I’m firmly against the draft. But if my guy friends had to register for Selective Service, I should have had to, as well. (At this point, since I’m over 45, I doubt I will ever have to register for the draft. And since I’m over 45 *and disabled*, I wouldn’t actually get drafted. So the point is moot. But 18-year-old…

Same. Abolish the draft.

I’m firmly against this move, but it’s because I’m firmly against the draft regardless of gender.

She’s pretty in the way that “pretty” anymore is a set of skills (very thin; overly made-up; hair dyed, long, and wavy/loosely curled; etc.) and not something you’re necessarily born with.

She’s an orange idiot of a person with bleached straw for hair, for fuck’s sake. How is that even mildly attractive? These characters on TV have just gone off the deep end with their unnaturalness. I want smart people with freshly scrubbed faces. Can someone please start a new cable network?

That doesn’t say millenials want democracy. It says they want the values Clinton represents (or don’t want the ones Trump does). A dictator can be perfectly magnanimous without allowing free elections.

They did. That’s the truth. The majority of Trump supporters voted for him based on what they percieve as their economic best interest. Sure, Hillary was right—about 1/3 of his supporters are “deplorables,” racists, sexists, and muslim haters. But what about the remaining 2/3? Why did they vote for Trump? they voted…

But hardly any of them vote! I live in a tech-forward city (Seattle) and convincing all those wee Amazonians that they should participate in civic life is like screaming at a wall. They honestly think everybody’s going to join the singularity any minute now and none of this will matter.*

Click through to the NYT article: there’s a chart showing how much people say living in a democracy is essential by birth decade. It’s lowest for those born after 1980.

Clinton won millennials overall, and Trump won white millennials, but still only got 48% among them. I think that tells you more stayed home than voted, by a pretty large factor.

Go to a college campus and see how supportive are to free speech rights...

I’ve seen that comment a few times, and yes, it’s horrible, but I tell myself they’re young and don’t know any better. I won’t say that about all young people—I know better than that, because I teach in a university and encounter all sorts of thoughtful ideas and opinions from my students. The idea that all Baby…

AH, I see. Reminds me of Noam Chomsky’s comments about how democracy requires citizens who understand how the government works. Once a certain majority of citizens lose their civic literacy, a democracy becomes very vulnerable to any “Strongman” type who can convince them “I and only I can fix this all for you.” At…

You missed the point of my comment. I wasn’t saying that Bernie himself has despotic tendencies. I sincerely doubt that he does. Same can be said for all the other candidates we had this race, save for the one that won.

I like this map too, but I’m not entirely convinced by it. Nationwide, Trump received about 34% of the 18-24 vote. He did better in that demographic than McCain or Romney. Three in ten. That, to me, isn’t a convincing win for liberalism. And young people in that demographic didn’t vote in higher numbers than they had…

White millennials basically voted like white boomers. Just saying.

Thank you! I just posted a similar thing about how both Bernie and Trump had developed cults of personalities and how their followers wanted their candidate to force the “correct” views on everyone. That’s not democratic.

Yeah, but were the Hillary voters choosing her because she is better for democracy or because they hoped she’d be a benevolent progressive dictator.

I think all the out of context ranting about Hillary and the superpredators line diminished her anti-racism credentials for some people and made her seem like less of a strong alternative on the race front. I suspect it contributed to the lack of turnout for her.

In the end, we need to collectively learn to use our…

Mekki is...let’s say “predisposed” to “well actuallying” or arguing about Black issues on Jezebel. It’s her specialty.