So the conversation here is made up of a large constitutency of people which is large enough to field a very viable candidate or two, but who are vested for material reasons in changing things now. A lot of folks in our age range are not vested that way
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I don't have a firm handle on why older folks vote more reliably; it does make sense that the truly wealthy ones vote to protect their pension funds so they can pass them on to their kids or whatever but that's a very small group of people
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Replying to @BootlegGirl
I don't think it's a question of self interest exactly, it's a question of forming community bonds and group loyalty
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
I mean it's a literal fact that most of the structural barriers to voting have to do with not being "settled down" - you're much less likely to vote if you've moved recently and have had to update your registration, and many young people do this several times in quick succession
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
But it's also just that you're more likely to vote the more stuff you have to vote for and it's the people who plan to live in a place long term who really care about all the stuff on the ballot
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
And you're more likely still to vote if you know a bunch of people who are affected by the issues you aren't, and if you've had time to become familiar with the history and narrative behind the politics, and if you have strong group loyalties that push you one way or the other
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
In a way the people in the youth demographic who say things like "voting is an expression of self-interest" or "voting is harm reduction" are explaining why turnout is low People don't reliably do stuff for those reasons, not when the benefit or harm is diffuse or theoretical
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
The reason to vote that these people sneer at is the *most common and reliable reason people vote*, voting as self-expression, as loyalty to group identity
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
Like honestly the most powerful thing the GOP has on its side that the Democrats have gradually lost is that sense of community pressure People whose lives revolve around church who vote the way everyone else in the church does because that's just what you do
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
The Black church is one of the few areas of institutional power like that that the Democrats can lay claim to and probably have a lot to do with the "loyalist" vote in Southern primaries Unions used to be a secular version of that when they mattered more
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The problem, of course, is that it cuts both ways If the party depends on institutional loyalty for votes then that means the party's choices are determined by those institutions and not by competence or policy necessarily
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