Did any other Millenials find Hillary's campaign insulting?

Politics & Elections
1

Everything about her, and her campaign, is cringey.
“Pokemon Go to the polls”
“Love Trumps Hate”
“Chillin’ in Sedar Rapids”
“Hot Sauce”

Cringe-inducing dancing with Ellen. I feel like she thought everyone in my age group could be bought off with these empty gestures. It felt almost condescending. I am a working class center-leftist who is moderate socially, and I felt that her pandering to the loudest, most left-wing minority of my generation was sickening; sickening mainly because of how empty it was. She attempted to appeal to a caricature of my generation - we’re all empty headed idiots who care about Pokemon and chillin’

I was never a Bernie supporter, nor am I a Trump supporter. I voted for Hillary purely out of a desire to keep Trump out of the White House. But unlike my 2012 vote for Obama, which was done with great enthusiasm and pride, I had to hold my nose for Hillary. I hated voting for her, and yet the alternative was even worse and meant the death of everything I hold dear. And what deepens the shame is I liked her husband, and I feel her loss has forever tainted and damned his legacy.

She was truly the cringe candidate. The epitome of DWS’ scheming and the DNC floundering. She was every bad trait of John Kerry turned up to 11. Gore may have been similarly cheesy, but there was a depth of conviction underneath that cheese. He was cheesy and easy to mock for it, but I can’t help but admire his sticking to his convictions even in light of mockery. Hillary never had any, and she thought my generation were all idiots who would overlook how much she had flip flopped, how easily she had caved in, and how often she had sold out, because she totally connected with us through Pokemon, man.

Obama may have not have been everything every Leftist could have asked for, but the man had a common touch, a genuine streak and genuinely seemed to be interested in our generation, interested in the way FDR was with the GI Generation. He did not come off haughty or entitled or condescending. He wasn’t the best President ever, but he was on balance perhaps the best of my short lifetime. What he lacked in charisma compared to Bill Clinton, he made up for in conviction. This was not a man who signed DOMA to secure re-election. If Obama had presided over as prosperous a period as the 1990s were, I’d easily call him the best Democratic President since FDR.

I am depressed in seeing how weak the Democratic Party has become, and Hillary for me stands out as a perfect representation of all that is wrong with it. The Republican Party, with all of its Randian callousness and disdain for science, isn’t for me. But increasingly neither is the limpy, ‘feel good’ virtue signalling, weak, capitulating, compromising, phony Liberalism of the DNC - the shallow product of advertising campaigns - the body that felt “I’m With Her” was a great slogan.

Any others of my generation sick of Hillary, and sick of the current DNC? Any other young Democrats here who despise Hillary, and who loathed voting for her?

2

Your arguments seem like the same Sanders sour grapes. You’ve turned the DNC into a Bond villain.

I’m so tired of millennials whining about Bill Clinton and the 1990s. We called it the gay 90s for a reason. DADT and DOMA sucked, but those weren’t hills to die on back then.

If you want to better the Democratic Party, then get out and knock on those doors, make phone calls, and put some sweat in it. Be prepared to have your heart ripped out by the far left Nader types who would rather have Bush reelected than comprise their purity and vote for Kerry.

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3

Couldn’t be bothered to vote on policy, it was about the fact that you were hurt because a 68yo woman didn’t seamlessly connect with someone 40+ years younger?

4

Not at all - I don’t like Sanders, for a variety of reasons. I voted for the first time in a primary just so he wouldn’t win in my state. No - the current DNC is too incompetent and feckless to be a Bond villain.

I don’t really damn Clinton for DADT or DOMA in the way some do. DADT was better than nothing, and DOMA was better than what the GOP Congress offered. My point was though that Clinton lacked a certain amount of conviction that Obama had. Clinton was, shortly before the impeachment, looking to privatize Social Security. He also gutted Welfare in 1996, and he campaigned in 1992 on “ending welfare as we know it.” That’s less forgivable than the lesser of two evils that DADT and DOMA represented.

The way I see it, the Democratic Party is suffering on several fronts. It has no real message that appeals to the WWC. The optics are bad; it is seen by many my age as the party of SJWs. At the same time, it offers no real, tangible answers to minorities other than “We’re not the Republicans.” The way the 2016 was run, the Democratic Party appeared to be more about empty appeasement than true ideals. There is no real heart or unity to the Establishment of the Democratic Party, and yet you have an insurgent far-left wing that lacks true power, but is angry as hell.

