WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is consolidating the support of the Millennials who fueled Bernie Sanders' challenge during the primaries, a new USA TODAY/Rock the Vote Poll finds, as Republican Donald Trump heads toward the worst showing among younger voters in modern American history.

The survey shows Clinton trouncing Trump 56%-20% among those under 35, though she has failed so far to generate the levels of enthusiasm Sanders did — and the high turn-out that can signal — among Millennials.

In the new survey, half of those under 35 say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party; just 20% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. Seventeen percent are independents, and another 12% either identify with another party or don't know.

Trump's weakness among younger voters is unprecedented, lower even than the 32% of the vote that the Gallup Organization calculates Richard Nixon received among 18-to-29-year-old voters in 1972, an era of youthful protests against the Vietnam War.

If there is one thing that makes this election different than past elections, it is in the sheer volume of bullshit being flung about. There are times when I feel like I’m in the monkey cage at the zoo. Of course, I will get to Trump; he’s practically a steaming pile of bullshit, so that will take a while. I figure three months ought to do it.

On the other hand, the bullshit being thrown about the other major candidate in this race is even more troubling. I wish I was able to say I don’t know why so many people peddle such bullshit about Hillary Clinton, but I know very well why it happens. A lot of extremely powerful people have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to destroy her and her husband, one of the only two competent presidents we’ve had since 1981. They have peddled lie after lie and they have done so with a single aim; to take them out of the politics.

Has it worked? You tell me. She is the odds-on favorite to become the second Clinton to be elected president so, on the one hand, it hasn’t worked out at all for the bullshitters. However, a lot of people,
including many otherwise intelligent self-described progressives, still propagate the bullshit, to the point that it lives on, long after most of it was debunked. The most stunning part of all of this is the sheer number of “progressives” who used to defend her now using the bullshit to smear her.

Everything negative you hear about Hillary Clinton is pretty much based on complete bullshit. Stop passing on that bullshit and tell the truth. Your hatred of Hillary Clinton is not based on anything she has done, it’s based on your gullibility and your need to believe whatever makes her look bad because you think that rationalizes your support for… whatever you actually believe. Frankly, I think people who lie about Hillary Clinton actually believe in nothing, and just like to complain.

And a lot of liberals and progressives are just plain sick of hearing it. I promise you.

When misunderstanding, ignorance (willful or otherwise) and insensitivity to the cultures, lives or experiences of others (that is the non-majority) lead to hurtful images and actions, what is the minority to do? Do you have any ideas? To be a student of color on CMC’s campus is to exist in a space that was not created for you. What does this mean?

Overt racism as it has existed in the past (images of Emmett Till’s disfigured face…images of Black students being spat on as they attempted to desegregate learning institutions in the 1950s come to mind) is rarely seen in the open. No one has ever called me a “nigger” to my face. This does not mean that racism does not exist. Racism is a scary word. No one wants to be considered “racist” but what does being “racist” actually mean in the 21st century? According to the Oxford dictionary, racism is the “belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” So while I have never been called a “nigger” to my face, I have had peers imply that I was only admitted to CMC because of my race, to fill a diversity quota. This stands, despite my scoring in the 99th percentile on the ACT and my invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall with my school orchestra (Choate Rosemary Hall), that I was given after over 15 years of formal classical violin training. While I have never been called a “nigger” to my face, a peer that I had once “hooked up” with, drunkenly told his friends that he “doesn’t fuck with that ethnic pussy” in reference to me, immediately devaluing my womanhood and identity in a public space — in Appleby dorm, in fact. While I have never been called a “nigger” to my face, I’ve cringed as people have confused me with other women of color, or assumed I go to Pitzer because of my race.While I have never been called a “nigger” to my face, I have received an event invitation to Pirate Party on Facebook, where the cover photo depicted Black slaves and the caption was a directive to them, “I’d like the bouncy house over there.”