Gen Z commit to ‘canceling out’ their MAGA parents votes in new TikTok trend
independent.co.uk
Summary
Ahead of the 2024 election, Generation Z has sparked a trend on TikTok, “canceling out” family members’ votes by voting opposite their Trump-supporting relatives. Many young women post videos showing them voting for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, contrasting with family members supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Although Gen Z voters lean slightly toward Harris, a significant portion supports Trump. With over 47 million early votes cast, polls show a tight race, especially in key swing states.
Very good way to frame voting to make it obvious it matters.
One person litters, you see a water bottle on the ground. Everybody litters, your town sucks. Tragedy of the commons takes an extra mental thinking to act on in day to day life.
Yes and/but you might be interested to know these things about the “Tragedy of the Commons”:
Elinor Ostrom, awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009, fundamentally challenged the “tragedy of the commons” theory, which Garrett Hardin popularized in 1968. Hardin’s theory argued that shared resources—like grazing land or fisheries—inevitably suffer from overuse because each user, acting in self-interest, seeks to maximize personal gain. Without external regulation or privatization, Hardin claimed, such resources would degrade irreparably.
Ostrom’s work provided a different perspective based on extensive field research across diverse communities managing shared resources, such as forests in Nepal and fisheries in Turkey. Through these studies, she found that local groups often developed effective, self-governing systems to sustain and share resources equitably. Ostrom identified eight core principles, such as clear resource boundaries, community-devised rules, local monitoring, and graduated sanctions for rule violations, which contribute to sustainable communal resource management. By documenting these successful cases, she demonstrated that, under certain conditions, communities could avoid the “tragedy” without privatization or top-down control.
Ostrom’s insights reshaped economic thinking by showing that cooperation, rather than competition alone, could lead to sustainable resource use. Her findings emphasize that real-world communities often solve commons problems through trust, local knowledge, and shared governance, challenging the idea that only private ownership or government intervention can manage common resources effectively. Ostrom’s approach has since inspired policies and frameworks for resource management across environmental, urban, and even space governance contexts, as her principles underscore the potential of collective, decentralized solutions to common-pool problems.
Her work offers an empowering view of human capacity for self-organization, contradicting the inevitability of Hardin’s “tragedy” and suggesting new possibilities for addressing global commons issues like climate change and biodiversity loss. This impact has encouraged rethinking in fields ranging from political science to ecology and economics.
Sources:
• Inside Story, “The not-so-tragic commons”
• Resilience, “The Victory of the Commons”
• Space Foundation, “The Commons Solution”
Also Hardin was a white nationalist and pushed his “tragedy of the commons” theory as a justification for eugenics.
So every time someone references his pseudoscience, they’re breathing life back into a dead fascist’s racism. Yaaaaayyy…
The concept of the tragedy of the commons existed centuries before Hardin. He just uses that concept to justify an unsound conclusion and the concept would exist whether he wrote his paper or not.
Every time someone references it, they're referencing that concept that really does affect communal resources, and probably have no idea what argument Hardin ever made based on it.
The beginning of the paper lays out the idea very well and I use it to teach people to treat shared resources respectfully, but tell them not to bother reading the conclusion.
I feel like this is always the case for anyone with any sort of notoriety from the 1900s or before. If they were alive they were most likely racist Nazis.
The distinction between "government regulation" on one hand and "community-devised rules, local monitoring and graduated sanctions for rule violations" on the other seems entirely artificial to me. In both cases rules and enforcement are set up to avoid the tragedy. The latter just uses more feel-good words to describe local government.
The Tragedy of the Commons is a capitalist myth just like the Myth of Barter.
How?
OP explained the former. David Graeber talked about the latter in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years
I don't see the former, maybe I'm overlooking something. Also, I'm not going to read a book to get that answer.
We as a country need to mentally prepare ourselves to owe an absolutely massssssssssive debt of gratitude to The Women.
Saving our dumb collective ass again. As usual in elections at least within my fucking lifetime, women and ethnic minorities prove that they understand the values of America better than the ultra-fragile white conservative men who think they own this place by virtual of sex and race.
