We Should Stop Trying To Win Young Voters
We should also do more baking and cooking. Luckily, that's what today's issue is all about.
We’re less than 100 days away from the 2020 election. The polling for President Donald Trump is not good. If the election were held today, he would lose and the Republicans would lose the Senate.
It’s not that the polls are wrong, or that they’re skewed in any sort of meaningful way. The President’s team knows he and the Republican Party are in trouble. There is a reason Brad Parscale was fired, and there is a reason they put up a replacement that knows how to win the suburbs.
The suburbs are one of many areas that the Republicans need to win to at least maintain the status quo. They also need to win back blue-collar workers, which will be tough given that Trump’s opponent isn’t someone whose campaign hates blue-collar workers. He will struggle in some areas, but he has the opportunity to win some voters back and even gain some new voters if a few conditions (like a rebounding economy) are met.
There is one segment of voters that both the Democrats and Republicans would love to get out and vote for them: Young voters.
They’re the Holy Grail of electoral politics, and each side is just certain that if they just find the right message then they’ll win them over. Bernie Sanders thought he had the right message because young voters were all over social media praising him and his campaign for finally pushing the ideas they wanted.
Except that they never turned out to actually vote for him. They never do. Hard to imagine they ever will.
Much like the socialist grab bag of ideas that Sanders put out there, young voters want politicians to give them the things they call for. Whether the young kids are inherently conservative or progressive, they want their preferred politicians to just give those things over, but they don’t want to have to actually work to win those elections. They don’t go out and vote and they don’t practice any sort of political activism that requires actually driving people out to the polls for their preferred candidates.
Imagine how different the political landscape would look if young voters were more engaged and went out to vote in the numbers we know they have. Would we have two geriatrics who are both losing their minds debating on whether or not to… actually debate? Would the Democrats’ last hope be on someone who half the time doesn’t know where he is and would the Republicans be forced to hold their noses and vote for someone a lot of the more moderates ones find personally contemptible?
Doubtful. Chances are we’d see someone a little younger and fresher on both sides. But, we won’t see that.
So, I don’t think the political parties should waste their time on those voters anymore. They have earn their spot at the grown-ups’ table. If young voters don’t want old, out of touch candidates representing them, then they better start actually working to make the changes. Otherwise, they’ll continue to be nothing more than children upset at the world but not motivated enough to change it.
The 1619 Project’s Creator Admits It’s Not Really History
The 1619 Project, an ideologically-driven revisionist history of the United States, has been getting a lot of attention over the last several days as Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton threatened legislation to defund any school that uses any curriculum based on it.
While I advise against actually putting forward any such legislation, Cotton’s threat appears to have forced the creator of the controversial project to go on the defensive where others – including historians critical of the premise she built the project from – did not.
Nikole Hannah-Jones took to Twitter Monday morning to walk back the assertion that the 1619 Project was “a history,” insisting that it was a project of journalism.
That tweets here are part of a larger thread where Hannah-Jones tries to clarify the purpose of the project. However, the treatment of the 1619 Project has been pushed by her, the New York Times, and supporters as THE definitive history of the United States, arguing that the “true” history of the nation stemmed from the arrival of the first slave ship in 1619, rather than from the actual Declaration of Independence from Great Britain and the subject structuring of the United States Constitution.
Hannah-Jones is attempting to deflect that this was ever an attempt to revise history, despite the fact that her project was turned into a curriculum specifically to be taught in schools.
Part of the problem here is of Hannah-Jones’ own making: The Pulitzer Center’s materials are not a “curriculum” at all, but a series of lesson plans. Either she is ignorant of how education actually works (the word “curriculum” is a defined approximately all the materials necessary for an entire course) or there actually were plans to create an entirely restructured course of American history premised on the 1619 Project.
The larger issue here, though, is that her claim that this is a project of journalism meant to challenge our understanding of history is that journalism is meant to be based on truth and the challenges journalism presents to those in power are through the use of facts that can be backed up by documentary evidence.
The documentary evidence surrounding the founding of our nation is much more complex than the 1619 Project tries to make it (the irony being that the project itself attempts to claim that the traditional understanding of American history is not complex enough to account for the true impact of slavery on it). At the same time that slave ships were coming to America to deliver slaves, other colonies were established that not only didn’t rely on them but actually thrived.
