Hillary Clinton is struggling, but millennials aren't to blame

For one thing, just because roughly half of young voters aren’t with her doesn’t mean they are with him. In fact, Trump is especially unpopular with millennials — roughly 75 percent of them view him unfavorably, at least 65 percent say he is racist, and in a recent George Washington University Battleground Poll, two-thirds of millennials said they would never even consider voting for Trump. “If people want to start hectoring generations, hector the a–holes that are actually going to vote for Trump,” says Duncan “Atrios” Black, referring to the baby boomers, Trump’s great firewall.

Brian Beutler at The New Republic is on the same page: “Blame the boomers.” Millennials don’t seem to be enthralled with Clinton, but even in that terrible Quinnipiac poll, millennials are more supportive of Clinton in a two-way race than any other age cohort (it’s only when you add in Johnson and Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, that millennials drop to the lowest Clinton support group).

Secondly, as my colleague Ryan Cooper notes, “scolding people is unlikely to work as a vote-getting strategy.” Millennials, understandably, seem to resent being lumped together and talked down to by their elders. Gen Xers, many of whom cast our first ballots for President Bill Clinton, were half-heartedly serenaded with a “Rock the Vote” campaign. Millennials can be excused for exasperatedly rolling their eyes over the misguided “69 the Vote” campaign and exhortations to share their political views with emojis.