Tag: millennial vote
#WhatNow? Millennial Voters Want To Bring Empathy Back

#WhatNow? Millennial Voters Want To Bring Empathy Back

They know what is said about them.

Crybabies. Snowflakes. The post-election protesters were cast as millennial whiners, yearning for a safe space to nurture their wounds after Hillary Clinton’s defeat by President-elect Donald Trump.

But that’s not the focus of five college students, all 20-somethings from around the Kansas City area. They’re aiming for something completely different. And they are willing to work for it.

They attended the protests in Kansas City, along with hundreds of others. But they were the ones manning the card table, handing out water bottles and collecting more than 200 signatures of people interested in being involved.

And yes, they voted. In fact, they’ve very engaged politically; several are political science majors. They’ve been meeting almost daily, forming a group they are calling WhatNow.

“It’s not about those that voted for the president-elect and those who didn’t,” said My Hoang Nguyen of Kansas City. “It’s about policy and humanitarian efforts.”

A forum Tuesday will be their first effort, 5:30 p.m. at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, 4501 Walnut in Kansas City. Networking will start, followed by a 6 p.m. panel.

“You may scream in the street, you may make a sign and march, but nothing will change if you allow your emotion to guide…” began a Facebook post by Nguyen, who initiated the work.

For the forum, they want an event where those who see themselves as liberal and those who say they are conservative can sit down. And talk. And more importantly, listen. A place where people could express views — in civil tones — and be assured that they wouldn’t be verbally attacked.

Finding a venue, that proved difficult. There were issues of insurance and security and trying to spark interest from local politicians. They contacted Mayor Sly James’ office, city council members and also reached out to national figures like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

To find conservative voices they’re tapping Republican student organizations of area colleges. They are hopeful that professors who are sponsors for such clubs can help leverage student involvement.

“I think both sides can lack empathy,” said Michele Lazarowicz. “I hope empathy comes back in style.”

Using the hashtag #WhatNow, and Twitter handle @WhatNowKC, they’ve decided on this mission statement: Connecting communities through empathy, education and advocacy.

They bought three website domains and will launch on WhatNowkc.org Tuesday morning. Work around gaining nonprofit status has begun.

The initial group also includes Sandy Altamirano of Overland Park and Jennifer Feeney and Sarah Turello of Kansas City.

They know single-issue voters, say about guns or abortion, can only explain so much of how people voted. They’re not interested in making a bogeyman out of special interest groups. The pitfalls of Machiavellian forces, too often at odds in the two-party system, are also apparent.

“It’s not about whether your person won or lost, but why can’t we all win?” said Turello.

All of this, and much more, is what they are eager to discuss with others.

Like many, they’ve struggled with political divides in their own families. One has a Trump-voting father and a Clinton-voting mother. That raised the concern that one parent might have voted in a way that will eliminate the health care of their college-aged child, if Obamacare is repealed.

They’ve had older adults talk down to them, as if they don’t understand the Electoral College. Actually, they can explain its origin and nuances better than most. The young women worry what Clinton’s loss implies for their future careers, asking how much of the vote was anti-female?

Mostly, they realize there is much to learn about voter motivation. Not only to understand it, but get to know people well enough to grasp how they dismissed or rationalized what felt so personal and offensive to the diverse friendship networks they value. Namely, the sexist and bigoted comments that peppered the Trump campaign.

As Nguyen sees it, Kansas City saw two different types of protesters after the election. There were those who sought solace, unity with like-minded voices drawn together primarily out of concern for remarks that targeted Muslims, immigrants and others. And, there were those who were in a more anarchist frame of mind, a far smaller collective.

Much of the initial response felt like grieving to Nguyen.

It’s not that people didn’t accept the results of the election. They did. And it worried them. Others reacted to the discontent; the crybaby comments.

WhatNow views all the feedback as energy to be captured.

“If we let this passion die down, this power die down, it will be the same thing,” Nguyen said. “And then, eventually, the community will get angry all over again.”

Mary Sanchez: 816-234-4752, msanchez@kcstar.com, @msanchezcolumn

IMAGE: Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton poses with supporters after a campaign event at Rutgers University’s Newark campus in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., June 1, 2016. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

#EndorseThis: Still Depressed and Berned Out? Try Funny Or Die’s New Medication

#EndorseThis: Still Depressed and Berned Out? Try Funny Or Die’s New Medication

For young voters still frustrated, even depressed by the outcome of the Democratic primaries, who may be wondering whether to cast a protest vote on Election Day, Funny or Die offers a cure in three distinct doses — “Jill Stein” or “Gary Johnson” or “Write In.” Carrying its satire of medical advertising and millennial angst to an inevitable conclusion, however, this upbeat message warns starkly of the potential side effects. Which are indeed darkly amusing as well as instructive — in a potentially very painful way.

Just click.

