1y ago

Despite polls, Biden aides insist Gaza campus protests will not hurt reelection bid

www.reuters.com /world/us/despite-polls-biden-aides-insist-gaza-campus-protests-will-not-hurt-reelection-2024-05-18/

WASHINGTON, May 18 (Reuters) - Several top White House aides say they are confident protests across U.S. college campuses against Israel's offensive in Gaza will not translate into significantly fewer votes for Joe Biden in November's election, despite polls showing many Democrats are deeply unhappy about the president's policy on the war.

The White House optimism on the issue, which is shared by many in the Biden campaign, runs contrary to dire warnings from some Democratic strategists and youth organizers who warn misjudging the situation could cost Biden votes in a tight race with Republican rival Donald Trump.

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Jesus tapdancing christ his advisors are so high on their own farts if they really believe that.
- College kids have crappy turnout. This is very well documented.
  
  The U.S. Census Bureau estimated 54.1% of 18- to 29-year-olds voted in 2020, which had the highest youth turnout overall of any election in the 21st century.
  Average across all ages is 60%
  (Credit to @jordanlund@lemmy.world)
  
  So you won't be blaming them if Trump wins? If they're insignificant enough to ignore, they're too insignificant to blame.
- Belief is irrelevant. PR would always say this to downplay affects and keep supporters engaged. Apathy will kill Biden's chances more than anything else.
  
  You sound like you’re high on your own farts
My favorite is when counter protesters begin chanting "Fuck Joe Biden" and the pro-Palestine protestors join in
- The fuck are Repubs mad at him about? Is the genocide not happening fast enough?
  
  He's doing what they want while not being Trump.
They think so huh? I mean if Biden wanted to vote for trump he should just say so!
biden election people should be sending their people to these protests, imo
- They already have counter protesters.
  
  Honestly idk what sounds crazier to me, that the counter protesters are democrats disguised as trump people because they have the most to gain from the protests being silenced, or that the counter protesters are actually right wing nazis in support of...ending the protests in order to benefit Joe Biden and literal Zionists because "libs bad."
  I just think it's funny that really with the state of the world neither would come as a surprise, honestly.
This is what "blue no matter who" gets us.
Politicians who don't care what we want because they're entitled to our votes as long as they're not as bad as Republicans.
Right now Schumer and Biden are trying to pass a "border bill" that would make some of the things we gave Trump shit for legal. Like, Biden really wanted to codify that any sitting president can "shit down the border" and prevent any asylum seekers from entering.
A child could see that if that passes, republicans will always say it needs done in office. Millions of people will be hurt by it, but it gives moderate Dems another knife to Dem voters throats:
Vote for me, or republicans will do that thing I just passed a law to let them do!
And there's no guarantee the Dem won't do it anyways.
It's really like watching a real life Brewster's millions, Biden keeps doing shit that's going to cost him the election, but apparently even listening to someone 40 years younger or even slightly to the left isn't something Biden can handle.
He only compromised with Republicans, and then gives them everything they want.
If protests don't work to change Biden's mind, what will?
What other options do voters have?
- No… this is what a rigged primary system gets us.
  Voting for Republicans at this point - or voting third party - is voting for fascism. There is precisely zero chance that Trump will handle the Gaza Genocide better than Biden will. If Trump wins, I would expect him to order a few B-52 squadrons to carpet bomb Gaza “to help Israel”, and then he’d also probably do the same to the West Bank just because he thinks it’d make him look like a big boy.
  
