The latest National Journal headline declares that Millennials are abandoning President Obama wholesale. According the NJ byline a majority of Millennials would vote to recall the president.
This is both shocking and unsurprising. It is shocking for the sheer magnitude of the reversal in this voter demographics’ views of the president. We should not forget that this group more than any other embraced the bumper sticker “Hope & Change” slogan. They turned out en masse to elect Barack Obama president. Twice. Most recently just a year ago.
But it is altogether unsurprising that the reversal should happen. The president’s policies, particularly on health insurance, health care, and massive data gathering are substantially predatory on the young. Obamacare, by design, forces young and healthy people who use little to no health care services to purchase health insurance they do not want, do not need, and cannot afford, in order to subsidize the health insurance of older and less healthy people who tend to use lots of expensive health care services.
Of course all of this was true and knowable before either of the last two presidential elections but the facts didn’t pierce the void. It was all Hope ‘n Change all the time with young voters who rode a wave of emotion to the polls and blindly voted against their self-interest. Now reality is setting in and the Millennials are finding out firsthand what many of us have long known – that the president always planned to use them as a giant ATM to fund his signature legislative achievement. Their reaction to this reality will be as fierce as their emotional support was jubilant. The wave that crashed ashore sweeping Barack Obama into office is receding to whence it came and with it sucking out to sea everything in its path. We hope the disastrous “Affordable Care Act” will be the first item swept from shore.