Group chats were 🔥🔥🔥 as young Dems trashed Joe Biden’s debate performance
For young voters who watched the first debate of the 2024 election, the group chat was the place to be and circus tent emojis were in circulation.
As soon as President Joe Biden opened his mouth Thursday night, “We were all like f—,” said Necati Aslan, 22, the president of the Drexel Democrats.
Tension — and panic — filled the air at the group’s watch party, with Biden’s voice sounding more hoarse, and older, than usual.
Aslan’s voice was hoarse as well on Friday morning, from yelling at the screen. In Aslan’s eyes, the president was just sick. But other members of the group argued that Biden’s performance is a sign that he’s too old to run. As the young Democrats watched the debate on a projection screen in a room on campus, they glanced down at buzzing phones. The texts about Biden’s age just kept coming.
“It was all negative,” Aslan said. “It was all about age, and all from Democrats. … We did not get any positive texts. It was all people panicking about the debate.”
Both candidates are hoping to reach young voters, who helped elect Biden in 2020 — though not as much as older Americans who continue to show up on Election Day in bigger numbers. While polling has shown younger voters favoring Biden over Trump, the president’s support has slipped as some Gen Z voters turn on him over their concern for the death toll in Gaza and other issues. After thousands of voters showed their distaste for Biden’s support of Israel through protest votes during the primaries, fears linger over how strong turnout will be in November.
For those young people who watched the first debate of the 2024 election, whether at home, at watch parties, or over dinner with friends, the group chat was the place to be. For Gen Z, the real debate was happening online.
» READ MORE: Some young Pa. voters can’t bring themselves to vote for Biden this year over the war in Gaza
A ‘puppet show’
“Who’s watching the presidential puppet show rn,” Maddy Kessler, 22, who recently graduated from Bryn Mawr College, texted her friends, along with a circus tent emoji.
“I think ‘ Biden ’ is someone in a mask … cus he’s moving f— weird as hell,” she wrote in a second message.
“They should’ve let RFK debate it would’ve been way more interesting,” she added.
Her friend Chris, a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fan, responded that he’s watching therealdebate.com, which directed to a stream hosted by RFK on Rumble, a YouTube alternative.
“RFKs stream has like 1.5 mil watchers,” her friend wrote.
Still, Kessler, who was a pro-Palestine activist on campus, said she and her other friends feel like they have no choice but to vote for Biden, even though they have significant concerns about his age, health, and ability “to form coherent sentences.”
Lourdes Cardamone, president of Temple University Democrats, also spent her evening frustrated — and texting.
“God save us,” one friend in her group chat texted midway through the debate. The thread continued, darkly. “guys, this isn’t real,” another friend wrote. “i am heartbroken that these men are the options …”
The debate chat ended with a simple question: “How is this a real presidential debate”. That was after Trump told America, again, that he “didn’t have sex with a porn star.”
Cardamone went to bed feeling pessimistic about the nation’s future.
”When we vote, we are voting for our futures, for our rights, so we should walk away from the debate feeling enlightened and inspired by the candidates, ready to use our voices at the polls,” she said in an interview Friday.
Instead, many walked away “laughing and frustrated.”
Despite this, she said she hopes people remember that “Trump stepping into the White House would be detrimental to our country.”
Unzel Bukhari, 21, a Swarthmore College senior, watched the debate while eating salmon and rice in her friend’s apartment living room.
Bukhari, who has voted for Democrats in the past, is disappointed in Biden’s choice to provide weapons to Israel and plans to write in a protest vote in November. She and her friends felt “pure outrage” over some of what Biden and Trump said during the debate, particularly when Trump called Biden “a Palestinian,” in a derogatory way, she recalled Friday. That outrage, and jokes about the candidates, vibrated through her phone Thursday night.
“It was just a crazy thing to say … ” she said. “I remember right after that was said, I got like, four text messages being like, did you just say Biden is a Palestinian? Like, what does that even mean?”
Maya Halma, 21, a recent Temple University graduate and former president of the campus Democrats group, had a quieter night. She chose not to watch the debate.
“I already know who I’m voting for and I know I would not enjoy having to listen to them argue, especially Trump,” said the Philadelphia resident in a text message.
Halma has known for months that she will unenthusiastically vote for Biden, but she won’t campaign for him. She’s been trying to convince her friends who are on the fence to vote for him, too.
But based on what she heard about the debate, she’s concerned persuading them will be harder now. Biden’s performance, she said, “did more harm than good.”