{"id":63,"date":"2016-10-31T04:20:38","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T04:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/campaign2016-youthvote\/?p=63"},"modified":"2016-11-04T19:21:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T19:21:45","slug":"the-clinton-conundrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/campaign2016-youthvote\/2016\/10\/31\/the-clinton-conundrum\/","title":{"rendered":"The Clinton Conundrum"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"PHILADELPHIA,
(Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMy vote and my support are two completely different things,\u201d Mark Machuzick says. The 24 year old from Minnetonka, Minnesota, now living in Washington D.C., speaks about the 2016 election with punctuated sighs. \u201cI\u2019m not voting for Hillary, I\u2019m voting against Trump,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

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Machuzick, like many young professionals, is disillusioned with the two major-party candidates running for the presidency. For many, it\u2019s their first time voting since graduating college. Young professionals, or Millennials, as they\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur generation often identifies as \u2018socially liberal, fiscally conservative\u2019 and there really isn\u2019t a single candidate or party that holds that view,\u201d Machuzick says. \u201cWe\u2019re stuck in a \u2018pick one or the other\u2019 system of voting. You can go Republican, which is socially stuck in 1954, or Democrat, where you\u2019ll see about 37% of your paycheck if they had their way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Machuzick, who prior to this election cycle identified as a Republican, isn\u2019t the only one who feels like his views aren\u2019t being represented in the political pantheon of today. Young adults on the far left side of the spectrum are feeling left behind as well.<\/p>\n

Graham Rapier, 23, is a web producer in New York City. A far cry from his conservative Texas roots, Rapier once called Bernie Sanders \u201cThe most principled and righteous man in U.S. Politics.\u201d However, despite feeling the Bern during the primaries, Rapier is also voting for Hillary Clinton when November 8th<\/sup>\u00a0rolls around. He believes Clinton is \u201c100 percent prepared\u201d to be president, but Rapier doesn\u2019t believe she represents the American public, particularly those fresh out of college and just starting out in their careers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone on the bottom of the workforce totem pole, I will be the first to be fired in the event of economic uncertainty,\u201d Rapier said. Conversely, he points out \u201cHillary Clinton is as much of a member of the elite establishment as they come. Although, I also don\u2019t feel like my life is represented by either candidate, or any elected federal official, for that matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

So why don\u2019t 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\u2019t viable options.<\/p>\n

On Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate currently polling at 7 percent of the electorate, Rapier said, \u201cHe literally didn\u2019t know what Aleppo was. That should say enough,\u201d about his qualifications.<\/p>\n

And on the Green Party\u2019s Dr. Jill Stein, Machuzick believes she\u2019s lost credibility as a candidate by \u201cpandering to anyone who will give her support.\u201d He also finds her \u2018not quite anti-vax but not quite pro-vaccine\u2019 views concerning, particularly given that she is a medical doctor.<\/p>\n

If Machuzick and Rapier seem well informed, it\u2019s because, well, they are. Millennials are often derided as lazy, elitist and narcissistic\u2014like every generation has described the one following at some point or another\u2014but Machuzick and Rapier have done their homework. And yet, the major party political campaigns continue to overlook the Millennial vote. On one hand, it\u2019s warranted. According to Pew Research Center, only 46 percent of eligible Millennials voted in 2012, compared to 72 percent of the Silent Generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve largely ignored our voter base because we don\u2019t turn out in as high of numbers as older generations do,\u201d Machuzick said. \u201cHillary just puts her interns on Twitter as an attempt to reach out and \u2018relate\u2019 to us young people,\u201d he says with air quotes.<\/p>\n

So what drove young professionals to vote for a candidate they largely seem to dislike? In a word, Trump.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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 \u201canti-endorsement\u201d of the Donald.<\/p>\n

Trump isn\u2019t faring so well with the Millennial crowd either. Rapier refers to Donald Trump as a \u201cliar\u201d in his interview, and Machuzick points out he is \u201cimmune to facts.\u201d While neither of them holds Hillary Clinton as a paragon of truth telling, particularly after her e-mail scandal, which Machuzick calls \u201cshady,\u201d both Machuzick and Rapier emphasize that Clinton\u2019s campaign and platform are far more grounded in the fact than Donald Trump\u2019s. This is backed up by PolitiFact\u2019s fact checking data, which sees 71 percent of Trump\u2019s statements rated \u2018Mostly False,\u2019 \u2018False\u2019 or \u2018Pants on Fire.\u2019 Clinton\u2019s percentage of false statements, on the other hand, is less than half of this, at just 31 percent.<\/p>\n

While the falsehoods are a big component of why young professionals like Rapier and Machuzick aren\u2019t 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\u2019s two party system, they\u2019re really only left with one other option.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw this on the Internet but really like it: in this country we have 8 kinds of Coke, but only 2 parties,\u201d Rapier points out. \u201cHow can two parties reflect this many millions of Americans? It also contributes to this ridiculous polarity affecting almost every part of public discourse.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this kind of polarization caused by the two party system that leads to the \u201clesser of two evils\u201d election situation many feel like America has in 2016. Or as Machuzick, and South Park<\/em>,\u00a0puts it, the choice between a \u201cGiant Douche\u201d and a \u201cTurd Sandwich.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, when November 8th<\/sup>\u00a0comes around, both Machuzick and Rapier will be casting their votes for Hillary Clinton. Rapier, unenthusiastically, and Machuzick while \u201cplugging his nose.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cMy vote and my support are two completely different things,\u201d Mark Machuzick says. The 24 year old from Minnetonka, Minnesota, now living in Washington D.C., speaks about the 2016 election with punctuated sighs. \u201cI\u2019m not voting for Hillary, I\u2019m voting against Trump,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Clinton Conundrum - Campaign 2016: Youth Vote<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/projects.nyujournalism.org\/campaign2016-youthvote\/2016\/10\/31\/the-clinton-conundrum\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Clinton Conundrum - Campaign 2016: Youth Vote\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  \u201cMy vote and my support are two completely different things,\u201d Mark Machuzick says. 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