US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Bottom Liner posted:

Source?

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/10/democrats-youth-vote-2022-midterms-john-della-volpe-00024264

The story also references the polling Leon mentioned a couple weeks ago about the youth vote dropping off for VA gubernatorial election:

quote:

�Young people want to see action�

A warning sign about young people�s political enthusiasm came out of Virginia�s governor�s race last year. TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, found turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds dropped by just over a half a percentage point compared to the last gubernatorial election, even though Virginia worked aggressively in the last two years to expand access to the ballot.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 18:49

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# ? May 25, 2024 19:41

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Willa Rogers posted:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/10/democrats-youth-vote-2022-midterms-john-della-volpe-00024264

The story also references the polling Leon mentioned a couple weeks ago about the youth vote dropping off for VA gubernatorial election:

I'd argue you can't draw any type of conclusion based on that when the youth vote in NJ went up when compared with the last Gubernatorial election:

https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/update-youth-voter-turnout-2021-new-jersey-and-virginia-elections

# ? Apr 10, 2022 20:12

Yinlock: Oct 22, 2008

Willa Rogers posted:

It'll be interesting to see how extensively Obama campaigns on behalf of candidates this year, especially since Biden's been labeled as campaign poison by moderate Dems (speaking off the record, of course).

I wonder if Obama would still be a motivator for GOTV among youngs as he was during his presidency, given that the youth vote looks to be dropping off.

Obama only gets involved if there's a danger of good things happening, so it's unlikely he'll show up this year.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 20:16

selec: Sep 6, 2003

https://twitter.com/joshuapotash/status/1513196341635211268?s=21&t=PD4EGU6fFYx-o1WhLqt6Ow

No redeeming this. If not abolition, what�s the fix? The cops know they�re above us. Unless you tear that culture out root and branch, this is what we get.

Defund, destroy, decarcerate.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 21:05

theCalamity: Oct 23, 2010; Cry Havoc and let slip the Hogs of War

https://twitter.com/nytmike/status/1513093448013856775?s=20&t=1w04AjW63hWyeu0rujpMug

If they aren't going to make a referral, then what's the point? Just drum up a bunch of negatives for Trump if/when he runs again? Just use it for political points?

# ? Apr 10, 2022 21:08

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Kalit posted:

I'd argue you can't draw any type of conclusion based on that when the youth vote in NJ went up when compared with the last Gubernatorial election:

https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/update-youth-voter-turnout-2021-new-jersey-and-virginia-elections

Could be! Might be that the youth vote is so strong this November that all the doomsayers about the midterms will be proven wrong & the Dems will have a filibuster-proof majority in Congress, or at least not have to rely on archvillains Sinema & Manchin and can start passing great legislation!

Something interesting I've mentioned before is that I don't recall another Dem president in my lifetime prior to now for whom approvals were highest among the older voters & lowest among the younger voters.

Do you, or anyone else, know if that is indeed the case?

# ? Apr 10, 2022 21:13

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Willa Rogers posted:

Could be! Might be that the youth vote is so strong this November that all the doomsayers about the midterms will be proven wrong & the Dems will have a filibuster-proof majority in Congress, or at least not have to rely on archvillains Sinema & Manchin and can start passing great legislation!

Something interesting I've mentioned before is that I don't recall another Dem president in my lifetime prior to now for whom approvals were highest among the older voters & lowest among the younger voters.

Do you, or anyone else, know if that is indeed the case?

Of course the Democrats are going to get slaughtered for midterms. But you seem to be arguing unrelated things that don't have a strong correlation. Since when has approval ratings been a good indicator of voter turnout?

# ? Apr 10, 2022 21:20

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Kalit posted:

Of course the Democrats are going to get slaughtered for midterms. But you seem to be arguing unrelated things that don't have a strong correlation. Since when has approval ratings been a good indicator of voter turnout?

I linked a story about a Dem strategist who's advising Democrats on obtaining & retaining the youth vote, which strategist has noted that it's slipping, after I was challenged for a source.

I don't understand your point of contention with what I said; are you arguing against the statements by the strategist in politico story, or against my question as to whether there was another Dem president who had high approvals among the olds and lower approvals among the youngs.

Because I said nothing about approvals being linked to actual voting (the Politico story, however, did link the two) and, indeed, I stressed that the youth vote could end up giving the Dems a supermajority after the midterm elections.

Do you know of any other presidents for whom that's true about the age groups?

# ? Apr 10, 2022 21:33

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

I would think those would tend to correlate just obviously on the face of what they measure.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 21:41

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

^^^ The strategist in the story thinks so too!

Here's the Politico story in its entirety, so as to not further confuse what was said with what people think has been said, or who was doing the saying of it:

quote:

Democrats turn to their Gen Z whisperer as youth support wobbles

Biden's numbers with young voters took a staggering dive at the end of 2021, dipping lower than any Democratic president in decades.

Democratic senators had two charts waiting at their chairs when they arrived at a caucus luncheon in February. They showed youth participation in national elections since the 1980s, with two impossible-to-miss spikes: 2018 and 2020, when huge turnout among 18- to 30-year-olds propelled Democrats into power in Washington.

Those graphs led off pollster John Della Volpe�s myth-busting tour on young people and politics across the top levels of the Democratic Party. Young people do vote, he told the senators, and they�re not policy purists, snowflakes or socialists, either. Perhaps the most important point Della Volpe could make for that audience, though, is that young voters are not locked up for Democrats.

His pitch to engage and empower the 30-and-under set comes at a uniquely perilous moment for the party. Democrats have faced brutal midterm climates and slim margins in Congress before. But the current iteration of the Democratic Party has rarely, if ever, been on such shaky ground with young people.

Earlier this year, approval for President Joe Biden among people aged 18-30 hit depths no Democratic president had plumbed in decades: the mid- to low-30s in Gallup and other polls. (Barack Obama never dropped below 42 percent among that group in Gallup�s surveys.) In some cases, the swing against Biden in 2021 totaled anywhere from 20 to 30 percentage points. He has since made gains in some polls but is still on unstable ground.

An alienated youth vote is an existential threat for Democrats in 2022: They backed Biden by a 25-point margin in 2020, voting at all-time highs. And in their hour of need, powerful Democrats are looking for answers from Della Volpe, a 54-year-old pollster with salt-and-pepper hair who is not on TikTok.

He�s hailed by industry colleagues and political operatives on both sides of the aisle for his �encyclopedic knowledge of young voters,� said Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster. John Anzalone, Biden�s lead campaign pollster, said Della Volpe�s data �yield so much depth of understanding� of a misunderstood group. Della Volpe has led Harvard University�s Institute of Politics Youth Poll since its inception in 2000, with former students including House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

Della Volpe�s longitudinal insight into young voters � what moves them, how they feel about politicians and whether they�re going to unplug from politics altogether � matters deeply for Democrats, especially ahead of 2022. They�re also not as broadly studied or understood as, say, independents, even though they represent a core part of the party�s base and their numbers are fluctuating. The party goes into the midterms in an unusual place with young people, Della Volpe said in an interview: �There are more younger people in play than there were in the last two cycles.�

Where Democrats spent past elections mostly worried about whether young people would vote, �this cycle is different,� Della Volpe continued. In the face of economic unrest, disinformation and without former President Donald Trump as a foil, he said, �Democrats need to persuade them and mobilize them. That is the new reality.�

The pollster, who was part of Biden�s team during the 2020 general election, still has the ear of many in the administration: �He�s one of those trusted voices� people in the White House turn to for advice, said one senior Biden adviser. Della Volpe has recently made several presentations to White House staff, according to people familiar with the meetings.

Biden�s yo-yoing numbers with young people �should concern everyone,� said John Walsh, Sen. Ed Markey�s chief of staff, who managed the Massachusetts Democrat�s successful primary campaign in 2020, which drew unusually high support among young voters for a 75-year-old senator. �Government is not acting with the urgency this moment demands and they�re frustrated, pissed off.�

�I worry that some people are not listening to John,� Walsh added.