It's easier to get behind and push for those American values when you realize you aren't really equal -- not because of anything you did, but because you simply exist. It's hard to not feel bitter about it, especially when part of the population wants you dead and is actively trying to persuade everyone else to get on board.
But we see our allies, we know who is standing up for us. We stand with you, for everyone's sake. Together we can overcome this.
Up here in Canada as well. Almost exactly half of men, across all age groups, say they play to vote for the Cons. Last I saw it was 20% of women voting Con. I am incredibly embarrassed at my fellow men.
Polievre wants to defund the CBC, build more oil pipelines and continue the expansion of city suburbs. No way I'd vote for that guy. The only good thing I've seen him say is that there should be more competition in the telecommunications market, but it does not take much effort to point out a problem.
There are so many issues with a Con government--like not even admitting climate change exists, that's not great--and you mentioned many others.
I'm honestly tired of women bailing us out in these elections though, so I cannot imagine what it's like for them to have to keep doing it.
That said, when men were losing their jobs they got told "learn to code" by callous and shitty journalists and women's rights activists. It's not hard to see why men are abandoning liberal governments that blame them for everything even while they are experiencing statistically worse outcomes with each successive generation.
The solution is so simple that you have to be abandoning it on purpose: promise men educations and to help them get employed, and you'll get all the support you need.
Where on earth has this happened?
So tell the men in charge to do that. We don't live in a matriarchy, women fight the exact same fights you mentioned. You think women don't get laid off just like men do? I've been in games for almost 20 years and I can tell you it's not any better for the women in it.
I will say, we'd never be in this mess if we didn't have the Twitter crowd claiming Masculinity and Whiteness are sins in and of themselves.
Tell a white man he's evil cause he's a white man, and he'll gladly side with someone who admits to being racist.
I mean yes but it's more than just feelings and hateful people on Twitter:
And when you talk about this as a man you get exactly the kind of replies I got, or worse. This is how you drive men right.
Pretty much.
He practically wants to ban porn too. He's not a very nice fellow.
Forget the porn, it's the absolute insanity of forcing (and allowing) all these different web services to get and maintain our identities. Huge privacy breach from people preaching that government overreach is bad... This hypocrisy gets old fast.
The Conservatives didn't do anything last time about this despite it being a big discussion point, and they had years of majority to do it. I don't see them changing tack since they don't seem too bothered by any of Canada's other oligarchs.
All that said, the Liberals barely took a step forward on this either, right before taking a huge step back allowing Rogers and Shaw to merge. These damned neoliberals just refuse to help anyone.
I have been a Liberal since I was 12 years old. I have never voted conservative in 30 years of federal elections. But with Trudeau refusing to step down I have no choice but to vote conservative. The backbenchers know they're not going to get re-elected with him in charge and that's why most of them have been relegated to the back benches. He's surrounded himself with sycophant MPs, and is delusional enough to think the majority of the country is happy with him.
I'm willing to let Skippy axe the carbon tax and hopefully make living in this country affordable again. Ontario generally elects a provincial party that is in opposition, provincial liberals will get in and reintroduce cap & trade which will save us when the next liberal government is elected and tries to save the world again.
NDP, Green?
When we're voting on abortion again, I hope the women in your life have a chat with you about how your vote effected them.
.... wot
We can only hope…
Hell, we already wouldn't be here without them.
Wasn't there a large percentage of white women who said they'd vote Trump even if he wanted to ban women from voting?
"Large percentage". Please state and citate.
(Tbh, 1% would be a large percentage of a group voting away their own rights)
My parents would vote by absentee ballot. Dad would have them do it together at the table at the same time. If my mom wanted to vote differently, she'd never have been able to.
My father use to send me into the voting booth with my mother to make sure she "remembered" who to vote for....no election officials ever stopped me from going in there and I was too young to understand that I was a spy. My father's not violent but I'm sure I wasn't the only child spy being used by men who were.
That sounds illegal. Domestic Abuse AND Voter Intimidation
Ah yes. Cops the the rescue.
