The nation has a fixation with generations. The “Greatest Generation” (Born between 1927 to 1945) are dying off, “Baby Boomers” (Born between 1946 and 1964) are retiring in greater numbers, Generation X (Born between 1965 and 1980) are becoming the main force in our nation. And now having more influencing in our culture is Generation Y, also known as Millennials (Born between 1981 and 2000). Generation Z, also known as the Boomlets (born after 2001) are coming of age. Much have been said of the Millennials, both positive and negative.

The myth of the millennials is that they are often described as lazy and entitled by older generations. In reality, they’re just misunderstood. Armed with a record number of college degrees, they are often involved in good causes and volunteerism with statistics that rival the “Greatest Generation”. Despite economic problems based on our economy and the debt they incurred, their civic and nonprofit participation is unprecedented.

Why Millennials are the New Greatest Generation:

http://switchandshift.com/why-millennials-are-the-new-greatest-generation

It is reasonable to assume that due to their age and participation in worthy causes, this generation is to a great extent idealistic. As a baby boomer myself coming of voting age in 1979, I too was idealistic and dissatisfied with the status quo. The Millennials at this point in their lives are even more dissatisfied with the status quo (made up of people such as myself in their minds). It’s natural and to be expected.

As a result, they question the current system that only allows someone from the two major parties to have a chance of becoming president. It is reasonable to assume that many of them see this trade off of parties occupying the White House and Congress (as well as State Houses) back and forth for decades as being what’s wrong with the current system in general and their debt specifically.

Although polling shows that they tend (as to be expected with those who give of themselves to others) to be Progressive, they don’t trust the Democratic Party. They see no true difference between either the Democratic or Republican Parties because both have been running the nation since the 1860’s and positive change is often slowed or stalled completely. They feel that things must be changed and since they are now of age and have the power, they can change it.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/

A major portion of the support behind Bernie Sanders were Millennials. To some extent even Donald Trump (seen as an outsider) gets support from this generation. With Bernie no longer an option and the view that Hillary Clinton is an insider/career Democrat, there is distrust. So a significant number of Millennials look to third party options such as Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. This is where things get tricky and frankly dangerous to the nation as a whole based on what the Millennials feel they must do to change the status quo.

Respectfully, despite their good intentions, Millennials often don’t have experience of age/history nor the ability to grasp the concept of unintended consequences. This comes with age and Millennials are only now are experiencing life and the consequences of their actions. They focus on what they see as the fault of previous generations and believe naively that any change, as long as it is massive and quick is what’s needed to change the status quo. They think is Hillary is establishment, the establishment is what’s responsible for their problems, so we need outsiders taking charge. They don’t take the extra step to examine who these outsiders are and what they plan to do. Being an outsider is not necessarily a good thing. You must examine the whole picture before deciding.

It is interesting to note that Gary Johnson, a Libertarian former Republican Governor of New Mexico nationally has 9% support. Half of his support comes from former Bernie Sanders supporters, most of them Millennials. This is interesting because as Progressives, how can Millennials support a Libertarian? Well he’s third party and he supports legalization of marijuana and prostitution. Sounds fairly liberal but the Millennials don’t look deeper into the Libertarian platform. The platform also supports eliminating government funding (both federal and State) and placing it solely on the individual to fund education, healthcare, social security (pensions) and they want to repeal of the income tax and replace it with a consumption (sales) tax. Such a tax is regressive placing a higher financial burden on those who earn the least. Libertarians also oppose the minimum wage. Libertarians want government out of the way and the private sector controlling all aspects of our society (Police, Prisons, Food and Water Inspection, Fire Departments, etc.). It’s right here in their party platform and is supported by Gary Johnson.

https://www.lp.org/platform

Now there’s Green Party Candidate Jill Stein. She currently is polling nationally at 4% and much of her platform being precisely what the Millennials demand. But here’s the problem with Jill. First of all the Green Party has no path to what is needed to win the White House. She is not on the ballots in enough states carrying enough Electoral College votes to get her the presidency. Let alone the fact she has never held office beyond being the Lexington Town Meeting Representative. She’s been running for higher office since 2002.  She has no business or leadership experience at all. Further, she’s close with Vladimir Putin. There is no chance a Stein candidacy is going anywhere.