�No one was listening�

In 2000, Della Volpe conducted his first youth survey with two Harvard University students, who wanted to understand why college students participated in community service but didn�t vote. At the time, Della Volpe had built a polling and market research business around �dial testing� � cutting-edge technology of the day, in which participants would rate their reaction to political speeches or campaign ads on a manual dial. His roster of clients included President Bill Clinton, Sen. Ted Kennedy and major corporations.

But specifically, polling youth filled a void. �No one was listening to younger people,� Della Volpe said. Even now, young people are more difficult and expensive to survey. They�re more transient, less comfortable picking up an unknown phone number and more likely to require different language options.

�There are more younger people in play than there were in the last two cycles. ... Democrats need to persuade them and mobilize them. That is the new reality.�

�They didn�t vote, so candidates didn�t appeal to them or target them, and then they didn�t vote, so it was this vicious cycle repeating,� Della Volpe said.

Since 2000, the Harvard Youth Poll has grown in scope, publishing twice a year, with undergraduates developing questions and Della Volpe editing and sharpening them. In 2018, citing his own data, Della Volpe predicted that young people would show up in historic numbers, calling Trump�s first midterm a moment of �once-in-a-generation attitudinal shift� around voting. Some pollsters rolled their eyes, but Della Volpe was right � 36 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted that cycle, almost doubling 2014�s rates and beating any previous midterm participation since the 1980s.

�The Harvard Youth Poll has been the only consistent data set to look at change over time on this stuff,� said Ben Wessel, who served from 2019 to 2021 as the executive director of NextGen America, the largest Democratic group focused on youth mobilization. �Because of this longevity, he catches trends between politics and not-politics that the rest of the political world could really learn from.�

Della Volpe also regularly runs focus groups, which makes him �extremely effective at going beyond percentages and crosstabs � a much more nuanced way of getting to the true viewpoint,� noted Matt Barreto, a Democratic pollster who worked with Della Volpe on the Biden campaign.

Indeed, Della Volpe�s interest is less focused on quantitative feedback than on stories, describing it as �almost a kind of political therapy.� He zeroed in on how Gen Z is defined by anxiety through key events, including Trump�s election in 2016 and the Parkland school shooting in 2018. It has made them suspicious of institutions and impatient for change, he wrote in his book, �Fight: How Gen Z Is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America.�

In recent focus groups conducted over Zoom with two dozen Gen Zers, Della Volpe started by asking them to share something good that had happened to them recently. He followed up by asking if they felt like their personal lives were on the right track, and if they weren�t, why? He asked them about their mental health, the pressures and stresses they face. In both 90-minute sessions, it took nearly an hour before he explicitly asked about politics or politicians.

�Focus on values first, second and third,� Della Volpe said, �it�s perhaps a unique perspective in politics.�

�Young people want to see action�

A warning sign about young people�s political enthusiasm came out of Virginia�s governor�s race last year. TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, found turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds dropped by just over a half a percentage point compared to the last gubernatorial election, even though Virginia worked aggressively in the last two years to expand access to the ballot.

Terrance Woodbury, another Democratic pollster, also stressed that he�s �not optimistic� about young people�s participation in the midterms, noting that Virginia�s electorate in 2021 was �11 percent older and 7 percent whiter� than in 2020.

�The key question we�re facing is if youth turnout in 2020 was driven more by opposition to Trump than strong enthusiasm for Biden,� said Tom Bonier, TargetSmart�s CEO.

But if operatives are just focused on who�s in the Oval Office, or on Biden�s approval ratings, they�re �not looking at the right data,� Della Volpe said. He pointed to the third of young Americans who said they still planned to vote in 2022, according to his December Harvard Youth Poll. That�s equal to what participants told him in spring 2018, ahead of the midterm when Democrats flipped the House. Since then, they�ve formed a voting habit over two elections, another indication that youth turnout might be higher in 2022.

But participation won�t happen in a vacuum. �Right now, they say they�ll vote � but if Democrats and Republicans ignore them, they won�t turn out,� Della Volpe said. �Right now, they�re looking to vote.�

It starts with communication, Della Volpe said, suggesting regular �check-ins� to update them on policy progress and citing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez�s (D-N.Y.) disciplined cadence of Instagram posts as one example of this in practice.

Then, �empower them,� Della Volpe said. He noted that Democrats can sometimes stand in their own way in reaching young people because �they�re intimidated� and they �get weighed down in the transactional nature of politics.� Della Volpe pointed to the tack Biden took as he locked up the Democratic presidential nomination: �Say, �where do we agree with Bernie Sanders� groups? Where do we agree, and what�s the process to get there?��

Della Volpe listed a handful of policy areas where potential executive actions from Biden �would very quickly capture the attention of [young] people.� The list includes student debt, mental health, climate change and dealing with the rising cost of living.

�In large part, they have been following up on these issues, but it�s about extending the conversation in new and different ways to remind people that we�re not finished,� Della Volpe said, citing as one example Biden�s announcement of a mental health initiative during his State of the Union address.

Major progressive outside groups, though, think Biden can go much further. They argue that he should cancel student debt altogether or work more aggressively on his climate agenda.

NextGen America�s president, Cristina Tzintz�n Ramirez, said �young people want to see action, and that�s why we�re yelling as loud as we can, �please take action on student debt,� because this is within the power of the Biden administration.� Last week, the Biden administration announced another four-month extension of the pause on monthly loan payments and interest.

�It�s been over a year of a Democratic trifecta and young people are really disappointed because not much has been accomplished around student debt or on ambitious climate goals,� said Ellen Sciales, a press secretary for the Sunrise Movement. �People are losing hope.�

�You�ve got to talk to my brother�

Biden has turned his numbers around with young people before, a saga that may show a path forward for him in the next six months.

During the presidential primary, Biden�s numbers with young people were also upside down. At the time, Della Volpe took a group of students to Charleston to conduct a focus group in February 2020, a week before the South Carolina primary. They dropped by a Biden event, and �we probably doubled the size of the crowd,� Della Volpe acknowledged.

After the event, Valerie Biden Owens, Biden�s sister and a former Harvard Institute of Politics fellow, spoke to Della Volpe�s students, then pulled him aside for his private assessment of the primary race. �It�s not looking too good,� Della Volpe told her. Biden had just finished fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire. He was about to come in second place in Nevada.

Owens, who got to know Della Volpe well during her stint at Harvard, told him: ��John, you�ve got to talk to my brother,� because you were saying what my brother intuitively and instinctively knows, but you also have all this data here,� she recounted in an interview with POLITICO. �You relate the way that my brother relates � which is, spoken like a true sister � but my brother speaks in stories.�

Joe Biden speaks to local residents during a community event in Burlington, Iowa.
In this Aug. 7, 2019, photo, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks to local residents during a community event in Burlington, Iowa. | Charlie Neibergal/AP Photo

A turning point for Biden and young voters came before Della Volpe joined the Biden campaign later that fall, but Della Volpe pointed to it as a sign Biden knew how to reach them: saying �I hear you� to Bernie Sanders supporters, especially young voters, in March 2020. Those �three simple words,� Della Volpe wrote in his book, were �everything millions of Zoomers were waiting to hear.�

�John reinforced to Joe that people just want to be heard, reinforcing Joe�s natural way of doing things,� Owens said.

Sciales, who organized on behalf of Elizabeth Warren during the presidential primary, said Biden was not young voters� favored primary candidate, but �once Biden became the nominee, he honestly stepped up and started listening to young people, putting together the Bernie-Biden unity task for and moving on his climate agenda.�

The oldest presidential nominee in history eventually achieved historic support from young people in the general election.