They literally couldn't enact a fully passed bill preventing domestic abusers from owning guns because the police are full of them.
Hey, 60% of police have not been caught beating their wives!
I was raised with the very strong belief that my vote was private, and I never had to tell anyone. I think it probably came from my father's own experiences as a hippie during the War in Vietnam, and voting differently than his conservative family...
Unfortunately, he's seemingly forgotten all of that in an angry pro-Trump haze, to the point where I'm convinced that he would do this to my mother now. If he had to. I think he's already got her conditioned to not have a political mind of her own. So no need.
Seems clear now that it was always just the typical boomer mantra of "me me me." The only reason he had any concept of being ostracized by family for voting a certain way, is because it happened to him. Now it doesn't matter because they all know he's a fucking nutter, so no need to hide it I guess.
In other words, if I were being raised by him right now, he'd be saying something completely different (and probably demanding to see my ballot). Just like every other value he instilled in me, then immediately ignored for the rest of his life.
Let this be a lesson to everybody - don't marry a Republican.
Fuck. Gen Z should not "lean slightly toward Harris", Gen Z should be an overwhelming progressive and inclusive force.
Fuck Twitter and TikTok that fried men's brains with shit like Andrew Tate and similar things.
I don't think you can blame Twitter and TikTok for that. People who like Tate's toxic masculinity incel garbage will find somewhere that feeds into their preferences.
I don't think this is necessarily true when talking about modern social media
Well the following is my unscientific belief:
Social media algorithms are studied to make you see always the same kind of beliefs and everything opposing them is discouraged. They incentive inflammatory, divisive and hateful content in order to obtain more engagement, especially on Twitter.
If they used Mastodon or Lemmy, those people would be less tense.
If they had more normies on it, maybe. But Lemmy seems to be composed primarily of the tensest people in the world to me.
Lemmy has some of the most obnoxious Dunning Kruger shit on any social media platform, especially when it comes to politics.
Just so! Particularly with election news being the order of the day. Reminds me that I'm on the hook for something I realistically have very little control over.
I'll do my bit, but cannot guarantee results.
TikTok I'd wait for evidence, but Elon absolutely boosted people like Tate
I mean Harris and "progressive and inclusive" aren't necessarily one and the same, from the sounds of it it's Harris that should be pushing more progressive, but in the context of this election I agree they should be voting for Harris
It's probably more that gen z voters are notorious for not responding to survey requests, and ignoring texts and phone calls from unknown numbers
Looking at the captions in the image...
How could you be married to someone who supports Trump if you don't also support Trump. This just doesn't make sense or even seem safe to me.
Abuse.
Religion usually plays a part.
Accepting the fundamental differences in viewpoint and pretending it isn’t there for the sake of kids
Etc.
My partners family comes to mind. Her mother is very liberal, her dad is a weird mix of liberal beliefs polluted by religion. They just don’t talk about it, everyone knows he’s wrong, he knows he’s wrong, he won’t change his viewpoints and his wife isn’t willing to collapse their family over it.
I know someone in this circumstance, and it comes down to exactly one issue: abortion. The spouse is Roman Catholic and cannot support abortion, so despite disagreeing with most of the republican platform, they feel obligated to vote with the party that opposes it. I had the same thing crop up in 2008 with a roommate who was Greek Orthodox and in every way one of the most progressive people I knew, but they voted McCain purely on this one issue out of religious guilt.
That is bullshit.
They can support abortion as much as they want, they don't want to support it.
I hate it when people say that they can't do X because their religion, be honest and say that you don't want to do X because they want to follow the rules of their religion.
And abortion being legal doesn't mean shit for a Catholic.
No one's up in arms because non-Catholics eat meat during lent or don't believe in transubstantiation.
Their religious belief has no place in government. If they don't want to do it, then don't.
I 100% agree with the sentiment, but you can't really compare not following religious rituals and what the religious consider murder. The existence of injustice is enough to mean something to someone. That's how empathy works.
People get up in arms over the death penalty, and I don't think it's right to tell them that if they don't like it, just don't commit a capital crime or pay attention to scheduled executions.
