Millennials, 70 million strong, we are in a whole new world, yet the Dem party dismisses their ...

[slipslidingaway]

size and importance and believes they will just fall in line.

As a contrast the boomer generation is in the 40 million range of our population. We should remember that this younger generation cannot be assumed to be stupid or 'not doing their research.' Clinton totally lost my 25 year old son with that notion, even though he had been on the fence and friends were already in the 'not Clinton' camp.

We can either dismiss this large and upcoming block of voters or we can listen to their concerns, climate change is a big concern, they want a planet on which to live.

When Sanders states that we need to fight climate change as if it is an invading army, they get it! There is so much we can do to sustain our nation without invading other nations. Stop making enemies, they understand that.

We do not need to displace and kill hundreds of thousands of people in other countries, we need to focus our resources for all to survive, unfortunately we are going down the path where the top earners will reap the benefits and most will be fighting to survive.

That is not a world and a problem we wish to leave to our children and grandchildren.

The millennials, many of them are independents, but we brush them aside and expect them to conform.

That is the difference between 2008 and 2016, we need to incorporate a large influx of independents, but somehow the Dem party thinks they will all just magically fall in line.

The Dem party did NOTHING to incorporate this large influx of new voters, they buried their heads in the sand, and did not even schedule the first debate until after NY independents could not change their party affiliation last October.

Repubs started their debates in August, IMHO the Dems did nothing to advance their issues and candidates for over two months and nothing to inform voters that they had a choice, and now they want all to fall in line???

A portion of that ship already sailed, remember they are 70 million strong, we should not be so ignorant of their presence.

[dchill]

1. The Democratic party's continued existence depends on...

millennials falling in line. They are missing the opportunity to become the most dominant political party in decades. Deliberately. They are more interested in their filthy lucre than their party or their country.

And that's why Bill Clinton is so mad at them.

[slipslidingaway]

6. Yes the Dem party could have seized on the opportunity to bring younger voters into ...

the party, but many were not going to donate to a candidate whom they felt was not interested in their cause.

They lost a lot of voters in the younger generation.

[Adrahil]

28. Here's the thing....

I respect the passion of young voters, but i am not going to substitute their judgement for my own. I've listened carefully to Sanders' policy ideas, and I have determined they are unrealistic, and that Sanders himself too focused on a single issue. I won't debate my conclusion here, but having come to that conclusion, why would I change it because a 25-year-old disgrees with me!? I respect their opinion, and encourage them to express it with their vote. I would expect to be exteneded the same courtesy.

[dchill]

53. And there you have it.

[nolabels]

60. They think the world is theirs, to abuse as they feel fit

At fifty-seven i can only understand them from the fact they think they have worked hard all their lives and now think it's time for the them to enjoy their desserts. That, and the ageism thing where they think they know better than young people because they have weird idea is they think have already been in youngsters shoes before and shouldn't have endure what they already have.

Maybe a quite few others but it might be a little easier if you could get them to open up and be truthful.

[jeff47]

61. Because it is not one 25-year-old disagreeing with you.

It's 10 25-year-olds disagreeing with you.

Do those 10 votes count as much as your one vote?

[SFnomad]

2. Not sure where you come up with these bogus figures, but the size of the Millennial population and

that of the Baby Boomers are about the same. The Millennials overtook the Boomers in size just last year. They're both in 75M range, with Millennials increasing and Boomers decreasing in size.

[phleshdef]

4. That depends on what you consider a millennial.

I was born in 79 and consider myself part of Gen X. No one ever talks about Gen X.

[artislife]

9. We are the forgotten generation

We were smaller and the Boomer (aka Me generation) still had its death grip on everything commercial.

[slipslidingaway]

12. Sorry, we never meant to do that ...

born in the mid 50's and had children in the mid to late 80's and early 90's.

We are all in this world together and I do not mean to divide, honestly I hate the divisions, but I also know when looking at voting blocks there are differences. Tonight I was told that I was a millennial, somehow I do not feel 30 years younger.

[artislife]

14. It was the force of the mob!

Hey, there is good, bad and indifferent in every voting block.

