Oh, Mother Jones
I’m a left-leaning millennial who won’t be voting for Hillary Clinton. There have been a lot of stories about the demographic that I happen to belong to. Stories of ire, bewilderment, but mostly of condescension and hatred. Today we got another.
Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery tweeted out an excerpt of New York Times Article, adding “i [sic] have never hated millennials more.”
Even though Twitter user joftius pointed out in the same poll that Hillary Clinton actually does better among millennials than the age-range Clara Jeffery falls into, Kevin Drum took to his keyboard.
Kevin wrote the searing “Don’t Hate Millennials. Save It For Bernie Sanders.” His article blames Bernie Sanders for Clinton’s poor performance among millennials because the criticisms he lobbed at her during the primary. Drum makes no mention of the kid-gloves treatment that Sanders truly gave Clinton by ignoring the many controversies related to her use of a private email server, or that the issues Sanders brought up probably would’ve been used by Donald Trump eventually.
His article ends “He convinced young voters that Hillary Clinton was a shifty, corrupt, lying shill who cared nothing for real progressive values — despite a literal lifetime of fighting for them.” It’s obvious with this supposed mic drop of an ending that Drum’s article is not to sell Clinton to millennials. It’s to chastise Bernie Sanders and the youth that supported him over Hillary Clinton by large margins in the Democratic primary. The whole thing would have been better suited as an email to Clara Jeffery.
The assumption that Drum’s article hinges on is that I needed to be convinced not to support Hillary Clinton. I did not. I needed to be convinced to support a candidate. Bernie Sanders was able to do just that. My Democratic Primary vote for Bernie Sanders was not a vote against Hillary Clinton. It was a vote for Bernie Sanders.
I have been waiting for Hillary Clinton to make more appeals to younger voters even if just in some nominal way. Her proposal for debt-free public college education, however riddled with problems it was, seemed to be a good start. I thought surely she would have to do more.
Yet instead I have seen her seek the endorsement of her friend and war criminal Henry Kissinger. She has courted moderate Republicans. All before turning to the age-range that supported Barack Obama, who she is attempting to be the 3rd term of, by record margins.
If Hillary Clinton’s ascension to the White House can hinge on one generation, liberal pundits (who have been blaming a potential Clinton loss on millennials since before the primaries were even over) might be better served by a pause for self-reflection on who they supported during the primary than penning another take-down of a generation whose political influence has only to grow.
