While many millennial voters are still recovering from their spring fling with the idealistic Bernie Sanders campaign and coming to terms with the fact that the choices on election day are thoroughly uninspiring, they are, at least, looking at this election with eyes wide open.
According to a SurveyMonkey poll, 55% of millennial respondents between the ages of 18-24 and 47% of those 25-34 visited a fact-checking website during or after (or during and after) the debate. Depressingly, the percentage of people who check out fact checking sites drops the older the voters get with 70% of those 55-64 and 75% of those over 65 not investigating the candidates’ claims at all. Grandma, no.
What the engaged youth of America does with information pertaining to which candidate is a liar-liar and which one’s pants are on fire is an open question, but it’s nice to know that they’re going to do an ocular pat-down on the proposed agendas of the candidates and, hopefully, make them work for their vote. That’s how elections are supposed to work as opposed to the way we presently choose a leader: a personality contest where most people blindly choose sides and the rest hand out points for folksiness, bestest scream, and snappiest snark.
Jason Tabrys is the features editor for Uproxx. You can engage with him directly on Twitter.