 

 

Protestavote – watch more funny videos
Why Are Clinton’s Millions Of Supporters Invisible In The Media?

Why Are Clinton’s Millions Of Supporters Invisible In The Media?

This week’s issue of The New Yorker offers up an epic, 8,000-word look at Donald Trump voters in West Virginia, and why the state has switched from blue to red over the last two decades. An anthropological dig into cultural and political shifts that have benefited Republicans in the Appalachian State (West Virginia voter: “Political correctness is destroying the country”), The New Yorker feature arrives on the heels of the magazine’s previous 10,000-word look at Trump voters in the July 18 issue. That equally detailed feature examined the rise of Trump rallies and what the raucous affairs, teeming with fanatical supporters (“Where did my country go?”) say about the state of American politics.

So that’s 18,000 words in the span of two New Yorker articles published just three months apart dissecting Trump supporters and what makes them tick; what fuels their rage and passion. Do you get a sense of where the magazine’s focus has been this campaign?

The esteemed weekly has hardly been alone in that regard this year. As the presidential campaign heads toward its final month and Hillary Clinton stands poised to become the first woman president in American history, the press continues to be strangely obsessed with profiling the supporters of the losing candidate, while often gazing uninterestedly at Clinton voters.

Despite the fact that the Clinton campaign has put together a voting coalition that is in several ways historic, more and more media attention seems to be showered on the supporters of the candidate who’s trailing badly in the polls. (See herehere, herehere and here.)

Obviously, both general election candidates have been the subject of never-ending campaign coverage. But when it comes to spotlighting and understanding their supporters, journalists seem far more keyed in on Republicans in terms of time and attention.

In general, I understand the media’s desire to try to explain what’s driving the support for Trump, who’s obviously running a highly unusual campaign and marketing his run in openly bigoted language. For a lot of people that’s deeply troubling, so understanding the dynamic behind Trump represents an obvious story of interest.

What I’m baffled by is the media’s corresponding lack of curiosity about examining Clinton voters. After all, she has accumulated more votes than any other candidate this year and is leading a Democratic surge into key states. (Why hasn’t The New Yorker published an 8,000-word piece on why Virginia has turned into a deeply blue state over the last decade?)

And I’m not alone in noting the year’s long-running disparity. Journalism professor and Clinton supporter Jeff Jarvis recently admonished the media (emphasis in original): “I never hear from voters like me who are enthusiastic supporters. I never see reporters wading among eager backers at Clinton rallies to ask them how much they like her and why.”

And from MTV News’ Jamil Smith: “Contrary to Trump voters, I hardly ever see profiles of Clinton supporters. She’s winning. Yet, I hear a lot about her ‘enthusiasm gap.’ ”

Smith’s tweet was in response to a 4,600-word Washington Post profile of a Trump supporter who thinks Obama’s a Muslim, Clinton should be in jail, and the White House may have plotted to have U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia murdered. (Smith wrote that the “deranged” Trump supporter had been treated to a “humanizing” profile by the Post.)

So why do supporters for Clinton’s historical run seem to generate so little interest from the press? It might be because so many journalists seem wedded to the Beltway narrative that Clinton doesn’t inspire voters and she’s a deeply unpopular politician; that the only reason she might win (and serve “as a kind of default president”) is because she’s running against Trump, a flawed candidate. The press also became heavily invested in Clinton “scandal” storylines.

So if journalists are committed to a downer storyline about Clinton, they’re likely less to be interested in acknowledging her vibrant political base. We saw that same dynamic during the Democratic primary season as well, where the press routinely depicted Clinton’s opponent as leading a vibrant “movement” while she, we’re told, struggled to connect with voters. Especially young voters!

Even today, we see a continued media infatuation with millennial and young voters and relentless reporting about how they might not like Clinton as much as they loved Barack Obama. Mathematically, the indications are that the Republican Party stands poised to be routed by those voters in November. But that’s not story the press wants to focus on.

So the only Democratic voting bloc the press seems genuinely interested in is the voting bloc that the press insists Clinton is struggling with. (She’s really not.)

Another, larger demographic the press has singled out as being uniquely important this cycle are white working class voters, who (surprise!) are also not keen on Clinton. It’s almost as if when the Democratic nominee has trouble connecting with a particular set of voters, those voters suddenly become supremely worthy of media attention.

And if you think I’m exaggerating about the press’ complete obsession with Trump-friendly white working voters, here’s a rundown of some of the pieces published at CNN.com, just last month:

  • “Why Trump Gets Backing of White Working-Class Voters” (September 6)
  • “The ‘Forgotten Tribe’ in West Virginia; Why America’s White Working Class Feels Left Behind” (September 20)
  • “2016: Last Call For Working Class Whites?” (September 21)
  • “The Anatomy Of A White, Working-Class Trump Voter” (September 23)
  • “The Shell-Shocked White Working Class” (September 23)
  • “White Working-Class Evangelicals: Christian Values Are Under Attack” (September 24)
  • “The Truth About The White Working Class: A Mosaic Of Their Own” (September 25)

Who wants to tell CNN there’s also a black and Latino working class in America, that they vote, and they vote overwhelmingly Democratic?

