OK, your role is perhaps not as crucial to survival as that of Obi Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars movie (now titled “A New Hope”), but yours is an important generation, especially given the current direction our country is headed. Gen Z, also known as iGen or post-Millennials, refers to the demographic cohort born between 1996 and 2010. As this generation reaches voting age, it is important for its members to understand the importance of participating in every election.
Voting is a fundamental right and responsibility of citizenship. It is a way for individuals to have a say in the direction of their country and to hold elected officials accountable. Through voting, Gen Z can influence the policies and laws that will impact their daily lives—from healthcare and education to the economy and the environment.
One of the most compelling reasons for Gen Z to vote is that this generation is uniquely affected by many current political issues. Climate change, for example, is a pressing concern for Gen Z, who will live with the consequences of today’s environmental policies far longer than older generations. Similarly, the high cost of education and the increasing burden of student loan debt disproportionately affect Gen Z. By voting, Gen Z can amplify their voices on these issues and advocate for policies that reflect their values and interests.
Another reason Gen Z should vote is that this generation is one of the most diverse in history, with a wide range of perspectives and experiences. By participating in the democratic process, Gen Z can ensure their diverse voices are represented in government and that policies address the needs and concerns of all members of society.
The decisions made by today’s elected officials will shape the future, so it is crucial for Gen Z to have a say. It is also important for Gen Z to vote to uphold democracy—the foundation of our country and something to be protected. It’s also worth noting that voting is not only a right but also a privilege in many countries. Many people have fought—and continue to fight—for the right to vote, so exercising that right honors their sacrifices.
However, voting is not the only way to make a difference. Gen Z can also engage in other forms of civic participation, such as volunteering, organizing, and advocating for change. But voting is essential to the democratic process and the most direct way to influence government policies and elected officials.
In the 2024 general election, youth turnout (ages 18-29) was approximately 47%, which, while higher than some previous years, remains lower than older generations’ turnout rates. Younger voters aged 18-19 turned out at around 41%, with significant disparities by race and gender within Gen Z. Overall turnout ranged from 58% for young white women to 25% for young Black men, underscoring significant inequities that voting and civic engagement can help address. Localized efforts have shown promise, such as in Philadelphia where 68% of 18-year-olds voted in 2024, exceeding overall turnout.
Make no mistake: Gen Z (as well as every other generation) need to vote in every election. It is their right and responsibility as citizens to shape the direction of our country. By voting, Gen Z can influence the policies and laws impacting their future, ensure their diverse voices are represented, and help direct the country’s future. Furthermore, it’s a way to honor the sacrifices of those who fought for the right to vote. It is time for Gen Z to step up and make their voices heard.
In his book, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century”, the very first lesson Timothy Snyder presents us with is “Do not obey in advance”.
Yet this is precisely what the mainstream media (including MSNBC and even Comedy Central) are doing wrt the “candidacy” of Rapey McEarGotNicked. They’re cravenly removing shows that might “offend” Trumplethinskin, ostensibly in the forlorn hope that if he wins they’ll obtain or retain access to him during his admin, er reign as King of the World.
Another admonition from Snyder; “Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.” Unfortunately, if my admittedly unscientific analysis is correct, this is what far too many of us are doing on the daily. I say this because of a couple of things.
One – Facebook provides a range of reactions for posts and comments. These are “Like”, “Love”, “Care”, “Ha Ha”, “Wow”, “Sad”, and “Anger”. I see lots of people reacting to news of Mango Mussolini’s outlandish “positions” (especially Project 2025) with “Sad” rather than “Anger”. Being sad is debilitating. Being angry is energizing. It can, and should, lead to dogged determination to resist, whereas being sad leads to fear, anxiety, and panicked paralysis.
Two – On Threads which, despite being a META product like FB & IG, doesn’t provide for a range of reactions, I consistently read comments by people who are afraid or uncomfortable. Hardly any are angry at what’s going on with the Treason Weasel’s “campaign”.
What we face with the prospect of another Trump Presidency is objectively horrendous, yet many seem to be paralyzed and incapable of doing anything other than complaining and expressing their fear for the future.
Maybe I’m off base here, but I believe they are doing what Professor Snyder is admonishing us against, i.e. obeying in advance or, to put it more succinctly, giving up.
WE NEED TO DO BETTER. Only 112 days remain for us to educate and fire up the electorate, especially the large chunk of people who don’t ordinarily vote.
PS – I’m a 77-year-old, straight, cis gendered, white male who lives in SoCal, is retired, and has enough retirement income (thank you Social Security & Medicare) to squeak by almost no matter what happens. Nevertheless, I care about my fellow meat sacks and, especially, my two adopted girls. For this reason I will not obey, either in advance or afterward. There’s just too much at stake.
The DOJ’s OLC policy of not pursuing criminal investigations or prosecutions into or against a sitting president needs to change! Their argument that it would ” … unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions”—in light of the serial criminality of the former President—no longer holds up, IMO. Look how thoroughly it screwed up every aspect of public life and how much it’s cost us in both treasure and prestige. This raises some thorny questions I will try to tackle in the future. I’m just spitballing right now in light of what we’re learning (and many of us knew long ago) about the criminality of the former President, Donald John Trump.