Our generations problem was that we saw our older sibs get all the cool stuff and when we turned of age, it was a lot less.

[slipslidingaway]

17. There will be aways the good, bad and indifferent, our job is unite people for common good ...

my sib had some cool stuff, but I was right on her heels being 15 months younger.

But we are now unifying the young and old which I think is wonderful, years ago we were at odds, now we seek a common cause. Love the mix of millennials and boomers.

Got lost in the music

[artislife]

49. That is one of the best albums of all time

I love Into the Mystic

[MillennialDem]

51. Most definitions for millennial are '80, '82, '84, or '85. I was born in '80 and consider

myself millennial or at least a cusper. Partially because I grew up with so much tech and on the west coast.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Yes, there are more Millennials than Boomers.

But the Boomers - in large part - have proven to be completely unable to comprehend what that implies.

It's why there has been a sea change on everything from gay marriage to pot legalization. But the beltway conventional wisdom types - again, invariably boomers - are still running election scripts from 2004 or 1996, shit about "values voters" and "get tough on drugs".

[slipslidingaway]

8. The numbers might me closer, boomers entering the SS system is what I was thinking about ...

of over 40 million, but one group is ascending while the other is descending. On that we can agree, which group is more important?

My millennial kids are not excited about Clinton, one states he will absolutely not vote for her, the other, a 30 year old internist might vote against Trump, or she might not, but will not be casting a vote for Clinton. She sees the inequalities every day in her practice.

[SFnomad]

25. Might be closer? There is a BIG difference between 40M and 75M people, you have severly undercounted

the number of Baby Boomers.

[Onlooker]

3. Actually, the Party gave Bernie every opportunity ...

... and Bernie, running as a social democrat, is doing better than anybody could have expected. The party will incorporate many millennials because of that. Now, the problem is that some millennials like you think you are automatically entitled to choose the net president, but that's just not how it works. There are many good reasons to support Bernie and many good reasons to support Hillary, and millennials should at least think about the significance that Hillary has more support than Bernie among many oppressed groups? You don't necessarily know better than they do.

[slipslidingaway]

10. I would love to be a millennial as you assume, but I am a boomer, just happen to have millennial

children.

"Now, the problem is that some millennials like you think you are automatically entitled to choose the net president, but that's just not how it works."

Never ASSUME, gosh how many times did we hear that as children!

In case you have not noticed Sanders has united boomers and millennials.

But thanks for making a millennial, I love feeling 30 years younger!

[RKP5637]

55. I was a boomer, but I switched to a millennial, far more in common with

millennials.

[insta8er]

5. We are the future of the new Democratic Party, change is coming!

[RKP5637]

56. Hope so!!!!!!!!!!!! The current democratic party is obsolete in the 21st century and needs

desperately to change!

[snowy owl]

11. The cold-war generation can't let go. It will be more war and it will be minorities and poor who go.

then they can thank Clinton. Leslie Stahl on Maher this week: She's the biggest hawk of all. Millenials - did you all register and vote?

[slipslidingaway]

18. Not all of the cold war generation has bought into more war ...

everyone should automatically be registered to vote.

We transfer millions of dollars in a nanosecond, it should not be that difficult to vote for the leader of our country. I feel as if we are all spectators at the Colosseum and are just being entertained.

[Betty Karlson]

13. K&R for exposure. And for truth. eom

[slipslidingaway]

15. Not sure why but this song came to mind ...

[CobaltBlue]

16. Businesses; not parties

I think we should look to the two political parties not so much as parties but businesses.

Their business is politics.

The Democratic Party—not just the insiders but many outsiders who are pro-Hillary Clinton/anti-Bernie Sanders—are very uncomfortable with how Bernie Sanders wants their business to operate in politics.

Their resistance will continue.

[slipslidingaway]

19. It is a business, that has become more evident as the decades pass ...

which is why the older generation has finally said enough.

Maybe we did teach our children well

[Sancho]

20. No one is "dissing" any particular group - young people don't vote!

Baby boomers vote. Frankly, boomers were more active during the 60s and 70s than the mili's are now. If people want input, the way to be recognized is the ballot box.

