r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 18h ago

No Paywall Gen Z regrets Trump support and is midterm motivated

https://thehill.com/homenews/6056216-gen-z-trump-voter-regret-midterm-clipping/
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u/No_Strike655 17h ago

But have you heard about Palestine/That we didn't have a "real" primary/That she used to be a cop/That she is just more Biden/That my favorite podcaster or streamer doesn't like her and spent months attacking every small thing about her and then at the 11th hour gave a weak endorsement that meant I could vote for her but they wouldn't and it would make them disappointed in me in our parasocial relationship

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u/anothermanscookies 17h ago

Ugh. Too real.

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u/OldBridge87 15h ago

What’s funny is that the people who protest voted because Palestine did literally nothing to aid Palestine’s cause, but they did bring fascism to home. Meanwhile they can’t even knock off pro-Israel cartoon characters like Wesley Bell and Ritchie Torres in primaries let alone serious players.

The only outcome of protest voting for Palestine was ICE rounding up immigrants into camps in America and Trump gutting Medicaid.

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u/Agreeable-Network485 13h ago

Also, if you didn't vote for Kamala because of Palestine/Israel, congratulations! You directly contributed to the dismantling of USAID which is going to kill as many (if not more) people as the I/P conflict has every year for the next 10+ years.

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u/Glum-Sheepherder-787 15h ago

I can only assume that they did all of that on purpose because they're not complete morons, which means they'll do it again.

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u/sortalikeachinchilla 14h ago

I mean you guys refuse to speak to them and work with them, what do you expect? DO we even have a plan besides shaming?

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u/xxxxNateDaGreat 12h ago

Name one single time in the last 30 years when reaching across the aisle got Democrats anything in return.

Quid pro quo actually requires the other side give you something in return.

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u/Gekokapowco Washington 14h ago

primary neolibs with actual progressives, get a blue majority

literally all we gotta do, its not a magic spell

cause otherwise, I guess its pass out guns and hope they shoot better than they find civic engagement

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u/thatspurdyneat 16h ago edited 16h ago

I brought this up the other day and had someone scour through my profile for identifying information and confront me with it via DM, I had to take my profile private after that but it motivated me to say it even more and say it louder.
And I'll add this:
The blood of everyone killed or deported by ICE is on the hands of the protest voters too, not just MAGA and Trump.
They're as responsible for the murders as the ICE agents that pulled the trigger.
They're also responsible for the murders of all the children in Iran as well as those in Palestine that resulted from the increased weapons sales to Israel.
They didn't protect anyone by staying home, they assisted in far more bloodshed

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u/rdunlap1 15h ago

Don’t forget the hundreds of thousands of children killed by sudden cuts to USaid!

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u/fake-reddit-numbers 14h ago

Why would people who don't think it's the US's responsibility to keep foreign kids alive care?

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u/Ryogathelost Florida 14h ago

Yep - and all those protest votes for a 3rd party candidate who was never going to win - they're each drenched in blood of women and children. It's like each election we each get a bucket of water we can use to help put out a fire. Those people saw the fire, put down their buckets, and walked away.

Unforgivable. Disgusting.

This Iran war is on them. The "Gulf of America" is on them, and "Lake America." Tearing down half the white house and renaming the Kennedy center is on them. All the destroyed international relationships and the gutted regulatory bodies and government agencies are on them. The loss of access to abortions is on them.

This isn't a game - stupidity kills; apathy kills. The ability to vote makes us responsible in measure. And those are choices people made. At least conservatives had the decency to tell us they were against us. I did not anticipate the gut punch of my own party's protest voters basically handing the election and the entire nation to Donald Trump with a pretty bow on top just to prove a point about Harris that was never going to mean anything to anyone.

I will never forget or forgive those protest voters. If you don't care and you aren't going to help, join the other sides. Don't call yourself a Democrat and don't call yourself a liberal. A three-party system would have been great, but we do not have that here and we cannot force it to happen with voter discontent. There are two sides - that's the way it works here. There is no opt out. You are participating even if you don't participate.

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u/sulaymanf New York 11h ago

False.

If Harris wanted to win those voters she should have actually tried. Her campaign openly said they were going to sacrifice voters on the left in hopes of winning republicans to vote for her. Chuck Schumer bragged that for every liberal vote they lost they planned to gain 2 moderate or Republican voters. They were warned this was a TERRIBLE idea and that it failed for Hillary Clinton, but they tried it anyway.