The sad reality is there is currently no way a third party candidate can win in this election cycle because the system, (rigged or otherwise) will not permit anyone other than a Republican or Democrat to be President. You may not like it, (I don’t like it) but that is the system we have and it would literally take an act of Congress (amending the Constitution) to change it. You need a 50 -State organization getting out the vote to secure enough electoral college votes to win the presidency as spelled out in the Constitution. Only the Democratic and Republican Parties have that organization. Not the Green Party or Libertarian Party. The only thing a third party candidate can do is funnel votes away from either the Democratic Candidate or Republican Candidate. They cannot secure enough votes for themselves to win, but could influence who loses enough votes to give the office to the other candidate.

Many Millennials like the idea of a “Protest Vote” to show their disdain for the status quo. They don’t expect Gary Johnson or Jill Stein to win but they’ll vote for either one because it will show the major parties they need to change.

Here’s the problem with that. That was the thinking of Generation X in 2000 with a third party candidate named Ralph Nader, it was also the thinking with some Baby Boomers in 1992 with a candidate named Ross Perot. In 1992 Clinton did not have over 50% of the popular vote, but because enough Boomers took votes away from George HW Bush and gave them to Ross Perot, Clinton secured enough electoral College votes to win. In 2000, Generation X voters took enough votes away from Al Gore in swing states and gave them to Ralph Nader. So even though George W Bush actually lost the popular vote to Gore, he was able to win key swing states and secure the electoral college votes to win in 2000 with the help of the Supreme Court. This led to the worst “unintended consequence” in our country’s history.

We are only now recovering from the mess created by giving the presidency to George W Bush which was two illegal wars, decimation of the social safety net, cutting the taxes of the 1% and giving personhood to corporations, all things Millennials hate today.

In 2016, (like it or not) it’s going to be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump being elected President. The system will not allow any other choice this year. Millennials have some concerns about Clinton and this Blog post won’t even try to dissuade their concerns. All I can say is that as bad as she is (or perceived to be), Donald Trump is provably far worse.

Yes, I’m advocating to Millennials who hate both candidates to consider the lesser of two evils because that is all we have.

Trump will make lives for all Americans, especially Millennials worse for the time he is in office with conservative Supreme Court nominees, pushing more tax cuts for the rich, slashing any social safety net program to pay for his tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

Bernie Sanders said it himself, Hillary Clinton on her worst day is better than Donald Trump on his best. This is true especially for a voter trying the make America a better country. It won’t happen with Trump, he will in fact make it worse. Clinton will work to make it better, just not as fast as many Millennials want, but she will try.

Millennials will decide this election. If they stay home or vote third party or even vote Trump, Trump will win, and for at least the next four years, those issues near and dear to Millennials will be in the hand of provably the most corrupt and narcissistic candidate for president ever. If you are a millennial, do your research and do what’s best for you and your belief system and the nation and vote for Clinton because with Trump, you do have everything to lose. Below are the platforms of both the Republican and Democratic Parties. I suggest you read both.

https://prod-static-ngop-pbl.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5b1%5d-ben_1468872234.pdf

https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Democratic-Party-Platform-7.21.16-no-lines.pdf

And here is what experts say could happen to our nation under a Trump Presidency:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-biggest-threat-to-the-us-economy/2016/06/20/af1f0120-371e-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html?utm_term=.057391aebca6

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-national-security-498081.html

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/03/24/donald-trump-wants-america-to-withdraw-from-the-world/

How do Millennials currently view Trump and Clinton?

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-millennials-pose-challenges-trump-clinton-n649046

The official biography reads that Donald John Trump was born June 14, 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in Jamaica Estates, Queens, a neighborhood in New York City. His father was the son (some say anchor baby) to German born Fredrick Drumpf and his mother was Scottish born Mary MacLeod. It is important to note that Donald’s grandfather immigrated to this country from Germany, tried to return prior to World War 1 and was deported back to the United States because he illegally avoided mandatory military service and didn’t pay his taxes. However, is this bio actually true?