All of this isn’t to say there haven’t been some insightful media snapshots of Clinton supporters. This week, The Wall Street Journal examined her strong backing among older voters: “Among voters 65 and older, the most recent round of major media polls show Mr. Trump running between 11 and 18 percentage points behind 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney at this same point four years ago.”

Demographically, that’s a very big deal. Clinton’s campaign is also rewriting the rule book among college educated voters who, for the first time in six decades, may side with the Democratic candidate for president.

We’re witnessing major, possibly historic voting shifts in favor of the Democratic Party this election cycle. “The demographic and geographic trends reverberating through 2016 could produce a electoral alignment unlike any since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act shattered the Democratic hold on the ‘solid South,’” noted Ronald Brownstein at The Atlantic.

So why isn’t the press clamoring to explain all that to news consumers?

Millennials Are Really Worried About The Economy — And Their Future

Millennials Are Really Worried About The Economy — And Their Future

Millennials now constitute the largest voting bloc in the country, but they are considered the most politically disengaged. Despite counting 88 million people, only 45 percent of them voted in the 2012 elections; in 2008, an election with historic turnout, only 49 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds voted. That leaves a huge swatch of Millennials unengaged and possibly uninterested in national elections, and demographers, marketers, activists and politicians are wondering why.

A new report by Democracy Corps offers some clues, highlighting two demographic segments within the millennial generation – white men and black women – who on the surface would seem to have different concerns. Yet members of both, questioned in focus groups that were conducted last month in Philadelphia, revealed that economic concerns are central to their daily struggles — and their political leanings.

Although specific candidates were not discussed, the report underpins why Bernie Sanders has been so successful in capturing the Millennial vote among Democrats. Sanders’ message of a broken political system, and his advocacy of an America that works to reduce its burden on young people, resonates with Millennials struggling to make enough money to start their adult lives.

Reducing the gaps between the rich and poor by providing opportunities for all was the primary concern for both groups, despite the general socioeconomic differences between white men, historically winners in the American economic order, and black women, who have often been left behind. “Let’s just level the playing field so the middle class can grow. Like we were talking about earlier, the economy, how it was different from back in the day until now,” said a black female attendee.

Both focus groups felt excluded from the recent economic growth the country has enjoyed, owing to corporations that enjoy excessive political influence and favorable tax codes. They described the winners of the economic system as “the top percent,” “Trump,” and “scumbags,” reflecting a majority attitude that inequality has gotten worse between the rich and poor, borne out by statistical data: Between 2009 and 2012, the top one percent of Americans saw their income increase by 34.7 percent while everyone else had their wages increase by 0.8 percent.

With millennials making up 40 percent of the country’s unemployed, disillusionment with the economic system is not unusual among the most educated generation in the country’s history, who often struggle to find well-paying, stable employment. This week’s news that the jobless rate has dropped below five percent for the first time since 2008 means little for a demographic slice that suffers from a 13.8 percent unemployment rate.

Job opportunities are particularly important for millennials, who are collectively saddled with over $1 trillion of student debt. Almost all attendees described student loans as a major impediment to purchasing even basic consumer items. “You want to put gas in your car or you want to pay your student loan? I mean, that’s just what it is,” said one of the white male attendees. Another said, “I’m in some crazy debt and I’m only 24.” While a college diploma or graduate degree is still viewed as a ticket to a higher standard of living, that promise has failed to materialize for millennials as a whole.

Even though millennials are working longer hours, they are getting paid less and expected to do the work of two people. “Just from experience, the expectations are a little unrealistic. They expect so much but offer little,” said one of the black women. That reality has been particularly discouraging to the focus group members, many of whom still live at home and feel they aren’t paying off their student loans fast enough. A white man said, “I still live at home with my mom and dad, I haven’t moved out. You know, I’m working hard, but there’s no payoff to it, you know?”

And while not describing themselves as politically active (several made statements to the effect that “this is probably the first time I ever talked about politics”), many in the focus groups said they were repelled by the rhetoric coming out of the Republican presidential candidates. One white millennial from the group described the GOP lineup as “cartoon characters, Looney Tunes.”

“Disgusted,” “ashamed,” “repulsed,” and “disappointed” were used by the black women’s focus group in describing the candidates. The economic views espoused by the Republican candidates, promoting more tax cuts for billionaires and trickle-down economics, only reinforced that view.

Although this was a small focus group, their concerns were not any different from larger surveys of millennials, or indeed many Americans no matter their age, and speaks to a larger truth: candidates who want their votes will have to speak to their deepest worries.

Photo: A bunch of young people in front of the U.S. Capitol. REUTERS/Mary F. Calvert