2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Youth vote 2008: 66% for Obama / Youth vote 2016 55% for Hillary [View all]lapucelle
(20,349 posts)I think the well was poisoned by a number of factors, but I suspect many young people heard little other than what used to be an exclusively right wing narrative: Hillary is a corrupt, purely ambitious, self-interested politician who lacks core values. No mistake was ever forgotten, and any evolution in policy positions was characterized as pandering or a flip flop.
I remember Rosaria Dawson's excoriation of Secretary Clinton at Sanders rally here in NY. "Shame on you Hillary Clinton!" I also remember Dr. Song's more generalized characterization of "Democratic corporate whores".
With messages like these coming from our side, worse stuff coming from the Russians and the right, and the FBI fabricating phony potential crimes, I'm sure that it seemed "moral" to some young people to go third party.
"The lesser of two evils is still evil." How often did we hear that talking point? Older folks had heard it already in 2000, so we weren't going to fall for it again. It's a far cry from President Obama's motto, "Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
Every candidate who runs for office is flawed; all humans are flawed. For some reason Hillary was expected to be perfect.
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