Hi there.
I’m a Millennial, I was born in the late 1980s.
I’m in my early 30s and I don’t have health insurance,
I have a good amount of student loan debt,
and none of my friends are having kids or buying houses.
I balance my budget but my salary makes it hard to do much more than just barely afford bills. Like half of Americans, I live paycheck to paycheck.
I know people who have had to run GoFundMes to pay for basic medical procedures to save their (or their family member’s) life.
I am terrified of climate change. In 2018 scientists said we have basically 12 years left to make massive changes to our world in order to avoid complete disaster. My generation will see even more forest fires, hurricanes, rising seas, and fascist governments rising to either protect their resources or secure power in a world of competition for survival.
I’m lucky and privileged enough to have gotten a college education, but there are many around me who are much worse off and only one emergency away from complete financial ruin.
The only candidate remotely speaking to my generation or the poor in this country is Bernie Sanders.
Since the race has been completely rocked by Amy and Pete’s swift departure before Super Tuesday, Joe Biden has received millions of votes under the idea that he can “unite the party” and thank God, the primaries are finally over.
When you look at the data however, in state after state, the only unity Joe Biden has managed to gain is among voters over 50. Bernie Sanders has a commanding lead with everybody underneath.
Why the generational difference?
As somebody who just knocked on thousands of doors in California and reaching out to Latino voters who don’t normally vote (who decisively gave Bernie a win in the largest and most diverse state in the country) and made hundreds of phone calls this week, I started to hear the same thing over and over from older voters:
“I like Bernie Sanders, but my number one issue is beating Donald Trump so I’m voting for Joe Biden. I’m afraid Bernie’s too extreme.”*
(*This claim based on no evidence except maybe the correct notion that the mainstream media has been doing nothing but a non-stop freakout and smear campaign since Sanders’ Nevada win — this has less to do with Sanders chances against Trump and the fact that he is a direct threat to their corporate interests).
What’s it called again when you keep trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results?
John Kerry, the “moderate” candidate, lost to an extremely unpopular Republican who threatened the very tenants of American democracy. Hillary Clinton, another moderate, lost to an extremely unpopular Republican who spoke like a demagogue and constantly criticized American democracy. There is nothing “safe” about any of these candidates.
Joe Biden is not only another moderate that feels exactly like a rehash of these races, but one with a much worse record on race, trade, and came 4th and 5th in the only 2 states he spent 6 months campaigning in that voters got to see him a lot in.
Joe Biden WILL lose to Donald Trump — but even if he gets lucky and wins, he offers my generation absolutely nothing.
For younger voters, this election is about our very lives and our family’s wellbeing. Donald Trump will do nothing about climate change, Joe Biden will do next to nothing (and his leaked cabinet looks like progress on any front will be swiftly put down). Yes, Trump will keep kids in cages — but it was the Obama administration that ramped up deportations and had the first instances of family separation. Our student loan debts and cost of education are exploding under Trump, but Joe Biden wrote the law that says I can’t default on my loans.
If you’re an older voter, what will it take for you to listen? Do you even care?
If your first response to this is, “Listen up, we can work on your problems once we get Trump out”, Joe Biden will not be any friendlier to us than Trump. Corporations will continue to have influence in the White House and prevent any sweeping changes we need, and you will lose an entire generation from paying attention or getting involved in politics — because, as we correctly will feel, the entire system, Democrat or Republican, is rigged against us. Republicans are far worse, but Democrats are far too cozy with money and power at the moment to be any real force for labor, minorities, or young people.
If you want to say, “Maybe you could push for these changes, then you need to vote” — I have nothing more to say to you. Youth turnout is always, always low — but voter suppression like having one polling location for an entire university doesn’t help. Maybe you should ask yourself why YOU keep voting the way you do, or why your generation does — given that voters over 50 overwhelmingly gave us Donald Trump
If you want to say, “Bernie has no path to the nomination now and is only dividing the party”, then you have completely fallen into the trap of Us vs. Them, Democrat vs. Republican. The party WILL NOT be healed overnight if Bernie drops out or not, and he is NOT the one who will keep voters from turning out for Joe Biden — Joe Biden is doing that himself with his miserable campaign proposals. Will I personally turn out for Biden vs. Trump? Of course, but maybe the same uninspired voters who stayed home in 2016 won’t. I for one appreciate Bernie’s willingness to stay in this race and bring the fight of millions to the national stage as long as he can — up against millions of dollars from corrupt industries, a hostile media, and an entire party apparatus that apparently can’t handle simple ideas like Medicare For All or actually confronting money in politics.
There are still lots of delegates to be assigned and although its a very steep climb for Sanders, I urge you to join the young people and vote our common conscience. Not only is he the best candidate, but he’s the one who can actually beat Trump.
So what will you do — will you stand with the future, or will you be the yoke around your children’s necks? The choice is yours.
P.S. Also please, for the love of God turn off cable news. In all my door knocking, the only misinformation I regularly encountered was from older voters and was straight from propaganda like MSNBC and CNN (which, lets be honest, are just as much corporate propaganda as FOX).