Stop Shaming Millennials for the 2016 Election

10 min readNov 14, 2016

As a speaker on millennials in the workplace, I try to reject the stereotype that often gets cast upon my generation — that we are lazy, entitled, self-centered, the so-called “me, me, me generation.” I cite studies showing that 50 percent of millennials would take a pay cut to find work that matches their values, 90 percent want to use their skills for good, and 75 percent think that businesses are too focused on their own agenda and not focused enough on improving society. I consistently make the point to executives at companies that if you want millennials to be engaged at work, give them something meaningful to work on, and they can accomplish anything. In my talks, I call us the Purpose Generation.

Yet how could a generation so deeply committed to purpose, innovation, and progressive social values, fail to show up to vote in large numbers, in such a monumental election? What is more self-centered, more narcissistic, more privileged, more lazy than not voting in such a critical election for our nation, vulnerable populations, and our planet?

We’re still waiting for final millennial turnout data from the election, but the initial stats present a disappointing picture. The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement’s exit polls found that Hillary Clinton won a majority of voters ages 18–29, at 55 percent compared to Donald Trump’s 37 percent, yet five percentage points less than Obama won the youth vote by in 2012 (60 percent to Romney’s 37 percent). CIRCLE also found that in the 2012 election, 97% of young voters voted Democrat or Republican, but this year only 92% did so, which means that 8% of young voters (1 in 10) selected a third-party candidate or a candidate other than Clinton or Trump.

Democratic turnout was down overall, not just among millennial voters. Clinton’s current toll of 60.9 million votes (which will go up as votes are still being counted) is significantly less than the votes Obama got for his re-election bid in 2012 (65.9 million), and CNN reported that 2016 voter turnout was at a 20-year low, with about 45 percent of eligible voters not voting on November 8th.

Support for Trump went up as voters got older, and Hillary’s support declined with age.

Cool blue maps, just like yard signs, don’t vote

According to a survey released by Mic, here’s what the electoral map would have looked like if only millennials had voted, showing a clear victory for Hillary Clinton.

But sadly, as Emma Lord pointed out in Bustle, this map was merely from a survey released on October 26, 2016, not actual election data. The Pew Research Center estimates that millennials recently equaled and will soon surpass their Baby Boomer parents as the largest voting bloc in the country — there are 69 million eligible millennial voters, which make up 31 percent of the eligible electorate. Yet, according to CIRCLE, young voters aged 18–29 only cast 19 percent of all votes in the 2016 presidential election, which is the same as the youth share of voters in 2012. Unfortunately, cool blue maps like the one above, just like yard signs, don’t vote, as we learned on November 8, 2016.

While Hillary Clinton won a majority of voters under 30, the reality is that millennials did not show up for her as strongly as they did for Barack Obama in 2012. She won the millennial vote, but not with the numbers she desperately needed from them. Sure, if only millennials had voted, Hillary (or any Democrat) would have won easily, but that’s a fantasy. The reality is that had more millennials simply showed up to the polls in several key states, she could have won.

My initial reaction upon hearing about low youth voter turnout was to blame my fellow millennials, again reverting to tried and true stereotypes. “If only my lazy hipster friends had voted, we wouldn’t have woken up to the nightmare of a Trump presidency.” Too many young people do not yet truly understand the importance of civic engagement, respectful discourse, or participatory government; maybe they lack the empathy or the maturity required to have a productive conversation with someone who shares differing beliefs, and that’s a problem all of us need to solve.

Why was millennial turnout lower than in 2012?

If lack of millennial turnout was a factor, so was the candidate millennials were asked to show up for. As my friend commented on my Facebook wall a few weeks ago, when I asked whether millennials would save the day or screw up the 2016 election:

“We still have serious student debt, no home ownership, skyrocketing rents, fifteen years of warfare that our country still pays for, and nothing but a screwed-up election cycle that constantly ignores our interests in favor of framing a Hillary vs. Evil Republicans setup. I refuse to shoulder the responsibility of the outcome of a manufactured decision, and if our country could fall apart in four years or less it’s because it’s been decaying from the inside for a long time already.”

The above sentiment was written by a progressive friend, but it could have just as easily been written by a disaffected Trump supporter. Millennials who didn’t turn out to vote are still reeling from an economic recession. Young voters supported Obama in the past, but this time they were hoping for a protest candidate, to move the country in a more progressive direction. They didn’t get a protest candidate, they got Hillary Clinton.

Despite all the Hollywood celebrity backings and Jay-Z concerts, Hillary didn’t have what Obama had: she didn’t fire up millennials to actually vote. Not enough millennials cared about her superior qualifications, her decades of civil service, or her resilient work ethic. Experience didn’t matter, authenticity did. She simply didn’t resonate with enough millennials. They didn’t believe she genuinely shared their values. They wanted a change to the status quo that she couldn’t provide. She represented Wall Street, and what recent college graduate with thousands of dollars of student debt who is struggling to find a job (let alone a meaningful job) wants Wall Street?

Clearly, the Democratic Party greatly underestimated the extent to which young voters disliked and mistrusted Clinton. Her rival, Bernie Sanders, was far more popular among millennial voters. The Washington Post even reported that Bernie Sanders won more votes during the primary campaign among voters under 30 than both Clinton and Trump combined, by several hundred thousand votes. This is not to presume that Bernie would have defeated Trump in the general election, but to realize that ignoring millennials was a fatal mistake for the Democrats. The Republicans have been losing millennial voters since the oldest ones first voted in the 2000 election (Al Gore and George W. Bush split the under-30 vote), and it seems the Democrats only helped Trump’s cause by failing to nominate a candidate that could pull more young voters to the ballot box.

