We Get What We Deserve

Two warnings before we start today.

1. This post is about politics. It is directly about political events that have occurred or will occur, not just me tangentially relating a very enjoyable sitcom–that I do honestly recommend–to my own political ideals. I believe politics is important and influences almost everything in our lives to one degree or another, but I also believe it is rude to just bring up politics out of nowhere without giving a heads-up. So there you go. You’ve been warned.
2. I’m angry. I’m angry as I sit here and write this and I’ve been angry since I woke up this morning. So be aware going in that this post might not meet the standards of clarity, coherence, and fairness to which my previous posts have proved I so clearly adhere. Me and the New York Times, baby.

Super Tuesday in the 2020 Democratic Primary season happened yesterday. Did you hear about it? Fourteen states voted last night (fifteen if you count American Somoa) to determine the Democratic Party’s candidate for the 2020 general election. At the moment, I’m not going to sit here and list all the reasons why this election might be the most important election in our lifetimes, if not the modern history of our system of government (although I very well might in the future). I’m not going to go into detail on my belief that if the Democrats don’t prevail in 2020, the election in 2024 will not be anything close to legitimate. At this point, you’ll either agree with that last statement or you won’t. I know that if you are on the other side of this from me, there is nothing that I or anyone can say or do that will change your mind. I’ve given up on you as hopeless. I won’t waste my time or yours.

Instead I’m going to talk about the youth vote, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and a couple of the ways in which I believe we are utterly fucking ourselves over. Sounds fun, right?

I should note that I am of course biased in this. I am a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2020 just as I was in 2016. I believe in most of his policies, I believe in his authenticity, and I believe he has the best chance to gain victory in the general election. I also believe that #votebluenomatterwho makes an unfortunate amount of sense. This election is too important for purity tests or eschewing compromises with other reasonable people in our country. This election is about saving our country. But I can still have a preference.

Coming into last week, Bernie Sanders was the one clear front-runner, emerging out of the clown-car of candidates that had begun this campaign season three or four decades ago. He’d essentially tied for first place in the hilariously poorly managed Iowa Caucus, won New Hampshire by a small margin and then Nevada by a much larger margin. Things were looking good for the democratic socialist. He had momentum. He had a huge online following and more people at his rallies than any other leading candidate from his party. The establishment Democrats were running around like scared dogs in a thunderstorm, no idea who to go to or what to do.

Then the weekend before Super Tuesday, Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s former Vice President, won big in South Carolina. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar (In case you’ve noticed, I’ve managed to make it this far without mentioning the out-of-control rich New Yorker with terrifying authoritarian impulses by name. Out of a spirit of bipartisanship, I will also not mention the Democrat’s version of this, who dropped out earlier today, by name either) both suspended their campaigns within days of that victory, allowing Joe Biden to surge ahead in national polling thanks to the centrist lane in the Democratic Primary suddenly clearing. Out of nowhere, seemingly in the blink of an eye, it had become a two-man race; with Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard (Ha!) still in but essentially watching from the sidelines. Even with the abrupt changes to the race however, Bernie still had the lead. A strong showing on Super Tuesday would cement his status as the presumptive nominee and seriously complicate any path Biden might follow to the nomination, even with most of the other centrists out of the way.

That is not what happened.

Of the fourteen states that voted yesterday, Joe Biden won ten of them. Included in that ten was Texas (the second biggest prize of the night) and many states in which he wasn’t expected to win going in (Minnesota, Massachusetts, Virginia). Bernie Sanders won four. Joe Biden now leads Sanders in the delegate total and in most national polls and endorsements from party leaders. It remains a close two-man race but the lead has changed. Joe Biden is now the front-runner and Bernie’s path to victory has been compromised, maybe beyond repair.

I’m not going to go into much detail about my reservations on Joe Biden. Now is not the time for that. I actually like Biden. I liked him as Obama’s VP and I think he seems like a good man. I just think he doesn’t go near far enough in some areas and don’t believe there is any real way for us to ‘go back’ to how we behaved before 2016 after these last three years. But if it’s between Biden and the other guy in November, I’m backing Biden 100%.

So how did this happen? How did Sanders lose all that momentum? How did his huge rallies and eager online fanbase not translate into huge turnouts at the ballot box? Does Sanders really have a support ceiling as so many other commentators have worried? ‘Maybe’ is how I’d answer that last question. Because the answer to the other questions I asked, from what I can tell, all come down to one simple thing.

Young people do not fucking vote.

And old people do.

That is why I’ve been angry for most of today. I’m angry at my generation and the generation younger than mine. I’m 27 years old as of March 4, 2020; and there have been so many times in my life when I’ve heard older teachers, professors, coaches, coworkers, bosses, parents, relatives talk about how the youth of today can’t be trusted. We don’t understand how the world works. We’re entitled failures. We ruin everything. And I shook it off every time. Those old assholes don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t understand the crushing weight of student debt most of us labor under, the existential threat of climate change that will only grow worse and more tangible in our lifetimes, the way this economic system has been manipulated to clearly not work for us, but for the oligarchs of our nation. I still believe all that to be the case, that all of that is why we need real change that Bernie can provide not just a return to the mediocre status quo that Biden promises.

But maybe we don’t deserve it.

Bernie Sanders (and Elizabeth Warren, although her chances were unfortunately shot months before Super Tuesday) was the one candidate running that seemed dedicated to bringing about that change we so needed. The stuff we’d been clamoring about on Facebook and Twitter and Reddit for so long. He calls his candidacy a ‘political revolution’. His support was disproportionately young, and bringing out the youth vote was supposed to be his major strength and what would propel him toward victory.

The youth vote didn’t turn out for him. The youth vote didn’t turn out for anybody really. There was no huge surge of first time voters and people brought in from the margins. Instead, the major voter increase was from the middle-aged and up. From the suburbs instead of the cities. I’ve never met a single voter genuinely enthusiastic to be voting for Joe Biden. I’ve met and spoken to dozens that feel that way about Bernie Sanders. I speak to people my age around and the ones that care and know are as shocked as I am about last night’s events.

But then that’s the problem, there are so many people 30 years old and younger who just don’t give a shit. There are too many other things going on. Maybe they’re working full-time while also going to school and they think they couldn’t spare five minutes. Maybe they’ve been taught that their vote doesn’t matter or won’t count. Maybe the education system failed us in explaining our patriotic duties. Maybe paid time off for voting should be mandatory no matter the job. Maybe easy early voting should be available in every state along with same-day voter registration. Maybe social media is too much of a distraction. Maybe too many new video games and movies and television shows and music are constantly coming out and everyone would rather be entertained than think deeply about the problems we face or any possible solutions.

I don’t know. And I don’t think it matters. Because the truth is everyone deals with their own shit, everyone deals with a lot of the issues I just listed or others, including the middle-aged and up. But the middle-aged and up fucking voted. By and large young people did not. So the olds will get a voice in deciding who the Democrats put up this November, the most important election in any of our lifetimes. The youth mostly chose to give up their voice. Because that is what not voting means. It means giving up the one guaranteed right you have to say something to the nation. It means giving up control to everyone else. We mostly just sat back, messed around on our phones, and let the old people pick Joe Biden. And that is our fault (Millennials and Gen Z) just as much as theirs. Through our own apathy, we let them pick.

Now we have to hope they picked right.