I
really need to be doing other things right now, so it's bad luck I should happen to lurk today and come upon this thread. I can't stop myself from responding, so... Ahem. *Clears throat*
The "millennial backlash" you guys keep mentioning is already a factor. It won Obama the election in 2008, and it
is happening again in this election. You're just not supposed to know about it.
You almost wouldn't know he's running, from reading this thread (or watching the news), but I'm talking about Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders and the Importance of Grassroots
Millennials Have Gotten Royally Screwed: That's Why They're Voting for Bernie Sanders
Bernie is the reform populist answer to the authoritarian/nationalist populism of Trump. The light side of the Force that balances the darkness.
He represents the socially and economically liberal side* of populist angst--the "change" that young progressives really wanted when we voted for Obama in 2008 (only to end up with Bush III).
*I'm not sure what side of populist angst Trump represents, but I'm inclined to sum it up as: the really ugly side.
Most of Bernie's positions (and yeah, unlike certain candidates, he
has positions) enjoy majority support among Americans, regardless of political affiliation. Some of my favorites include: overturning Citizen's United and getting money out of government and the electoral process; breaking up "too big to fail" banks and reinstating Glass-Steagall; reversing a foreign policy of endless war and empire to focus on issues at home; taking steps to address climate change; ending the colossal failure of the war on drugs; etc. And those are just the moderate,
obviously common sense policies! Add in the "dirty socialist" ideas like universal health care, free public college, and a progressive tax plan, and he's pretty much my dream candidate. Unlike the dark horse Obama, who we accepted as a progressive at his word, Bernie has a decades long career as an Independent that demonstrates he has not wavered in his support and fight for populist positions in the face of the bought-and-paid-for, politics-for-big-business-as-usual of both parties.
Most Americans agree with Sanders
According to Polls Most Americans are Socialists Like Bernie Sanders
Of course, up until very recently, he hasn't gotten any publicity, because Big Media is both deeply invested in Clinton's campaign and in love with the ratings from Trump's sideshow. Big Media, having a large lobbyist/campaign contribution bloc and obviously enamored of the status quo, wants nothing more than Clinton's "inevitable" coronation, and thus they are pretty damn terrified of Bernie. Notice how, since his polling numbers have become too big to ignore in the last week or two and the media has been forced to cover him, the hit pieces are coming hard and fast, not only from Rupert Murdoch rags like the WSJ, but from "liberal" news as well--and is anyone surprised when Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, and Cablevision are all top Clinton donors?
But despite the media blackout and mudslinging, he's been quietly closing the gap on Clinton: he's winning in New Hampshire, neck and neck in Iowa, in poll numbers very similar to (or better than) where Obama was in 2008, on the back of a very similar grassroots, Millennial-driven campaign. And we know how that turned out.
Furthermore, Bernie trounces Trump in every Quinnipiac national poll (in fact, most polls except Fox News). Actually, so does Hillary, albeit by a far smaller margin than Bernie. Worries of a Trump presidency thus seem overrated; to my eye, Clinton is the clear "chosen one" of the establishment. (I've even wondered if Trump's entire campaign is meant for Clinton's benefit... a pretty thick tin-foil hat even for me, but hey. Once you come to accept both Democrats and Republicans as two horns of the same monster, anything starts to look possible!)
For the same reason, I find the MSM meme that "Bernie is not electable in the general population" to be just that--yet another desperate psychic manipulation.
General Election: Trump vs. Sanders
As for Trump's candidacy, aside from shaking up the status quo in his own "unique" way, I appreciate him for one thing and one thing only. I used to be worried about illegal immigration and in favor of tightening immigration laws. Trump is one of the many reasons I've more or less reversed that stance, because he shows where such a stance could lead. And it's not a direction I care to take myself or my country.
I also appreciate that he's disrupting the RNC so thoroughly and simultaneously exposing some of the uglier sides of the party establishment. (Again, Bernie's doing the same with Wasserman-Schultz's DNC.) Other than that, to me Trump is nothing more than the personification of the "reality TV effect" in politics. Low information voters love spectacle and they love to feel their ignorance validated by "a rich guy who gets it". There is a certain low cunning to what Trump does, like a school yard bully with a really solid grasp on personal insults. I would not call it genius.
Sorry I have to come in here with my Bernie loudspeaker, but reading this thread (edit: until the IlliniDave response that appeared while I typed this), you'd almost think Trump and Clinton really are the only choices, which is dismaying, although it is the "reality" being presented by the media.
I am a millennial and I've voted in every election since I turned 18 just in time to vote for Gore. I can assure you I won't vote for Trump or Clinton. Ordinarily, faced with candidates who don't represent me, I'd vote third party, as I did in 2012. This time I'll be voting for Bernie if I have to write him in.
I encourage you to look into him, especially if you are feeling disenfranchised by the other candidates and/or politics as usual. If you like that Trump's shaking up establishment politics but, like me, find him disgusting and morally abhorrent both personally and politically, you may just be a Bernie Sanders supporter without even knowing it.
"An Open Letter to the WSJ on its Bernie Sanders Hit Piece" by U-Mass Professor of Economics Gerald Friedman
http://feelthebern.org/