The Republicans are similarly lacking in ideals or policy, but “Make America Great Again” was a powerful slogan. There will ALWAYS be a core of Republicans who willn never, even at gunpoint, vote Democratic. You won’t find that sort of loyalty among Democratic voters. There is a certain limp wishywashy-ness, a certain generic blandness, a tokenism to the Democratic Party that is a turnoff. Hell, if the Republican message wasn’t so callous or their policies so cartoonishly evil I’d be tempted to vote for them.

5

Thing is I never heard a coherent policy in her speeches. Her speeches, her appearances and such focused more on what a bad guy Trump was than on any vague ideas. She didn’t sell me on how she would help ME, or others like me. She jumped on bandwagons at the last minute. She was insincere. She might say she was for a “$12 minimum wage” but she only jumped on that in response to Sanders coming out for a $15 minimum wage.

But no, on policy, she didn’t answer questions I wanted to hear answers to such as:
-How was she going to make jobs more plentiful, and finding a good job less difficult?
-What was she going to do about the rising levels of income inequality?
-What was she going to do to tackle the rising, and almost unlivable, cost of living in the cities?

Honestly, the most I remember about her campaign in terms of the issues was her staunch support for more gun control, and the 12$ minimum wage.

While I support abortion, gay marriage, and the like, ANY Democratic candidate would align with me on these issues. What she failed to sell me on was what she’d do for me.

And I did vote for her nonetheless, because she wasn’t Donald Trump. But I personally know quite a few Democrats who didn’t bother to vote for her because she didn’t resonate or offer anything for them. I know quite a few who either stayed home or wasted their vote with write-in’s such as “Obama for a Third Term”.

6

Did we call it the gay 90s? Really?

I’m not a millennial. I’m Generation X. You know, my generation are the nasty pessimistic ones who barely vote or vote Libertarian. You think millennials hold Hillary in contempt? Oh, man. They probably get it from the older generations who thought Perot had a point and that Bill sold them out.

7

No, I was not insulted by Clinton, and I don’t get why anyone else was. There really were a lot of people pushing this “we shouldn’t have to elect the lesser of two evils.” The world doesn’t work that way. Millennials of all people should fucking know this. We’ve been mistreated ever since the name for our generation was coined.

Yeah, go for Sanders at first because he’s closer to what we want. I’m fine with that. But then actually be an adult and vote for the candidate closer to what we want in the general, too.

8

Funny you say this. In the (albeit limited) experience I have with Gen Xers, they have consistently been the most cynical, jaded and apathetic group I have come across when it comes to politics. My sisters (45, 44) do not vote. I think the only time either of my sisters voted was in 1992. The other Gen Xers I know either lean Democrat, but don’t care to vote because it’s “all a game” or have turned alt-right, but still don’t bother to vote but will bitch and moan about how horrible the “cuck Democrats” are.

9

Yeah, I’m just about your sisters’ age, and I grew up with people like that. It’s weird how much of a political shift there is. The kids just a few years younger tended to be more idealistic on average, the ones a few years older extremely cynical. As far as I can see, people my age in Washington are often Republicans because they’re nihilistic.

10

The 1890s were ‘The Gay Nineties’.

She transferred a lot of wealth from the rich banks to her own pocket; that counts.

What feeble nonsense, Why should someone who thinks both candidates will make his or her life worse vote for either ? That’s not adulthood, that’s surrendering to fear.

11

Let’s see if we can introduce you to the concept of the lesser of two evils…especially when she was so clearly lesser. Welcome to the real world, i.e. adulthood.

12

Uh… so, the United States is not “the world,” and if you study the political systems of any sensible republic, you’re in for a rude awakening.

This is just yet another way the US is backasswards when compared to the rest of the world.

13

Well, our part of the world, the one in which we live and (I hope) vote,
does work that way.

14

Land of the free, home of the True Scottsmen?

