Are You Younger than 50? Do You Have Political Ideas?

[MineralMan]

If so, are you considering actively running for office? No? Why not? Truly. Why not?

If you are posting your ideas here on DU, you're obviously interested in politics and are more informed that most people. Why not become the politics of the future?

I'm being dead serious here. I'm just a couple of months from being 80 years old. I've been politically active all my adult life. I never ran for any office, though. Instead, I joined the local Democratic Party organization wherever I lived and worked to get Democrats elected to offices of all types and at all levels. That was what I did. During that time, I saw many young people who wanted to be elected officials. I watched some of them succeed at that. I like to think I helped some of them along the way.

There are elected offices at every level of government. Someone runs and gets elected. There's no reason one of them might not be you. You can't become a member of Congress or a state legislator, though, until you have a track record in elected office. So, if you want to do that someday, start now and run for a local office. Get yourself known where you live. Keep trying until you win. Then, work like crazy to help the people who elected you get what they want. It's pretty simple, really. Start small and move up from there. As you go, you'll build name recognition and add people to your list of loyal supporters.

Or don't. That's certainly easier. If you don't, you can just continue to post in online forums about what should be done. There's no difficulty in finding somewhere to post your ideas. But, what you can do by doing that is quite limited.

At some point, you have to decide. The sooner you start, the younger you will be when you finally get elected to an office that has the potential to make real changes that make the world a better place.

Think about it. If you think you're up to it, jump in. Or don't. It's your decision.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Or at least learn political consulting.

That idea was thrown at me about year 2000. It was described as a boot camp for strategists. Don't even know if I still have the emails. Dems sure need consultants, campaign managers. You learn the ropes and pitch to candidates. How you see the world, organize, form policy, design the battle plan from flyers to recruits to jive with local organizations to gotv. Win a campaign and your next gig will pay more.

[MineralMan]

2. There are several paths, but all lead to winning elections.

Without that, you only have public forums to express you ideas.

[Ocelot II]

3. I would add to this, also consider working actively for a candidate or an organization.

Not everyone is meant to be a politician, even at a local level. I can't imagine running for office; never could. It's not a job for an introvert. You have to be out there blowing your own horn, talking to people, making speeches, selling. It's a sales job. I couldn't even sell Girl Scout cookies as a kid; hated it. Actually running for office, even the local park board, was about as attractive a career, to me, as proctology. However, if you don't want to be a politician, help one. There is plenty of behind-the-scenes work that needs to be done. Get behind someone you think could run for whatever, give them a shove, and work for their campaign. Or get involved in the party organization. I was a delegate to district DFL conventions a couple of times - that's one way to offer support without being the candidate. The point is to do something. Give money, go to protests, write LTTEs. Do something.

[MineralMan]

5. Absolutely. That's also a great way to learn how to run for office.

Get involved. Posting on Internet forums is not really getting involved. It's fine, but if you really want to make a difference, you really need to get out there and get directly involved. Get to know people who are also involved. Get to know the candidates on a personal level. Helping someone get elected means developing a relationship with that elected official.

The more directly involved you are the more influence you have. That has always been the case.

[question everything]

4. Years back I was active in local politics and someone asked me to run for city council

I refused and my reasons were that there were factions and I would not align myself with any. I agreed with some ideas but not all of both.

I am no expert but I think that one cannot run as a strictly independent. One has to align with others. Again in those local elections there were several candidates for different offices: city, school board, etc. who would run together as a slate. For one, it was cheaper to campaign together.

Things obviously changed. This was in the previous century before social media that really changed everything.

I do agree that we need to encourage people to run. To start locally, to be able to meet party leaders, to visit Congress and talk to elected officials. This is what I was hoping Obama and Biden, starting in 2016 would do. Travel the country to meet and encourage young blood.

[Sympthsical]

6. If you want to speak to people under 50

You'll have to post your message somewhere else. That demographic is in extremely short supply in this space.

[MineralMan]

7. Thank you for your advice.

Actually, though, there are quite a few people under 50 on DU.

[Sympthsical]

10. Not really

Really not really.

But I suspect the object of the exercise was not to actually reach that demographic.

Reddit would be a good place, tho.

[MineralMan]

13. You 'suspect," eh?

No doubt.

But, you see, you are under 50, and you read and responded. Apparently you aren't interested in running for office, though. I suspect.

[W_HAMILTON]

14. How old are you?

I'm under 50.

The youngest voters may not use message boards anymore, but there are plenty under 50 that do, including many Millennials like myself.

[Sympthsical]

15. I'm in my 40s, old Millennial

DU does demographic polls often enough, and the results are consistent over time. There’s not a lot of people under 50 here. It comes in at under 10%. And of those, the majority are in their 40s. Gen Z is even less. I think we have three or four total. And they’ve got one foot out the door because of all the youth bashing that goes on.

It’s an older space. Nothing wrong with that really. But if one’s intention is to address the youngins, this space doesn’t have much reach.

Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, etc. If one wants to recruit and encourage, those are the spaces.

[ITAL]

8. There's a few of us

Not that I'd ever be cut out to run for office as I'm far too diffident to do so.

[Sympthsical]

11. Oh, I'm under 50

But we're a sparse crew, lol.

[róisín_dubh]

9. I'm under 50

But I-thankfully live abroad. If I did live in the US, I would not subject my poor family to a run for office. I don’t need the ghouls coming after the LGBTQ+ members of my family, or my mixed race nieces and nephews, etc, Nevermind the skeletons in my closet.

[MineralMan]

12. Well, then, there it is.