Young Dems Actually Do Need to ‘Just Vote Harder’

Democrats need voters, particularly of the younger variety, to turn out on Election Day to have any hope of holding onto Congress. Here’s the good news: Young people, a bloc of voters who tilt significantly Democrat and who historically have remained immune to get-out-the-vote efforts, seem highly motivated to vote this time around.

But there’s also bad news: Almost one-third of young people “indicated they have little to no enthusiasm for the upcoming midterms.” Some have even taken to social media to mock the idea that voting can make a difference, sarcastically commenting that if they “Just Vote Harder” they can fix the seemingly insurmountable problems that our country faces.

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The thing is, “Just Vote Harder” is exactly what young people, particularly progressives, need to do in the upcoming election to get the kind of change they long for on issues ranging from the climate to racial justice to reproductive rights.

I can understand where this apathy comes from. Young people have only known an America beset by crisis, from the disastrous war in Iraq and the Great Recession to Donald Trump’s presidency and a pandemic that has claimed more than a million lives. Most recently, the Supreme Court, for the first time in its history, took away a fundamental right when it repealed Roe v. Wade.

So, I get why young people do not trust our government or our institutions. But the thing is, almost all of these events occurred because one side didn’t “Just Vote Harder,” while the other did.

Imagine a world where more people voted Democrat in Florida in 2000. The margin in that state was only 537 votes! Suffice it to say, the world would look a lot different today if Al Gore had been president instead of George W. Bush. Imagine a world where more people in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania— states that Trump won in 2016 by only 80,000 votes total—had voted for Hillary Clinton.

Arguably hundreds of thousands fewer Americans would have died during the pandemic. There wouldn’t have been an armed insurrection on Jan. 6. And tens of millions of Americans wouldn’t have had their reproductive freedoms taken from them. But only if we had “Just Voted Harder.”

Now, it’s certainly the case that in a truly fair, democratic system—one without a partisan Supreme Court and one with a national popular vote—both George W. Bush and Donald Trump never would have been elected president to begin with. But unfortunately, that’s not our system.

And yet, even within our flawed democracy, much progress has been made by showing up. Indeed, even as right-wing actors make it harder for some to vote, particularly people of color, and try to make it easier to overturn the results of elections, we have accomplished so much because we “Just Voted Harder” in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections.

President Joe Biden has presided over the biggest year of job growth in U.S. history; nominated and gotten confirmed a historic number of federal judges, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court; combatted a once-in-a-century pandemic, helping to get 600 million COVID-19 shots in arms; and signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which will curb inflation, reduce the costs of prescription drugs for seniors, and take the most aggressive action in a generation to fight climate change.

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Biden has also issued a proclamation pardoning federal convictions for simple marijuana possession, announced that his administration will forgive about $500 billion in student debt, and has provided steadfast political, economic, and military support to Ukraine as it defends itself against Vladimir Putin’s brutal, illegal invasion. And these are just some of the accomplishments that the president and a Democratic Congress have achieved.

But none of this would have happened if 80,000 people in four states hadn’t “Just Voted Harder” for Joe Biden in 2020. Or if 55,000 people hadn’t “Just Voted Harder” for Jon Ossoff. Or if 93,000 people hadn’t “Just Voted Harder” for Raphael Warnock. We cannot ignore the power we have by “Just Voting Harder.”

If Democrats keep the House and expand their majority in the Senate by two, they could possibly overcome the intransigence of Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to change the filibuster rules and codify Roe. Perhaps then there would also be an appetite for reforming or abolishing the filibuster to prevent partisan gerrymandering, require background checks for all gun purchases, and increase the federal minimum wage.

And “Just Vote Harder” extends beyond the federal level.

In fact, to cite the old maxim “All politics is local,” if you want to tackle systemic racism in the legal system, “Just Vote Harder” for local prosecutors who will prioritize criminal justice reform and mayors who won’t allow police unions to investigate themselves for misconduct. If you want to protect our democracy, “Just Vote Harder” in secretary of state and gubernatorial races—where election deniers are on the ballot in many states. If you want to combat right-wing actors who are banning books, attacking LGBTQ+ rights, and undermining abortion rights, “Just Vote Harder” for legislators, attorneys general, and other officials at the state and local level. And if there happens to be a referendum related to abortion rights in your state, “Just Vote Harder” like the people of Kansas did over the summer.

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I want to reiterate that if you don’t want to “Just Vote Harder,” I get it. The country is not on the right track, and the Democratic Party is led by octogenarians who don’t necessarily inspire the kind of confidence and vision we need at this moment.

I’ve also been in your shoes. For some of my young adulthood, I didn’t vote at all. But what I ultimately realized was that there is too much at stake to take our democracy for granted, particularly when so many people who came before us struggled and even bled for the rights we have today. I also realized that elections are sometimes decided by only a handful of votes. Yes, even one vote can make the difference.

So please, “Just Vote Harder,” and get your friends to join you.

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