The same for both Ukraine and Israel/Palestine, people are demonstrating and attempting to bring their beliefs to the government. The people who have true conversations about abortion see these as equivalent.
That is true of everything that isn't barred by the fundamentals of physics, and disingenuous and you know it.
You can murder people, you can enslave others, Hindus can slaughter and eat cows, etc, you just don't want to because it's illegal.
For most religious people the tenents of their faith are core to their being and not something they just kinda like. Otherwise they tend to deconstruct from their religion after the inertia runs out. That's why religion in the West is on a downward trajectory outside of Islam which is driven by immigration.
I fully support reproductive rights as much as the next guy, but let's not pretend that the person outlined above single issue voting against abortion isn't looking at the other side as otherwise great but you have to accept a few sanctioned murders. You would probably be single issue voting if we had a modern Aztec government that was close to a utopia but practiced human sacrifices to Quetzalcoatl because it maintains prosperity.
Real laws are different though, they have a state sanctioned justice system that forces compliance.
Following a religion in the US is not regulated by law, but is a choice.
Sadly, groups of people are working to change this.
If a religion's rules do become proper laws then you can use "can't" correctly.
But they choose to subscribe to that religion and could choose to stop. They could choose to no longer make it core to their being.
That is exactly my point, this is similar to veganism/vegetarianism, it is a choice you want to make and continue to make.
And I get it, I have had the privilege of growing up mostly without religion, that obviously colours my viewpoint, but if people could accept that religion is a choice rather than a fact the world would be a way better place.
Can you really choose what you believe, though? Could you make yourself stop believing in gravity or anything else you truly believe in? Could you make yourself believe in flat earth if someone told you too? The mind isn't something so malleable that you get to pick and choose your beliefs like a salad bar. Religious beliefs are one of the hardest to change, with even those leaving organized religion ending up frequently still believing in a God of some kind.
I grew up in a religious household but open minded and science oriented, so I deconverted and consider myself an atheist. I whole heartedly agree that the world would be a better place without religion, it's the world's greatest con job, but let's not kid ourselves about the spectrum of the word choice here. It's a (lesser) reverse of the religious telling anyone that isn't heteronormative in any way that those are choices. It's all brain chemistry occurring in a black box that we know vanishingly little about for how much we have studied it.
That is a fair point, and I am not asking to change any persons beliefs, I just think it is a copout to blame X for taking away your agency when you want it taken away.
I don't think they are blaming their religion for their voting in so much as outlining that their convictions that are informed by/in line with their religion (life begins at conception) makes abortion their largest single issue. Those of honest conviction see abortion as murder, and specifically murder of a baby, and that trumps the rest of the ticket. There are plenty of grifters and hypocrites on that side too, but I would hazard that the "silent majority" on the right are the sincere convictions type.
Most people don't think that much about politics.
A woman might have a husband who's generally a good guy and doesn't talk politics.
A few days ago he comes home and someone at work had been talking about how some Trump policy would be better for their industry. Husband is going to vote for Trump.
Woman Google's Trump, sees his abominable attitude towards women, sees tiktok about cancelling partners vote, votes democrat.
Maybe, but it does say "Trump loving", not Trump voting. I acknowledge and don't hold too hard a grudge on people who don't pay much attention and only vote on stuff they think will affect them. I still consider it selfish, but I will acknowledge some people have enough issues in their life to not realize how bad it could affect others.
For instance, one of my sisters friends voted for Trump in 2016 because she is a small business owner and thought he would be better for her business. I don't know how she has voted since, and she's a black mother in FL, so I hope she's changed her mind.
Still, I have seen people make excuses for themselves that they have to be responsible for their employees as well etc etc, so someone with a not hateful mindset may make a decision those of us more informed or plugged into may realize is much worse for them either way.
Edit, forgot my original point. The above included I don't think would be considered "Trump loving", so I think by that statement she's saying he loves more than just a policy or two.
my brother in law is voting trump. ugh.
So is mine.
