I was born in the year 1995, which generationally has placed in me in the group of people referred to as millennials. The stereotype placed on my generation is that we’re all self-centered, entitled, and slaves to our technology. To a point, these assumptions do indeed ring true; I’ve seen more selfies of people my age than pictures of anything else, and some people do get overly attached to their electronics. It’s always been the idea that we’re all entitled that has bothered me. Older people always complain when we don’t like that things take too much time or if we get fed up with something being hard work. To be honest, until recently I somewhat bought in to the skin-deep perception that most of my generation are entitled brats. Then the presidential election started. To my surprise, (and, really, the rest of the country’s) millennials got involved and involved big time. I was so happy to see people my age getting involved and (mostly) rallying behind one candidate. This candidate is, of course, Bernie Sanders. Whether you agreed with his political views or not, it was so amazing to see my generation coming together and forming a voice. Then, of course, the older folks stepped in. To truly show how they mocked and ripped us apart for genuinely caring about our futures and the future of this country, I think it’s best to break it all down to the biggest chunks.
I was six years old when operatives of Al-Qaeda crashed two planes in the World Trade Centers and one into the Pentagon. I was six years old when we declared war on terrorism and, to a first grader, that sounded like a great idea. When you’re in first grade you still believe in clear, black and white, good versus evil. Now, after over two-thirds of my life has been spent with my country trying to kill an idea with bombs and boots, I can tell you it’s not that easy. I won't say our hearts weren't in the right place at the start of it, but after 15 years it might be time to change our strategy. This is something that any logical person would conclude and based on what I’ve seen and read, this is what most people my age want to do. We want to stop the straight up fighting and figure out a new way to combat the problem. What do we get in response to this call for peace and logic? “We will go and kill ISIS and all the other terrorists with bombs and guns like we have since 2001!” Just so you know, you could put that quote in a speech bubble above either Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump’s head and it would work.
Our views on war were outright ignored, but what about our opinions the economic future? The biggest things that have been discussed are a living wage rather than a minimum wage, doing something to fix the student loan debt problem, and making health care actually affordable. As far as a living wage goes, Bernie Sanders did successfully get it to be part of the Democratic Party’s platform. I certainly haven’t heard it mentioned since Clinton got the nomination. I haven’t heard anyone talk about college costs or the extreme amount of personal debt in the country in quite some time, so apparently, they just don’t care. As for health care, the Republicans want to get rid of Obamacare and the Democrats want to keep and/or expand it. This is a problem because Obamacare is about people getting access to healthcare, not actually making it more affordable.
Millennials have been almost entirely ignored on our feelings with war and economics. How have we been treated as voters? Those of us who are Democrats and voted for Bernie Sanders have been told to fall in line and support the party. Evidently, the unelected party should decide who you vote for and what you stand for as if it’s about them and not the actual candidate. As for the independents who voted for Sanders, Donald Trump says to come vote for him because he’s anti-establishment too. He seems to think that our votes are all just a protest against the establishment rather than the backing of a candidate who actually cares about issues we do. Basically, to our left, we have someone insulting our maturity and free will and to our right, we have someone insulting our intelligence and beliefs. Clearly, there's a lot of respect for millennials all around.
What is there to conclude from this article? It’s not an endorsement of Sanders or a jab at either party. It’s just a look at how the people my age have been treated. We’re entitled? Really, we’re entitled because we want the wars that have gone on most of or all of our lives to end? We’re entitled because we want a level playing field and the ability to not live our lives in crippling debt? We’re entitled because we want our voices heard and to participate in democracy? If that’s what being entitled is, then heck yeah we’re entitled — and we have every right to be.
