Eliza Jane Schaeffer

Guest Contributor

My peers and I waited 18 years to vote. We fantasized about what it must feel like to participate in the world’s first large-scale democratic republic. We scoffed at people who squander their civil right and civic duty to express their opinion in the most meaningful way possible.

But now, our “bright eyes” clouded by the scandals of one nominee and the ego of the other, we no longer talk excitedly about who we plan to vote for. Instead, we talk about who we are going to write in. Paul Ryan? Elizabeth Warren? Our former U.S. History teacher? Our pets?

Where's the love for the Libertarians?: Column

As of April, 74 percent of millennials viewed Donald Trump unfavorably and 53 percent viewed Hillary Clinton unfavorably. Some older Americans may be willing to write off the Clinton Foundation’s underhanded role in the Clinton political machine as politics-as-usual, but we are not willing to settle. And while others have fallen for Trump’s theatrics and nationalist rhetoric, we cannot reconcile his behaviors with those of the presidents we read about in our textbooks.

Are we now doomed to swallow our pride and suppress our dreams of a better America?

Only if we buy into the rhetoric of party leaders, who want us to believe that a vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for the opposition. Politicians often lie, but numbers never do. If the fifty percent of voters who are upset with both nominees vote for the Libertarian nominee, Gary Johnson, their votes will not be wasted; they will spark a political revolution.

And polling data suggests young, first-time voters might actually make a revolutionary third-party win possible. Nearly three-quarters of millennials would like a third-party candidate to win office, and more than one in five plan to vote for Johnson.

How has Johnson, whose campaign war chest is mere fractions of Clinton’s and Trump’s, managed to capture such a large percentage of the coveted youth vote?

As a young voter myself, I can tell you his strategy is simple. He doesn’t rely on gag-worthy gimmicks or painful pop-culture references. He cares about the issues we care about. While Donald Trump scrambles to recreate the Reagan era and Hillary Clinton invokes the old New Deal, Gary Johnson sees an America that is self-sufficient, futuristic, and entirely different from anything promised by the political rhetoric of decades past.

Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson on guns, debates and pot

A former governor, Johnson is socially liberal, fiscally conservative, principled, and experienced. Like most young people, he wants the government “out of your pocketbook and out of your bedroom.” He recognizes that criminal justice reform, immigration policy, and conservation efforts are issues too complex to be simplified to sound bites and tag lines. And, unlike Democrats, who spend recklessly, and Republicans, who write speeches denouncing federal spending with one hand and sign legislation authorizing spending increases with the other, he has demonstrated a true commitment to decreasing exorbitant federal spending.

I know our political system doesn’t operate like a civics lesson. I know that making the world a better place for the next generation is not high on every politician’s agenda. I know that George Washington’s plea against political parties went unheard. But that doesn’t mean we need to accept things the way they are. That doesn’t mean we need to settle for a nationalist bigot to “make America great again” or a candidate whose career was built on lies and scandals to provide us a simulation of progress.

Perhaps, this time, millennials, America’s most popular scapegoat, have it right. Join us in voting for Gary Johnson, not only as the alternative candidate, but also as the only politician on the ballot this November with strong values, a consistent philosophy, policy proposals, and an ideology that aligns with the majority of young Americans, who are, in essence, the future of this country.

Eliza Jane Schaeffer is a graduate of Henry Clay High School and will be attending Dartmouth this fall.