Monday, August 01, 2016

US millennials need to get over Sanders and use some common sense

Still fixating a little on the US elections, a poll of young people ("millennials") in 11 "battleground states", reported recently in Grist, suggests that:
1) Nearly half of young voters are apparently not politically sophisticated enough (or, more generously, have been so disillusioned by the Sanders-Clinton confrontation) to tell the difference between Clinton's and Trump's views on transitioning away from fossil fuels and on clean air and water protection. In fact, 68% of Sanders supporters (and 41% of all the millennials polled) see little or no difference between Clinton and Trump on the issues that most matter to them.
So, just for clarification, Hillary Clinton is the one that calls climate change "an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time", and Donald Trump is the one who calls climate change "a hoax" and wants to dismantle the Enviromnental Protection Agency (EPA). It's not that difficult. It just requires the extraction of one's head from one's ass.
2) On the other hand, 75% of these same misguided millennials say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who stressed the importance of a transition to renewable energy, and about the same proportion would be much less likely to vote for a candidate who wanted to eliminate the EPA. Indeed, these issues (along with views on abortion and homosexuality) are far and away the most polarizing issues in their view.
So, there is the silver lining: it's not that millennials are totally foolish and thoughtless; it's just that they seem to be stuck in post-Sanders denial, and are apparently (for whatever reasons) wilfully misinterpreting or just plain ignoring many of the words that are coming out of Hillary Clinton's mouth. If she, and the Democratic Party organization, stresses these issues and reaches out to these young disillusioned people, then perhaps all is not lost. The other thing that needs to happen, of course, is that these young disillusioned people need to be encouraged to actually get out and vote.
As an outsider looking in, the differences between the two candidates seem so stark, and the prudent course of action so.clear, that it is difficult to credit such wilful ignorance. Yes, the Sanders dream has crashed and burned, but the logical response is not to facilitate the election of his diametric opposite, but to work for the election of the next best option. This is not an exercise in cynical realpolitik, it's just common sense. And even millennials have some of that, don't they?
The young people of America have about three months to get their act together - the fate kf the Western world may rest in their hands.

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