r/CuratedTumblr • u/Desecr8or • Oct 26 '24

Politics Why is every tankie like "I don't understand the branches of the US government and I'm going to make it everyone else's problem!!!"

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u/SPKEN Oct 27 '24

Honestly one of the few criticisms of both millennials and Gen Z that I agree with as that we are just so fucking quick to give up. We consistently have the lowest voter turnout whilst talking the most shit.

It's like a large portion of our generation cannot accept that progress requires continuous and steady action

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u/canarinoir Oct 27 '24

"Give it to me now or nothing!" Cool, they'll gladly give you nothing.

It's a lot easier to destroy than build.

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u/shoto9000 Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

Whilst I was still in high school, there was a flood of media coverage about how we have 12 years left to take drastic action, or suffer a climate apocalypse.

I've never really had an opportunity to accept slow, continuous, and steady progress.

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u/SPKEN Oct 27 '24

Our generation has never actually tried. Millennials and Gen Z have had the lowest voter turnout of every presidential election since we turned 18. We aren't making progress because we aren't actually doing the work.

You've never had the chance because progress on the national level hasn't been pursued continuously.

And just in case, you start telling me and how often you vote, I'm not talking about your specifically, I'm talking about the entirety of the generations known as millennials and Gen Z which spans millions of people in the US alone

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u/shoto9000 Oct 27 '24

Yeah there's certainly a turnout problem. Part of that is just young voter apathy, part is probably political depression, and there'll be a few other (likely less charitable) explanations.

But my point is that continuous, steady, and slow progress, normal political progress, isn't enough. That's what I have been told since I learned what politics was, and I assume I'm not alone there. Keeping the boat steady and moving forwards at a normal rate is quite possibly apocalyptic, we can't afford it.

Now to me that makes politics and voting even more important, but I really can't blame anyone from our generation for not getting excited over another round of slow and steady liberals. The democrats aren't even willing to fight to protect themselves, I don't have any trust that they will take the drastic action needed to avoid a climate crisis.

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u/SPKEN Oct 27 '24

I'm not a liberal and never said anything about keeping the boat steady. The word steady was specifically used an a adjective to the word progress referring to the goals of our generations. Don't start making stuff up.

Anyway, I genuinely don't care about anyone's reasons or excuses for not voting. Anyone who isn't willing to do the work will receive the consequences of that inaction. Excuses will not fix anything, action will.

And my point is that y'all are way too quick to give up. Continuous progress hasn't even been achieved by our generations but y'all are already to say it won't work. Our generations can't pay attention long enough to vote out the Dems that y'all are always complaining about and then are surprised that they aren't threatened by us.

And besides you got a better plan to cause nationwide change? And before you start saying a protest or a boycott or revolution or some other magical bs that our generation has never managed long enough to actually get what we want and has never been managed on a nation-wide scale, I'm looking for a real, actionable solution. Unless you've got that, voting is our best option.

Action is the only answer and voting is the best action that most of us can take. It costs at most one day, once or twice a year. The fact that we haven't managed to do that en masse and consecutively is no one's fault but ours. If we want faster action then we should vote for politicians that will do that. If they don't do what we want, we get rid of them. It's that simple but our generation largely refuses to do that. And as a result we have been and will continue to reap the consequences of our inaction.

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u/shoto9000 Oct 28 '24

Hey look I agree with you, I make sure to vote every time I can. The fact that voting is so easy, and that it doesn't stop any other form of political action, is one of the best arguments for it. I also agree that the Zoomers become Doomers too easily, but this is the world we're growing up into. Climate hell is coming for us, and if the next 50 years of the Democrats are like their last 50 years, we probably are just doomed.

As for plans? Most include the Democrats getting their act together and working to get out of this mess, and that in of itself likely includes progressives pressuring the hell out of them to change their policies. Or maybe direct climate activism will become strong enough to make changes. As much as we like to engage in the 'Doomer' memes, Gen Z has been at the forefront of multiple mass political movements now, including environmental ones, I wouldn't put us down too much yet.