Bernie's campaign demonstrates that people will come to a rally, but not show up to vote. OTOH, boomers ignore polls, don't go to rallies, but they show up consistently at the precinct.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. "No one is dissing you, and to prove it im gonna dis you."

Classic.

[Sancho]

22. You are arguing with the facts???

To win elections, you GOTV. Facebook and blog posts don't win elections. Geraldine Ferraro had great rallies (who?).

You can try to start a generational war if you want, but Democrats have ideas they vote for, and sometimes they don't agree on every point. The candidate that wins the primary and GE - plus the ideas that get into the platform - are usually ones that get the most votes.

My generation used to say, "don't trust anyone over 30". It's and old meme. If you want respect, then figure out how to get people in their 20s to the voting booth. That's true for any demographic (gender, age, income, race). My generation changed the voting age from 21 to 18, and we stopped a war, and we did what we could to change the world. Most of us are still trying.

When millennials vote at a 15-20% rate - and boomers vote at a 50-60% rate, the number of millennials don't reflect their numbers. If you think that's dissing - then you have a logic problem.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. You are talking about a generational cohort that in many cases is reaching voting age

This year. So dragging out 2010, for instance, endlessly is meaningless when talking about voters who were 12 that year.

But nothing symbolizes the weird time warp denialism of boomers than Hillary's comment, early in the campaign, to college students "thank you for supporting me in 2008". To boomers, 2008 was last week. These students were, like, "we were in fifth grade"

The presumption in your post- the lecturing, the condescencion to Millennials- of which I am not one, BTW- it encapsulates the problem perfectly. Ive watched your generation for a long time, and for all your accomplishments (and a solid body of music, to be sure) too many of you have been far too enamored with your own self-perceived centrality to the scheme of things, for way too long.

And due to your numbers, no one could disabuse you of that notion. Certainly not my generation, who had to endure pompous, hypocritical "just say no" lectures from boomers during the 80s because they were nursing their own collective cocaine and disco guilt-hangovers.

But no, guess what- now there's an even bigger kid on the block, and its not up to them to scramble to figure how they can fit themselves into your narrative, oh no. Quite the opposite. I realize, it must be jarring, but c'est la vie.

Its not news that older people tend to vote more. Aha. What is key, here, is to figure out how to motivate the simply statistically massive numbers of young people to do so more frequently and enthusiastically. They are already making their presence known in the political landscape, as witnessed by the rapid sea changes in public opinion on things like marriage equality and pot legalization. That's millennials, and this year more of them are voting age than ever before.

[Sancho]

26. They are not making a "sea change" at all....

you are simply projecting something that is not reality.

You are "dissing" something you were "lectured" about?

Go into a HS today, and talk to the coming group. Stand in front of college freshmen and ask them simple questions. Find out who is registered.

Then get back to me. It has nothing to do with condescension. It has to do with empirical facts.

Eighteen year olds and their political activity in the 80's, 90's, and until today can be tracked on a number of metrics.

If the current group wants their values recognized, then they need to vote.

You seem pretty bitter, or at least had a different experience than I saw. "Collective cocaine and disco guilt hangovers" is as far from the truth as I can imagine. "Just say no" was nothing but a joke at the time, and it still is...sorry, but you must not have much front line experience with young people.

BTW, the biggest "kid on the block" is not millennials - it's immigrants!! Also BTW, they are becoming active politically at a faster rate than the millennials right now.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. I think you're bright enough to understand exactly what I said, there.

Also: No sea change, my ass.

[Sancho]

29. I'm well aware of the attitudes and values...

I work with lots of surveys.

I also know that very few of those values show up at elections. The registration and participation of millennials is relatively low. You can blame the difficulties with registration road blocks - or whatever you want - but the facts are the facts. Even with driver registration and mail-in ballots this group doesn't vote. Even with relatively young candidates (Rubio down here), they don't participate.

Haha...my generation introduced drugs to the US, and still has lots of favorability towards marijuana. It's a nonissue at his point.

