I teach at a public high school for "profoundly gifted" kids, and work pretty much exclusively with 16+ students. They're all very smart, and range from libs to somewhat better than normal libs (we had one open ML, but he graduated a few years ago). They all think Trump is a fucking dumbass. As with every election, a big crop of our seniors is going to be eligible to vote for the first time this year.

For the first time in the decade or so that I've worked here, pretty much every single one of them has said they don't intend to vote. They hate Biden almost as much as Trump, either because they condemn the genocide in Israel or just because they (correctly) believe that he has done nothing to actually benefit them. This is a population of kids who are much more politically engaged than your average teenager, and vote turnout in previous years has been high. I was actually very surprised at how many of them expressed contempt for the whole process this year, and indicated that they were totally uninterested in supporting Biden (and of course would not support Trump). I'm guessing this is part of a big trend that we're going to see this year, and I'm preparing myself for libs blaming young people--for whom Biden has done little but make their future demonstrably worse--for Democrats' loss.

I'm trying to convince all of them to vote anyway, just for some third party that speaks to them. Yesterday, we talked about PSL, Cornel West, the Greens, and Afroman for a bit. It would be incredibly funny to see young people reject Biden/Trump, and yet turn out in record numbers anyway. The narrative that kids are just too addicted to their phones to vote would fall apart. I'll keep working on it.

No real point here, just im-doing-my-part

  • jabrd [he/him]
    ·
    4 months ago

    That’s kind of how it works de facto even if not de jure. The middle class that can afford home ownership are the ones most active in politics and driving the machinery. That’s why American politics are split between petty bourgeois red team and professional/managerial strata blue team and their cultural neuroses. Shoutout to the 2016 film Catfight with Sandra Oh for capturing that dynamic. Just two terrible people kicking the shit out of each other and making all of our lives worse for it

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      4 months ago

      I've heard that dichotomy before, but I think that's just where the aesthetics of politics end up being split: Between petty bourgeois reactionaries and managerial libs. I think the reality is closer to domestic/industrial capitalists versus financial capitalists, and both of those have representative middle class avatars.