“My vote and my support are two completely different things,” Mark Machuzick says. The 24 year old from Minnetonka, Minnesota, now living in Washington D.C., speaks about the 2016 election with punctuated sighs. “I’m not voting for Hillary, I’m voting against Trump,” he explains.
Machuzick, like many young professionals, is disillusioned with the two major-party candidates running for the presidency. For many, it’s their first time voting since graduating college. Young professionals, or Millennials, as they’re begrudgingly known, have to contemplate the world without the safety net of parental intervention or college campuses, a world where they have to find health insurance and file taxes for what may be the very first time.
“Our generation often identifies as ‘socially liberal, fiscally conservative’ and there really isn’t a single candidate or party that holds that view,” Machuzick says. “We’re stuck in a ‘pick one or the other’ system of voting. You can go Republican, which is socially stuck in 1954, or Democrat, where you’ll see about 37% of your paycheck if they had their way.”
Machuzick, who prior to this election cycle identified as a Republican, isn’t the only one who feels like his views aren’t being represented in the political pantheon of today. Young adults on the far left side of the spectrum are feeling left behind as well.
Graham Rapier, 23, is a web producer in New York City. A far cry from his conservative Texas roots, Rapier once called Bernie Sanders “The most principled and righteous man in U.S. Politics.” However, despite feeling the Bern during the primaries, Rapier is also voting for Hillary Clinton when November 8th rolls around. He believes Clinton is “100 percent prepared” to be president, but Rapier doesn’t believe she represents the American public, particularly those fresh out of college and just starting out in their careers.
“As someone on the bottom of the workforce totem pole, I will be the first to be fired in the event of economic uncertainty,” Rapier said. Conversely, he points out “Hillary Clinton is as much of a member of the elite establishment as they come. Although, I also don’t feel like my life is represented by either candidate, or any elected federal official, for that matter.”
This isn’t the first election either Rapier or Machuzick voted in. In 2012 Rapier cast his vote for Barack Obama, Machuzick for Mitt Romney. They agree that either 2012 candidate would be preferable to those on offer in 2016.
So why don’t they turn to the third party candidates that, according to The Guardian, 15 percent of Americans are considering voting for? For Rapier and Machuzick, they aren’t viable options.
On Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate currently polling at 7 percent of the electorate, Rapier said, “He literally didn’t know what Aleppo was. That should say enough,” about his qualifications.
And on the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein, Machuzick believes she’s lost credibility as a candidate by “pandering to anyone who will give her support.” He also finds her ‘not quite anti-vax but not quite pro-vaccine’ views concerning, particularly given that she is a medical doctor.
If Machuzick and Rapier seem well informed, it’s because, well, they are. Millennials are often derided as lazy, elitist and narcissistic—like every generation has described the one following at some point or another—but Machuzick and Rapier have done their homework. And yet, the major party political campaigns continue to overlook the Millennial vote. On one hand, it’s warranted. According to Pew Research Center, only 46 percent of eligible Millennials voted in 2012, compared to 72 percent of the Silent Generation.
“They’ve largely ignored our voter base because we don’t turn out in as high of numbers as older generations do,” Machuzick said. “Hillary just puts her interns on Twitter as an attempt to reach out and ‘relate’ to us young people,” he says with air quotes.
So what drove young professionals to vote for a candidate they largely seem to dislike? In a word, Trump.
It’s no secret that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is a highly polarizing figure in politics today. Editorial after editorial has been published on how he has changed the political landscape in America. Trump is so polarizing that newspapers like The Arizona Republic, a paper that has never endorsed a Democratic candidate over a Republican since it was founded in 1890, has endorsed Hillary Clinton. Even the widely circulated USA Today, which has never endorsed a candidate, period, in its 34 years, wrote a scathing “anti-endorsement” of the Donald.
Trump isn’t faring so well with the Millennial crowd either. Rapier refers to Donald Trump as a “liar” in his interview, and Machuzick points out he is “immune to facts.” While neither of them holds Hillary Clinton as a paragon of truth telling, particularly after her e-mail scandal, which Machuzick calls “shady,” both Machuzick and Rapier emphasize that Clinton’s campaign and platform are far more grounded in the fact than Donald Trump’s. This is backed up by PolitiFact’s fact checking data, which sees 71 percent of Trump’s statements rated ‘Mostly False,’ ‘False’ or ‘Pants on Fire.’ Clinton’s percentage of false statements, on the other hand, is less than half of this, at just 31 percent.
While the falsehoods are a big component of why young professionals like Rapier and Machuzick aren’t on team Trump, they are just one component. His bad business sense, isolationist views, sexist comments, poor temperament and racist remarks were also cited as reasons Rapier and Machuzick are not voting for Trump. And, because of America’s two party system, they’re really only left with one other option.
“I saw this on the Internet but really like it: in this country we have 8 kinds of Coke, but only 2 parties,” Rapier points out. “How can two parties reflect this many millions of Americans? It also contributes to this ridiculous polarity affecting almost every part of public discourse.”
It’s this kind of polarization caused by the two party system that leads to the “lesser of two evils” election situation many feel like America has in 2016. Or as Machuzick, and South Park, puts it, the choice between a “Giant Douche” and a “Turd Sandwich.”
So, when November 8th comes around, both Machuzick and Rapier will be casting their votes for Hillary Clinton. Rapier, unenthusiastically, and Machuzick while “plugging his nose.” Neither is thrilled about the prospect of a Clinton presidency, but as young professionals they see her as the better option for their interests and their futures.