I have a fleeting suspicion that things wont (read: can’t) continue this way. Trump is not the apex of anything, he’s merely a point on a continuing trend. Even if the Cheeto-in-Cheif doesn’t proc a constitutional crisis, the next wannabe autocrat almost certainly will. Let’s not forget that his ramping up of “legislation by executive order” is merely a continuation of how Obama stepped up Bush’s use of the same, that the omnipresence of blind partisanship has no practical mechanism for long term detente, and all the other lovely trends that exist precisely because you can be as awful a candidate as you want as long as you are one hairs breadth better than your opponent…

However, until reform happens, the only logical answer is to make politicians work for votes. The outrage of the Bernie Sanders crowd has had the very real effect of chilling Democrats towards their goto strategy (“We’re republicans, but not batshit crazy”) and forcing them to adopt actual policies of their own. I’m glad Single Payer is on the table now, and that the Fight for Fifteen pulled the Democrats into actually doing something that might help the people they claim they mean to.

Millennials are right to attack the “lesser” evil. What, are we to rely on the self same generation that got us into this mess to agitate for our interests?

15

The bold text is what’s important.

Not necessarily you, but in general, there are a lot of people who bang on about the Clintons, the Democrats, and even Obama for being a big disappointment and not giving them a reason to vote for them. And yet when you dig deeper, you find out that they themselves didn’t vote in mid-term elections that forced the Democrats to work with obstructionist howl-at-the-moon conservatives just to get anything done. When you talk to many of these people who are angry at the system, you find out that they haven’t really participated in it and frankly don’t understand it - and yet they’re angry and want it fixed.

The Clintons, Obama, and any politician aren’t in a position to deliver policy based on what opinion polls indicate might be popular. They look at votes - period. That’s the name of the game. That’s how you keep power in a democracy, and that’s how you decide what gets done and for whom. If you’re a legislator, why would you bother wasting your time proposing free a Playstation in every Millennial’s home if you know in advance that they’re not very likely to reward you at the polls? “Well, like, um, because like it’s the right thing to do, bro! Yo, you gotta earn my vote, bro!”:rolleyes:

Yeah, meanwhile, thanks to the fact that they sit out elections and don’t participate, the president now has other priorities, like being forced to pass a tax cut for the rich in order to make sure that congress keeps unemployment benefits going for millions of people. Again, it wasn’t what he wanted, but those are his choices – thanks to people who insist that voting is just a “choice” and they have the freedom to participate or not.

It all comes down to votes. Why are senate republicans at the point of nearly signing a healthcare bill that hardly any of them have even read? Because they know that a fairly substantial of the people who will decide their fate at the polls hate Obamacare and that there aren’t enough other voters out there they can count on to offset them.

I’m so tired of this idea that voting is merely a choice and that it’s entirely incumbent upon candidates running for office to convince them that they ought to vote for the lesser of two evils or even vote at all. Voting isn’t really a right; it’s a responsibility. But also being a Gen X’er and seeing Millennials and Gen Y, Gen Z, Gen whatever…it’s clear that civic duty is increasingly a foreign concept to many.

We get the government we deserve.

16

Yeah, yeah, yeah…talk is cheap.

A lot of people who would vote for Bernie Sanders or any Fight for Fifteen candidate into office would abandon him in the mid-terms and we’d be right back where we’ve always been, with people showing up every so often because they’re inspired but going back to the hum of daily life when they think they’ve got their political magician in office. Democracy isn’t just a vote once in a while; it’s constant, hard fucking work. It’s staying informed. It’s caring about elections that don’t get as much attention. It’s about calling hundreds of people in your spare time to support a candidate and getting hung up on. It’s going from house to house on a Sunday morning to support a candidate you like and occasionally getting told to “Get the fuck off my porch” because of it. It’s not just showing up at a rally where and cheering your guy and showing up at a Trump rally and shouting obscenities at their supporters. It takes commitment and the discipline to see agendas come to fruition. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but in America, I’d say a large percentage of the people who sit on their ass and whine incessantly about a choice between a turd and a shit sandwich aren’t really into doing much about it themselves.

17

Yes, everyone who dislikes Hillary is a silly Bernie-bro. :roll eyes:

OP: I don’t think your experience is millennial-specific. The sense you are talking about was pervasive across age groups. And it had little, if anything, to do with Bernie. People felt that way in '08, too, which is one big reason she lost the nomination to Obama. She had a huge, huge lead going into that primary.

18

I been a-votin’ in these here Presidential elections for nigh on, well a real long time, and I never heerd any of them “coherent policies” from nobody, I reckon.

19

We remember the oh so long ago campaign differently. I recall her as being the only candidate to have policy ideas more detailed than what would fit on a bumper sticker, and not spending an inordinate amount of time speaking of her challenger.

20

I know. If you didn’t hear HRC talking policy, it was because you weren’t listening.