Congratulations, Lloyd Blankfein, on giving the presidential bid by Vermont senator Bernie Sanders a big boost! Oh, that wasn’t what you meant to do? Whoops …

Whether or not the Goldman Sachs CEO intended to further undermine the appeal of Democratic party contender and his former paid speaker, Hillary Clinton, in eyes of a key voter bloc, that’s precisely what his description of Sanders’ campaign as having “the potential to be a dangerous moment” accomplished. And if either of them want to know why, it’s the economy stupid!

Blankfein, speaking to CNBC’s Squawk Box, didn’t endorse Clinton outright – that might have been the kiss of death. It’s just that any additional kind of linkage between Wall Street and Clinton could prove another nail in the coffin in the latter’s attempts to woo millennials at a critical moment in her campaign. As it is, Sanders is already using Blankfein’s ill-considered comments to raise funds. And the one group most likely to be outraged may have the least money, but they already have demonstrated tremendous fervor in the Sanders’ cause.

In the one actual test to date, the Iowa caucuses, the millennial wave of enthusiasm for Sanders (and the corresponding feeling that Clinton is somehow part of an insiders’ club) translated into a whopping 70% of the millennial vote swung in Sanders’ favor over Clinton’s. That dwarfed the 43% points by which a then-insurgent Barack Obama captured the state in 2008.

Young women cheer for Bernie Sanders as snow falls at at campaign even in New Hampshire. Photograph: Rick Wilking/Reuters

To understand the demographics, you have to look at the chronology. The millennials who now are “feeling the Bern” came of political age during a period of acute economic anxiety. At the height of the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, they were in middle school, high school or college; then and in the years that followed, they watched parents, friends and neighbors lose jobs and even their homes, and saw their communities suffer.

Now, they themselves are struggling with an immense burden of student debt – debt that rose 25% between 2008 and 2012 alone, even as the economy struggled. According to one 2014 calculation, millennials make up about 40% of the ranks of the unemployed; when they have jobs, they may be underemployed (Starbucks barista, anyone?) or underpaid, or competing ruthlessly for a handful of lucrative opportunities. Some studies suggest that while they might be frugal, their financial situations (coupled, sometimes, with a dearth of financial literacy) can spell trouble.

One Pricewaterhouse Coopers survey found 24% of millennial respondents were familiar with basic financial concepts; 30% routinely overdrew their checking accounts (racking up banking fees) and more than 20% ended up dipping into their retirement savings (incurring fees and penalties). Nearly half couldn’t come up with $2,000 in the next month in an emergency, making them “financially fragile”.

The last president elected with a platform of hope and change largely failed to deliver, in their eyes. Oh, and his administration included Hillary Clinton.

Young Democrats and Republicans backing “outsider” candidates such as Donald Trump or Sanders have at least one thing in common, according to a poll of college undergraduates last fall: a majority of them believe the American dream is dead for them, personally.

To the extent they have faith in anything or anyone, it seems to be in Bernie Sanders, who promises them nothing less than a political and economic revolution. One that will take special interests and money (hey, Goldman Sachs!) out of politics and put people, rather than corporate interests, at the center of the process. One that will make college free, and healthcare free.

For millennials, whose political universe has been shaped by the January 2010 supreme court Citizens United ruling, which gave corporations free rein to spend openly in their own names, calling for the election or defeat of specific candidates, this would be welcome. Indeed, that ruling is likely to have been the spark that ignited an interest in politics among some of the millennials.

I’m old enough to recall progressives deploring the apathy and conservatism on college campuses during the 80s and into the 90s. I remember being looked on askance by a majority of fellow students as we advocated for increased divestment from South Africa, funding for student services, and a variety of other causes. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the causes of that apathy are fairly easy to spot. Compared to the state of affairs today, there was an astonishing lack of economic uncertainty. There were setbacks, but they tended not to last long. People lost jobs, but found new ones. We had confidence that we could get on track, economically, and stay there. We didn’t need a revolution; not really.

Today, even the most privileged members of the millennial generation lack that kind of instinctive economic confidence; in its place is economic angst. To many of them, it doesn’t matter that Clinton has infinitely more experience managing foreign affairs than does Sanders, and, that the latter, in her words, may be “flunking a big part of the job interview” for the presidency. Those credentials come far, far down on the list of criteria that millennials feel qualify someone to be their president.

And if a revolution is what it takes to sweep away politics as usual – the kind of system where Hillary Clinton can earn more in a single hour, giving a speech full of personal observations about the quirks of foreign leaders and opinions about Washington, than an average family of four earns in a year or two – then many millennials will sign on to that tradeoff. Share the wealth, and bring on the revolution, they’ll argue; amid the snow in New Hampshire, it’s time to feel the Bern.