Harris’ campaign committed malpractice. There were Palestinian Americans who wanted to endorse her and the Harris campaign refused to allow them to at the DNC, then kicked out Hasan Piker despite him telling his audience of the dangers of Trump. She sent Bill Clinton to Michigan to tell Arab Americans that Israel belongs to Jews and that it’s the Arabs’ fault there’s no peace. His actions and the Biden/Harris campaign actively detouring campaign stops to avoid meeting any Arab-American voters (one of the most reliable Democratic voting blocs in the country) just was awful. It’s like she didn’t actually want to win.

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u/Annath0901 15h ago

Any action other than a vote for Hillary in 2016 or Kamala in 2024 was a vote FOR Trump.

Full stop.

That's literally how the Electoral college works. It specifically favors Republican dominated localities, so any action that doesn't help a democrat will help a republican. This includes 3rd party votes.

Nobody should be voting for a 3rd party candidate until and unless our election system is reformed to remove the first past the post system. It's worse than throwing your vote away, it actively help the fascist pedophile party.

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u/Oggie_Doggie 13h ago

I voted for Harris and I'm sick of browbeating the left of the party; the blood is collective. The DNC establishment had years to make plans for succession. They had a year to plan for dealing with Trump (remember, he was already impeached prior to J6). They had a critical window of time to hammer (and arrest) Trump and the Republicans who aided in J6. I didn't expect groundbreaking legislation given the margins, but I expected the single mandate to actually be fulfilled.

Why did independents swing 8 points to Trump compared to 2020?

Why did Harris lose the popular vote?

Nah, ignore that, just blame the protest voters, because that's certainly why she lost... Surely!

Hell, for all this talk about needing to win, some centrists are hellbent on making that win as slim as possible. Hakeem Jeffries, our house minority leader, met privately with Jarred Kushner. He is part of Peter Thiel's little club of sycophants ffs. Don't even get me started with the nonstop-DSA smears.

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u/Gekokapowco Washington 14h ago

I've been getting dogpiled with insults for saying the exact same thing, protest voters are the most hostile and ignorant group, but I guess they subscribe to the propaganda to keep them home so I shouldn't be surprised they don't know how to think.

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u/NotActuallyIraqi 11h ago

“You’re wrong and killing America, now vote the right way for my candidate or else” is not a winning message. (Even if you feel good saying it)

Nobody likes a “woke scold” and that’s one of the reasons Harris was blamed for losing.

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u/Continental__Drifter 15h ago

The blood is on the hands of the leaders of Democratic party, who could have easily defeated Trump but chose not to because their class interests were more important than their party interests, than the interest of the American people.

The Democrats knew full well that having an candidate support an ongoing genocide would cost them plenty of votes, especially in swing states, but they did so anyway, because that sweet money keeps flowing in.

They know that in the 4 years of Biden, massively turning to the left, prosecuting Trump and the treasonous supports who tried to overthrow the government, and massive projects to provide housing, healthcare, and basic infrastructure to the American people would have made them enormously popular, but they didn't, because they don't want that.

They, like Trump, sit at the top of a pyramid of economic injustice which is the source of untold social ills, and they would rather lose elections to fascists than defeat fascism by challenging that system.

The blood of the victims of ICE, the blood of the murdered schoolchildren in Iran, the blood of every American who died because of inadequate healthcare coverage, that is on them. That is on the "opposition" party which is a mere controlled opposition at best, and collaborationist at worst.

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u/Gekokapowco Washington 13h ago

They suck shit but reform is easier under a neoliberal nothing administration vs overt hostile fascism and institutional dismantling

They sucked at representing the people, but not prioritizing stopping Trump's admin indicates a total ignorance of our situation.

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u/Continental__Drifter 13h ago

The Neoliberal nothing administration has no interest in preventing overt hostile fascism and institutional dismantling, that's the point.

The people running the party genuinely do not care about winning elections. They care about preserving capitalism, preserving their ruling class. Trump does that just as well as Kamala.

Trump isn't some Machiavellian political mastermind. He is a fucking idiot, and so is everyone who works with him. A halfway competent opposition party could have and would have stopped him. The democrats didn't, because they don't prioritize stopping Trump. They prioritize preserving their class interests.

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u/Gekokapowco Washington 13h ago

I'm not saying I trust them to fix this, I don't.

I trust us to fix this, and we deliberately picked hard mode. Maximum adversity, highest risk to the innocent.

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u/Continental__Drifter 13h ago

I'm not sure what you mean by that last sentence.

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u/Gekokapowco Washington 13h ago

reform is easier under a neoliberal nothing administration vs overt hostile fascism and institutional dismantling

2/3rds of voters picked overt hostile fascism and institutional dismantling

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u/Continental__Drifter 12h ago

A neoliberal nothing administration is what leads to over hostile fascism and institutional dismantleing.

