09-21-2016, 08:32 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-21-2016, 08:33 AM by Eric the Green.)
Great article. It could serve as an antidote for those millennials and Xers who see boomers only as corrupt and compromised authority figures who don't have a clue about life. No, the boomers of yesterday (1968) were much like the millennials of today (2016). And some of them made the same mistake as millennials might make this year. We got fooled again. The Revolution failed, and The Devil was triumphant, just like in the iconic Goya paintings depicting the same failures of the first Revolution.
quote:
Some supporters of Bernie Sanders seem intent on making the same mistakes we did in that fateful year of 1968. Some of the pioneering, innovative protesters who have created Black Lives Matter seem to share our 1968 disdain for electoral politics, as if elections and who is in power could be ignored in the struggle for profound social change.
Others, the perpetual Hillary haters of the left, once again suffer from a profound failure of imagination. Unable to imagine how bad it could become, they preach about refusing to be forced again to “settle for the lesser of two evils.”
Young people may play a pivotal role in this election. For the very first time, “millennials” now are as large a group of potential voters as my tired generation, the baby boomers. The pool of younger voters is also far to the left of the older voters. The young once again have a moral passion that could produce real change.
But there is a world of difference between pools of potential voters and actual voters. Whether young voters will actually vote this November, and whom they will vote for if they do vote, is still very much up in the air.
SOME SUPPORTERS OF BERNIE SANDERS SEEM INTENT ON MAKING THE SAME MISTAKES WE DID IN THAT FATEFUL YEAR OF 1968
Some Sanders supporters still say they will stay home. What is currently altering the dynamics of the race and whittling down Clinton’s lead is the attraction of younger voters to the third-party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein. Where Obama in 2012 received 60 percent of voters under 30, when Johnson and Stein are included in the polls, Clinton is receiving only 31 percent of those voters. A significant group of Sanders supporters cannot bring themselves to support Clinton, the candidate of the establishment, no matter what the threat from Trump and no matter how hard Bernie campaigns for her.
A recent YouGov poll shows only 60 percent of Sanders supporters choosing Clinton, with Jill Stein getting 11 percent and Johnson getting 6 percent and many still undecided. If Clinton could get 80 percent of the Bernie voters to support her, she would be back at her comfortable lead of early August. As pollsters turn to quizzing the smaller pool of “likely voters,” many of the groups that most oppose Trump diminish, as so many of those people do not actually make it to the polls.
The one irreducible fact of this bizarre election is this: The only way Donald Trump does not become president of the United States is if Hillary Clinton does. In any closely contested state, staying home or voting for a third-party candidate is, in its impact, a vote for Trump. It does not take a great leap of moral or political imagination to envision the damage a Trump presidency will bring to our nation and to the world.
The support for Sanders among younger voters, the organizers of the Black Lives Matters movement, and the urgent efforts of climate change activists, all led by young people, are all good signs and potentially powerful forces for change.
I only hope that our peculiarly American penchant for historical amnesia will not stop our new young leaders from learning from the mistakes of those of us who have gone before.
unquote
quote:
Some supporters of Bernie Sanders seem intent on making the same mistakes we did in that fateful year of 1968. Some of the pioneering, innovative protesters who have created Black Lives Matter seem to share our 1968 disdain for electoral politics, as if elections and who is in power could be ignored in the struggle for profound social change.
Others, the perpetual Hillary haters of the left, once again suffer from a profound failure of imagination. Unable to imagine how bad it could become, they preach about refusing to be forced again to “settle for the lesser of two evils.”
Young people may play a pivotal role in this election. For the very first time, “millennials” now are as large a group of potential voters as my tired generation, the baby boomers. The pool of younger voters is also far to the left of the older voters. The young once again have a moral passion that could produce real change.
But there is a world of difference between pools of potential voters and actual voters. Whether young voters will actually vote this November, and whom they will vote for if they do vote, is still very much up in the air.
SOME SUPPORTERS OF BERNIE SANDERS SEEM INTENT ON MAKING THE SAME MISTAKES WE DID IN THAT FATEFUL YEAR OF 1968
Some Sanders supporters still say they will stay home. What is currently altering the dynamics of the race and whittling down Clinton’s lead is the attraction of younger voters to the third-party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein. Where Obama in 2012 received 60 percent of voters under 30, when Johnson and Stein are included in the polls, Clinton is receiving only 31 percent of those voters. A significant group of Sanders supporters cannot bring themselves to support Clinton, the candidate of the establishment, no matter what the threat from Trump and no matter how hard Bernie campaigns for her.
A recent YouGov poll shows only 60 percent of Sanders supporters choosing Clinton, with Jill Stein getting 11 percent and Johnson getting 6 percent and many still undecided. If Clinton could get 80 percent of the Bernie voters to support her, she would be back at her comfortable lead of early August. As pollsters turn to quizzing the smaller pool of “likely voters,” many of the groups that most oppose Trump diminish, as so many of those people do not actually make it to the polls.
The one irreducible fact of this bizarre election is this: The only way Donald Trump does not become president of the United States is if Hillary Clinton does. In any closely contested state, staying home or voting for a third-party candidate is, in its impact, a vote for Trump. It does not take a great leap of moral or political imagination to envision the damage a Trump presidency will bring to our nation and to the world.
The support for Sanders among younger voters, the organizers of the Black Lives Matters movement, and the urgent efforts of climate change activists, all led by young people, are all good signs and potentially powerful forces for change.
I only hope that our peculiarly American penchant for historical amnesia will not stop our new young leaders from learning from the mistakes of those of us who have gone before.
unquote