I feel like we’re in a time warp and have been transported back to the end of the 20th century. It appears that even lefty millennials aren’t buying into it.
We millennials — at 33, I’m at the top of the range — are primed to hear these arguments. As a group, we care more about climate change than older voters. That only makes sense considering we (and all future generations) will inherit an era of rising seas and super droughts associated with our continued addiction to fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas.
But Al Gore? Please.He’s exactly the wrong person to boost the millennial vote.Yes, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary that helped wake up the world to the perils of climate change. Personally, I’m super grateful for the continued work he’s done on that issue. In reporting on climate change for CNN, I’ve met several people who pursued a career fighting climate change because of that film.But the optics here are awful. One reason so many liberal millennials voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary is they didn’t want to see another Clinton in the White House. They want change — less inequality, better health care, smarter climate policies, a fix to the student debt crisis — not more of the same. Clinton’s biggest challenge with young voters, who tend to lean left, and who should be on board with many of her policies, is that she represents the old guard.
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