But now, after two years of stalled agenda items important to young people, Democrats are worried �about where young people are in terms of not feeling engaged or motivated right now,� said Ben Tulchin, a Democratic pollster whose clients include Sanders and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

�You have to give them a reason to show up now,� Tulchin said.

Does this help quell your concerns about what I've posted, Kalit? Because the strategist himself believes there will be a correlation between Biden's low approvals among younger voters and the results of the coming elections.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 21:42

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Willa Rogers posted:

I linked a story about a Dem strategist who's advising Democrats on obtaining & retaining the youth vote, which strategist has noted that it's slipping, after I was challenged for a source.

I don't understand your point of contention with what I said; are you arguing against the statements by the strategist in politico story, or against my question as to whether there was another Dem president who had high approvals among the olds and lower approvals among the youngs.

Because I said nothing about approvals being linked to actual voting (the Politico story, however, did link the two) and, indeed, I stressed that the youth vote could end up giving the Dems a supermajority after the midterm elections.

Do you know of any other presidents for whom that's true about the age groups?

Willa Rogers posted:

^^^ The strategist in the story thinks so too!

Here's the Politico story in its entirety, so as to not further confuse what was said with what people think has been said, or who was doing the saying of it:

Does this help quell your concerns about what I've posted, Kalit? Because the strategist himself believes there will be a correlation between Biden's low approvals among younger voters and the results of the coming elections.

The only concrete point in that story that shows a lower youth turnout is the Virginia election. They didn't even talk about NJ, I'm assuming because then it would invalidate the point about VA. Everything else that's stated is just generic talking points that you could claim about youth enthusiasm at basically any point in the recent
past after a new Democratic president has been elected. Or at least since Clinton.

Maybe that's enough to convince you that the youth turnout will drop significantly, but can't say I'm convinced :shrug:

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:01

Yinlock: Oct 22, 2008

tldr version: Young people have been systematically neglected for so long that the shot-callers of a major political party need extremely simple political concepts, like "not taking votes for granted just because you got them once" and "people enjoy when you do things to help them", explained to them.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:06

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Kalit posted:

Maybe that's enough to convince you that the youth turnout will drop significantly, but can't say I'm convinced

But I wasn't the "convinced" one; the political strategist was!

I was challenged on my statement that "the youth vote appears to be dropping off." When I was challenged on the statement, I linked to the Politico story in which the political strategist says that the youth vote appears to be dropping off.

I'm baffled by your objections to my stating what a story said, then my posting the story in its entirety to show what the story said, and then your telling me that you're not convinced by what I'm pointing out that the story said, and then your adding qualifiers like "significantly" that I never posted.

:shrug:

indeed!

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:10

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

I thought this story was a subhead to the one on younger voters but it's a separate one:

quote:

A sour and angry America poised to punish Dems this fall

Biden and his top advisers know that the window to change the economic narrative through executive action is rapidly closing.

The professionals who track American attitudes toward the economy say they can see the trouble coming.

Angry voters slammed by higher prices and scarred by two years of fighting the pandemic are poised to punish Democrats in midterm elections, according to some of the leading experts in consumer sentiment and behavior.

And with inflation persisting and Russia�s war on Ukraine stoking uncertainty, there are indications that public sentiment is getting worse, not better, posing a growing threat to Democrats� already slim chances of holding onto Congress, they say.

The widely watched University of Michigan consumer confidence survey recently touched its lowest level in almost 11 years. An Associated Press/NORC survey showed that almost 70 percent of Americans think the economy is in poor shape, and 81 percent of those in a poll released by CNBC see a recession coming this year. Gallup found the share of Americans citing inflation as the top issue is now at its highest level since the 1980s.

�The big run-up in gas and food and home prices has really caused great hardship for many households,� said Richard Curtin, a veteran economist who has run the University of Michigan consumer survey since 1976. �And the Biden administration made a critical error in saying it would be transient and people should just tough it out. It wasn�t transient. A lot of people couldn�t just tough it out. And it caused a big loss of confidence in [President Joe Biden�s] policies.�

Inside the West Wing, Biden and his top advisers know that the window to change the economic narrative through executive action is rapidly closing, according to a senior Biden aide and an outside adviser. The options, they say, mostly include whatever can be done to ease oil prices, the biggest drag on the party right now. But even that could have only limited impact.

Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody�s Analytics and lead author of a closely followed model that ties political outcomes to economic conditions, said this is among the toughest environments for the incumbent party that he�s ever seen, despite a booming job market.

Moody�s is working on its model for the 2022 midterms, and Zandi said that as of now it�s likely to show a very tough path for Democrats to hold either the House, where they have a razor-thin margin, and the Senate, which is split 50-50.

�Most Americans have never experienced high inflation like this, particularly on gas prices, and it has gotten everyone very upset,� he said. �Behavioral economics reveals that people hate inflation more than they love a low unemployment rate. And the pandemic still colors everything. People have been through the wringer.�

None of this is lost on Democratic aides and economists inside and outside the White House. One senior Biden aide, who declined to be identified by name because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said efforts to free up more oil and further ease supply chain bottlenecks would continue.

And the president will point to strong positives in the economy including continued strong job growth, a large number of available positions, higher wages and a jobless rate of just 3.6 percent, a pandemic low. Most of those numbers are far better than economists were predicting a year ago.

�There are still things we can do and arguments we can make, but frankly it would have been better had Vladimir Putin not invaded Ukraine,� the aide said. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Inflation was rapidly rising long before the war suddenly sent energy and food prices spiking even more and injected new volatility into global markets that were previously celebrating the end to the worst of the pandemic. Still, other indicators were trending the administration�s way.

Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor who served as a top adviser to then-President Barack Obama, said the economy looks like it will be a headwind for Democrats. But he said some things could go right between now and Election Day in November.

�There are still some glimmers of light for the White House right now,� Goolsbee said. �Supply chain pressures really may ease up. And the virus, which was way worse than expected, has been the primary driver of everything. And if we are in fact going to get out from under the grip of the virus, that should reverse some of the sourness that is now in all the polling and consumer surveys.�

There is a lot to reverse, at least according to the latest survey conducted by the AP and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago.

�With energy and consumer prices on the rise, 69 percent consider the national economy to be in poor condition,� Marjorie Connelly, a senior fellow in public affairs and media research at the NORC Center, said in a note. �Fifty-five percent say they don�t blame � Biden for high gasoline prices, but 65 percent disapprove of how he is handling the economy. Americans are more likely to think his policies have done more to hurt the national economy than to help it.�

The survey offered some reason for optimism for Democrats, given that a majority of Americans don�t blame Biden for the higher gas prices. The numbers also generally break down along partisan lines in most polling, with Republicans more likely to blame the president for economic problems. People also mostly still feel confident in their own personal finances even as they worry about other people and the national picture, the survey said. And they worry a lot.

�It�s just a tough road for Biden and Democrats to hoe right now,� said Curtin.

The interesting thing to me are figures from the U of Mich Consumer Confidence Survey bc some Dems have used earlier numbers from this survey to argue that the economy wasn't as bad as voters & the media were making it out to be.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:16

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

The youth vote is always a concern - but losing half a percentage point in youth turnout in the VA governor's race, without Trump in office as a motivator, seems... not that bad? It's something McAuliffe could've overcome without his terrible handling of the parent vote.

I actually kind of question how hosed Dems are in the midterms. If I had to put money down right now, I would definitely bet against them, but there are a few things they have going for them:

1. Congressional generic ballot polling. Republicans have not been able to open up a large advantage here. When Biden's approval ratings slipped to 40% or so, Republicans gained a 2% edge in the generic ballot - but they haven't consistently done any better than that. Which means Democrats are still within striking distance. Which matters because...

2. Dems' disadvantage from gerrymandering is not as bad as it was 10 years ago. They were able to win a majority while just winning the popular vote by 3.1% in 2020, and redistricting appears to have helped them - they could probably win the House with a national popular vote win of 2%. This isn't completely implausible because...

