Hillary Clinton is focusing on millennial voters with a speech in Philadelphia Monday at noon ET. A piece at Mic previews the themes of her outreach message. In it, Clinton details key policies that will help millennials (among others): college affordability, raising the minimum wage and ensuring equal pay, paid family leave, and appointing Supreme Court justices opposed to Citizens United. Those policies have been themes of Clinton’s campaign throughout, but as she reaches out to millennials, she’s focusing in particular on those rather than on the contrast with Donald Trump, as polls show some millennial voters looking to third-party candidates.
Rather than trying to dodge the age difference between herself and millennials, Clinton draws an interesting comparison between the current moment and the one in which she came of age:
You've reached for the opportunities that come with a college education at the highest rates of any generation in history — but faced ballooning tuition costs and crushing student debt like never before. Many of you entered the workforce during the worst recession since the Great Depression. And you've come of age during two deadly, costly wars in the Middle East. [...]
You've fought for some of the most important accomplishments in our nation's history, like the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality. You've come together to challenge our country to protect human rights and strengthen families by fixing a broken immigration system, reforming our criminal justice system and ending the era of mass incarceration. And you've demanded that people of color be able to live their lives without fear of being killed at a routine traffic stop. [...]
Around the time I graduated from college, our country was in its own moment of soul-searching. We were mired in a war in Vietnam, and reeling from the shooting of peaceful protesters at Kent State and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. At the same time, we were making progress on important fronts. The Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, and the Voting Rights Act broke down barriers that prevented too many people of color from casting their ballot. Women were entering the workforce like never before, challenging attitudes and expectations. It felt like all of America was struggling to decide who we were going to be.
Both the moments of upheaval and shifting norms and the ways that younger people are engaging in social movements to make those norms shift are important parallels between today and the 1960s. Clinton still needs to get through to millennials who may be sick and tired of hearing about the 1960s, but giving the present moment an equal standing may be one way to do that.
Daily Kos will be liveblogging Clinton’s noon speech.
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