The funny part? He's a union guy, doesn't understand (despite repeated attempts to show) that Trump is anti-union. I'm sure the key component for him is really just some of that good old fashioned bigotry.
Which is also silly since he's Cuban, and got some Testosterone shots recently (you know - gender affirming care).
He's just clueless and won't change his mind.
He may be a union guy, but he’s no Union Man.
honestly mine is a pretty boy duche who would have completely fitted into frat life if he had went to university. Hes like a wannabe of the folks who might do well under trump (although history has shown even rich people do better under democrats as under republicans they get a larger percentage of a shrinking pie)
Shameful... The union members who fought and died for his right to be a member would be sickened by the idea of supporting someone like Trump (politics aside, even if you just look at his history refusing to pay workers and bragging about it).
I read that JD Vance crossed a picket line to do a rally or something a week or so ago. When I was younger, that shit would get you killed in a union town (possible hyperbole, they'd probably just break your legs and boot you out of town). Nowadays nobody bats an eye. It wasn't even in the news, I only read about it in my union newsletter.
Regardless of the election result, there will be a shit-ton of divorces incoming over the next 12 months because of it.
Well, the GOP literally wants to outlaw no fault divorce, so they better do it quick.
People change.
One possibility is that they got married before Republicans lost their minds, and now they are trapped.
That's one of the things I like to tell friends or family I know that will say "Voting doesn't matter". I'll usually say something like, "Think of the most vile person on the opposite side. If you vote then you're negating their vote at a minimum. Because you know that extreme person is going to vote every time."
Doesn't always work since some people are stubborn but changed a few people!
I can't cancel my parents out because they're dead. But they actually got more liberal as they got older and they would have canceled my sister's Wisconsin trump vote.
we all vote as a family and laugh about what our net vote is. been like this for decades. the olds only voted for trump once, which is a relief.
I'm sure it's easy to laugh about when none of them are voting for outright fascism.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...!
Good for them for coming around.
Unless the one time was this one, most recent, time
Huh. I thought young people never voted, so we could ignore their concerns.
Guess that was a fucking lie from people who just wanted to ignore young people's concerns.
It will take a while for us to get past the inertia of Boomers who have been gaslighting everyone for decades.
And centrists who don't want to listen to more progressive youngins.
The data doesn’t lie. People under 30 vote at embarrassingly lower rates than every other group.
Do they vote for Democrats less than Republicans vote for Democrats? Because the party expends a fuckton of effort on trying to win over Republicans.
To put it in a way Lemmy would understand: who is it easier to convince to try out your favorite distro, an Ubuntu user or someone who's never used Linux?
And Democrats keep trying to win over hostile Windows users.
Because people under 30 never have anyone to represent them. And it's not a "oh they don't match my views 100% so I'm not gonna pick either" thing, for the average leftist we're lucky to get a choice between someone who represents us 0%, or 0.2%.
Bullshit, quit providing post hoc justification for your own shitty behavior.
Can confirm. I am 30 and voted. My brother is 29 and claims to not vote.
Orrrr....hear me out here
This is a news article about a set of social media posts and has absolutely no link or relevance to the voting register.
you know the cool thing about people voting? You know who has voted and in what age group they are. Then you can look at the age group and say things like hmmm wow thats weird there are like 34 million people in the US between 18 and 24, but only 7 million of them voted, I wonder if the other 27 million would have swayed the margin on an election decided by hundreds of thousands of votes
Young people aren't participating yet they have the most skin in the game. It's daft.
Imo Implement compulsory voting, introduce third parties that can act as a protest vote, watch what the fuck happens. Suddenly the major parties have to be accountable outside their base.
"Gen Z supports trump."
[Citation Desperately Needed[
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/breaking-down-gender-gap-gen-z-politics-desk-rcna177155 about the poll results they're referring to in the article. Gen Z has the biggest gender gap of all the age groups, with women for Harris by a 33 point margin, but the men about evenly split between Harris and Trump.
