Dear Millennial Voters, All Of You, From Air And Water

 

The future is closer than you think, and you, millennial voters, will have the final say on the future you want.

 

Now the last thing you give two damns about is a rant from a flowing silver haired, mustachioed, Mark Twain wannabe blogger. I get it.

 

But, sometimes people need a little motivation to do things. Good writers find the buttons and push them. Others talk about the buttons they’d like to see pushed, while still more just like to bitch and complain.

 

You’ve landed on the perfect combination of all three.

 

Remember what the future looked like growing up? Not to short other experiences or hold one above any other, but the memory for lots of you started under the national leadership of President George Bush, 911, and an endless war where Americans are dying still.

 

Education

 

Mr. Bush holds a Yale BA and Harvard MBA. He knew his way around enough to land two top credentials and bring that power to his life’s work. He had an operator as vice president that was part of the search committee to find a vice president and found himself.

 

See how that works? Mr. Bush was elected by close margins in national elections, some say too close. Looking at you Al Gore.

 

Higher on your memory list is eight years of Barack Obama. Did you see the South Park after his election where the town, at least Randy, went berserk because ‘everything is changed.’ And you believed it. I hope you still do.

 

After middle school and high school and college, millennial voters are primed and ready. But for what?

 

Millennial voters

 

With Mr. Trump on the stage you see what happens when you mail it in. This is a man fourteen years older than Mr. Obama, yet a generation apart even though from the same baby boomer generation. Mr. Trump is a cutting edge boomer from 1946, Mr. Obama a late boomer from 1961.

 

The gulf between the two of them is so much greater than the years imply. Mr. Trump is the flip side of the dirt bag hippies infesting youth with their freedom to travel, date, crazy music, organic food, and living in a commune.

 

Mr. Obama is the essence of the stepping forward into unsettled waters and calming the storm. I still love the picture of him giving Putin the stink eye.

 

He had his time at the top and now Mr. Trump has the honor of leading America. This is where you millennial voters come in.

 

You and your moms and dads voted? Did you check on one another? Maybe vote together? Helicopter voters?

 

Millennial voting power

 

Or did you figure it was a done deal and ‘why bother’ because Mrs. Clinton was a sure thing? If you didn’t sit that one out, your moms’ did. Paraphrasing Blazing Saddles, “Where’s the white womens?”

 

Their girl was a shoo in, a certainty who followed the correct script to an inevitable victory against Mr. Trump, so, “Have another gin and tonic, darling. Let’s watch the returns and cheer.” And welcome President Trump.

 

Millennials voters, by sheer force of numbers, have the power to choose their own future.

 

If you’d like to live in the land of the free and home of the brave, get on the stick and vote when it’s time. Instead of telling who to vote for, I’m pointing to two things:

 

AIR and WATER

 

Vote for air and water, for candidates who understand the importance of air and water from a scientific point of view that may or may not be supported by scripture. Science has made a few advances since those times. What times? The times from 2018 years ago.

 

See what I did there? I went full calendar.

 

Look at your ballots and choose people who value clean air and water for you and your future, whoever you share it with. Most hacks get into the children and grandchildren, but I think you’ve got the picture.

 

Clean air and water, or a future where you scrub your house air and put on a mask to go outside; where you drink treated water that tastes like dishwater without the suds, like kiddie pool water on ice.

 

From 1987, a story about cancer at the Meadowlands and the fear the Giants felt. Don’t vote for cancer, but don’t be fooled either. It’s on the ticket, a stealth candidate.

 

And finally, millennial voters, vote for people who see the afflicted as more human than an affliction. Pre-existing conditions, anyone?

 

Instead of treating people with pre-existing conditions like lepers, offer hope with your vote.

 

From npr:

As many as 130 million adults under age 65 in the U.S. have pre-existing conditions that could result in their not being able to get insurance coverage in the private market, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Kaiser Family Foundation puts the number at about a quarter of the country’s under-65 population. A Kaiser tracking poll in June 2017 showed 70 percent of adults want Congress to keep pre-existing condition protections.

Before the Affordable Care Act became law, insurance companies routinely declined health insurance coverage to people who had ongoing medical conditions or recent illnesses. Even when insurers offered policies to those with health problems, they often excluded those illnesses. And insurance companies could cancel coverage for people who became ill once the policy year ended.

The ACA made all those practices illegal. By withdrawing from defending the law in court, the Trump administration is saying it no longer supports those consumer protections, which are popular with voters. The move could upend insurance markets for next year and change the dynamic of this fall’s elections.

 

You are the biggest generation in American history, millennial voters, don’t you want your voice heard from the ballot box, the voting booth? What will your legacy be, and when will you start?

 

Baby Boomers

 

Boomers lost more than the title of size when you all showed up. We don’t blame you for hating us because we all voted for Mr. Trump and everything associated with him. Except we didn’t.

 

As far as the vote, he is in office because of the non-voting block that wasn’t sufficiently whipped up enough to cast their ballot. Yes, yes, yes, three million in the popular vote didn’t carry the election for Mrs. Clinton. It’ll take that three million, along with millennial voters coming out in record numbers to correct the course on the ship of state.

 

If not, expect more people like former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore to rear their heads. People like Arizona Joe Arpaio.

 

Finally again, millennials voters, you’re being eclipsed by high school seniors moving voters from their platform of school shootings. They’ve got the message, but you’ve got voting power. It’s you, not GenX, the Silent Generation, the Greatest Generation, or any sub-group in the gaps between set years.

 

If you want to look out at the American landscape and point to boomers for their inaction, their laziness, their own entitlement, we already know.

 

Mr. Trump may not represent the best and brightest, the likes of which Mr. Kennedy is said to have stocked his cabinet, but he represents America. No argument there, but is his vision, and the vision he lays out for everyone else, what you want to see?

 

Get an eyeful, millennial voters. This is the future.

 

PS: The man in the video and top image is my vintage. Where does this sort of act come from? Under a rock? Or next door?