3. Republicans are continuing to push their level of craziness. The stop the steal stuff gets the base riled up, but there are absolutely gettable voters for the GOP whom fringey candidates will drive away. There are also no GOP Senate candidates in key races like OH and PA that don't have huge question marks. Just because showing no interest in governing hasn't sunk them so far doesn't mean that it never will, if taken to an extreme. And Trump, out of office, may not give their candidates the boost he needs with his base if he's ineffective or uninterested.

They are not being as quiet about their priorities as they could or should be. They are actively saying they will block further Supreme Court nominees, after Biden nominated a popular nominee, and the GOP-led court is likely to make its most controversial decision ever this summer.

4. Unemployment is low, so if inflation slows down and/or gas prices settle below $4, the economy is not a total loser for Dems. Nominal wage growth is strong, which isn't completely offsetting inflation, but they're a hell of a lot better off than if we had inflation without wage growth.

There is also a possibility that Democrats will do something with a reconciliation bill this year, even if it's not as big as BBB. This is also something I would bet against, but they might be able to put something modest together with M&S.

Biden also appears very unlikely to restart student loan payments before the midterms, which looked likely a few months ago.

They would need a lot of breaks, but I don't think they're in as bad of a position as they were in 2010 - more comparable to where Republicans were in 2018, when they managed to gain a Senate seat.

Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Apr 10, 2022

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:21

Ershalim: Sep 22, 2008; Clever Betty

The biggest thing that will likely impact the midterms is that the democratic messaging of "the economy is booming" isn't resonating with people. You can point to as many figures as you like, but since everyone's just hitting up the stores to see "oh, eggs are HOW much?" and "I just spent 85 dollars filling up the tank, what the hell," it's not going to matter to anybody that wages are up by 3% across the board, or whatever. Plus energy costs, medical costs, insurance costs, and basically every other random thing you can think of are spiking this year. Even trash collection subscriptions are way up.

That, and the housing markets are completely on fire, so there are lot of people who feel like they're either permanently trapped where they are, or they won't ever get a home in the first place. You can't really point to the republicans being insane and bigoted as a response to that, because even though it's true, it's irrelevant to the problem being complained about.

Biden has not done what he needed to do in order to avoid what most of us saw coming when he became "The Guy" -- he hasn't shifted the narrative to hope or change or even building back better, though to be fair it can be said that he did try, at least a little. He inherited a tire fire, and while he managed to put out a couple of the tires, the smell has only gotten worse, so people are going to vote the other way. Or perhaps, more likely, just not vote. The democrats haven't given their allies reason to back them except for monied interests, and so it's a safe bet that the critical mass of the "big tent" isn't gonna show up.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:40

Sephyr: Aug 28, 2012

Mellow Seas posted:

3. Republicans are continuing to push their level of craziness. The stop the steal stuff gets the base riled up, but there are absolutely gettable voters for the GOP whom fringey candidates will drive away. There are also no GOP Senate candidates in key races like OH and PA that don't have huge question marks. Just because showing no interest in governing hasn't sunk them so far doesn't mean that it never will, if taken to an extreme. And Trump, out of office, may not give their candidates the boost he needs with his base if he's ineffective or uninterested.

They are not being as quiet about their priorities as they could or should be. They are actively saying they will block further Supreme Court nominees, after Biden nominated a popular nominee, and the GOP-led court is likely to make its most controversial decision ever this summer.

We've been hearing "The GOP keeps being crazy and putting loons in the spotlight! It'll bite them in the rear end! See if it won't!" pretty much since Newt Gingrich stormed the stage to do jazz hands over Congress, and it has never, ever been true.

poo poo, the GOP apparently gets punished in the polls when they run boring wafflers like Mitt Romney, not hissing gargoyles like Rick Scott, DeSantis, and Trump.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:41

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Sephyr posted:

We've been hearing "The GOP keeps being crazy and putting loons in the spotlight! It'll bite them in the rear end! See if it won't!" pretty much since Newt Gingrich stormed the stage to do jazz hands over Congress, and it has never, ever been true.

poo poo, the GOP apparently gets punished in the polls when they run boring wafflers like Mitt Romney, not hissing gargoyles like Rick Scott, DeSantis, and Trump.

By and large, people didn't really care about 1/6. Material concerns trump everything (no pun intended), even decorum and norms. Things aren't going great in that department, and Dems are perceived as doing little to nothing, which is not inaccurate.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:48

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Willa Rogers posted:

^^^ The strategist in the story thinks so too!

Here's the Politico story in its entirety, so as to not further confuse what was said with what people think has been said, or who was doing the saying of it:

Does this help quell your concerns about what I've posted, Kalit? Because the strategist himself believes there will be a correlation between Biden's low approvals among younger voters and the results of the coming elections.

That seems like rather a significant misreading of the article. Rather, it's the reporter who sought to draw a connection between Biden's approval ratings - a connection that the strategist who specializes in youth voters specifically rejected as incorrect and irrelevant.

quote:

But if operatives are just focused on who�s in the Oval Office, or on Biden�s approval ratings, they�re �not looking at the right data,� Della Volpe said. He pointed to the third of young Americans who said they still planned to vote in 2022, according to his December Harvard Youth Poll. That�s equal to what participants told him in spring 2018, ahead of the midterm when Democrats flipped the House. Since then, they�ve formed a voting habit over two elections, another indication that youth turnout might be higher in 2022.

That's a pretty far cry from your original claim that "the youth vote looks to be dropping off". In fact, of everyone quoted in the article, Della Volpe is by far the most optimistic about Dems' chances with young people. He points out that Dems can't simply take the youth vote for granted, sure, but he seems to think that the Dems will be fine if they just remember to keep communicating and reaching out to young people. In particular, although he highlights the importance of issues like climate change and student debt, he doesn't insist on the Dems prioritizing actual policy gains there - he simply tells them to keep "extending the conversation" to remind youth voters that Dems are "not finished":

quote:

It starts with communication, Della Volpe said, suggesting regular �check-ins� to update them on policy progress and citing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez�s (D-N.Y.) disciplined cadence of Instagram posts as one example of this in practice.

Then, �empower them,� Della Volpe said. He noted that Democrats can sometimes stand in their own way in reaching young people because �they�re intimidated� and they �get weighed down in the transactional nature of politics.� Della Volpe pointed to the tack Biden took as he locked up the Democratic presidential nomination: �Say, �where do we agree with Bernie Sanders� groups? Where do we agree, and what�s the process to get there?��

Della Volpe listed a handful of policy areas where potential executive actions from Biden �would very quickly capture the attention of [young] people.� The list includes student debt, mental health, climate change and dealing with the rising cost of living.

�In large part, they have been following up on these issues, but it�s about extending the conversation in new and different ways to remind people that we�re not finished,� Della Volpe said, citing as one example Biden�s announcement of a mental health initiative during his State of the Union address.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 22:58

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Great point about the writer (as well as others quoted in the piece) being more negative about the youth vote than the guy Biden hired to hone messaging that convinced young Bernie supporters that Biden would work on their concerns!

We'll have to wait to see whether the strategists can continue to do their magic in convincing young voters that Biden cares about them & will make their lives better as well as they did with their crafted messaging in 2020.

# ? Apr 10, 2022 23:33

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Here are some direct quotes from the story that led me to believe that suggesting that the youth vote appears to be dropping off wasn't a misreading of the article, including a quote from the strategist:

quote:

Biden�s yo-yoing numbers with young people �should concern everyone,� said John Walsh, Sen. Ed Markey�s chief of staff, who managed the Massachusetts Democrat�s successful primary campaign in 2020, which drew unusually high support among young voters for a 75-year-old senator. �Government is not acting with the urgency this moment demands and they�re frustrated, pissed off.�

***

Terrance Woodbury, another Democratic pollster, also stressed that he�s �not optimistic� about young people�s participation in the midterms, noting that Virginia�s electorate in 2021 was �11 percent older and 7 percent whiter� than in 2020.

