Unlike my Republican counterparts, I had it easy in this election from the start. With two candidates (does Martin O’Malley really count?) — fine, three — I got to looking at the stances of each on the issues that mattered to me and quickly made up my mind. It seems many Democrats my age did, given the trending hashtag #FeeltheBern and the amount of notes on Bernie Sanders posts on Tumblr.
As the Florida primaries closed in, my mother asked me who I was planning to vote for.
“Not Hillary?” She said, stunned. “But, it’s about time we have a female in office!”
As a feminist, it pains me Hillary isn’t a better fit. As a former volunteer of Organizing for America (now, Organizing for Action), better known as the Obama 2012 campaign, it is also saddening that I cannot fully support someone in Obama’s cabinet. I certainly won’t vote for the woman simply to have a woman in office. Plenty seem to agree, given Hillary is struggling most to get the female millennial vote.
Generation Y is now college-age — concerned about how to pay off the student loans they continue to take out — or settling down in their careers and new families while suffering through that post-graduation debt. Sanders, from the start, had been quite vocal about his distaste for the post-secondary education system, proposing a plan for free college and the elimination of student loan debt.
Clinton, meanwhile, was tweeting, in one of her many attempts to be hip and relevant, things like, “How does your student loan debt make you feel? Tell us in 3 emojis or less.”
That plan backfired, with many students responding in anger and disgust at her lack of empathy or understanding of the gravity of the situation.
At the Univision Democratic debate on March 9, Clinton proposed a very familiar plan.
“Under my plan, you will be able to also lower your debt, move into a program to pay it back as a percentage of your income, and more than that, my plan for debt-free tuition at public colleges and universities will eventually eliminate any student debt,” Clinton said.
“I think what Secretary Clinton just said is absolutely right,” Sanders said. “I think I said it many months before she said it, but thanks for copying a very good idea.”
Another issue near and dear to many college students’ hearts is the minimum wage.
While Hillary does support raising it to $12 an hour, which sounds nice at first, it pales in comparison to Bernie’s request of $15.
And, while both candidates call for sexual assault prevention measures in high schools and post-secondary institutions, Sanders personally co-sponsored a bill last year aiming to expand victims’ rights on campuses.
Clinton is desperately trying, with appearances on everything from “Saturday Night Live” to “Broad City,” but it’s just not working. She seems confused, as millennials seem to eat it up when Obama does the very same; however, this may be due to the fact that we also support his policies. It also doesn’t hurt that he hasn’t had a sketchy email scandal or said problematic things about the LGBT community and at-risk youth years ago, only to desperately plead for take-backsies once these came to light.
With all the slang Hillary seems to have picked up lately, you’d think she’d understand this generation is too woke to pick a candidate solely on his or her ability to whip and nae nae.