She Shouldn’t be Blind to Outright Criminality by Anyone!
To be clear, If the evidence warrants it (and all but the most partisan know it does) I want to see an indictment—actually several—of Trump. He remains innocent until proven guilty and I want to see the “rule of law” upheld by our court system. If he’s so fucking innocent, let him prove it to a judge and jury. He’s been treated more “fairly” by our justice system than millions of our poorest citizens. Neither he, nor his supporters have ever uttered a single word about the unfairness of that system. Now, all of a sudden it’s rigged and unfair. Screw them and him. Let’s see it play out.
I didn’t write the following. However, I think it adds to my last post about Sun Tsu’s admonition to know one’s enemy and know oneself. It’s well written and says much more than I did in that post of mine.
A big part of the freakout you’re seeing from Elon and the rest of the rightwing crowd is that they just ran a whole campaign against the “woke mind virus” and LGBTQ people in an electoral environment that should have favored them heavily–and they lost.
They thought they had a big popular majority for “anti-woke.” They did not. They lost. Elon is going anti-woke, and going broke. All their rightwing startups are going belly-up. They lost a Senate seat, and without new illegal gerrymandering they would’ve lost the House.
Normies voted against them. Women were more furious about Roe than they expected. Young people voted big against them. They’ve lost the culture, and they’ve lost faith in electoral solutions to it. Who is gonna save them? Trump 2024? DeSantis 2024? Lol.
Tech is stacked in favor of the GOP: the Facebook groups/algorithms & YouTube algorithms favor them. They dominate AM radio & cable news. Twitter was the most balanced & responsible, so Elon bought it because the far right couldn’t stomach even a hint of social responsibility.
But they still lost. They lost the popular vote in 2016. They lost in 2018. They lost in 2020. They lost embarrassingly in 2022. They lost in Brazil. Putin lost in Ukraine. White Christian Nationalism is failing. So they’re taking desperate measures for control.
As generational replacement continues and the failures of authoritarianism become more obvious, they will lose even harder. The desperation for control will increase. Times will get more dangerous. But as long as the rest of society resists, we will win.
This “rest of society” is what the far-right calls “The Cathedral” as if it’s some conspiracy. They see themselves as a brave rebellious resistance to it. But of course none of that is true. They are defending the hegemony of good ol’ boy power.
Meanwhile, “the cathedral” is no such thing. Creatives, the well-educated, scientists, real altruists and curious all lean left. Young people are economically disadvantaged, and lean left. The big problems like climate change do not have rightwing answers.
Now even big corporations seem to lean left in their public comms only because 18-45 year olds are the target advertising demo. And guess where we live, what our values are and how we vote? The Fox News audience isn’t the target demo anymore. Too bad.
So now you’ve got a coalition of theocrats with aging, declining followings, and megalomaniac billionaires who think only an dictatorship under their control will lead humanity into a sci-fi future of their grandiose and self-serving delusions.
But normal people aren’t buying in–especially the vast majority of people under 45. They’re going to lose. As for twitter? Either Elon gets bored and makes it normal again, or he turns it into Gab and destroys it as the people who actually provide value on twitter move elsewhere–to places like here.
And regarding Elon’s “longtermism”? No worries–progressives and ethical science will get us to a sustainable sci-fi San Junipero future just fine. And we’ll get there faster and more safely the more that Dunning-Kruger tyrants like Elon are sidelined from control over it.
I really enjoy Jim Wright’s rants, especially when he gets riled up. He reminds me of a famous sports writer for the Los Angeles Times, Jim Murray who, sadly, passed away nearly a quarter century ago (kinda shows you how old I am). Jim Murray had a way of making and remaking a point without the reader getting tired of the exercise. Jim Wright has that same quality in the political world, IMO. I came across this post today and shared it with my friends and anyone else who might stumble across it – my posts are all public – and I thought I would share it here as well. I also added a few thoughts of my own that sprung out of Jim’s post and some of the resulting comments, most notably those suggesting the work of protecting against fascism is hardly over because of this one election. In fact, I vividly remember the “America. Love it or leave it” crowd that attacked those of us who were protesting the war in Vietnam back in the sixties and seventies, as well as the majority of Republicans since who want to restrict our freedoms and tell us what to think, who to love, and how to relate to the universe. My comments follow this Facebook embed.
The concerning part is there’s still a disturbingly large swath of the electorate who embrace fascism and authoritarianism and likely an equally large group of people who haven’t a clue what’s actually happening and merely respond to the right-wing propaganda that permeates our culture and vote reflexively, not thoughtfully.
My time on this planet is coming to a close, even if I live to be 100, but I still care deeply about the kind of society, economy, and environment we’ll be leaving those who come after me. While I have two daughters who are 19 and 21, and whose future matters a great deal to me, I would feel this way even if I was childless.
