A Millennial Manifesto

The fun thing about election years is that they forces everyone, from the partisan junkies to the apathetic, to participate in the public discourse around politics.  During those talks, I've found it fascinating in discussions with my peers that there is a surprising amount of agreement that transcends traditional partisan lines.  But just as common is a sense of frustration and anger, because here's the kicker: the issues that us Millennials agree on the most are the ones least represented by our top two candidates for president.  Now, it seems the vast majority of Americans are at best underwhelmed and at worse scared out of their living minds by the nominations of Trump and Clinton.  But Millennials especially so, as they were most resistant to supporting either Trump or Clinton during the primary process.  As Millenials, we comprised both the base of the Sanders campaign and were the foremost leaders of the #NeverTrump movement.  And because our efforts failed, we Millennials are sure to win the award three times running for most likely to stay away from the polls this November.

Can we call for a redo?

This election threatens to further disengage a generation that already feels disenfranchised by the two established parties and candidates, but it doesn't have to be that way.  Millennials could be a powerful voting bloc if either party were savvy enough to at least pretend to care about the things we care about.  That said, I think we need to proliferate our ideas and our story.  We need a manifesto of the things we believe and why we believe them.  Because the world that we have experienced has led to us to care about drastically different political positions than our parents and grandparents.  And we Millennials are sick of being the national punching bag, because the older generation has consistently treated our political beliefs as products of our assumed laziness, vanity, naivete, and entitlement.  That dismissive attitude has led to disastrously tone-deaf characterizations like this:

Thank you for that ringing endorsement TIME!

So with the understanding that Millennials are not monolithic (at least 30% of Millenials would probably vehemently disagree with any of these positions) and I'm not the most qualified person to be writing this, here are the ideas that we tend to agree on.  Let's call it "A Millennial Manifesto".

WHO are we?
While defining clear generational bounds is never an exact science, the best way I have to define Millenials is the generation that was in grade school (K-12) at the turn of the millennia.  That means that when I refer to Millennials, I'm roughly talking about people who are now between the ages of 21 to 35.

Economically, many of us grew up in the light of 90's prosperity and in the shadows of 00's recessions after the bursting of the internet bubble, 9/11 (yeah, we remember 9/11), and the bursting of the housing bubble.  This economic whiplash has given us this weird sense that free market capitalism is both the best system for prosperity but also one with dangerous and inherent flaws and painful side-effects.

Socially, we've grown up in the most diverse America... ever?  We are the most likely of any generation before us to have friends and partners of a different race, nationality, sexual orientation or religious affiliation.  And that has made us more than simply tolerant of people who don't look, sound, or think like us; it means that we care deeply for them and it turns our stomachs when politicians use policies to marginalize a minority group as wedge issues.

There's more to our story but I think it's best told in response to issues we care about.  Here are those issues:

WAR: What is it good for?
Millennials tend to be the generation most skeptical of foreign military interventions since the Vietnam War and for good reason.  Our country was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for almost half of our entire lives with little fruits to show from it.  And we're tired.  We're fatigued.  We learned the hard way that  there is no amount of lives, time, and money that can be invested into a military campaign to completely eradicate terrorism. The post-9/11 military interventions didn't work as well as we'd hoped.  You see the devastation in a failing and flailing Afghani government and in the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.  That makes us extremely skeptical when Clinton wants to continue the Korean and Vietnam era military strategy of "containment and deterrence".  Clinton would also have us continue to arm rebel groups that have a precarious history of either turning on us or letting those arms fall into the hands of our enemies.  And let's just say that we're horrified by Trump's suggestion that we ought to use our military not just to kill suspected terrorists but kill their wives and children, too.

We love having the best and most well-equipped military in the world and understand it's necessity.  We know there are times that we need to use it.  But you'll have to forgive us that we've only witnessed the limits of our military power as a hammer in a world that isn't made up of nails.  We  think it's a waste to continue to spend more and more money on a military that is already funded better than the next ten highest countries combined when we're running huge deficits and struggling to maintain the efficacy of programs that benefit our most vulnerable in our society.

So when we call for less military intervention, less spending, and more diplomacy, understand that we are not trying to torpedo our security.  We are simply trying to be pragmatic knowing full-well the realities and limitations of even the strongest military in the current state of the world.

For better or worse, this is us.