  Not voting at all is the real worry. It takes effort to vote. And when you can’t even rally your base against trump then you ducked up bad. He literally saying that he does not have to appeal to his base because he has them with the threat of trump. Fine then they just don’t give a fuck any more. Disengagement is the name of the game and we all lose
  
  Yeah, this.
  The back half of "Blue no matter who" was supposed to be primarying out regressive Democrats. Much like Labour in the UK, the party is doing its best to disenfranchise and disengage with actual progressives, so this is slow going.
  It's not impossible, though: Republicans, to their current horror, let the inmates run the asylum and it shifted their political alignment from "capitalist" to "fascist".
- I think the point is that voting has now become ceremonial
I think the #1 problem is defining "youth voter" as 18-29.
College age is 18-24, but I don't see anything looking specifically at that demographic.
For 18-29:
https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/state-state-youth-voter-turnout-data-and-impact-election-laws-2022
"Nationally, CIRCLE estimates that 23% of eligible young Americans cast a ballot in the 2022 midterm elections."
Now, problem #1, that's a mid-term election which always draws lower voter participation.
2nd is looking at 18-29 instead of 18-24.
https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2023/12/05/young-americans-harvard-poll-trump-biden
"The U.S. Census Bureau estimated 54.1% of 18- to 29-year-olds voted in 2020, which had the highest youth turnout overall of any election in the 21st century."
- There is a huge difference between 18 and and 29, so it is odd that they lump all of them together.
  
  As a "youth vote". My 28 year old kid and his 29 year old wife haven't been in school in years now.
Sure Jan.
I was a libertarian in college. So yeah, college students don't have enough awareness to realize that another Trump presidency could mean the end of America (if SCOTUS doesn't beat him to it).
- Some do. As a Freshman in college I was an idiot because I was raised on years of conservative talk radio every day to and from school. Took a bit less than a year to realize all that shit was made up and get deprogrammed. Then it's been a leftward trend ever since.
- Sounds about white. Jk, kinda
  I was pretty far left by the end of high school. I only just missed voting for Obama and was all about that change! That was when I learned about things like our high income inequality, low social mobility, and rampant corporate profits
  On a related note, I was super caught off guard by all the "libertarians" that hopped on that grifter, Ron Paul's, train. Man what a time. So many heated discussions. Good times
  Did you support Paul(s)? Any regerts?
  
  I did support Ron back in the day. I still mostly respect the guy though. If he is another right wing grifter he's got his mask on 24/7. I don't think I've ever heard anything contradictory from him. However, like most "libertarians" he completely ignores that corporations exist or he thinks they'll magically self-regulate.
  Rand went zero to fascist in no time so I was never really a supporter.
It reminds me of the Star Trek TOS episode "City On The Edge of Forever."
When McCoy goes back in time to the 1930s he changes the future and ends the Federation. When Kirk and Spock go back they discover that a rising anti-war sentiment would lead to America staying out of WW2, allowing the Nazis to take control of the world.
- I had to look up the date of TOS it aired 1966–1969 during the Vietnam war.
  The lesson to be learnt here is that stopping the Vietnam war meant the Nazis would take over the world.
  The anti-war sentiment won in 1973. That is year the Nazis and communists took over America and the whole world.
  And that's all the fault of college kids protesting against the Vietnam war.
  
  So, you don't know the difference between "1930" and "1970."
  You don't know who was fighting in the Vietnam War.
  Maybe, just maybe, instead of looking up the dates of old TV shows, you should read some actual history and basic math books?
  https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-young-people-s-history-of-the-united-states-revised-and-updated-howard-zinn/18074845?ean=9781644212516
  https://bookshop.org/p/books/math-made-easy-brain-based-learning-elementary-and-middle-school-math-james-paicopolos/15984839?ean=9798585055546
I'd hope that most Muslims are intelligent enough to put their emotions aside & vote for the candidate that hasn't committed to stripping birthright citizenship & mass exile of Muslims post-election.
But you never know...
- You BlueAnons truly have no self-awareness, do you?
- I would phrase it another way, people that don't vote against Trump simply don't care as much about their fellow Muslim-, Mexican-, and gay-American citizens (and noncitizens, etc.) compared to other issues
  I said it in 2016 and it's still true today. It's the US though; that's literally always been true. It's honestly time the rest of us realized it and accepted reality
- Hahaha! Whenever I see someone arguing "Vote Blue no Matter Who" on here, I don't have to look far to find evidence that they don't actually mind the genocide at all. "SJW"

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