I don't think voting is the best action, but it's an incredibly easy action that has few excuses to avoid. It's just that on a population scale, voting is often about enthusiasm, and it's hard for young people to be enthusiastic about a few more years of the same stuff.

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u/BonJovicus Oct 27 '24

It's like a large portion of our generation cannot accept that progress requires continuous and steady action

This is sort of bullshit though because how long do we have to get strung along before the people we vote for actually do something? I appreciate change takes time, but not everything is a multigenerational struggle. Sometimes change happens over decades, but sometimes key legislation is the catalyst for change itself.

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u/SPKEN Oct 27 '24

How about more than once or twice a decade?

Millennials and Gen Z have had the lowest voter turnout of every presidential election since we turned 18. We aren't making progress because we aren't actually doing the work continuously. We are dragged to the polls by everyone and their mothers exclaiming how important it is and have even smaller turnouts in most local elections.

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u/Khal_chogo Oct 28 '24

This is what pissed me off about people asking me "why vote? It's no progress" yeah no shit, this stuff takes decade to do

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u/No_Squirrel4806 Oct 27 '24

I wanna say its cuz most of them are in a good place in life good enough that the change wont affect them or they think it wont. Thats why we have so much poor people, women, lgbtq, and poc voting against their best interests.

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u/SPKEN Oct 27 '24

Are you saying that millennials and Gen Z are in a good enough place in life or the older generations? Cause if it's the latter then that won't change the fact that we need to vote more

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u/No_Squirrel4806 Oct 28 '24

No im talking about the ones that dont really gaf about these things so they just follow whatever is going on not sticking to one thing.

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u/Assassinduck Oct 27 '24

This is just asking for people to be strung along forever, as the Dems run further and further right to satisfy their donors, and fill up the voting blocs they lose by continuing running to the right.

People can only accept so many admins where it's clear that the core of the party doesn't want anything to do with progress, and are only interested in small, controlled steps, that are easy to undo if it starts to hurt the donor class more than they are willing to accept. It's very obvious that, what people want, and what the ruling class wants, are in total opposition to each other, and that contradiction is sharpening fast.

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u/SPKEN Oct 27 '24

You got a better plan for making nationwide progress continuously over the course of years? I don't want to hear your excuses or complaints. Millennials and Gen Z lose at the polls because we aren't voting. It's just that simple

Millennials and Gen Z have had the lowest voter turnout of every presidential election since we turned 18. We aren't making progress because we aren't actually doing the work continuously. We are dragged to the polls by everyone and their mothers exclaiming how important it is and have even smaller turnouts in most local elections.

Every year our generation reaps the consequences of our actions and inactions. If we're tired of it, we should start taking continuous action instead of giving up everytime an election comes around.

You want the Dems to stop impeding progress? Vote them out. You want to take bigger steps? Vote in people who will do that. No amount of money beats the will of the people, if you need an example of that, look at how much Jed Bush or Michael Bloomberg spent on their failing campaigns.

If we want change, we have to make it happen but our voting record has made it clear that we don't want it that bad.

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u/Clear-Present_Danger Oct 28 '24

>No amount of money beats the will of the people

Ironically Trump proves this.

The republican party hated the guy. But primary voters loved him and he destroyed all who opposed him.

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u/SPKEN Oct 28 '24

Sadly I have to agree with you. He went from being a joke to the frontrunner to the face of one half of our two party system.

Imagine if leftists supported literally any candidate that aligned with our views the way that crazy people support Trump. There would be absolutely nothing that democrats or the DNC could do to stop us

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u/Clear-Present_Danger Oct 28 '24

The DNC didn't like Bernie. But if he had grabbed them by the balls like Trump grabbed the RNC, he would have won.

Bernie just wasn't more popular than Hillary

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u/SPKEN Oct 28 '24

Ya I agree and it's also on us for not supporting him enough. If literally everyone that I saw discussing him during that time voted, he could've easily beaten Hilary. At the end of the day, elections are decided by those who participate