Further, when it comes to the founding of the country itself, many of the biggest influences on the founding of our nation were themselves opposed to slavery. Thomas Jefferson originally drafted the Declaration of Independence to include anti-slavery language, but it order to get the colonies to agree to sign it, it was scrapped. Jefferson continued to work, however, to get the Virginia legislature to oppose the slave trade. Many of the Founders were against the slave trade and some were outright opposed to slavery.
While Hannah-Jones ignores all this, she states that there was a movement in England to abolish slavery, a claimed that is almost impossible to back up. There may have been small pockets but there was nothing remotely resembling a national movement until decades later – and, inconveniently enough, decades after American leaders were working to get rid of the slave trade.
It doesn’t take a series of experts on history – or a group of journalists keen on revising history more to their liking – to realize that there are flaws in the 1619 Project‘s premise and execution. But as historians from all sides unite to call out this piece of “journalism” on its historical flaws, and as there is a growing rejection of the entire premise, it appears that there is enough pressure to make her walk some things back.
Homestyle: The Great Homestyle Baking Show
On this week’s episode of Homestyle, my co-host Leigh Guidry and I talk about the great stress reliever that is baking.
Well, I say stress reliever as though the stress on my belt doesn’t exist. Aside from that, though, baking is very calming and very rewarding on the nerves. In this episode, we talk about everything from cakes out of a box to homemade cakes.
If you want to hear more, you can always go back and listen to previous episodes, and we’d love to hear your feedback. Subscribe, rate, and review the podcast here, and if you have cooking, crafting, or family activity ideas, you can find us on Facebook and on Instagram (@Homestylepod).
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The Homestyle Podcast is a joint venture between myself and one of my best friends, education reporter Leigh Guidry. Throughout each episode, we discuss cooking, crafting, and other hobbies as well as how we make sure to spend time with our families despite how insanely busy life can be. The goal of the podcast has always been to take a moment to focus on what’s really important because, at the end of the day, family and life is more important than whatever distractions are going on in the world around us.
Recipe of the Week: Red Beans and Rice
Okay so, first and foremost, I must tell you that I am currently eating bacon. "But that's a breakfast food, Joseph," some of you are probably saying. But I assure you it's necessary. When cooking virtually anything in the style of south Louisiana (my adopted and beloved home), you start with the holy trinity of cooking: celery, bell pepper, and onion. Adding garlic, salt, and pepper creates the most amazing base.
But you know how you send those flavors to the moon? Render some bacon and cook that base in the fat.
Now you've added a level of smokiness to the trinity. Cube up the bacon, render and then remove it. I drain it all into a big bowl in batches so the bacon gets a little crispier instead of boiling in its own fat.
You're doing all of this in a Dutch oven, by the way. One-pot all this goodness. Makes dishes easier.
1 cup finely chopped bell pepper
1 cup finely chopped yellow onion
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 package andouille sausage
1 package bacon
Ham hocks
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1/2 tbsp. salt
1/2 tsbp. pepper
15-18 cups of water
2 cups rice
1 lb. dry red beans
Chop bacon and cook in batches over medium-high heat. Once you’ve rendered the fat from a batch, pour into a bowl and strain out the liquid fat. Repeat until all bacon is cooked and set aside.
Spoon some of the liquid fat back into your Dutch oven and add your trinity, garlic, salt, and pepper. Cook until the onions and celery are translucent and beginning to brown properly.
Turn heat down to medium and add 10-12 cups of water and the pound of beans. Leave uncovered to cook for an hour.
After an hour, add the ham hocks and continue to cook for another 30 minutes to an hour.
Add the andouille sausage and cooked bacon. Cook for another 30 minutes to one hour.
When most of the water has been cooked off and absorbed by the beans, add about five more cups of water, turn the heat to low, and let it cook until it reaches your desired consistency (1-2 hours).
Add more water as necessary, including on reheating the next day. Cook rice as you need it, rather than a big batch at once.
Final Thoughts
Sometime this week, before I am forced to go back to school for in-service days and training, I will be compiling all my recipes for you to have easy access to. That’ll come out via email by Friday.