2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: We done fucked up. [View all]F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)We do. I got out there and GOTV as hard as I could this year. My friends worked on campaigns in Seattle. One was a local leader for Measure 594. We did call centers, we talked to people, we got signatures. We worked, and we worked hard.
The problem is, those of us that do that don't see anything changing. Look at 2008. The youth turned out en masse. Not this year, and it's because when we did work, nothing changed, and a whole lot got worse. What do you expect? When we worked hard, we got nothing. That's the lesson the Democrats taught us.
Now, I completely agree. There's no excuse for not voting. But it's unfair to place the blame squarely on youth, when Democrats have been dismissing our concerns and actively making it worse (key point: climate change and education). Why would we vote when we can clearly see that voting for a Democrat is not in our best interest? Obviously, Republicans are worse, if not downright insane, and we should vote against them. But voting against something is a really shitty way to get high turnout, unless it's motivated by fear and hatred. Since we're not willing to use fear and bigotry, then we damn well better have a strong progressive platform to vote for.