Clinton Losing Millennial Support Nationally and in Key States

[Warren DeMontague]

99. It's a good question. One thing, it's possible GJ is more accessible. He certainly gets more airtime

also, although some people -particularly boomers- may roll their eyes and get all heavy sigh indignant over notions of "freedom", etc, the fact is that the 'no nanny or daddy state' rhetoric of the Libertarian Party is decidedly appealing to a broad swath of Americans, particularly younger ones- who see that the past several decades; particularly due to the drug war- have led to an unprecedented destruction of the bill of rights and encroachments on personal freedom.

They hear people on 'the left' who are in perpetual temper tantrum mode over things like internet pornography or full frontal nudity on HBO. They don't understand why the government seems to care what size sodas people drink.

Now, when I was that age- late teens, early 20s- we were up to our ass in Reagan and Falwell and the Moral Majority. With the possible exception of Andrea Dworkin playing patty-cake with Ed Meese, the left WAS the side that was standing up for personal freedom and liberty, in the face of theocratic and authoritarian bullshit.

But these kids, in particular, they don't really remember what it was like to have right wingers running the show. They don't understand for every annoying pseudo-authoritarian on the "left", there are 20 ACTUAL fascists, on the right.

And unfortunately IMHO those of us on the progressive side of things haven't done a good enough job communicating that we are the people standing up for free speech, ending the drug war, the right of people to make their own decisions about what do do with and inside their own bodies, bedrooms, bloodstreams, etc.

So the Greens may not seem as appealingly "change" oriented as, say, the libertarians might. Now, we know how full of shit they are, even if they're right about something like the drug war--- they also want to privatize fire departments and do away with the FDA.

But again, someone hasn't done a very good job of messaging what we actually stand for. It's a shame.