The forces of darkness are not soon going away; they’ll most likely never go away – at least not for generations to come. Therefore, we must be eternally vigilant as well as discerning in our choice of those we allow to have the power to make decisions affecting our lives and the lives of our fellow humans. This means paying close attention to elections at every level and for every office, as they’re currently the most impactful activities that determine how we live.
I honestly believe we need a socialist revolution, but I don’t see it happening soon, nor do I see it happening in the manner others have gone down. We’re not early 20th century Russia or mid 20th century China. Neither are we similar to Cuba or any other country I can think of that had a revolution and attempted to become a communist economy.
My knowledge of Marxism, which is admittedly incomplete, tells me that Marx and Engels did not believe a country could go from an agrarian or feudal economy directly to socialism. If you’re not familiar with their theories, they believed that human economic systems evolved and there was a progression from tribalism (primitive communism) to slavery, to feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, to communism, to anarchy (which didn’t mean crazy-ass bomb throwing, but the absence of the coercive organs of the state, i.e. the “withering away of the state.”) Neither were these transitions/evolutions necessarily smooth or linear, but they were overall inexorable.
Materialistic Dialectics also requires us to understand the situation in which we find ourselves and our society in its historical context, not as some abstract notion of how things “ought” to be, but as they truly are; a seemingly Herculean task given the complexity of today’s world.
I don’t have all the answers; I’m not even sure I have any answers. However, of this I’m reasonably certain – believing that capitalism is the zenith of human economic activity is foolish and counter productive. As well, we have a long way to go just to honor the principles on which the United States was ostensibly founded. Liberty and justice for all is still a goal; an apparently distant one at that.
I am 75 years old. I have been voting since June 4, 1968, my 21st birthday and the day of the California Democratic primary. My introduction to voting was to have the person I voted for assassinated the night I voted for him. I have never missed voting in an election, including any special elections.
I have been a socialist since my first vote so, in reality, I’ve never been able to conscientiously vote for someone who represented my actual views or for the system I would like to see implemented. Sure, there were socialists running for office but, lets’ face it, this is a two-party political system and I’ve never wanted to waste my vote.
My point isn’t to argue the validity of voting for the lesser of two evils or the value of the protest vote. I had my reasons, but I’ve always voted – always, and if you don’t get off your ass and vote I don’t know what to say other than I have no use for you. Not voting is akin to voting for the worst possible choice, IMO, especially when those who support the worst possible choice vote en masse every. damn. time.
If you live in Simi Valley, CA here are all the candidates you DON’T want to vote for. I live in City Council District 2 and School District D. Here are my thoughts on the candidates I can and will vote for, as well as most of their opponents.
IMLTHO, the fact that Mike Judge is endorsed by the SVPD says nothing good about the police or Judge. Judge is full of anger and hate and has accomplished little as a member of the City Council. His opponent, Sean Weisman, is young, intelligent, and full of fresh ideas. He’s also in tune with changes people like Judge won’t even acknowledge, e.g. climate change.
Fred Thomas’s focus is almost entirely on a “safe and family friendly community”, which I interpret as a dog whistle heavily skewed toward policing and the status quo. Joe Ayala is a forward thinking, long-time union member and negotiator. He supports working people and their struggles, as well as sensible approaches to our housing, water, and climate crises and how the City can lead in addressing these critical issues.
Don Brodt’s approach to education I find incomplete, as he puts parents and students first, with teachers as an afterthought. From a systems perspective, this is both short sighted and incomplete. Kristina Pine, OTOH, is both a teacher and a parent, with two children attending SVUSD schools. Her approach to education is holistic and realistic.
Jacqui Irwin and Julia Brownley are proven leaders and have represented our districts well, IMO.
I’m voting for Jacqui Irwin, Julia Brownley, Joe Ayala, Sean Weisman, and Kristina Pine. I hope you’ll follow me in doing so.
PS – I suspect most, if not all, of the candidates attending this forum are MAGA Republicans, which should tell you more than I can about their suitability to represent our entire community, not just the people they agree with. Choose wisely, fellow Simizens.
PPS – I forgot to mention Brian Dennert for Parks & Rec. Brian’s done a great job in his term as a Director. I have no doubt he’ll do even more if re-elected. I’m voting for him as well.
I’m beginning to think nobody (at least not progressives) should use the word “socialism” any longer. We should replace it with the word “humanism.” This way it’s easier to point to the most important distinction between the two. Capitalism is concerned with capital, i.e. profit/money/wealth/things. Humanism is concerned with humans. Capitalism exalts things over everything else unless there’s a huge regulatory environment seeking to ensure capitalists don’t overreach. Humanism exalts humans over things, and seeks to ensure everyone has the basic things (shelter, food, clothing, healthcare, education) to become a fully realized, contributing member of society.
I know humanism is used differently, but socialism has been saddled with this connotation of authoritarianism, and too many people don’t see the difference between economic systems and systems of governance. Using the word humanism puts emphasis on who we want to benefit from our economic activity … the pipples.
Systems Savvy 