7 Reasons Millennials Are So Done With This Election

6.) We’re So Over Barack Obama, Too

The first vote I ever cast was for Barack Obama, in 2008, when I was only 16. My grandfather sat me down that summer and told me that since I would be around to suffer the consequences of the upcoming election much longer than him, he wanted me to decide who he would vote for. He was a pretty amazing guy.

So I told him Barack Obama, because me and literally everyone else at my high school had fallen madly in love with him (and being from Chicago, we’d known him for a while).

I remember walking to school on Inauguration day and listening to “Long Road to Ruin” by the Foo Fighters, and literally feeling like it was the dawn of a Golden Age. One flag has been taken down, to raise another in its place! After eight disastrous years of Bush, it felt like we’d just defeated the Empire, or Sauron.

How politically naïve I was! Eight years later, student debt has skyrocketed, America’s oppressive foreign policy has continued unabated, racism has gotten worse, our elections are hilariously corrupt, and we as a nation have been tricked into accepting a terrible healthcare overhaul (yes, even though it does have a few good provisions) that will ultimately make moving to a true single-payer system, where every American has access to good healthcare, more difficult. On top of that, Obama has spearheaded the absolutely terrifying Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has been famously called “NAFTA on steroids.”

Sorry Obama. We loved you in 2008. We gave you the benefit of the doubt in 2012. At this point, it’d be better if you just stopped.