Why do so many people blame millennials for Trump's election?

[NobodyHere]

The millennials voted for Clinton

Every other age group voted for Trump. Perhaps those groups should have some introspection.

Older isn't wiser in this country.

[Lotusflower70]

1. Good question

I think because it's easy and lazy. Instead of trying to understand what went wrong, some people are looking for a scapegoat.

[JHB]

2. Because the margin was so thin fingers can be pointed in any direction...

...and there's a case to be made for who to blame.

Thus, everybody with an axe to grind is grinding away.

[Va Lefty]

3. Excellent answer

[mythology]

15. And generally those fingers are pointed everywhere else

There are lots of reasons Clinton lost, as a party we need to shift through which are viable to fix without losing our core values. A lot can be fixed via turnout and fighting voter suppression/gerrymandering.

[NRQ891]

4. because as of yet, there isn't a serious commitment to facing what happened, and fixing it nt

[NobodyHere]

5. They voted for Clinton

When will everyone else make a commitment to fixing what happened?

[NRQ891]

11. I'm not talking about Millennials

Millennials had nothing to do with this debacle.

I'm talking about the party's questionable commitment to working people

[NobodyHere]

25. Sorry bout that

[raging moderate]

6. Cheer up, Millennials!

Before long, you will be elbowing us oldsters aside to start running the world.

I thank God for you constantly.

[HassleCat]

7. Like other demographics

They were supposed to support Clinton more heavily than they did.

[NobodyHere]

8. Yet they did support Clinton

What happened to everyone else?

I thought older was suppose to be wiser.

[QC]

9. It's easier than thinking. n/t

[CajunBlazer]

10. Because many of them "weren't excited" so they didn't bother to vote

Because if they had, Trump won't have won in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

In other words for the same reason why Stein voters, ultra liberals couldn't bring themselves to vote for Hillary so they stayed home, and other groups who could have made a difference, but didn't are being blamed. There is plenty of blame to go around because the winning margin in those three states was razor thin.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Amazing how, despite "plenty of blame to go around", it rarely seems to spread far enough to cover

the strategists on Hillary's campaign existing in a manhattan bubble, who wrote off the upper midwest until it was way too late

[Grey Lemercier]

23. this

[J_William_Ryan]

18. This is pretty much it.

And not just Millennials – once again, as in 2000, Democrats abandoned their candidate, along with Democratic-leaning moderates and independents.

Not many, but just enough to lose the election.

It’s an old, tedious story that's been repeating itself for almost 50 years.

[True_Blue]

12. Hillary won the popular vote

I don't think any group is to blame except racists. Personally, I think Trump stole the election.

[Exilednight]

35. That's like my saying "my team is world champions because they have the most fans".

We can only win the executive branch if we get 270 electoral votes.

She mismanaged the electoral map and now WE must pay the price.

[True_Blue]

38. I don't disagree with you

I think she paid too much attention to the polls, which were wrong and showed solid red states like AZ leaning blue or toss up when they were actually still solid red. In the last couple of weeks of the election here in AZ, we had Hillary, Michelle, Chelsea, Kaine and Bernie 2xs, which turned out to be a huge waste. Seeing how far off the polls were this time maybe future strategies shouldn't focus on the polls so much. Maybe need to just ignore the traditionally solid red states and focus primarily on the rest of the country no matter what the polls say.

I think Dems underestimate the Republicans too much sometimes. If the race is even somewhat close then they can pull enough shenanigans to steal it. Republicans govern horribly, but they are masters at getting you to take your eye off the ball.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. because dinner isn't until 5:30

and as such, afternoon is cranky time.

[FBaggins]

16. It's the only group with declining participation that also favored Sanders in the primaries

Therefore the electoral loss is all Bernie's fault and not Clinton's.

See how easy that was?

[TheBlackAdder]

19. It's a shame that you have to put a sarcasm thing on a post with some validity to it.

[doc03]

17. I live in Ohio I am white and from listening to other white working class voters on

on why they voted for Trump. I have come to believe there are two issues that really motivated white people to vote for Trump.

1. The BLM movement. With all of the incidents of police shooting blacks they feel that if the person had obeyed instructions from the officer they wouldn't have been shot.

2. Then there are police officers that have been shot, they also blame those on the BLM.


It boils down to racism, they believe blacks think they can break the law and shouldn't be arrested. I have heard over and
over "When will they learn to do what they are told to do?". Then I hear when a cop stops you put your hands on the wheel
and wait for the cop to tell you what to do. Don't go for your glove box to get your license or anything. So in their mind
it is their fault they got shot. They think a white person would also been shot but they follow instructions.

[forjusticethunders]

27. Point out the times where white people disobey, fight back, or even shoot at cops

without getting shot.

But then, racism is cognitive dissonance so that probably won't work.

[doc03]

29. We had an incident here where a white guy threatened to kill his family and himself.

When the cops arrived he took them on a 40 mile high speed chase. The cops used nail strips to stop him but
he kept going until his engine blew. He gets out of his truck waving a gun around and pointing it to his head and
chest saying he would kill himself. He held the cops at bay and had a main highway closed to traffic for two hours
before he finally gave up. Well it was simple to them he didn't get shot because he never pointed the gun at the cops.
Like I said they have their minds set and you can't convince them otherwise. I posted that here on DU I think back in October
and was met with comments like you think they should have shot him.

