So Hillary Clinton is really struggling with millennials right now it seems and it’s contributing to the race being closer than it should be. Why is she struggling so much with millennials though? Well, I think it’s a number of things, but it sort of boils down to that she’s running an uninspiring campaign. Her best support from millennials came after Bernie’s endorsement and after the DNC, but since then, she’s just been losing millennial support to third parties according to the polls.
Her disappearing support among millennials is not part of the vast right wing conspiracy, it has nothing to do with her health, it has nothing to do with Putin, it has nothing to do with sexism from what I can tell. Her lack of millennial support is entirely her own doing. Ever since Bernie’s endorsement, Hillary has been running to the right, as the Clinton’s are known for doing.
Hillary has been seeking and gaining the endorsements of Bush era neocons, including the architects of the Iraq War. This turns off millennials, because we don’t like war. Hillary has also been appointing Wall Street people to her transition team. Her accusing of Trump being under Russian influence is classic red-baiting, a smear normally used to discredit leftists. Most millennials lean slightly or a lot to the left, so Hillary’s red-baiting of Trump is also seen as a warning to the left that she doesn’t care about them. Another thing is, Hillary’s rhetoric towards Russia is Cold War rhetoric, and millennials don’t want another Cold War with a nuclear armed state. Millennials aren’t scared of communism or socialism, in fact millennials have a more favorable view of socialism than capitalism! So yea, the whole fear Russia thing turns us off (I’m a millennial).
Another thing Hillary has been doing that turns young people off is she says that Trump isn’t a real Republican, that he isn’t Ronald Raegan. By saying this, Hillary is implying that most Republicans are good people, that Ronald Raegan was a good president. That George W. Bush and his dad are good people. That Paul Ryan is a reasonable good person. This excuses all of their terrible actions and policies, and the millions harmed by them. Millennials are rightly concerned and suspicious as to why Hillary is defending ordinary Republican politicians instead of tying them to Trump and burying them in the election. Millennials don’t like Republicans, and Republicans created Trump over many decades from Goldwater (whom Hillary supported) to Raegan to the two Bush’s to Sarah Palin to Paul Ryan. Every Republican supporting Hillary helped create Trump.
One could try to argue that the neocons endorsing Hillary are doing so because Trump is such a threat, but any realistic person knows that they’re just seeking influence in a Clinton administration. Then ask, why would Hillary want the endorsements of neocons? The answer is pretty obvious. Millennials can see that, which is why they’ve been abandoning her campaign in favor of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, who both are far less likely to want war, although more so Jill Stein, but that’s another story.
Since defeating Bernie, Hillary has also stopped pretending to have a grassroots campaign and is just simply going to expensive fundraiser after expensive fundraiser, which leads to millennials not thinking she will actually do anything about money in politics.
During the primary with Bernie, Hillary was sort of forced into being engaged with social movements otherwise Bernie would have won. The anti-TPP movement, the anti-Keystone pipeline movement, the $15 NOW movement, Black Lives Matter and so on. Since then, she’s been pretty quiet about showing solidarity with social movements. She didn’t get out and center supporting the national anthem protests, she hasn’t publicly voiced solidarity with the indigenous shutting down the Dakota Access pipeline, she hasn’t voiced deep support for the prison labor strikes. These are movements which millennials overwhelmingly support, and Bernie continues to support them as well as Jill, thus the migration to her.
So yea, that’s just a small list of reasons why Hillary is losing support among millennials. The problem for Hillary when it comes to Millennials is not a lack of outreach or getting her message across. Her problem is her message. If she wants to win millennials back, or simply keep more from leaving her, she needs to change her message to one that appeals to millennials. Fear of Trump won’t cut it. She isn’t entitled to the vote of millennials, so if she keeps struggling with them, it’s entirely on her.
adamkendall2 