Interesting conversation with a young (20ish) voter last night when I questioned her lack of enthusiasm for Joe Biden in the upcoming election even though she is a clear liberal/progressive.
When I asked why she found it hard to support him, her main thrust was not about his age, per se, but about his being part of the old guard, wanting to do things the way they've always been done, in a capitalist system young people don't trust or value. And she understands some of the appeal for Donald Trump, despite being almost as old, in that he wants to shake things up or, more excitingly, blow things up.
I told her that reminded me of us when we were her age when Richard Nixon represented all that was evil and wrong with the world. He was the epitome of what we called The Establishment. Totally resistant to any kind of change or accepting that things were way out of whack, the country wasn't go in the wrong direction - it wasn't going in any new direction that would right the wrongs of racism, sexism, big business, and most specifically, that would get us out of war, in this case, Vietnam. (All complaints today's young voters might have.)
She also referenced Biden's carte blanche support of Israel's genocide in Gaza as evidence of how stuck in the past he is, when clearly that is the wrong policy.
I told her that her answer fascinated me, both because I found it incredibly illuminating, but also because the answer didn't include any references to climate change or college debt, to which she replied: "Oh, I wasn't done!"
The uncommitted vote in November might come down to their walking into the voting booth on election day and picturing waking up the day after the election and considering which scenario scares them more.
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