If you think about the new voters coming of voting age for this election, it's been 9 years since Trump rode down the escalator to kick off his campaign. So they were too young to hear about or pay attention to a lot the unsavory stuff about him back then, like the Access Hollywood tape. For some reason, many Gen Z men find him appealing, but not Gen Z women. For instance today I saw this video of two Gen Z young women hearing the Access Hollywood audio for the first time. You can see how horrified they are (as most normal people were back when it first came out).
I hope Gen Z shows up. I don't buy into poll results.
Finally a great use of the word "cancel".
The kids are alright.
fr fr no cap
Bussin
Yeet the vote
Smells like Gen Z spirit
Good thing we have lots of kids, so I as usual cancel out my husband's vote (if he even bothers this time, R but not enthusiastic about Trump) and all the kids align with me. It may not matter here, with the influx of racist northerners, but who knows?
ETA I have at least one who was not going to vote when it was the two old guys but will vote for Harris.
And this is why Congress tried to ban TikTok. Making a meme to encourage voting? Evil, disgusting, how dare kids want to vote?!
Only Facebook should encourage boomers to vote in hatred and bigotry, not TikTok encouraging someone to vote who was a victim of it!
No it's not. It's because it, like other Chinese companies, are at risk of being browbeaten by their government into providing whatever information they have on American users to use as they wish. One can easily argue what kind of risk that actually poses, but that's why they're trying to ban it. Unless you have some sort of proof....
Fair point, but if they were at all actually interested in American privacy, they'd not only target TikTok. Facebook, Twitter and Google have all been actually proven to have leaked or sold user information to anyone that'll pay (including American adversaries).
While I don't disagree that the risk is there with TikTok, all they can bring to bear against it is speculation and what-ifs. They have concrete proof of other companies willingly doing what they're afraid TikTok MIGHT do.
Absolutely, they should target all of them.
However, you're ignoring the difference here; that TikTok is a Chinese company, and in that kind of system, you can't really separate "private" companies and the CCP.
It would be trivial for China to get data from TikTok.
Your comment lead me to this article (CNN), because I kept hearing stuff like bytedance is primarily owned by American or non-chinese companies, blah blah blah. So I appreciate you prompting me to look further into it. Seems pretty cut and dry that you're correct. (Wasn't just this article that pointed it out, but it was the most inclusive and concise one I found)
All that said, what information can china get from the app that they don't already have, or can already purchase from any of the other data collectors/sellers available? Is it just the fact they can do it for free?
There's also the option that perhaps the CCP will decide (or maybe has already) to influence what Americans see on the app. Perfectly feasible, but in my experience, it shows you what it knows you like to see. My feed is primarily related to human rights, recent politics, American history, science and tech, and cute dog/cat videos. My wife's feed is primarily horse/animal, music, entertaining things. creepy old dudes complain all they see is half dressed teenagers dancing (we all know why they're seeing that). If they're interfering with the algorithm to influence American politics (like Russia did with Facebook), I think they're doing so poorly.
And guess what? If you've ever sold anything on TikTok, Bytedance (and the CCP) has your SSN, asking with a treasure trove of personal info! Byebye, identity!
Which is exactly why the US is looking at a sale / ban scenario. I doubt it'll ever actually happen.
It's probably a mix of things, but I wouldn't be surprised if the politicians most heavily advocating for banning it expect to get some big payout. The first I've heard of the TikTok ban was from Trump who was trying to coerce them to sell it to Microsoft (I expect he would've got some financial benefit from this). In terms of the data-collection, potentially harmful and biased algorithms, and data exfiltration by government agencies, it's not like the U.S. companies are much better.
No argument on US companies not being much better. At least there's some paperwork that gets in the way.
If Congress cared about privacy, they'd abolish Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and the NSA, and enforce the 4th Amendment.
Instead they try to stiffle the first amendment because it's hosted in the enemy of the week's borders.
In 2016 it was the other way around, a lot of closeted people swung the vote. Thanks Hilary.
Fuck yeah, the young shall rise up to remove their Masters
Good to see, but in my country the trend is: Vote alt right because it's edgy.
Nice, 2016 throwback vibes
she looks like the black guy from the good place
Lol, that would be Chidi.