Let's see the chart that shows political activity by age!! For the number of bodies in the pipeline, the current group is very interested in jobs,entertainment, and international mobility. They are not interested in politics and government and civics. At least not since 2010. If it changes in 2016 it will be a surprise. Judging from the primary, young participation is weak.

More of my students have a passport and have travelled to other countries than are registered to vote. It's not a representative sample, but I suspect it's typical. If you can get a passport and negotiate an airline, you can register and vote.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. Maybe you're in the wrong part of the country, then.

I would think that states where Democrats have done well in traditionally off years- like, say, 2010 or 2014- those would be the states our national "leaders" (cough. DWS) would be looking at and saying "what are those states, those state democratic parties, doing right?"

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/oregon-voter-turnout-high

[Sancho]

38. In Florida, about a third of young people were born out of the US

That is spreading rapidly throughout the sun belt. The news talks about 11 million "undocumented", but that's a low estimate.

With extended families, the current immigrant population is more like 30-40 million, and they are on the move across the US.

As far as the DNC and Hillary are concerned, they have been active with the immigrant groups for a long time. Put in Bernie and Hillary on Univision. The Clintons have 10 times the hits going back 20+ years!

The outreach for a path to citizenship is also a reach to the next YOUNGER generation!! That's why Dreamers, tuition equity, and citizenship were on Hillary's earliest platforms and speeches. Vermont, by contrast, does not have tuition equity the last I looked. Bernie has been indifferent or anti-immigration values for the most part.

Millennials are a very international group. Those who are new to the US or anchor babies or rubbing elbows with immigrants are more active than "traditional" millennials. DWS is very aware of the values of the immigrant population.

It was mishandling of the Elian Gonzalez situation that may have cost Gore the election in Florida.

[jeff47]

62. This

[Sky Masterson]

23. They are quite happy with thier over 55+ year old members

If she wins the nod and loses the Presidency the same party (Democrat)that ignored them, will wonder why they ignored the Democrats and stayed home.
The fact that the Democratic party chased them off will completely escape them.
Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory!

[HillareeeHillaraah]

30. "Stop making enemies"

What a nuanced foreign policy position.

Why didn't someone think of that sooner?

Thank goodness for the millennials and their well thought out solutions to more than 2000 years of the history of nations and factions around the globe.

We should all just stop fighting. Great. I'm for that. What's the plan?

[Warren DeMontague]

32. They should get off my lawn, too.

And turn down that racket!

[HillareeeHillaraah]

33. ...

[Warren DeMontague]

35. 50 Million people live on the West Coast.

Why does Hillary seem to do so much worse with them?

[Warren DeMontague]

40. speaking of lol whut.

We'll see what happens in California, of course. She's gonna lose bad in Oregon, but I guess that's cuz we're white, or something.

I've actually always thought she would win the primary process- old person for Sanders, here, so I guess that's 230 million minus one ... but it's undeniable that her performance has been less than spectacular, esp. given all the advantages she came into this deal with.

As someone who will want her to win the general if she gets the nomination, I WANT her to try and improve her campaign beyond the dated, craptastic, 1990s era strategies she's employing. I want her to appeal to millennials, or maybe the horribly bleached white irrelevant people who all live in shacks out in the middle of nowhere, apparently.

I think there's room for improvement.

And DWS isn't all powerful, she's a fucking train wreck and an embarrassment who supports shit like payday lending and works with sheldon adelson to send medical marijuana users to prison.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. You've never actually been west of New Jersey, have you.

fess up.

Anyway, don't flatter yourself. My butt has withstood far worse.

[MrMickeysMom]

36. If the party doesn't FIT, then why support IT?

Supporting someone who will LEAD the party as humanity undergoes a paradigm shift makes more sense.

I've said this before... The Democratic Party has left THEM, and the rest of us who have not forgotten the People's History of the United States!

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This is now their world, and they'll be damned if the boomers are going to fall in line with unfettered capitalism, endless wars, corporate greed and an economic disaster that people like Paul Krugman won't even recognize.

They are 70 million strong, alright. I'd like some number on the boomers like my husband and I. We never forgot WHY they are 70 million strong on saying good-bye to what no longer will work for all of us.

