It was September 2016, and Hillary Clinton had a youth problem. In a conference room at Democratic National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill, about a third of the folding tables and chairs sat empty at the height of a phone-a-thon for which staffers had bussed in local college kids from multiple campuses. Despite the free pizza and chipper call scripts, they were losing steam. They made the same pitch to likely voters their age, complete with assurances that despite her awkward Snapchat presence she “means well” – and a reminder that she’d poached key campaign promises from Senator Bernie Sanders by then: debt-free college, a minimum-wage raise, and health care as a human right – but mostly they filtered in and out.
By Alice Lloyd
In a portentous flourish, one skinny George Washington University sophomore filed in to the phonebank, joined a table of his friends and slapped a fat paperback on the table, announcing his true allegiance like it was the totem of his clan. It was Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) founding member Michael Harrington’s Socialism: Past and Future , its bright red cover bearing a black fist raised in silent protest.
That summer, thousands of Sanders supporters had flooded Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. One University of Chicago student who’d driven five hours in beach traffic from his north Jersey hometown with his acquiescent girlfriend in tow compared catching what would be Sanders’ final rally of 2016 to seeing a great band play live one last time before they broke up. He had a point: I saw 20-something bros in
American Consequences
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