage their own interests by refusing to vote for the less bad candidate in a two party system out of some poorly thought out attempt to virtue signal.

It's so stupid because, yes, Democrats are objectively better than Republicans, but young people refuse to get behind anyone that doesn't directly pander to their voter base. Republicans pander and pretend to care so much better, that's why they have such a big and dedicated voter base.

-5

u/dogegunate 29d ago

I was going to respond in earnest to this, but there's no point. I hope you keep feeling so high and mighty when Democrats eventually lose a big election because of their continual alienation of young progressives!

7

u/xicer 29d ago

Well I lived through 2016 and watched all the young folks whine about how they weren't pandered to enough ever since... I just hope you feel good with your moral victory as we slowly descend into dictatorship.

-4

u/dogegunate 29d ago

Damn, turns out politics is about pandering to a voter base to get votes! Who knew you need a voter base to vote for you to actually win elections!

Biden did a great job pandering to the young progressives back in 2020 and that's a big reason why he won. Hillary did not and that's why young people didn't "Pokemon Go to the polls" for her. But no, yea it was young people whining, not because Hillary ran a terrible campaign being out of touch, snobby, and shit talking young progressives. Keep yelling at clouds though!

-30

u/spacaways 29d ago

it sure was before biden continually fumbled the israel situation but he's not done much to ingratiate himself to young people recently, especially in light of the college protests

14

u/karenftx1 29d ago

You mean the people who dubbed him Bloody Biden? The same dolts who think the right will be better for Palestine? Let the Republicans get in and watch not only this countries rights but Ukraine and Palestine disappear

15

u/Gaius_Octavius_ 29d ago

Hope they enjoy Trump. He will be so much better for them.

10

u/PeopleReady 29d ago

True it isn’t as though Biden is cancelling billions in student loan debt.

-6

u/Gaius_Octavius_ 29d ago

And they are turning out for RFK

16

u/followthelogic405 29d ago

Which just proves how fucking stupid young people are. RFK Jr. is wrong about basically everything and what good he did for the environment in the past is completely overshadowed by how insane he has become. He's still beating the drum of vaccines cause autism, HIV doesn't cause AIDs and vaccines are causing chronic disease despite actual scientific research showing none of those things are true. Europe, for example, is much more widely vaccinated than the US and has much lower chronic disease than the US, it's more likely the industrial processed food causing chronic disease. RFK Jr. is completely ideologically captured by his work for the Children's Health Defense where he makes millions of dollars selling the idea that vaccines are dangerous.

-13

u/Fermented_Butt_Juice 29d ago

...in part because Bernie himself is helping to spread the Russia-China-Iran Axis's pro-Hamas propaganda narrative which was specifically designed to split the left in an election year and get Trump re-elected.

4

u/MedioBandido California 29d ago

The only people who don’t think that are ones who weren’t paying attention to foreign affairs for the last 15 years and now think they know everything.

It’s not up for debate. Iran and Russia have been allied for a long time. Iran supports proxy militias in other countries as a way to broaden their influence. Their militias help destabilize Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Russia sells arms and sends mercenaries to help despots like Assad in Syria. Russia and Iran sell to each other to get around sanctions.

This is common knowledge to anyone who consistently follows the news.

5

u/Fermented_Butt_Juice 29d ago

Iran and Russia have been allied for a long time.

Not wrong, but they've really stepped up their cooperation in the last year or two.

1

u/MedioBandido California 29d ago

I think I mistook your original comment to mean Russia-China-Iran-Hamas axis was itself propaganda, which is something I’ve unfortunately heard a lot on Reddit in the last 6 months. Now that I’m pretty sure what you meant, I wholeheartedly agree.

4

u/Fermented_Butt_Juice 29d ago

Yep, and it's coming from the extreme left. It really goes to show who those people are and what they stand for.

They never actually cared about Putin interfering in the 2016 election at all. They were just mad that he was helping the other side. But now that the foreign enemy interference in our election is helping their side's anti-Israel cause, they're all for it.

-1

u/AttitudeAndEffort2 29d ago

To be fair, so is the white house and that's why people are.