Without the overwhelming support of young voters, the Democrats have no hope of taking back Washington, since these voters (and their younger Gen-Z counterparts) will continue to make up a significant portion of the voting electorate for decades to come. As Symone D. Sanders, former national press secretary for Bernie Sanders, wrote in the New York Times, “For the Democratic Party to move forward and win, young people — some of the party’s most vocal critics — cannot be shut out of what will be a rebuilding process. Party leadership must bring millennials into the fold with a focus on the issues. Millennials must be brought to the table as equals, their ideas and sentiments valued and their input turned to action.”

Or, in the words of journalist and racial justice activist Shaun King, “Young people are the lifeblood of the Democratic Party. They are the idealists and dreamers. They overwhelmingly supported Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination, but for the first time in recent memory, the clear and obvious candidate of young people was not the choice of the Democratic Party establishment.”

Shaming millennials is just as useless as shaming Trump supporters

If you want millennials to vote, you have to give them someone they are passionate about voting for. Urging them to “stop being lazy, suck it up, be an adult, stop crying and vote for the better of two candidates, even if you don’t like either candidate,” didn’t seem to work so well on November 8th.

Just to be clear here, I’m got giving millennials who didn’t vote a free pass. I’m angry and appalled at them. I was too young to vote in 2000, but I still got the word out about Al Gore. In 2004, I voted for John Kerry, a very weak candidate. In 2008, I moved to Indiana to register thousands of new voters and get out the vote for Barack Obama (who won Indiana by just 30,000 votes, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so since 1964). In 2012, I voted for Obama again, even though after working for him in 2008, I felt like he had burned progressives on a number of important issues. In 2016, I supported, campaigned, and voted for Bernie; and then I supported, campaigned, and voted for Hillary.

So believe me, I’m pissed at young people who didn’t vote. I’m pissed most of all, on behalf of the millions of women, minorities, LGBT people, and immigrants, whose lives are going to suffer under a Trump presidency. But shaming young people for not voting for something they didn’t believe in, seems about as productive as shaming white voters or women who voted for Trump. Everyone wants to “understand” and “empathize” with the white working-class voter who wasn’t compelled to vote for Clinton, but all they want to tell millennials, who represent the future of the Democatic Party, is that they are privileged fuckers who were too lazy to care.

Many of these non-voters or third-party voters are privileged. Many of them are also women, working-class people, college graduates or students with thousands of dollars of debt, and minorities. Many of them should know better. They should think beyond their own self-interest. However, by shaming them, you continue to drive them away from political discourse and civil engagement. You can yell at them about “civic discourse” and “didn’t you take 2nd grade history, you should know better, YOU HAVE TO FUCKING VOTE DEMOCRAT YOU DIPSHIT, EVEN IF THE CANDIDATE ISN’T PERFECT!,” and I totally agree with this logic — it is everything I’ve been taught since 2nd grade — it is everything all of us have been taught since 2nd grade (“life isn’t perfect, make the best of it, you can’t always get what you want”), but this logic failed the liberal establishment.

Sadly, on November 8th, 2nd grade history wasn’t important. Meeting voters where they were was important, and the Democrats ignored millennias, just like they ignored the Rust Belt.

Whoever the Democratic candidate is in 2020, that person will need to be more of an outsider, more rebellious, more authentic and honest, more transparent, more forward-thinking, more anti-establishment, more pro working-class, less tied to Wall St., less elite, and far more progressive than Hillary Clinton. That person will need to be someone working-class whites, working-class women, students, blacks, Latinos, immigrants, and young voters truly identify with. The fact that so many white women, both college educated and not, voted against Hillary, is particularly depressing, but it proves just how unrelateable she was during a protest election.

How will we get more millennials to vote in 2018 and 2020?

Moving forward, how we will motivate and inspire more of the 69 million millennials to vote? How will we solve millennial apathy? Is it solvable? Will millennials show up to vote for a candidate that speaks more honestly and urgently to their concerns, like they did in 2008 and 2012 with Obama? Is it possible for “millennials,” a non-monolithic demographic group (which incorporates an incredibly diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds, political affiliations, and voting priorities), to ever coalesce around one leader or one party platform, or is that by definition impossible? How will the Democratic Party bring millennial leaders to the table, especially now that so many of them feel ignored and shut out?

Perhaps more importantly, given the dark reality of a Trump presidency, how will my generation push our vision of the future forward, outside of a Democratic Party establishment? How will we take ownership of our own destiny? Which progressive millennial leaders will we push forward? What will they look like? How old will they be? Who will they represent? What will their values be?

How will we create progress outside of the political system? Which communities, companies, and movements, will we champion? How will we fight for social change, defend civil and human rights, and protect the climate, at home and abroad? How will we organize to ensure the rights of women, minorities, and immigrants, are not only protected, but advanced? How will we spread empathy and build bridges between urban and rural allies, the wealthy and poor, educated and disenfranchised? How will we provide jobs, affordable education and healthcare for everyone, regardless of where they live?

Critics will continue to call us the “me, me, me generation,” and with the recent election, they have more ammunition to work with. I continue to believe we are the Purpose Generation. But now we actually have to prove it.