***

�The key question we�re facing is if youth turnout in 2020 was driven more by opposition to Trump than strong enthusiasm for Biden,� said Tom Bonier, TargetSmart�s CEO.

***

But participation won�t happen in a vacuum. �Right now, they say they�ll vote � but if Democrats and Republicans ignore them, they won�t turn out,� Della Volpe said. �Right now, they�re looking to vote.�

***

Major progressive outside groups, though, think Biden can go much further. They argue that he should cancel student debt altogether or work more aggressively on his climate agenda.

***

�It�s been over a year of a Democratic trifecta and young people are really disappointed because not much has been accomplished around student debt or on ambitious climate goals,� said Ellen Sciales, a press secretary for the Sunrise Movement. �People are losing hope.�

***

But now, after two years of stalled agenda items important to young people, Democrats are worried �about where young people are in terms of not feeling engaged or motivated right now,� said Ben Tulchin, a Democratic pollster whose clients include Sanders and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Six months is a long enough time to enthuse younger voters, and maybe November will not turn out to be a bloodbath!

# ? Apr 10, 2022 23:49

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!: May 31, 2006

Main Paineframe posted:

That seems like rather a significant misreading of the article. Rather, it's the reporter who sought to draw a connection between Biden's approval ratings - a connection that the strategist who specializes in youth voters specifically rejected as incorrect and irrelevant.

That's a pretty far cry from your original claim that "the youth vote looks to be dropping off". In fact, of everyone quoted in the article, Della Volpe is by far the most optimistic about Dems' chances with young people. He points out that Dems can't simply take the youth vote for granted, sure, but he seems to think that the Dems will be fine if they just remember to keep communicating and reaching out to young people. In particular, although he highlights the importance of issues like climate change and student debt, he doesn't insist on the Dems prioritizing actual policy gains there - he simply tells them to keep "extending the conversation" to remind youth voters that Dems are "not finished":

taking strategists for the Biden campaign at their word has proven to be a singularly unhelpful lens by which to predict the future, over the past two and a half years

# ? Apr 11, 2022 00:22

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Sephyr posted:

We've been hearing "The GOP keeps being crazy and putting loons in the spotlight! It'll bite them in the rear end! See if it won't!" pretty much since Newt Gingrich stormed the stage to do jazz hands over Congress, and it has never, ever been true.

poo poo, the GOP apparently gets punished in the polls when they run boring wafflers like Mitt Romney, not hissing gargoyles like Rick Scott, DeSantis, and Trump.

Yeah, most GOP voters will remain loyal, of course. But if the campaign ends up focused on the wrong mix of issues, and if Trump being out of office makes enough of their 2020 voters go "eh, screw it," there could be a surprise. We're talking about a business where 1 out of 25 of your voters staying home is the difference between total victory and crushing defeat.

Of course, Democrats have to deal with their own "eh, screw it"s. That's why you have the campaign. I just think "Democrats are totally screwed" is more cemented in as a narrative than it should be, according to polling, and 2018 showed that because of modern partisanship, even an ailing party can outperform its presidents' approval ratings.

If we go into a recession or unemployment goes up significantly, then obviously it's curtains. But if inflation is slowing? If Roe is stuck down? If Covid deaths are low for the next six months? If Republicans gently caress up their messaging on Russia? No one of those things is particularly unlikely, and if Dems got a bingo it could be shockingly close.

We'll know a lot more in August and September than we do now. Remember that Republicans are the party that loses half of elections to Democrats. They are perfectly capable of fumbling it at the one yard line.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

taking strategists for the Biden campaign at their word has proven to be a singularly unhelpful lens by which to predict the future, over the past two and a half years

Strategists for the Biden campaign did win a presidential election within the last two and a half years, so you might be selling them at least a little bit short.

Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Apr 11, 2022

# ? Apr 11, 2022 00:23

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Willa Rogers posted:

Great point about the writer (as well as others quoted in the piece) being more negative about the youth vote than the guy Biden hired to hone messaging that convinced young Bernie supporters that Biden would work on their concerns!

We'll have to wait to see whether the strategists can continue to do their magic in convincing young voters that Biden cares about them & will make their lives better as well as they did with their crafted messaging in 2020.

That's an oddly pessimistic take on Della Volpe for someone who was citing him with such confidence (almost as if you were appealing to his authority) just a bit ago.

Willa Rogers posted:

I linked a story about a Dem strategist who's advising Democrats on obtaining & retaining the youth vote, which strategist has noted that it's slipping, after I was challenged for a source.

I don't understand your point of contention with what I said; are you arguing against the statements by the strategist in politico story, or against my question as to whether there was another Dem president who had high approvals among the olds and lower approvals among the youngs.

Because I said nothing about approvals being linked to actual voting (the Politico story, however, did link the two) and, indeed, I stressed that the youth vote could end up giving the Dems a supermajority after the midterm elections.

Do you know of any other presidents for whom that's true about the age groups?

Willa Rogers posted:

^^^ The strategist in the story thinks so too!

Here's the Politico story in its entirety, so as to not further confuse what was said with what people think has been said, or who was doing the saying of it:

Does this help quell your concerns about what I've posted, Kalit? Because the strategist himself believes there will be a correlation between Biden's low approvals among younger voters and the results of the coming elections.

Willa Rogers posted:

But I wasn't the "convinced" one; the political strategist was!

I was challenged on my statement that "the youth vote appears to be dropping off." When I was challenged on the statement, I linked to the Politico story in which the political strategist says that the youth vote appears to be dropping off.

I'm baffled by your objections to my stating what a story said, then my posting the story in its entirety to show what the story said, and then your telling me that you're not convinced by what I'm pointing out that the story said, and then your adding qualifiers like "significantly" that I never posted.

indeed!

That said, when your other sources are people who seem intent on comparing turnout in 2020 (a presidential election year) to turnout in 2021 or 2022 (an off-year and a midterm year), Della Volpe comes out looking like the best of the bunch even if you don't want to credit his specific area of expertise.

It's only natural for Democratic strategists to be pessimistic about youth turnout, because youth turnout is always low, and especially so during midterms. Even in 2018, where 18-29 turnout rose by 16 percentage points, 30-44 and 45-59 turnout both rose by 13 points, and only the 60+ group didn't keep pace (but they also had the highest turnout to begin with, so they stayed in the leading position by a fair margin). Anyone who's making youth support a significant part of their campaign strategy can't ever forget them for even a moment.

Besides, who else are you gonna ask for advice on youth turnout? The progressive strategists who were convinced that Sanders' progressive promises would activate youth voters well beyond normal levels and carry Bernie to the nomination on the shoulders of millennials? Clearly they don't have the full story on what'll get young people out to the polls.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 00:44

ellasmith: Sep 29, 2021; by Azathoth

It�s cool how whenever women post in this thread the reply guys are all over them.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Apr 11, 2022 01:11

Dpulex: Feb 26, 2013

Garland is a spineless hack. He wouldn't do poo poo if Trump turned himself in.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 01:17

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

ellasmith posted:

It�s cool how whenever women post in this thread the reply guys are all over them.

Nah, I'm used to being nitpicked to death itt, even over stuff I never said. :wink:

MP, you are correct & I apologize! I did overemphasize Della Volpe, rather than the six other Dems who expressed fears & doubts.

I will certainly try to Do Better in the future when I cite stories, especially given the hyperattention paid of late as to what I say (and sometimes even what I don't say), and how I phrase it.

I intend to live up to the rigorous standards of this thread & how they're applied.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 01:19

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!: May 31, 2006

Mellow Seas posted:

Strategists for the Biden campaign did win a presidential election within the last two and a half years, so you might be selling them at least a little bit short.

