Millennial let down

Outcome could have been different if we could vote

 

By: Rachael Gerron

On Tuesday November 8th Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, despite most people's predictions. Most people, including the Republicans voting for him, thought that Hillary would win. A lot of people were turned off by the idea of a Trump presidency, but no one as much as millennials.

During the primaries, Bernie Sanders was extremely popular among young people, for his views on gay rights, legalizing marijuana and his fight for equality. After Clinton and Trump won the nominations most millennials had no other choice but to support Hillary to keep Donald Trump from winning.

Clinton supporters were all over social media spreading videos of the awful things Trump has said. It seemed like everyone was for Hillary. The problem with that is, most of the young people who were against Trump aren't even voting age yet!

When Trump won the Internet blew up. People were angry and some were sad, but almost everyone was scared. Scared for our country and for our future. They thought that all the good that our country had done would be reversed.

I interviewed people ages 15-17 to see what they thought. Out of the 7 people I interviewed, 5 were for Clinton and 2 were for Trump.

The issues important to the Clinton supporters were LGBTQ rights, free college education, the Black Lives Matter movement and the Flint water crisis

The two Trump supporters both agreed with his stance on abortion, immigration laws, gay marriage, health care, taxes, ISIS, veterans, creating jobs and national security to build up our military.

I next asked who they would've voted for in the primaries. All of the Clinton supporters I interviewed would've voted for Bernie Sanders. Some liked his views on LBGTQ rights, some liked that he would legalize the recreational use of marijuana and others liked his “free college for everyone plan.” But everyone agreed that he would've made the best president.

As far as the two Trump supporters, they claimed they've been for him through the primaries.

I finally asked them if their vote would be a vote for their candidate or a vote against the other candidate. This question had some mixed answers. The two Trump supporters said it was as a vote for him because they agreed with his policies. On the other hand, one Clinton supporter said that his vote would've been a vote against Trump because he believed that she had a "tainted history". Another said it was a little bit of both.

According to my social media research and the people I interviewed most young people have very liberal views.  This election would've come out very differently had we been able to vote.