Here are Donald J. Trump’s alleged birth parents:

See the family resemblance? Neither do I.

It is important to note that the Trump family during the 1930’s and 1940’s denied their German Heritage. In fact as noted above the actual family name is Drumpf, it was changed to Trump and people were told they were from Sweden. Did Fred Trump, who was wealthy during World War II have (as did many rich American Businessmen at the time) financial and political ties to the Third Reich? Industrialists like Henry Ford admired Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. In fact Fred Koch, father of the Koch brothers also had ties to Nazi Germany. Why wouldn’t a son of Germany not have deep seeded admiration of Germany during this time? Fred couldn’t make them clear or he would risk his growing financial empire.  

Fred Trump was a believer in White Supremacy and was even arrested along with Ku Klux Klan members in 1927. Why wouldn’t Fred not have sympathetic ties to the Nazi belief that the Aryan Race was superior?

Now before and during the War two prominent figures in Germany had a rather secret relationship from the public that wasn’t “legitimized” until the closing days of the war. They were Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun.

Look at these two and look at the facial features of Adolf. I suspect that in the closing days of the war Eva Braun was pregnant with Adolf’s child. There are no pictures of her in the nine months prior to her death in the bunker so who’s to say she wasn’t pregnant.

I suspect they were married to legitimize the birth of their child and the child along with other key members of Hitler’s inner circle were able to flee Berlin with the help of Odessa and the child made it to New York City where he was informally adopted by Fred and Mary Trump. I have as much evidence (if not more) to back this up than Trump’s assertion that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

Now Trump presents a handwritten alleged birth certificate dated June 14, 1946 (over a year after the deaths of Hitler and Braun) from the Jamaican Hospital. Well look at this document. Clearly not a long form Birth Certificate and no record that this document was ever formally recorded with the Registrar of Vital Statistics in New York. Trump merely has this copy and claims it’s proof of his birth in this country.

Is this document to be believed? Is the Donald only 70 years old? It is very possible that it took a year to bring the infant child born to Adolf and Eva to New York, left with Nazi sympathizers to be transported via back channels to New York. This was planned a year in advance with Mary pretending to be pregnant so that when the child arrived, she could claim she gave birth.

Has there ever been a DNA match made between Donald Trump and his parents? No.

Has there ever been a DNA match made between Donald Trump and his siblings? No.

Based on this I (like Donald) sent investigators to New York and Berlin to do research and what they found (like Donald’s investigators in Hawaii) was “amazing”!

Now I’m not going to release what my investigators found about Donald Trump’s true birth until Donald Trump releases what his investigators found out about Barack Obama.

Trump, like Adolf Hitler is moody and prone to outbursts, both are alleged to have small hands and everything that goes with small hands, both have hatred of anything not Aryan, both have made millions on the misery and misfortunes of others, both practice gestures in front of a mirror. Too many facial and behavioral similarities exist to totally discount this theory.

So based on the same logic, reasoning and evidence (or lack thereof) that Trump used against President Obama, I say Trump is not a US citizen, he was born in Germany and is not Constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States. In fact, as with most things involving Trump, he utilizes projection on others for his shortcomings and issues and by saying Obama wasn’t born in this country he in fact him projecting the fact that he wasn’t born here.

As we move closer to Election Day 2016 (as with every election in the last 50+ years) the polling is getting closer between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton. This isn’t surprising especially in light of the fact that Americans tend to be limited in not only where they get not only their information, but their opinions, namely the mainstream media that includes FOX and MSNBC.

In this country, both candidates have high negative numbers. This can be easily explained. For over 25 years politicians with the help of the mainstream media, we have told what crooks and dishonest people the Clintons are. Mind you, nothing of any real substance has ever been proven against Hillary Clinton. Anything that has come close to being unsavory is also SOP (Standard Operational Procedure) for any successful politician. In short, there has and is a double standard that Clinton is held to and people on both the left and the right are too willing to hold her to it. So when media tells people an unsubstantiated scandal against Hillary, the people are predisposed to find her guilty until proven innocent. Often, she’s still guilty even after being proven innocent.