I did not question their competence. their ability to get democratic partisans who consider themselves savvy media consumers to repeat blatant, hateful lies is quite impressive, and was instrumental in their victory.

appealing to their honesty in a matter of their self-interest, in the wake of "Joe Biden will close the concentration camps," "Joe Biden will pass Build Back Better," "Joe Biden will listen to the science on coronavirus," and the monstrous humiliation that was the Tara Reade saga, is an EXTREMELY uphill climb.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 01:50

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

First round of voting in the French election is over.

Macron did slightly better than polls showed; coming in first with 28%.

As expected, Le Pen came in second with 24%

The far right parties combined got 51% of the vote - slightly lower than polling suggested, but the first time in history they have gotten a majority of the vote.

The Socialist, Communist, Green, and center-right candidates all immediately endorsed Macron after they lost, but all of them combined got less than 15% of the vote.

The other far right parties all endorsed Le Pen.

Most important issues to voters were:

1) Energy costs
2) Immigration
3) Inflation
4) Leaving/staying in the E.U.
5) Coronavirus restrictions

# ? Apr 11, 2022 03:05

ellasmith: Sep 29, 2021; by Azathoth

lmao if le pen wins

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Apr 11, 2022 03:18

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Sephyr posted:

We've been hearing "The GOP keeps being crazy and putting loons in the spotlight! It'll bite them in the rear end! See if it won't!" pretty much since Newt Gingrich stormed the stage to do jazz hands over Congress, and it has never, ever been true.

poo poo, the GOP apparently gets punished in the polls when they run boring wafflers like Mitt Romney, not hissing gargoyles like Rick Scott, DeSantis, and Trump.

Yeah I think the 'they're too crazy' argument doesn't hold much water anymore when so many crazy nuts have been elected and have rarely seen consequences for their positions.

I know it's also been discussed that often voters don't believe some of their extremist positions and attacks on crazy candidates even backfire at times. Which you would think wouldn't happen, but apparently it's a thing for some people.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 03:39

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

I think the only hope for Dems doing better than expected is if they're underestimating how many older voters have died due to the pandemic and how that will effect GOP turnout

# ? Apr 11, 2022 12:56

Artonos: Dec 3, 2018

If we're talking ironic fates for the GOP. I think it's interesting that historically the mail in vote has been a GOP lean in many areas. It changed because of corona obviously but, making it harder to vote by mail could hurt. Old and rural people were more likely to take advantage of it previous to 2020. Which both skew GOP.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 13:26

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

The interesting thing about the French elections is that they are continuing the trend over the last 6 or 7 years of strong anti-immigration sentiment in voters, that "the elites" or "mainstream" political groups haven't wanted to touch, becoming hugely influential and lifting up candidates/parties who had traditionally been irrelevant politically or jokes.

Immigration is still the #2 issue in France, above Covid and inflation, and even the #4 issue, staying/leaving the E.U., is mostly about immigration. And immigration is Le Pen's entire political brand.

Even countries with historically left-wing and socially liberal politics, like Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Canada, and the Netherlands have had huge surges in the far-right - including parties that have never gotten more than 5-10% of the vote before actually taking power - that are based entirely around immigration. Even in the U.S., as recently as 20 years ago there wasn't the widespread acceptance/mainstreaming of Trump-style immigration policy.

It's also been a very effective way for far-right parties in highly secular countries to peel off working class left-wing and moderate voters who might otherwise be turned off by a religious culture war type candidate by reframing it as a nationalist culture war.

France is unique in that all left of center parties (socialist, green, communist, etc) in the country have completely collapsed. But, a similar thing has been happening elsewhere where the left-wing parties are all weakening as traditional left-wing working class voters are moving towards the party that promises to do similar things to the left-wing party, but only for the "right" people and to bring back traditional culture.

The other weird way France is unique is that political parties themselves seem to have largely collapsed. Of the top 3 vote-getters in the election yesterday, only Marine La Pen was part of an established political party (although, she was technically part of a brand new party - the National Rally party - that party is just the rebranded version of the National Front, which was itself a rebranded version of post-Vichy French Nazi party). The other top candidates were all "parties" built around one specific person.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 13:43

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

I wonder what the French thought of the dunking of Corbyn

# ? Apr 11, 2022 14:40

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Macron must have this election in the bag or he wouldn't be confident enough to gently caress over the only demographic that supports him: people old enough to remember the war

# ? Apr 11, 2022 15:02

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Here's a really interesting story about the new CDC study examining depression and sadness in American youth.

The highlights:

- From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel �persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness� rose from 26 percent to 44 percent.

- Women and white people experienced the largest changes. Women under 18 reported an over 200% increase in �persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness�

- LGBT youth rates were already high, so they did not proportionally rise very much, but they remained the #1 demographic group for youth depression.

- At the same time, LGBT acceptance, youth drug and alcohol use, and the amount of school fights (the three previous leading indicators of youth depression) have all dropped significantly.

- But, eating disorders, overdoses, tobacco use, and suicide attempts all are up significantly (even though usage of drugs that can cause overdoses is down generally).

- The four drivers are:

1) Social Media
2) Sociality is down
3) World is more stressful and youth have much higher access to news about stressors than before
4) Modern Parenting strategies

- Big demographic changes:

1) Men are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide today. Previously women were more likely.
2) Men in general, and black men in particular, report the lowest levels of persistent sadness or depression (but, it is still higher than historical averages).
3) LGBT youth (not a change here) and white women report the highest levels of persistent sadness or depression.

- One of the biggest differences demographically between youth from 2009 to 2021 and youth from prior generations (and part of the reason why black men have such low levels of reported persistent sadness or depression) is the level of church attendance. People who go to church regularly have much lower reported levels of depression and today's youth report far lower levels of church attendance.

- It is also possible that it is not church attendance specifically, but because of the huge decrease in sociality generally, that frequent church attendance would be one of the few places with consistent sociality for youth and church attendance would be one form of that, but the church attendance itself isn't the cause of less depression.

- It started before Covid. Covid amplified some of the problems, but it was not caused by Covid.

- In conjunction with the lack of sociality (teens today are much less likely to go out with friends, get their drivers license, play youth sports, belong to a club, or go to church), teens today also get less sleep compared to people who were teens in the early 2000's (sleep deprivation is a strong source of depression and anxiety).

- Teens today actually watch less TV than previous teens, but it is being replaced by social media. Social media is also replacing large chunks of "beneficial" activities that teens typically engaged in, like playing outside, socializing verbally, having hobbies, dating, or engaging with people directly in small groups.

- The spike started in 2012, which was also the year that a majority of teens reported owning a smartphone, and has continued rising every year since.

quote:

Why American Teens Are So Sad

Four forces are propelling the rising rates of depression among young people.

The United States is experiencing an extreme teenage mental-health crisis. From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel �persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness� rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded.

The government survey of almost 8,000 high-school students, which was conducted in the first six months of 2021, found a great deal of variation in mental health among different groups. More than one in four girls reported that they had seriously contemplated attempting suicide during the pandemic, which was twice the rate of boys. Nearly half of LGBTQ teens said they had contemplated suicide during the pandemic, compared with 14 percent of their heterosexual peers. Sadness among white teens seems to be rising faster than among other groups.

But the big picture is the same across all categories: Almost every measure of mental health is getting worse, for every teenage demographic, and it�s happening all across the country. Since 2009, sadness and hopelessness have increased for every race; for straight teens and gay teens; for teens who say they�ve never had sex and for those who say they�ve had sex with males and/or females; for students in each year of high school; and for teens in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

So why is this happening?

I want to propose several answers to that question, along with one meta-explanation that ties them together. But before I start with that, I want to squash a few tempting fallacies.

