The presidential election has seen a lot of attention from those the media likes to call “millennials.”
Former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders grasped the attention of young people across the States with his free college propaganda and attention towards under- represented groups have faced such as, unmarried women, Native Americans and other minority groups, and middle class and poor citizens.
Local mainstream media and studies, have missed out on the educated opinion of 2 million young people under the age of 18, who took attention to the future president of this country.
Harvard’s Institute of Politics conducted a poll with people in the age group of 18 to 29 years old, discovering that 47% of young people believe that today’s politics are unable to meet the country’s challenges, like police brutality, wage gaps, terrorism and immigration.
Favorability polls indicate that 54% of people find Bernie Sanders favorable, leading the polls.
After interviewing New York teens under the age of 18, their opinions seem to correspond to the Harvard IOP results.
Troy, 17, first heard of Bernie Sanders in a meme of him running for a train. Some of the scenario’s show some of Bernie’s campaign angles, here’s an example:
For many of the teens interviewed, the campaign came to attention at school. Melissa, 16, recalls her friends beginning to discuss their outrage of this campaign during Fall 2015. “ My friends dislike Tump… they were more upset for the fact that people actually support his racist rhetoric.”
In an under the radar interview Bernie Sanders announced to MSNBC that he’d be voting for Clinton, ultimately meaning that he supports her and is no longer in the race. Students like Hui Qi,16, revealed their disappointment and had to admit the gaps in Bernie’s policies, like free college. “Free college would be an awesome thing to have, but to make college free for everyone would mean compromise in other areas of society.”
The belief of why Bernie is so popular is because he is so radical, he is not even included in the Democratic party. The next radical choice would be Donald Trump, but he isn’t well supported by this group of teens.
“Hillary is the only safe choice… a lot of Bernie supporters are only voting for her because we just cannot vote for Trump… it is sad but it is reality.”
When asked if the knew that there are third party candidates, they automatically said “They can’t win.” Only Troy could name both, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson.
Matthew,17, expressed that only if one of them dropped out and their voters combined, would the third party candidate be noticed, because Gary has 10% of the vote, whereas Jill only has 5%, and they would need 15% to be included in debates with Trump and Hillary. “That would be in a perfect world.”
At this point many feel that this presidential election will either make or break America. A popular belief is that Hillary Clinton is the status quo vote and Donald Trump is a ‘racist bigot’.
It is safe to say that young people do not tolerate insolence. Kids like Troy will still be sporting their Bernie merch, from pens and stickers to t-shirts and ball caps.
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