Sign of Progress: Millennial Women Don't Care That Hillary Clinton Is a Woman.
It's a BFD that nobody really cares that Hillary might become the first female president.
So Hillary Clinton has made history as the first (presumptive!) nominee of a major political party. Odds are good that she will be the next president of the United States, and our first female chief executive.
And yet…young women just don't seem to care a rat's ass (nor do many older feminists, such as Naomi Klein). Democratic millennials (voter-brats below the age of 35 or so) prefer Bernie Sanders because while he is even older and whiter than Hillary, he's at least preaching a fake revolution that boils down to "Medicare for all." Really, what is wrong with the kids these days? They don't drink, drug, or fuck like they used to, and you can pacify them with the promise of low-co-pay hip replacements and discount Rascal Scooters. Jeez, this used to be such a great country. Three generations from burning bras and ROTC buildings to demanding college presidents wash inoffensive chalk messages off campus sidewalks. Make America great again? Sure, why not.
According to Asche Schow at the Washington Examiner, Hillary doesn't wow Lady Youth for a variety of reasons, including being stuck in the past:
Clinton appears to be fighting the battles of her generation of women, not today's. She still tells stories of past sexism (or questionable accounts of current sexism) that just don't appeal to many young women today. We get it, women had it tough in the past, but today we're making progress (without government interference) and don't have to keep whining about the bad old days of "Mad Men"-style offices….
It made it difficult for Clinton to constantly play the "woman card," because it didn't need to be said and the prospect of the first woman president doesn't seem like something necessary to advance women in America….
Clinton just isn't that inspirational, even if she does check one box for presidential diversity, and millennials — outside of the most stalwart outrage feminists — see that. She's going to have to do a lot more than constantly remind people she's a woman to win the rest of the millennials over.
Let me add also that Clinton has been embroiled for decades now in all sorts of real and imagined controversies and has never acquitted herself with much grace.
Luckily for Hillary, she's running against the biggest jackass to ever suit up as a Republican presidential nominee (presumptive!). Even still, Clinton is so unappealing that she and The Donald are crepey-neck-and-neck at this point in time.
Just a day or so ago, Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown noted that the response to Hillary Clinton's pathbreaking (presumptive!) nomination has "been a collective meh."
Let's not let this moment pass without giving it its due: That this long-awaited—and long-delayed—watershed is an anti-climax is a tremendous sign of social, economic, and political progress. Women of Hillary Clinton's vintage (she was born in 1947, about six months after Donald Trump) were born into a world that did not even pretend to treat women equally. Hillary's cohort had to put up with enormous amounts of horseshit and most of what they got, they had to fight for. The patriarchy—yes, it did exist and still lumbers on, though now like Tor Johnson in an Ed Wood movie—didn't exactly go gentle into that good night.
As someone who was born at the tail end of the baby boom (I was hatched in 1963), all I can say is thank you to all who came before and fought battles that I never had to engage. My parents were born in the 1920s and I inherited a world that was much freer and fairer than theirs had been, and I know my own kids (born in 1993 and 2001) are living in a world that is better still. But that ongoing social, economic, and political progress also means that Clinton's gender means less and less as time goes on. Which is exactly as it should be.
Clinton, like her peer Trump, will be judged not on the basis of her gender but the content of her character. Which helps explain why both candidates have historically low approval ratings and why "Democratic, Republican Identification Near Historical Lows."
This will almost certainly be the last presidential election that will include only baby boomers (Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate is 63). In keeping with my dream of becoming the Vidkun Quisling of my generation, I can only hope it will be the last. The baby boom has already scarfed down too much shrimp and tenderloin in the buffet of life to be allowed to keep doing so. Soon enough, it will be Gen X's and the millennials' time to screw things up however they see fit. Indeed, it's already past time for that to happen. If only they weren't so lazy or entitled.