The first fallacy is that we can chalk this all up to teens behaving badly. In fact, lots of self-reported teen behaviors are moving in a positive direction. Since the 1990s, drinking-and-driving is down almost 50 percent. School fights are down 50 percent. Sex before 13 is down more than 70 percent. School bullying is down. And LGBTQ acceptance is up.

The second fallacy is that teens have always been moody, and sadness looks like it is rising only because people are more willing to talk about it. Objective measures of anxiety and depression�such as eating disorders, self-harming behavior, and teen suicides�are sharply up over the past decade. �Across the country we have witnessed dramatic increases in Emergency Department visits for all mental health emergencies including suspected suicide attempts,� the American Academy of Pediatrics said in October. Today�s teenagers are more comfortable talking about mental health, but rising youth sadness is no illusion.

The third fallacy is that today�s mental-health crisis was principally caused by the pandemic and an overreaction to COVID. �Rising teenage sadness isn�t a new trend, but rather the acceleration and broadening of a trend that clearly started before the pandemic,� Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University, told me. But he added: �We shouldn�t ignore the pandemic, either. The fact that COVID seems to have made teen mental health worse offers clues about what�s really driving the rise in sadness.�

Here are four forces propelling that increase.

1. Social-media use

Five years ago, the psychologist Jean Twenge wrote an influential and controversial feature in The Atlantic titled �Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?� based on her book iGen. Around 2012, Twenge wrote, she had noticed that teen sadness and anxiety began to steadily rise in the U.S. and other rich developed countries. She looked for explanations and realized that 2012 was precisely when the share of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent and mobile social-media use spiked.

In the past few years, scientists have disputed the idea that social-media use itself makes teenagers miserable. �There�s been absolutely hundreds of [social-media and mental-health] studies, almost all showing pretty small effects,� Jeff Hancock, a behavioral psychologist at Stanford University who has conducted a meta-analysis of 226 such studies, told The New York Times recently.

But I think Twenge�s strongest point is misunderstood. Social media isn�t like rat poison, which is toxic to almost everyone. It�s more like alcohol: a mildly addictive substance that can enhance social situations but can also lead to dependency and depression among a minority of users.

This is very close to the conclusion reached by none other than Instagram. The company�s internal research from 2020 found that, while most users had a positive relationship with the app, one-third of teen girls said �Instagram made them feel worse,� even though these girls �feel unable to stop themselves� from logging on. And if you don�t believe a company owned by Facebook, believe a big new study from Cambridge University, in which researchers looked at 84,000 people of all ages and found that social media was strongly associated with worse mental health during certain sensitive life periods, including for girls ages 11 to 13.

Why would social media affect teenage mental health in this way? One explanation is that teenagers (and teenage girls in particular) are uniquely sensitive to the judgment of friends, teachers, and the digital crowd. As I�ve written, social media seems to hijack this keen peer sensitivity and drive obsessive thinking about body image and popularity. The problem isn�t just that social media fuels anxiety but also that�as we�ll see�it makes it harder for today�s young people to cope with the pressures of growing up.

2. Sociality is down

Both Steinberg and Twenge stress that the biggest problem with social media might be not social media itself, but rather the activities that it replaces.

�I tell parents all the time that if Instagram is merely displacing TV, I�m not concerned about it,� Steinberg told me. But today�s teens spend more than five hours daily on social media, and that habit seems to be displacing quite a lot of beneficial activity. The share of high-school students who got eight or more hours of sleep declined 30 percent from 2007 to 2019. Compared with their counterparts in the 2000s, today�s teens are less likely to go out with their friends, get their driver�s license, or play youth sports.

The pandemic and the closure of schools likely exacerbated teen loneliness and sadness. A 2020 survey from Harvard�s Graduate School of Education found that loneliness spiked in the first year of the pandemic for everyone, but it rose most significantly for young people. �It�s well established that what protects teens from stress is close social relationships,� Steinberg said. �When kids can�t go to school to see their friends and peers and mentors, that social isolation could lead to sadness and depression, particularly for those predisposed to feeling sad or depressed.�

This is important to say clearly: Aloneness isn�t the same as loneliness, and loneliness isn�t the same as depression. But more aloneness (including from heavy smartphone use) and more loneliness (including from school closures) might have combined to push up sadness among teenagers who need sociality to protect them from the pressures of a stressful world.

3. The world is stressful�and there is more news about the world�s stressors

Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist and author, told me that no single factor can account for the rise of teenage sadness. But she believes a part of the answer is that the world has become more stressful. Or, at least, teenagers� perception of the world seems to be causing them more stress.

�In the last decade teenagers have become increasingly stressed by concerns about gun violence, climate change, and the political environment,� she wrote in an email. �Increased stress among young people is linked to increasing levels of sadness. Girls, more than boys, are socialized to internalize distress, meaning that they tend to collapse in on themselves by becoming depressed or anxious.�

Fears about finances, climate change, and viral pandemics are smashing into local concerns about social approval and setting oneself up for success. �I think of it as a pile-on effect,� Steinberg said. �We�re coming out of the pandemic, and then suddenly Russia goes to war. Every day, it feels like there�s something else. It creates a very gloomy narrative about the world.�

This sense of doom doesn�t just come from teenagers. It comes from us, the news media, and from the social-media channels through which our work is distributed. News sources have never been more abundant, or more accessible. But journalism also has a famous bad-news bias, which flows from an unfortunate but accurate understanding that negativity generally gets more attention. When we plug our brain into a news feed, we are usually choosing to deluge ourselves with negative representations of reality. A well-known 2019 experiment randomly forced people to stop using Facebook for four weeks before a midterm election. The study found that those who logged off spent more time hanging out with family and friends, consistent with the idea that social-media use displaces pro-social behaviors. It also found that deactivating Facebook �reduced factual news knowledge� while �increasing subjective well-being.� We cannot rule out the possibility that teens are sad about the world, not only because the world contains sadness, but also because young people have 24/7 access to sites that are constantly telling them they should be depressed about it.

4. Modern parenting strategies

In the past 40 years, American parents�especially those with a college degree�have nearly doubled the amount of time they spend coaching, chauffeuring, tutoring, and otherwise helping their teenage children. The economist Valerie Ramey has labeled this the �rug rat race.� High-income parents in particular are spending much more time preparing their kids for a competitive college admissions process. When I interviewed Ramey about her work in 2019, she told me that she �couldn�t believe the amount of pressure our friends were putting on their kids to get ready for college.�

The �rug rat race� is an upper-class phenomenon that can�t explain a generalized increase in teenage sadness. But it could well explain part of what�s going on. And in the 2020 Atlantic feature �What Happened to American Childhood?,� Kate Julian described a related phenomenon that affects families a bit more broadly: Anxious parents, in seeking to insulate their children from risk and danger, are unintentionally transferring their anxiety to their kids.

I want to pull out two points from Julian�s complex essay. First, children are growing up slower than they used to. Today�s children are less likely to drive, get a summer job, or be asked to do chores. The problem isn�t that kids are lazy (homework time has risen), or that scrubbing dishes magically dispels anxiety disorders. Rather, Julian wrote, these activities �provide children with two very important things�: tolerating discomfort and having a sense of personal competence.

Second, researchers have noted a broad increase in an �accommodative� parenting style. If a girl is afraid of dogs, an �accommodation� would be keeping her away from every friend�s house with a dog, or if a boy won�t eat vegetables, feeding him nothing but turkey loaf for four years (an actual story from the article). These behaviors come from love. But part of growing up is learning how to release negative emotions in the face of inevitable stress. If kids never figure out how to do that, they�re more likely to experience severe anxiety as teenagers.

Julian highlighted a new treatment out of Yale University�s Child Study Center called SPACE, or Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. Put simply, SPACE forces parents to be less accommodating. If the girl is afraid of dogs, encourage her to play with young puppies. If the boy hates vegetables, caramelize the hell out of some broccoli. This sort of advice is infinitely easier to type than to put into practice. But folding a bit of exposure therapy into modern parenting and childhood might help teenagers grapple with a complex and stressful world.

