And here’s why!
Donald Trump has made numerous headlines over the past year or so. His lack of political correctness seems to draw in a large amount of attention. Just recently he made his opinion known over the Oscars ban, claiming that Stacey Dash (Fox news reporter) had “a good point” concerning her views on Black History Month. He has definitely expressed his opinions on Muslims, actually kicking a Muslim couple out of one his rallies. Trump has stated on multiple occasions that he wants to build a wall on the border (because it worked out so well for Berlin, right?), and how having a database with all of the Muslim-Americans registered is the way to truly “make America great again” (because that worked so well for Hitler, right?).
I mean, Stephen King is quite literally the King of horror, but even he couldn’t make this monster up.
In simple words, Trump isn’t the greatest candidate to be voting for. And when looking at the other options, one can feel, well, discouraged. Because it seems that Ben Carson doesn’t exactly have a clue either, and Hillary Clinton really just wants to be a cool kid. (But Bernie Sanders, that’s where it’s at. Feel the Bern and all). So especially for my generation, ah yes, the dreaded millennials, deciding to vote in this election is a little intimidating.
Politics is one of the few things that people tend to have really strong opinions on. Nobody ever says, “eh, I’m a little liberal, a little conservative.” Nobody is ever a “little” anything in the elections. They’re a whole lot of liberal or a whole lot of Republican. Though there are a lot of opinions expressed during election season (by all age groups), there seems to always be a low voter turnout for the millennial age group. Why?
Boston Globe reported that only 19.9 percent of people in the age range of 18 to 29 years old voted in the 2014 election. CIRCLE stated that there were 12.4 million “young voters” registered to vote, but didn’t. Harvard did a study that reported only 36 percent of young people trusted the president to “do the right thing.” Only 18 percent trusted Congress. So a huge reason millennials may not be voting is because of their mistrust of the government. Another potential reason is they just can’t decide on how they feel about big issues, that they spend a lot of time trying to decide where they stand on hot political issues.
In this particular election, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders seem to really be reaching millennials like no other candidate has done before. Bernie is making it a point to make “Black Lives Matter” a bigger part of his platform. These types of issues aren’t being discussed seriously among other candidates. For millennials, they have taken a certain liking to Sanders.
So what’s stopping them from voting for him? Literally nothing.
A lot of young voters seem to mistrust the government, have a clear lack of motivation, and this idea that nothing they do can actually change the way our country is right now. This is obviously an issue that needs to be confronted and changed. So go. Vote. Because, personally, I would not enjoy having Trump as a president.