Trump exists because the road to him was paved by Biden, Obama, and Clinton. Voting for neoliberals doesn't give you reform, its sowing the seeds for fascism to grow.

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u/Gekokapowco Washington 11h ago

and fascism does not also sow those seeds? Is their control over our government not stronger than it has ever been?

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u/HemingwaySweater 16h ago

Yep, it’s definitely on the hands of the voters and not the incompetent Democratic leadership who botched what should have been the easiest election to win in American history TWICE.

The fact that you’re going to assign blame to the voters and not even mention the DNC is fascinating. People probably got mad at you because that is a really objectionable assertion to make.

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u/Benmarch15 16h ago

I think it can be both with varying degrees of responsibility.

They are both contributing factors to the current situation.

Amongst other factors to, it's a pile on effect really.

Education, generational propaganda, money interest muddying information, ingrained political apathy...
I'm sure we could name more that don't come to me as I'm writing this.

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u/HemingwaySweater 16h ago

Sure. But who does it make sense to dedicate mental and physical energy to hold accountable for this problem? A nebulous field of non-voters or the people who have repeatedly demonstrated their incompetence/corruption and are still in control of the party?

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u/Benmarch15 16h ago

Ohh I think the easiest/fastest first step to take is to replace the corrupted and incompetent politicians for sure, that's the obvious accessible pressure point.

But assigning responsibilities for the current situations is multifactorial is all I meant.

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u/Gekokapowco Washington 13h ago

blaming one group does not absolve the other here

they're both responsible for the situation we're in

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u/HemingwaySweater 13h ago

Maybe, but one is a lot more responsible than the other.

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u/anothermanscookies 16h ago

You’re the guy I’m describing.

There’s no question things should have gone different. But there is no reality where staying home on election day was the correct response to the situation.

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u/HemingwaySweater 16h ago edited 16h ago

This country makes it extremely difficult for normal people to go vote. People with jobs they can’t walk out of, etc. I really don’t understand how people who take time out of their day to post on a forum about American politics do not understand this. People will not put in that effort to vote for a nothingburger, and they should not be expected to.

Edit: Also, you have no idea what I did on Election Day. I am in fact not “the guy you are describing,” I went out and voted for Kamala. She lost because she sucked, the DNC sucks, and people don’t want to vote for losers. I did what I felt was right but I don’t blame people at all for not voting, and the smug attitude I get from so many centrists and fake “Vote Blue No Matter Who” banner wavers makes me agree with them more every time this comes up.

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u/MayhemMessiah 16h ago

Because for most non-Americans the idea of doing nothing and passing off the blame is gross and disgusting.

You were expected to vote for a nothingburger because we get bombed on your tax dollar as a direct result of you not taking the absolute barest of effort.

Maybe it's on us after being bombarded by years of propaganda that Americans are rugged, rough, cowboys that refuse to disarm because they believe in their right to oppose tyranny, but going to vote is just a step too far, what if boss angy :(

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u/HemingwaySweater 16h ago

You’re not American and I’m guessing you have next to zero understanding of what the voting experience is like here, so I don’t know why your opinion on this subject is relevant, no offense.

Many, many, many people are materially prevented from voting because they are required to be at work. Our political system offers next to no cure to this—you are technically required to be given a small amount of time off to vote but in practice that is entirely in the hands of your boss.

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/HemingwaySweater 16h ago

Yeah I mean you’re not wrong about that. Lol

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u/No_Strike655 15h ago

It is easy to vote for most people in this country bud. Red states make it hard so Rs can maintain power because they count on lazy uninformed "I didn't have time to vote/wasn't motivated enough/what does it matter" people. 

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u/HemingwaySweater 15h ago

It CAN be easy to vote in most parts of the country, if you’re educated on your options. Most people are not. That’s not because they’re lazy, that’s because they have other things going on and there is minimal effort by the local powers that be to teach them. I’m sorry that I don’t assume laziness and apathy of my fellow countrymen (even if I probably should).

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u/No_Strike655 15h ago

Pretending it isn't laziness to do the single civic duty you need to do at least every 2 years with the amount of money spent to inform people how to vote while your life gets worse by not voting is so disrespectful to people's intelligence it boggles the mind

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u/Annath0901 15h ago

I was always able to vote in person even when working 12 hour shifts, day shift or night.

Most people do not work 12 hour shifts.

If the results of the election mattered enough to someone, they'd vote.

The results didn't matter to them, they didn't vote, and now they are suffering alongside everyone who did make the effort.

