Millennials Join the Club

They are 18 to 34, and are now the largest generation. They have come of age in an era of terrorism, war, economic upheaval and dashed hopes. They are disillusioned idealists, as many their age have been in other turbulent eras — the 1960s for example.

So now it is time to vote for president. They gave their hearts in large numbers to Obama’s promise of hope and change and got obstructionism and stasis. This year many felt the Bern, but that dream fell short.

Up until recently as many as 41% said they might not vote at all since the choice was between two sows ears and two forlorn third party fantasies. But in recent polls millennials have appeared to be starting to break strongly for Clinton as the least bad choice — 51% Clinton to 20% Trump in one survey.

But they sure aren’t happy about it. Alas, children, you had better get used to it. For many of my generation, the first choice was between Humphrey and Nixon, both promising more war ten weeks after the assassination of Robert Kennedy with his more hopeful message.

Since then, the choices have included such grim alternatives as Nixon-McGovern, Ford-Carter, two races with Reagan (a kind of Trump capable of taking direction), two with Clinton (a kind of Trump with brains), Bush-Dukakis, George W. against Gore and Kerry.

Not to mention a motley crew of third party fringe candidates offering no hope of victory or, in several cases, sanity, including George Wallace, Lyndon LaRouche, Lester Maddox, John Anderson, Ron Paul, Ross Perot, Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan.

The lesson of history is that most candidates for high office, let alone middling offices, are mediocre at best, disgraces quite often. The Washingtons, Lincolns and Roosevelts are few and far between. So voters had better get used to holding their noses with one hand and marking their ballots with the other.

And as long as we are talking about the lessons of history, it might be worth noting that history can also remind us that the creatures that seem incomparably peculiar in our time had earlier precursors. So, I can’t resist pssing on a quote contained in a review of a new biography of Braxton Bragg, in the running for second worst Civil War General, after the undisputed winner, George McClellan. The description of Bragg’s character comes from a staff officer who had a chance to see him up close, in action. See if it doesn’t sound like someone now busily seeking the presidency.

Bragg was, in this observer’s view, “cruel, yet without courage, Obstinate, yet without firmness, Restless, yet without enterprise, Crafty, yet without strategy, suspicious, envious, jealous, vain, a bantam in success and a dunghill in disaster.”

I tremble for my country, as Jefferson once said, but I will vote for the least bad choice as I have for decades. And I hope millennials will do the same. They may be all that keeps us from the worst bad choice.

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