General Politics Discussion (X) [ARCHIVED] • Page 889

I was in high school from 1996-2000, and the internet as we've come to know it was really just getting started. I feel like that's made it much easier to get informed and involved.

But I remember having plenty of discussions, among friends and classmates, with my mom and her friends, with friends' parents, about issues of the day like welfare reform, school shootings and the reaction to them, gay marriage and lgbt rights, the war on drugs, and plenty of culture war bullshit like the v-chip, efforts to ban violent video games and music with "explicit" lyrics, the crackdown on "underage" kids seeing rated R movies, and Bill Clinton promoting school uniforms (lol).

 

One thing that this talk makes me think of is that Democrats/Progressives are going to really need to figure out how to message beyond college campuses to voters who would be in that age cohort, particularly when talking about not as many kids that age going to college.

 

I took it as apolitical at the time of high school and not that we're apolitical now and I think that's a fair generalization (where there are obviously going to be exceptions). Millennials are certainly not apolitical today, but a good portion were in high school or college (and that's 100% not the case for todays students).

Considering it'd be weird for me to be hanging out with high school kids, this is true and I actually don't how much more politically active the average teenager is, but from what I see it online, it SEEMS like they are highly so, and at a higher %. But yeah, could be way off base so scratch my 100% statement from above.

When my niece is 13 in 11 years, I'll have a better baseline of what a teenager is thinking but it'll be even more different then.

 

My friends and I were definitely anti bush and anti wars in Iraq / Afghanistan. High school 2003-2007.

 

I think some of ya'll are being too optimistic re: Trump in 2024. Doesn't matter how unpopular he is when Republicans are trying to make voting basically illegal in some states and Dems aren't doing a fucking thing to stop it

 

I didn't really care about politics in high school and I had stupid opinions anyway. I definitely got schooled on the AP forums more than once back in the day.

 

I was crazy conservative in high school because my dad was a republican and I thought I was super cool calling liberals hippies because South Park did it. Whoops.

 

I had a teacher in 5th grade who said Gore is a Bore. After I graduated high school I visited him and asked him what he thought about Bush now and he said he regretted his vote.

 

Lol I'm very glad I couldn't vote back then. When I was 18 I traded my vote to a republican for a ride to Taco Bell. Sooooo wasn't really working with a fully developed, critical thinking brain.

 

In fairness, I did get some Baja Blast outta it.

 

Taco bell could swing my vote even today

 

It was for Scott Brown so like...who cares? lol

 

I remember my Civics teacher senior year was a hardcore republican always trying to push that shit on us. She made us fill out a ballot for the Gray Davis recall election and she got mad at me because I was the only one who voted to not recall while everyone else in class voted for Schwarzenegger. I was pretty cool.

 

Talk about indoctrinating students!

 

That was definitely her goal. In this case I swear she was trying to confuse the students that were actually old enough to vote for real by not even presenting voting NO to the recall as an option. She was dumb and yelled at me all the time for calling her out on her bullshit.

 

So what was it that radicalized you all? For me it was moving out of the suburbs and getting a job at an inner-city hospital. Very eye-opening experience.

 

Is this a true story?

 

yes

 

That is an incredible story. I've actually thought about some of my teachers back then and some of the things they said to us, and what they would say if I could have a conversation with them years later / now.

I worry very much that people are underestimating trump in the general, but even more concertedly, underestimating the damage republicans are actively and purposefully doing to our political system - specifically voting systems - at all levels, local all the way up to national.

I really do hope that I'm wrong and I end up looking like a pessimistic clown and I will happily listen to everyone gloat about being right.

 

thank you. really wish i could be on the optimist side here. but will absolutely never give any benefit of the doubt to the democratic partys competence or integrity again. i will continue to assume the only thing that can stop trump being potus again is his own mortality