Other explanations don�t fit neatly into the above categories. Maybe drugs are a big factor: One study found that a sixth of the increase in teen suicides was associated with parental opioid addiction. Maybe the authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt are right that college campuses and internet culture have come to celebrate fragility. Maybe political polarization is fueling anxiety, not only by creating mutual hatred but also by encouraging people to reject opposing views, which over time reduces their capacity to handle cognitive dissonance in a confusing world.

The truth is I�m not satisfied by any of the above explanations, on their own. But I see no reason to keep them alone. They interact, amplify, and compound. And together they paint a powerful picture.

The world is overwhelming, and an inescapably negative news cycle creates an atmosphere of existential gloom, not just for teens but also for their moms and dads. The more overwhelming the world feels to parents, the more they may try to bubble-wrap their kids with accommodations. Over time, this protective parenting style deprives children of the emotional resilience they need to handle the world�s stresses. Childhood becomes more insular: Time spent with friends, driving, dating, and working summer jobs all decline. College pressures skyrocket. Outwardly, teens are growing up slower; but online, they�re growing up faster. The Internet exposes teenagers not only to supportive friendships but also to bullying, threats, despairing conversations about mental health, and a slurry of unsolvable global problems�a carnival of negativity. Social media places in every teen�s pocket a quantified battle royal for scarce popularity that can displace hours of sleep and makes many teens, especially girls, feel worse about their body and life. Amplify these existing trends with a global pandemic and an unprecedented period of social isolation, and suddenly, the remarkable rise of teenage sadness doesn�t feel all that mysterious, does it?

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/american-teens-sadness-depression-anxiety/629524/

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Apr 11, 2022

# ? Apr 11, 2022 15:10

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

VitalSigns posted:

Macron must have this election in the bag or he wouldn't be confident enough to gently caress over the only demographic that supports him: people old enough to remember the war

I think its more likely that he just didn't fully develop a theory of mind when he was a toddler, which seems to be a common characteristic among neoliberal centrists.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 15:10

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Politico has a piece on dark-money PACs that are raising money on behalf of potential 2024 presidential candidates; some surprise inclusions (Murphy? Pompeo?):

quote:

At least a dozen potential candidates for president in 2024 have active nonprofit groups aligned with them, according to a review of corporate filings, campaign disclosures and financial records obtained by POLITICO. Some of them, like the nonprofits affiliated with Pompeo or Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), have never been publicly revealed before. Others, like those supporting President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, have been operating in the open for years.

What they all have in common is the ability to pay staffers, fund polling and policy research, run ads and accept money from megadonors without divulging those funders� names � or much information about any spending until many months after the fact. It�s the latest escalation in a fundraising arms race that has seen personal benefactors, super PACs and now secret money become common building blocks of presidential campaigns.

Every candidate who seeks the White House in 2024 will have to start disclosing their campaign fundraising and spending once they officially declare their campaigns. But in the meantime, and in the absence of new legislation or an enforcement crackdown from tax or campaign-finance regulators, prospective presidents can use nonprofits to shield their donors � and much about their preparations � from the public eye.

�Anybody thinking seriously about running for president in 2024 needs to have a large, sophisticated soft-dollar operation up and running by no later than this year�s general election,� said Luke Thompson, a Republican strategist who runs Protect Ohio Values, the super PAC backing J.D. Vance in Ohio�s Senate race.

# ? Apr 11, 2022 15:13

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# ? May 25, 2024 19:41

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

The weird story about the two possibly spies who were bribing secret service agents gets even weirder.

Someone tipped them off about the investigation triggered by the Post Office and they tried to hide and destroy evidence (seems like they did a bad job if they found body armor, rifles, handguns, servers, listening devices, and lists of names in their apartment).

They also tried to recruit some of the Secret Service agents they were bribing to help them cover up (but, none of them helped) after they were tipped off. They don't know who tipped them off, but it seems like it wasn't any of the Secret Service agents they were giving all the stuff to.

They still don't know what their overall goal was or if they are affiliated with anyone. They are both Iranian, but one of them reportedly bragged to a group of people that he worked for Pakistani intelligence years ago. They don't appear to have any connection to Pakistan, though.

One of the two also defrauded people and issued fake checks 10 years ago in Missouri, but has had no criminal record or employment since then.

It is still unclear where they got all of this money, guns, computer equipment, battering rams, servers, drones, and listening devices.

https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1513268635929772035

quote:

Somebody Tipped Off the 2 Fake Feds Arrested for Duping Secret Service, DOJ Says

A pair of phony Homeland Security agents who allegedly infiltrated the highest levels of federal law enforcement and plied agents with lavish gifts were somehow tipped off to their arrest last week, allowing them to stash guns and other items, prosecutors revealed in a new filing on Sunday.

Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36, were arrested last week when cops swarmed the upscale Crossing Apartments in Washington, D.C.�s Navy Yard neighborhood, bringing what appears to be an extraordinary two-year-long ruse to an end.

The pair were charged with false impersonation of a federal officer for allegedly running an elaborate scheme that fooled at least one Homeland Security official and four Secret Service agents working on security details for President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris. The duo allegedly flashed official-looking IDs, carried Glocks, drove black SUVs with flashing lights, and became so friendly with some agents that they put the agents up for free in penthouses at the Crossings and gifted them iPhones, rifles, and drones.

Federal prosecutor Matthew Graves said in the Sunday filing that investigators are still uncovering disturbing new information following last week�s arrests.

�Each hour since their arrest, the Government learns more�and scarier�information about how Taherzadeh and Ali abused their fake authority,� he said as he argued both men should be detained before trial.

For example, Graves said, investigators sifting through the multiple apartments Taherzadeh and Ali occupied at the Crossings have found illegal high-capacity magazines for Taherzadeh�s Sig Sauer 229 and Ali�s Glock 19. That�s in addition to the long list of items already seized including guns, ammo, body armor, surveillance gear, forced entry tools like a sledgehammer and mini-door ram, fake training certificates, fake badges, gas masks, tactical gear, hard drives, servers, a drone, training manuals from the Department of Homeland Security and Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and a binder with a list of every resident at the Crossings, a building popular with law enforcement families.

Graves said more victims have come forward since last week too, including a Naval Intelligence Officer to whom Taherzadeh allegedly claimed to be a Homeland Security Investigations agent. �The Intelligence Officer was so alarmed and concerned about Taherzadeh�s attempt to gather information that he reported the contact to the Naval Criminal Investigative Services,� the filing says.

More troubling, the pair appear to have been tipped off to the FBI�s impending raid and arrest, and tried to ditch some potentially incriminating items via a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the White House, prosecutors said.

Officers found shipping materials and UPS labels in one of their penthouses, and in early April, as the FBI surveilled the pair, the Secret Service agent received a package in the mail from the pair, prosecutors said. The package contained three empty cases for Sig Sauer and Glock firearms that have not been found, a high-capacity magazine, and four expensive cigars.

�This is consistent with the prior pattern and practice of providing federal law enforcement agents with gifts and items of value, and suggests that Taherzadeh and/or Ali shipped the package to the USSS Uniformed Division Officer in an attempt to corruptly enlist him in secreting evidence,� the filing said.

Prosecutors said in a Thursday arraignment hearing that Ali had boasted of his ties to Pakistani intelligence services to at least two witnesses, and had visas in his passport for Iran and Pakistan, but the FBI has not confirmed any ties to overseas spy agencies.

Such high-level ties would come as a surprise to two former friends and business associates of Taherzadeh, who described him to The Daily Beast on Friday as nothing more than a failed entrepreneur and serial grifter who left a trail of bounced checks and empty promises in Missouri a decade ago.

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Apr 11, 2022

# ? Apr 11, 2022 16:58

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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