[MrMickeysMom]

45. "that "millennials" are starry eyed idealists until they have kids and jobs to worry about"...

... which is the reason everyone coming out of that "starry eyed" age of idealism should understand what the idea is...

Which is NOT to work 40 to 70 hours/week for an unsustainable wage...

Which is NOT to choose a college level or advanced technological educational track, only to be stuck with student loans that far exceed your ability to pay off those loans...

Which is NOT to cow-tow away from the real economic divide once realizing that 95% of EVERY dollar that is earned in this present economy is going to that upper tier... that 1% who is having NO problem doubling their net worth.

Which is NOT ignoring the ridiculous "bridge to clean energy" lie funded by the fossil fuel industry/oil and gas lobbyists that convince the old school to keep taking those tiny steps that never offer a sustainable, viable planet.

Which is realizing that if don't address this NOW... NOT JUST THEIR GENERATION, but that we ALL see what is in store for us if we don't make these sustainable changes now, STARTING WITH NEW LEADERSHIP, we are pretty much on the tipping point of loosing a place for the next generation and future ones to live.

[GreenPartyVoter]

46. Very true. Even if some Millennials don't vote now, it is likely that more and more of them

will do so over the next twenty years. Think of how badly the world is going to go to hell in a handbasket in that time, and also factor in a decrease in older voters, and I think we will see huge changes politically speaking.

The Democratic Party as it exists now will not be able to hold on to its power much longer after that, nor will the GOP. The world will be such a mess from overpopulation and catastrophic climate change that business as usual will, if not cease, at least change toward saving our country. What form that takes, whether it is still more resource wars (including land grabs in far northern and southern latitudes,) or more positive attempts to live in harmony with each other and the planet remains to be seen.

[MrMickeysMom]

47. That's what our GOTV has been doing for two days, and two more days here in PA...

We'll see how they respond, GPV!

[GreenPartyVoter]

48. Good luck!

[sufrommich]

39. Young people don't vote in the percentages that older

people vote.No matter which generational moniker you call yourself by,that's been a consistent truth from boomers to millennials.It's why politicians won't depend on them for votes.There's a school of thought that many people don't start voting until they have a financial stake in the system and economic commitments like mortgages and taxes. The boomers (of which I am one) are a perfect example of this,their massive numbers made no difference in the presidential elections of their youth because they didn't use their power in the voting booth,if they had,we would have had a President McGovern,and those young people were literally being forced into a war.

[beachbum bob]

50. Until they actually start doing something....

They don't participate.... They don't go to city council meetings...etc....

[islandmkl]

52. it's a funny paradox: have a voting system choosing officials...both of which are massively corrupt

and wonder why people who have grown up with that being 'the system'...not having lived through the downward spiral of the system, but having only seen and be exposed to the corruption...and yet, they are supposed to 'trust that the system works and get out and participate...'??

and along comes someone who starts telling them the system is broken, fixed, rigged...against everybody but the 1%...and they like that message and they show up in huge numbers to hear the message and what it is all about...and they are immediately dismissed because they didn't get themselves in a position to participate in a system that they have absolutely no faith in to begin with, or better yet, that they don't turn out in any better numbers than their generational predecessors ever did at the same ages...

like that slow leak in the dike...the boomers (like me) are inevitably dwindling while the X'ers have been filling the lake for years and Millenials are still flowing in...

THAT'S the REAL MATH...and all the machinations of the PTB, both (D) and (R) cannot change that...

[Jitter65]

54. No, Dems do not dismiss millennials, it's the other way around. Not willing to hear the other side,

expecting life-long democrats to suddenly throw in the towel on everything they worked so hard to accomplish. Many of those accomplishments directly benefiting the one out in the street now calling for them to bow down and capitulate to cold-turkey-like economic and social changes or bust. The President had words of wisdom for the BLM part of the "revolution." And he was roundly criticized for being "third-way" "establishment flunky" and on and on.