[BlueProgressive]

20. "When will they learn to do what they are told to do?" GOOD GOD!!!

Yeah, the slave-owners in this country were saying the same thing for over 200 years... literally....
and then, the segregationists after that...

[jfern]

21. 3rd way must blame everything but themselves

[otohara]

22. Not Enough Of Them Did

and I think you know that because it was widely reported.

Dissecting the Youth Vote
Americans under 30 years old leaned left in this election, but not to the extent that they have in the past.

Though voters ages 18-to-29 skewed liberal, more than a third did not: Fifty-five percent of young voters chose Clinton, down from the 60 percent that backed Obama in 2012, while 37 percent chose President-Elect Donald Trump.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/11/dissecting-the-youth-vote/507416/

As the mother of a Millennial who was friends with about 60 of his Jambase hipster/artists types on Facebook - the amount of Hillary hate they spread around was nauseating and the comments were worse. Sanders surrogates like Killer Mike and others did a bang up job of driving down turnout in the minority communities. They hung on to conspiracy theories. fake news and the endless hateful memes featuring Sec. Clinton.

[dsc]

24. and Killer Mike will get a tax cut

and the gays and transgender people who he clearly hates will suffer so for him it is all good.

[Ace Rothstein]

26. At least they didn't vote for Trump in massive numbers like the Boomers did.

The Boomers have basically fucked up everything in this country since they came of age.

[malchickiwick]

28. b/c so many Internet natives are oblivious to its inherent misogyny

, and that inherent misogyny helps explain their "lack of enthusiasm" in the GE.

[meow2u3]

30. People are looking for a scapegoat

because they know voting for tRump was socially unacceptable and had to blame someone other than themselves for falling for his pack of lies.
Those "soft" tRump voters are too bashful to admit they've been conned.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

31. It's silly, although Clinton did a little worse among young voters compared to Obama.

I was just comparing the 2012 and 2016 exit polls.
2012: http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president/
2016: http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls

Here's some of my observations of how Clinton performed compared to Obama:

GENDER
Worse among men
Better among women

AGE
Worse among 18-29
Better among 30-44
Worse among 45-64
Better among 65 and older

RACE
Same among whites (!!)
Worse among blacks
Worse among Latinos
Worse among Asians
Worse among other race

EDUCATION
Worse among high school or less (BY FAR!!)
Worse among some college
Better among college grads
Better among post-grads

INCOME
Worse among voters earning less than 50k
Better among voters earning more than 50k

MARITAL STATUS
Better among married
Worse among unmarried

RELIGION
Worse among Protestants
Worse among Catholics
Better among Jewish (Maybe because Trump is Hitler?)
Worse among Other Religion
Worse among No religion

WHITE "BORN AGAIN" CHRISTIANS
Worse among "yes" (there's an open SC seat on the line)
Better among "no" (but close to the same)

UNION HOUSEHOLD
Worse among "yes"
Worse among "no"

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Worse among "offer legal status"
Worse among "deport"

FAVORABLE / UNFAVORABLE OPINION of Clinton and Obama
Much worse (Obama's favorable percentage stayed about the same in the 2012 & 2016 polls too)

More detail about EDUCATION:
High school or less:
24% of voters in 2012: Obama 53%, Romney 46%
18% of voters in 2016: Clinton 46%, Trump 51%
Some college:
29% of voters in 2012: Obama 49%, Romney 48%
32% of voters in 2016: Clinton 43%, Trump 51%

[NobodyHere]

33. It really boggles the mind that Trump was worse among Latinos

Given all the racist comments that he made.

Was Romney really more horrible? Or was Clinton just not that appealing?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

34. That surprised me too!

Clinton was viewed far less favorably compared to Obama. Obama's percentages on that question remained about the same in 2012 and 2016, so it's not like the exit poll respondents had a change of heart about him (collectively).

The exit polls showed that Trump was viewed far less favorably compared to Romney too, but Trump won a bigger percentage of voters who viewed him unfavorably compared to Romney.

[Exilednight]

36. Favorability and Unfavorability ratings play a big role in elections.

If you're not likeable, you're probably not going to win. This was the first election I can remember where both parties candidates were upside down in favorability rating. Hillary's longer political history was the deciding factor. Sure, Trump has a history, but it's not in politics.

This is why I honestly believe that Bernie was a better candidate. His favorabilities were much higher than Hillary's. Sure, they may have dipped a little, but he just had to stay above Trump's.

[TransitJohn]

32. Because this place skews old

Like, I'm 45 and feel out of touch on DU oftentimes. The culture of this board, by-and-large, really likes to complain about youth and how things are different now. Maybe I'm out to lunch, but that's a very large part of what I have gotten out of this place since joining in '04.

[Exilednight]

37. Like me, you're a Gen xer. I often feel like I walked into Boomer Nation.

Ironically, I blame boomers for much of what is wrong with the world.

Obama was the first Gen X president putting an end to the boomer rule. The first thing they do after Obama's two terms are over is run backwards to a boomer president who believes in boomer ideology. It's a generation that came late to the technology age, and has a bad habit of living in the past.