{"id":76157,"date":"2025-07-19T19:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T19:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/76157\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T19:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T19:39:10","slug":"beto-orourke-holds-town-hall-style-event-in-philly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/76157\/","title":{"rendered":"Beto O\u2019Rourke holds town hall-style event in Philly"},"content":{"rendered":"

O\u2019Rourke also said that Democrats talked about saving democracy but it was a concept lost on many Americans who felt disenfranchised, citing the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission<\/a>, which prohibited limits on independent expenditures by corporations and individuals.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this a democracy where one person named Elon Musk can spend $300 million to purchase the outcome of a presidential election?\u201d he said. \u201cIs this a democracy where political action committees can pour millions of dollars into state house, state senate, U.S. Congressional, U.S. Senate races to purchase the outcomes \u2014 the policies that those members of Congress pursue, the future that we build or deny to one another? It sure doesn\u2019t feel like a democracy to me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Where Democrats went wrong in wooing young voters<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke\u2019s visit to the city coincided with the 2025 national convention of the Young Democrats of America<\/a> held in Philadelphia last week.\n<\/p>\n

At the town hall, University of Pittsburgh student Andrew Wise, who serves as president of the school\u2019s College Democrats, asked how more youth can be motivated to support Democrats.\n <\/p>\n

Although young voters in Pennsylvania and around the country leaned toward Harris in the 2024 election<\/a>, a greater percentage voted for Trump and Republicans compared to 2020. Citing a recent Yale Youth Poll<\/a>, Wise noted that voters ages 18 through 21 favor Republicans by almost 12 points.
\n\"AUniversity of Pittsburgh student Andrew Wise poses a question to former U.S. Congressman Beto O\u2019Rourke of Texas at an event in Center City Friday night. (Carmen Russell-Sluchansky\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rouke said that Democrats didn\u2019t do enough to court the youth vote in 2024 and added that some Democrats are now going on Joe Rogan and \u201ccalling color commentary at basketball games,\u201d and said that was\u00a0 \u201cgreat.\u201d He added that Democrats need to build more direct lines of communication with youth voters.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the answer, and this may be too obvious, is why don\u2019t we follow young leaders like you who are the age of the people that we\u2019re trying to reach,\u201d he told Wise. \u201cYou are closest to the people that we are trying to turn out right now. And so part of the reason I asked if I could come to the Young Democrats of America Convention and speak last night and be there for a town hall today, I want to listen and learn about what you\u2019re working on, what you\u2019re doing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

After the event, Wise said that he appreciated O\u2019Rourke\u2019s comments, and that it conveyed a strong \u201cpopulist message that resonates with the average American, the type of American that we lost in the past.\u201d
\n\"PennsylvaniaPennsylvania state Sen. Sharif Street talks to an audience at a an event in Center City, Philadelphia, Friday night hosting former U.S. Congressman Beto O\u2019Rourke of Texas. (Carmen Russell-Sluchansky\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

Wise agreed that Democrats should have done more to talk to younger voters like himself, which Trump had done effectively.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was on podcasts, podcasts that I listened to personally as a younger white guy,\u201d Wise said. \u201cHe got out there and he talked to people and he didn\u2019t say, \u2018Oh, this isn\u2019t the traditional media ecosystem.\u2019 We can go out and talk to people on sports podcasts, meet people where they are, and where people are is on their stereo systems in their AirPods every day while they\u2019re getting work done, while they\u2019re going to work. And that\u2019s how you reach people, not going on late night TV, not going on CNN. That stuff doesn\u2019t work anymore.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

He added that Mamdani showed how effective that can be. Mamdani is credited with using social media to fuel his successful primary run<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of us are calling it the new Tea Party movement, but really all I think it is is progressives coming together and uniting as a united front, which Beto talks about,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"O\u2019Rourke also said that Democrats talked about saving democracy but it was a concept lost on many Americans…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":76158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,23231,14655,52832,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-76157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-beto-orourke","10":"tag-center-city","11":"tag-kenyatta-johnson","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114881597515419662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}