MONEY: Times have been tough and that's made us simultaneously fiscally conservative and revolutionary
We are the generation that felt the brunt of the Great Recession.  Most of us were just cracking into the labor market after the housing bubble popped and sent waves throughout the world and essentially tanked the global economy.  It meant that many of us faced conditions in which we were laid off from our first jobs or were forced to compete with people with more experience for entry-level pay.  It meant that the privileged among us had to take unpaid internships to get our foot in the door. And for those of us that couldn't afford to not to get paid, we took jobs making coffee, delivering pizzas, or waiting tables even after getting a four year degree.  But worse of all, for those of us that didn't go to or finish college, Millennials were often forced to compete for unskilled work with people who were way overqualified.

We tend to be more conservative with our money as it's often been tight for us. Thus, we tend to recoil at a government that overspends it's means and seeks to raise taxes on the lower and middle class.  We're the best savers since our grandparents who grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression and expect as much from our government.

But conversely, many of us have a revolutionary spirit about the safeguards on our economy.  We saw the greed and stupidity of Wall Street and money lenders tank our economy only to then watch those same banks and firms get bailed out because they were "too big to fail" while the rest of us got hung out to dry.  As Michael Lewis noted in his book The Big Short after the 2008 collapse, sometimes it is difficult to tell with dangerous investing where the stupidity ends and the criminality begins.  So instead of making excuses we're ready for policy that includes a more regulated Wall Street and banking industry.

We've seen the wealth in our nation rebound but are angry that this new wealth is not reflected in increased wages for the common people.  The wealth of the top 1% of income earners has soared while those in the lowest quartile of our economy are poorer than the previous generation (see Occupy Wall Street movement). To be concise, "trickle down economics" was a bold faced lie that many of us that are conservative and still vote Republican refuse to believe anymore.

Even those of us that hate the thought of new taxes are not so ready to oppose raising taxes on the wealthy (or at the very least closing their multitude of tax breaks).  Millenials have experienced a business culture in which people are compensated as minimally as possible and treated like assets and not compensated generously as family like many of our grandparents were.  Too many large employers seek to squeeze water (profits) from stones (employees) and have forgotten the lesson of Henry Ford who raised wages for his factory employees knowing the duality we possess as producers and consumers.

We know communism doesn't work but our nation is forcing many of us to embrace some of the tenants of democratic socialism (see Bernie Sanders).  We have learned the hard way through all these economic whiplashes that we will never share in their prosperity, but will always share in their misery.

EDUCATION: The tuition is too damn high!  

That's not to say anything yet of the enormous amounts of debt it took many of us to get our educations.  College tuition has risen at nearly triple the rate of inflation (but has suspiciously not been going to professors).  So unlike our parents, it was nearly impossible to pay for college by working at the same time.  The average Millennial graduated with anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000 in student loan debt.  Most of us didn't buy into Bernie Sander's "free college" promise, but you better believe it resonated as a significant issue for many of us.  As post-secondary education becomes as necessary in our economy today as finishing high school was for our parents generation, we're willing to talk about how we might increase investment in higher ed.

CLIMATE CHANGE: It's happening, okay?
We are a generation that loves science and respects scientists.  We are a generation that grew up on Bill Nye and we follow Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Twitter.  We're just as likely to have read Charles Darwin as Charles Dickens.  That means we know what the Greenhouse Effect is and know that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are contributing factors.  We know that every decade since the 60's has been warmer than the last and unless there is another major volcanic eruption that pores sulfur into the air, that trend will continue.  We trust when 97% of climate scientists say: Yeah, it's a thing.

Bill! Bill! Bill!

We do hate the hyperbolic ways in which the issue is debated on both sides, but that doesn't make it any less concerning.  No, we don't believe Miami will be underwater by 2025.  No, we don't all believe that every bad weather event is linked to climate change.  Yes, Al Gore is an idiot.  But it isn't helpful when our grandparents say, "So much for global warming, eh?" every time a snowflake hits the ground.

Here is what's real.  The earth is warming on a decade by decade basis.  Glaciers are disappearing.  The ice caps are melting.  Droughts are more frequent.  Heat related deaths are on the rise in countries around the world.

So hopefully you understand our palpable frustration when coal, gas, and electric companies lobby politicians to thwart efforts to make renewable energy sources more accessible and prevalent.  Most of us don't believe that we should instantly ban coal and gas, but coal mining and gas extraction techniques like fracking are doing irreparable harm to our environment.  We don't think it is asking too much to see them curbed.  And yes, we do believe those that contribute the most pollution should have to pay for it even if that means instituting a carbon tax.

We are open to a discussion on how to strike a balance between environmental regulations and pro-business policy options/economic trade-offs.  But what we do know is that our current state does not reflect that balance.

