Harvard University Institute of Politics reports that most Millennials will not bother to vote in the midterm elections. According to Fox News, Millennials are too busy “looking hot” or “depending on the government” to vote, and they should be discouraged from going to the polls to vote for their interests.
Millennials? Could this be true? The generation who experienced the 2008 economic collapse perhaps harder than any other, along with the unending costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? You are going to be no-shows at the polls? The Millennials – who will suffer the legacy of those decisions for the rest of your lives – you are NON-voters?
In perhaps the oddest reaction to the potential power of the Millennial vote, Fox News hosts have been actively discouraging young women from going to the polls for the midterm elections. Fox News host Jesse Watters referred to female Millennials as “the Beyoncé voters, the single ladies.” In an unanswered slur to young women, he said, “You know, they depend on government because they’re not depending on their husbands. They need things like contraception, health care, and they love to talk about equal pay.”
“The Five” co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle discouraged young women from participating in elections and serving on juries. “Young women on juries are not a good idea,” she said. “They don’t get it! They’re not in the same, like, life experience of paying the bills, doing the mortgage, kids, community, crime, education, health care.”
States are taking away voting access from urban city dwellers and students at universities away from home. They have moved polling places out of densely populated areas where young people tend to live, and into suburban areas where the family-centric voters are.
This bad rap on Millennials’ voting is intolerable.
You are being run off and counted out because your interests don’t jive with those who have already gotten theirs – and don’t want your voice heard. There’s fear about your potential to vote your interests.
Most Millennials need fair and equitable pay for yourself. You might need a strong working class and middle class, if for no other reason than these are the folks who buy stuff. You probably need clean energy and investment in infrastructure: because when the old folks are gone, you will be breathing the air, drinking the water and crossing the bridges and roads that are now crumbling. You’ll be living out whether radical climate change is science or not.
Don’t believe the bad news about yourself. Show up and vote your interests. It’s what the old folks did in their day, and they shouldn’t have the last word on your future.
