Oh us Millennials. We are a capricious, insatiable bunch, according to a dozen articles at reputable publications, with our unwillingness to leave our parents' homes, our hunger for government handouts, and our addiction to our smartphones, or Tinder or whatever. Do we even meet people at bars anymore? Please, write something else about us in your handwringing, wailing-and-gnashing-of-teeth attempts to explain why we stayed home this week.
In reality, the truth is quite simple. We don't vote because we know that we're screwed either way.
We're screwed if we vote Democratic because with Clinton or Obama at the wheel, we spiral deeper into student debt, we get toothless bank regulations, and we get no vision for how we are supposed to compete in a global economy. Vocational training? War with ISIS? There's an argument to be made that some of these extremist movements wouldn't exist if we had a handle on global youth unemployment.
And what about the great, unsolvable mystery: Why aren't Millennials buying houses and cars? Don't we like nice things?
Here's a clue: We don't have money.
Republicans, meanwhile, are the party of money. Everyone has his shot to be a millionaire, if only the government would step aside. And what has the government gotten you, they argue - rising student loan debt that subsidizes high tuition that pays for unionized educators?
But why vote Republican when they offer us newly-elected Thom Tillis, a man best known for his ability to underpay public servants and eliminate added pay for a Master's degree, which we make payments on, each and every month. Or they'll be garnished from our wages because a bank can fail and thrive, but a worthless degree from a for-profit company is for life.
So yes, we are screwed either way. Pardon us for our enthusiasm not matching that of the average older voter, who thinks that ISIS fighters carrying Ebola are going to take away their Medicare, or something like that. We've got no skin in the game because the game is rigged.
We don't vote because we are so thoroughly disgusted with what the older generation considers leadership. We are told that the economy is swimming along at below six percent unemployment, while neither party bothers to address the fact that with our massively more expensive degrees, we don't make wages high enough to cover basic expenses.
So we are left to pine for someone like Elizabeth Warren, a politician with actual vision. She's what we thought Obama was in 2008, when he could still fool us with his rousing rhetoric. She's not young, but she seems to actually get it, perhaps because she entered politics late in life. She has latched onto a populism that Obama peddled before retreating into Clintonian centrism.
Centrism is the birth of cynicism. Without someone willing to express a vision, articulate it and stick to it, the Millenials won't show. The McConnells will keep winning, sowing apathy and dysfunction to keep us from even wanting to pay attention. We know that's his plan, the no-plan plan, which has now been brilliantly executed.
But like jilted lovers who've been stood up too many times, we can't be bothered to care. We will just swipe to the left and stay at home.