SOCIAL JUSTICE: Immigration and Policing
Remember when I said we're the most likely generation to have friends and partners that don't look like us?  Well, that's because 40% of us are non-white meaning that almost all of us have either experienced institutional racism at the hands of law enforcement or are friends with someone who has.  That means we're turned off by the heavy-handed policies of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and we're generally in favor of greater accountability of our law enforcement when they shoot civilians

Over 70% of us believe that immigration is good for our economy and our society.  We've met undocumented people and don't see them as any less American than we are.  Don't get me wrong, we want people to come here legally.  But we also understand that's not a likely reality for those who are not white or well-educated.  The demand for people to come here for opportunity is magnitudes higher than the amount of people they let come here legally.  Therefore, we can't blame people for trying to work around the system.  We believe it's time for true immigration reform that allows more people to come and with lower barriers to entry.  We also desperately favor a change in the rate in which our neighbors and friends are deported.

Suffice it to say, Trump's entire campaign is based on being the antithesis to these ideas.  But at least he is transparent with his ideals.  While Clinton's rhetoric has indicted she'd like to see a pathway to citizenship and keep even undocumented families that are here together, her record in public service has indicated the opposite.  While she was Senator, she voted along with the majority for an expensive and ineffectual border fence (fence... wall... big difference, right?).  And as Secretary of State, she used none of her influence in the administration to curb the increasing rate of non-criminal deportations.

As for our police force, everyone wants to feel safe, secure and protected.  But the common occurrence of officers killing civilians (often unarmed) without consequences disturbs and enrages us.  The names Trayvon Martin, John Crawford, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Freddy Gray, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and Tamir Rice are burned into our hearts.  We're still divided in our support for the Black Lives Matter movement, but we're more likely to support their policy recommendations including demilitarizing our police forces, changes to our judicial system such that police are not given carte blanche to use force, and seeing a necessity to have community oversight of precincts.

INTERNET: It's our lifeblood
We have been called the first generation of "digital natives".  We have had greater access to computers at a younger age than any generation before us.  For example, we were taught to look up books at the library on the computer and not on index cards.  We grew up having to type out our papers on Microsoft Word and learning to source our English papers with web media.  We learned to socialize on AOL instant messenger and Facebook (who doesn't remember this heavenly sound?).  Many of our first jobs included titles such as "web designer" and "social media coordinator".  We look to Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, and Facebook to entertain us in our downtime.

All this means that the internet is more than just a tool; it's often an inseparable part of our lives.    Our deftness with it is often our most marketable job skill.  It is our source of entertainment and socialization.

That said, you should understand why we bristle when our ability to freely and fairly access the internet sites we use is threatened by those who'd like to end Net Neutrality.  And we get defensive when our (relative) privacy on the web is threatened by the NSA which is constantly collecting and sifting through our personal communications.  It's amazing how fast people switch from a place of apathy about domestic spying (because "hey, I'm not a terrorist") to being adamantly against it when they find out that NSA workers are passing around the photos we send to our loved ones.

Trump is firmly opposed to Net Neutrality under the misguided belief that it will censor conservative web content (spoiler alert: Net Neutrality actually allows unrestricted access to conservative punditry).  While Clinton has come out with lukewarm favor for Net Neutrality, she continues to support an unchecked NSA.  For two people whose ages 70 and 68 respectively, it doesn't make sense that people who primarily represent a demographic that doesn't even know what HTML is and struggle to use their smartphones for anything but making phone calls should be in charge of setting policy for the internet and technology of the next generation.

GAY? Fine by me
Although gay marriage has officially had it's day in the Supreme Court and won, people like Kim Davis, bakeries in Colorado, and (for awhile) the collective legislative body of the state of Alabama have still been know to fight against it.  As Millennials, we think they're nuts.  The vast majority of us either strongly believe that marriage equality is a civil rights issue or are apathetic enough to know that allowing two dudes to don tuxes and say "I do" isn't going to bring about the apocalypse.  In every state that legalized gay marriage before the Supreme Court decision, you better believe we were the ones that allowed it to happen.

We grew up knowing people that were gay and transgender and loving them as our brothers and sisters.  We're less likely to take Leviticus literally (check out all our tattoos!  And boy do we love bacon...).  We we grew up knowing that not all queer people have HIV and that it can't be transferred through fist-bumps.

MJ got the memo about fist-bumps being okay.

You want to married to the person you love? Great!  You want to use a bathroom that fits your gender identity? Go ahead. But it's time to end the culture war in our state legislatures and on the House floor, deal?

Conclusion
These are things we tend to agree on.  This list isn't exhaustive, nor is in some magical order of how much we care about each issue.  But as far as we can tell, these are also the issues most neglected by the two people most likely to be sitting in the Oval office a year from now.  Let me know what you think of this list.  Is there anything I missed?  Anything that is more nuanced than I made it sound?  Leave your comments below.