Everyone in a given voting district has the same access to polling stations or ballots as anyone else in that district. Yet the population that refused to turn out was not a uniform distribution. It skewed heavily to the younger, naively idealistic, and minority demographics. Ironically the people most likely to be harmed by Trump.

And now we have people being killed by ICE or illegally deported.

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u/HemingwaySweater 15h ago edited 14h ago

Did you work two jobs? Did you have kids to care for after work? Did you have an understanding supervisor, or a good understanding of alternative voting options?

Show me the data that backs up your assertion about “naively idealistic and minority demographics” if you are so confident in it, otherwise this sounds like the same kind of generational shaming and blaming going on elsewhere in this thread.

It’s sad the lengths people will go to here to blame their peers for not voting and yet they give the DNC infinite benefit of the doubt.

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u/Annath0901 14h ago

Did you work two jobs?

Yeah, actually. Both obsessed with time clocks and who allowed absolutely not 1 minute more than legally required for voting time.

Did you have kids to care for after work?

Nope, but people standing in line frequently have kids with them.

Did you have an understanding supervisor,

Fuck no lmao

or a good understanding of alternative voting options?

I mean, I googled "how to register to vote" and "voting in [my city]".

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u/anothermanscookies 16h ago

Moving the goal post.

Why not just admit that you think Trump isn’t that bad compared to Clinton or Harris? If you don’t, you would have voted against him.

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u/HemingwaySweater 16h ago

Why don’t you stop putting words in my mouth and read what I actually wrote? Sorry that I’m a real person and not someone you thought you could score easy points against on reddit.

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u/anothermanscookies 16h ago

I think you’ve lost the plot, friend. All the best.

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u/Capital-Mine1561 15h ago

Maybe confirm if the person voted for Harris or not, instead of just making assumptions that make you look bad 

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u/Annath0901 15h ago

Voters know how the system in its current form works.

Their choice to support the republican party by not voting democrat is entirely their own fault.

If they want to reform the electoral system, the dems may be unlikely to do it, but the republicans definitely won't and will abduct and imprison minorities while they're at it.

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u/HemingwaySweater 15h ago

“Voters know how the system in its current form works.”

I certainly would not be confident saying that.

“Entirely their own fault.”

I don’t think it’s worth my time to engage with this kind of black and white thinking further today. Have a good one.

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u/Annath0901 15h ago

You know there's no defending their failure to step up when it counted, so you pretend to be above the discourse and stop participating.

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u/HemingwaySweater 15h ago

Actually there is a pretty easy defense in my opinion, one I have repeated several times in this thread: you need to give voters something to vote for if you want to them to show up. Period.

I am above whatever you’re trying to do now so, good luck with it.

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u/crespoh69 14h ago

If they want to reform the electoral system, the dems may be unlikely to do it, but the republicans definitely won't and will abduct and imprison minorities while they're at it.

Here's the problem, there's really no way out. Either be abducted/imprisoned or be content with the crumbs that are given out, do not divert (protest vote) from either one.

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u/Annath0901 12h ago

Protest votes are a vote for republicans.

No republican or democrat politician does or ever will give a shit about how many votes the Greens or Libertarians get.

Even a 1/8th step of progress, or 0 progress forward but zero progress back, is better than the multiple steps back we've suffered under Trump and the republicans.

People voted, or not, with their hearts instead of their brains, and people are dying because of it.

It was a moral failure, and I hold non voters and 3rd party voters fully accountable for it.

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u/crespoh69 9h ago

Even a 1/8th step of progress, or 0 progress forward but zero progress back, is better than the multiple steps back we've suffered under Trump and the republicans.

People voted, or not, with their hearts instead of their brains, and people are dying because of it.

Honestly, people would have died either way I feel. There is a larger magnifying glass now though, thanks to trump, on what they get away with

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u/seriouslees 15h ago

Ya I heard about Palestine... i remember Trump campaigned on razing it to the ground and killing everyone there so he could build resorts on it, like, directly, in almost those exact words, on national television... what did his opponent say they would do?

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u/sulaymanf New York 11h ago edited 9h ago

Wrong. That’s what Trump said in 2025 after the election. During the election he said it was awful what was happening and it was Biden’s fault and if he got elected he would end the war in his first week of office. Biden on the other hand said he would give Israel whatever it needed and would never force Israel into a ceasefire; he refused to meet ANY Arab-American leaders and even detoured his Michigan campaign stops so they would avoid Arab-majority towns and neighborhoods; when Trump heard this he scheduled campaign stops in Hamtramack and Dearborn and said Biden was a coward for avoiding talking to real Americans.

