I am a millennial voter; and I am proud to vote for Hillary Clinton
Contributed by: Kelly Meier, President of the Women’s Studies Student Association
I started as a Bernie Sanders supporter. I was fired up and ready to march in the streets for Bernie. Then he lost the democratic nomination. It was a blow. But I continued to watch the Democratic Convention. I watched the celebrities endorse Hillary Clinton. I watched the video about her listening to the mothers whose children were killed by police officers. I saw her work when she was in college on campaigns and I saw her famously say, “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.” That is so very true. I started to see Hillary as a person who had a platform and did good things with it. I know that she once championed for Universal Healthcare when her husband was president, and it failed miserably without republican support. I see how she did manage to implement the children’s health insurance program, CHIP. I see how she is in favor of a women’s right to choose. I see that she is not going to elect Supreme Court nominees who would want to overturn a woman’s right to choose and overturn marriage equality. She is not trying to take away people’s guns, and if she did, that’s okay, we have too many guns.
Hillary Clinton is the real tough guy in this race. She is the nominee, in spite of being a woman, not because she is one. Yes, I wanted Bernie to be the nominee, but he isn’t. He helped write the democratic platform. He endorses Hillary Clinton and he tells everyone to vote for her. I trust Bernie, and if he trusts Hillary Clinton, then I do too.
Voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson is like saying you aren’t in this race. A protest vote is not a vote. You might as well stay home. Your vote is your voice. If you throw away your vote then what does that mean to your stance to get married or your right to take birth control? I am proud to make a stand against misogyny, against rape culture, and I am against bigoted rhetoric in the name of anti-political correctness. “Politically correct” just means to not be an asshole. I am voting for women, I am voting for the LGTBQ, I am voting for the Muslim-Americans, I am voting for the Mexican Immigrants who do a service to this country and bring in more to our economy than they take out. But most of all, I am voting with other millennials who are the most diverse, most educated, and most compassionate generation that we have ever had. I am voting for Hillary Clinton for our future.