Reality, like mother nature, has a way of hitting hard and fast, not taking into account good or noble intentions. Hurricanes like revolutions swoop in, do their damage, destroy the old and set the stage for building the new. And the new inevitably has to be rebuilt with the same materials that built the old. The new just looks a little more shiny until the weather and the revolutionaries beat it down to look just like, if not worse than, the old.

[onenote]

57. There is no one millennial position any more than there is one baby boomer position

You seem to think that 70 million (or whatever number people want to settle on) millennial are a bloc of voters that move in lockstep. But the reality is that of the millennial that vote, at least a third have been voting for republicans. And others have been voting for Clinton. And many simply don't vote. As a result, their influence is not what you want it to be.

Take my state of Virginia (where I, a baby boomer, cast my vote for Bernie).
Totally open primary. Indeed, the state doesn't have party registration at all. You simply ask for whatever ballot you want.

In the Virginia Democratic primary, 41 percent of the voters were between 18 and 44, while 59 percent were over 45. Given that the top age of a millennial voter is around 34 (based on 1982 defining the start of the millennial generation), the number of millennials voting probably was close to one-third of the electorate. Of the 17-44 cohort, Clinton got 46% of the vote and even amongst the youngest part of that cohort, 18-24 year olds, she still got one-quarter of the votes.

The repub Virginia primary skewed older, with a mere 32 percent of the voters in the 17-44 group and only around 20 percent or so in the 17-34 group.

[CBHagman]

58. Thanks to you and Sancho for posting the voting rates.

And thank you for bringing up the actual breakdown. So often over the years on DU I have run across claims about monolithic voting blocs. To be fair, the media gets away with fudging the details on voters too, so it's always good to bring out the charts and figures.

[SharonClark]

64. Agree 100%

[MineralMan]

59. Tell you what: Get over 40% of millennials to

go to the polls and vote, and I'll start being interested. Do that in a mid-term election, when every member of the House is up for election, and I'll start listening closely.

Candidates and political parties pay close attention to who goes to the polling place on election day or votes in whatever way each state provides.

People pay close attention to turnout percentages and only then look at how people in demographic groups vote.

Millennials have historically not shown up to vote in high percentages, and they don't vote as a homogeneous group at all.

So, in 2016, show up to vote and I guarantee your group will be closely followed. Don't and nothing will change. Even if you don't like the choices offered, voting in high percentages will get your demographic noticed. If you stay home, you'll stay in the background.

[jeff47]

63. Tell you what: Get our party to give a shit about what Millenials want

and they will show up to vote for it.

[MineralMan]

65. I'd think millennials would want the best available

candidate to be elected for each office in every election. That's why people go to the polls and vote.

If they don't show up to vote, they don't count, really. Why should the party pay any attention to non-voters? Every election is a compromise. There are no perfect candidates who meet everyone's expectations. There never have been and never will be. We vote for the best available candidate every time.

Voters vote. People who don't vote are not voters. It is that freaking simple.

[cwydro]

69. Omg! That's not how it works.

Never has been.

If millennials want someone to pay attention to them, they need to vote.

So far, they appear to be busy with other pursuits.

[KoKo]

66. Recommend...So true..

We do not need to displace and kill hundreds of thousands of people in other countries, we need to focus our resources for all to survive, unfortunately we are going down the path where the top earners will reap the benefits and most will be fighting to survive.

That is not a world and a problem we wish to leave to our children and grandchildren.

The millennials, many of them are independents, but we brush them aside and expect them to conform.

That is the difference between 2008 and 2016, we need to incorporate a large influx of independents, but somehow the Dem party thinks they will all just magically fall in line.

The Dem party did NOTHING to incorporate this large influx of new voters, they buried their heads in the sand, and did not even schedule the first debate until after NY independents could not change their party affiliation last October.

[AgingAmerican]

67. Mid 20th century thinking

[PufPuf23]

68. Climate change is a cluster of business opportunities and an opportunity to expand empire

for neo-liberals and neo-conservatives.

The millennials will have their day and I hope that new leaders will arise that will disgorge the neo-liberals out of power and the Democratic Party.

The millennials have the numbers to change the Party if they join, do the hard work, and stay the course.

Thank you.