Millennials, those tight-jean-wearing, latte-drinking hipsters, are the largest voting block in U.S. history, and their reaction to Donald Trump could spell disaster for the Republican Party.
Younger millennial voters are increasingly concerned with the lower standard of living they’re forced to live with and are being turned off by the Republican Party’s obsession with big hands and outdated attitudes.
After watching their parents’ generation turn their political power into corporate greed, many younger voters are fed up with the system as it stands; they look around themselves and don’t see the future they were promised.
Great article by our @MediaCollegeMT Studio M journalist @Sarah_GRACE_22: Millennial voters want anybody but Trump https://t.co/ZTrfcQiZqP
— The College of Media (@MediaCollegeMT) March 2, 2016
With good paying union and manufacturing jobs largely a thing of the past, millennials are starting to question their power in today’s political economy, as a 35-year-old hairdresser told the USA Today.
“Most of our representatives are making decisions based on lobbyist and corporate money and I don’t feel like they’re making decisions in our best interests anymore.”
In a recent USA Today poll, 58 percent of millennials said socialism is the most compassionate political system compared to a mere 33 percent who chose capitalism; 9 percent even chose communism.
That’s a drastic shift in political views since the end of WWII marked the beginning of the McCarthy era and the Red Scare meant that even suspected communists were persecuted.
61% of Millennial voters said that a candidate’s position on student debt is a “major influencer” https://t.co/rAijPyWhFJ #FixHigherEd
— Young Invincibles (@YoungInvincible) March 2, 2016
While baby boomers are dying off, millennials are starting to realize they’ll be paying for their parents’ mistakes for the rest of their lives.
The grand old Republican Party, long representing the interests of old white people, simply can’t adjust to the political attitudes carried by the youngest generation.
That’s because the world looks different to today’s millennials than it did to their parents. Today’s millennials view the American Dream of going from rags to riches as ridiculous nonsense pushed by the establishment.
First-time voters are flocking to the Independent or Democratic banner and have largely abandoned the Republican ticket. That could spell long-term disaster for the Grand Old Party if the trend continues, Brookings Institution Fellow William Frey told Politico.
Millennials now are larger in numbers than baby boomers, and how they vote will make the big difference.
https://twitter.com/DKochinskiSFRNC/status/709973754697404416
In the hotly contested Missouri and North Carolina primaries on Super Tuesday, millennial voters completely abandoned Trump for Ted Cruz; that could spell trouble for the Republican Party if Donald becomes their standard bearer.
Interestingly, young voters also ignored Hillary Clinton, viewing her as an establishment figure, in favor of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders , according to Red Alert Politics. Both Sanders and Clinton have been warning voters of an America with a lower standard of living, but Bernie appears to be winning that economic argument.
Meanwhile, the Republican debates seem to turn on whose hands are bigger and who can conjure up an imaginary wall while banning an entire group of people from entering the country.
10 States Where Millennial Voters Could Change the Election https://t.co/xqDiLEkFVI
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) March 1, 2016
None of that will help the millennial generation find good jobs or pay their outsized student loans.
With one side debating substance and the other slinging mud, it’s easy to see why younger voters are gravitating away from the Republican Party.
If a conservative third party run winds up splitting the Republican Party in two, this may be the last election the GOP remains relevant in.
[Photo by Scott Olson /Getty Images]