As for Donald J. Trump, his unfavorable ratings are high because of things he has actually done, said and continues to say. This is a man with a long history of discrimination against minorities. Starting with housing discrimination for which both he and his father were found guilty and fined, to calling for the execution of 5 Black teenagers for a crime they were proven not to have committed and refusing to own up to his mistake and apologize to them. Of course most recently he stated, without any factual basis, that immigrants across the southern border are mostly (“some I assume are good people”) rapists, robbers and murderers. The statistics are clear, they’re not. In fact first generation immigrants (legal or otherwise) are far more law abiding than native born Americans. That is demonstrably true and backed up by data spanning generations. Trump ignores it and continues to misrepresent the truth about immigration in order to secure the whole hearted support of those predisposed to believe these lies because they are fearful, angry and most importantly, racist. He’s using racist issues to get enthusiastic support and most of the nation sees it.

Hillary gets unfavorable ratings because she’s been involved in politics her entire adult life. People don’t look past that nor understand that this also means she’s experienced, tested and ready and able to take on the issues only an experienced politician with an even temperament can handle. People only see a “career politician” without understanding what that exactly means. Trump gets unfavorable ratings for his demonstrated lack of understanding of foreign affairs, military affairs, being thin skinned and ill-tempered. Trump is disliked for exactly who he is and Hillary is disliked for what she is perceived to be.

The media plays both sides of this in measured ways to get this race to be closer as we near the end. They give free coverage to every Trump event, but no analysis of what he just said and how factually wrong he is or the harm he creates. He’s received far more coverage than Clinton. At the same time, the media rarely covers Hillary herself, but gives plenty of coverage to those who have a dim view of her while providing little to no analysis as to why they are wrong. So instead of either candidate being given a balanced and equal assessment of their qualities or lack thereof, both are treated differently so the public sees them equally bad so there will be a horse race in November. It’s dishonest but makes for great ratings.

This was to be expected. It happened recently in 2012 when because of skewed media coverage of the facts and candidates, both Obama and Romney polled closer as Election Day drew closer. Obama did beat Romney in an electoral landslide. It happened in 2008 between Obama and McCain with the same results. Now more importantly, this also happened in 2000 between Bush and Gore. Media kept the race close by manipulating the facts between the two candidates to make them equally supported and despised coming up to Election Day. In doing so, despite have a higher popular vote total, Gore lost to Bush because of the Electoral College results (the Supreme Court helped also).

The polling will get closer and we cannot expect mainstream media to suddenly start doing their jobs and report on the candidates for what and who they are instead of how they want them perceived so media can get higher ratings.

As they get closer in the polls the risk of a Trump presidency increases. Experts from all fields say that a Trump presidency will tank ours and the world’s economy, would destabilize national security and our standing in the world, would harm our nation domestically even worse than what the Bush administration did. These people know from what they speak of and have the data to back it up.

Now if you hate Clinton for the unsubstantiated reasons floating around out there consider this, on her worst day, is she any worse than what Donald Trump? Consider what says he stands for, what says he will do while not presenting an iota of supporting facts or a plausible plan to do anything? If you can then you’re a smarter person than anybody else because not Trump or his supporters have been able to point out how he would do anything. In reality, what he wants to do would most likely lead to problems this nation has never experienced.

On another note, the reality of the situation is neither Johnson nor Stein have any chance of winning. They’re only running now to get that  10% of the vote in order to get matching funds from the Federal Government. They both know they can’t win and even if they could, both are totally unqualified or aware of what it takes to run a country and work with a Congress made up of two parties that they have nothing in common with.

You have to face reality whether you like it or not, a vote for Stein or Johnson is a wasted “protest vote” that serves no purpose other than to sway the election even closer to Trump.

The stakes are too high not to get out the true information regarding both main party candidates and to get out the vote to ensure the only qualified, experienced, intelligent and even tempered candidate wins. That is Hillary Clinton and for the sake of our economy, our social safety net, our standing in the world, our ability to continue to improve and increase our ability and obligation to assist the least among us, we all must make sure she wins soundly, despite what the polling says.