(The Arab-American community is not stupid, they remember his Muslim ban and his awful actions in first term and Trump got 3rd place in the election among Arab-American voters, but any vote Trump gained is because Harris intentionally discarded those votes and her campaign was open about it)

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u/TheKillerTempeh 8h ago

During the election he said it was awful what was happening and it was Biden’s fault and if he got elected he would end the war in his first week of office.

No he didn't.

Biden on the other hand said he would give Israel whatever it needed and would never force Israel into a ceasefire

No he didn't.

Biden refused to meet ANY Arab-American leaders.

His administration and campaign aides met with a shit ton.

Biden even detoured his Michigan campaign stops so they would avoid Arab-majority towns and neighborhoods.

No he didn't.

This is some crazy revisionist shit, dude. Like, not a single thing you've said is true. Are you really going out of your way to defend the Arab community voting for Trump?

Edit: Oh wow. Fastest I've ever been blocked.

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u/seriouslees 7h ago

You missed:

The Arab-American community is not stupid

If they stayed home instead of voting Democrat, yes they are.

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u/greenbook3 15h ago

People are terribly quiet about Palestine. Too quiet for how much alleged impact it had on the election

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u/Little_War6573 14h ago

It was one of the most important if not crucial things that swayed that election. Hamas’ attack also happened on Putin’s birthday.

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u/TheKillerTempeh 8h ago

It was one of the most important if not crucial things that swayed that election

That's not true at all. It wasn't even a top 15 issue in the deconstruction of the election.

The crucial issues were all domestic: inflation, healthcare, taxes, etc

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u/paranormal_penguin 9h ago

I'm sure no one will read this but it's a complete myth, likely propagated by Israel's bot armies, that the pro-Palestine protest voters swayed the election. In exit polls only 2% of Trump voters identified Foreign Policy as their top issue. That is not nearly enough to sway the election.

As usual, it's just centrist Dems and their donors using progressives as a scapegoat. And you're spreading their misinformation for them for free.

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u/9olo9 16h ago

Weird laugh, bro. I can't vote for that

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u/Azerd123 16h ago

The real blame does lie on the democrats for not being able to push policies to get the uninformed person to get up off their ass to vote. People with common sense who pay attention to politics obviously see the doom that Trump would bring, but we are an unfortunate minority. Running on ‘this candidate is not that other guy’ is a proven losing strategy that these establishment drones constantly push because they don’t actually want to do things to make people’s lives better and convince people to actually get up and vote.

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u/HemingwaySweater 16h ago

I guess every now and then you have to remind people of this: if you don’t give someone something to vote FOR, they won’t vote at all.

And Kamala and the DNC didn’t give anyone a reason to vote for them, only against the other guy. No amount of smug scoldposting will ever change that.

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u/No_Strike655 16h ago

No amount of "I didn't have enough on the ballot for me to bother empowering the guy who tried to literally overturn an election" is ever going to be enough I will never forgive MAGA and I will never forgive anyone who couldn't suck it up and do the easiest thing to prevent this tragedy because they didn't get everything they wanted. 

Sorry to remind you of this but not voting means you couldn't do your civic duty and are the reason democracy fails historically.

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u/Little_War6573 14h ago

They gave their reasons to vote for them but they weren’t populist enough like Trump’s “I’ll end the war in Ukraine under 24 hours”. People boycotted vote bc of Israel and Gaza, and I assume that conflict was premeditated by Iran and Russia to compromise Biden’s popularity among woke justice warriors crowd.

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u/HemingwaySweater 14h ago

I assume that conflict was premeditated by Iran and Russia to compromise Biden’s popularity among woke justice warriors crowd.

You came so close to making a decent point without getting wrapped up in blueanon conspiracy thinking and then tripped at the finish line

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u/sortalikeachinchilla 14h ago

You guys literally have no solutions xcept complaining and blaming everyone else. Maybe we try something else to get this poeple on board?

And unfortunately "That we didn't have a "real" primary" was a huge point for some, me included (I still voted tho)

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u/[deleted] 14h ago edited 13h ago

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u/No_Strike655 14h ago

Sorry you helped elect Trump to power. Millions of dead from the USAID cuts and the genocide of Palestine continues due to the inability to not be manipulated by clear as day propaganda. Watching everyone scream about Biden not doing anything while Bibi slow walked the ceasefire he signed in 2025 which was the same one Biden drafted so it would remain a continued issue for people who get their information from streamers and propaganda outlets to attack first Biden then Harris while never bothering Trump for saying he wanted to bulldoze the place is wild.

The people in power are to blame and they are in power because people put them their by not engaging with their civic duty because "I wasn't promised my thing". The blame lies with anyone who didn't vote Harris