The Green Party’s presidential candidate, Jill Stein, rallied an energetic crowd comprised of both students and local community members Friday afternoon.
While the topics addressed ranged from climate change to the defense budget, a constant theme repeated throughout Stein’s speech was her belief that Millennials are the key to the future of the United States.
“Whether it is the fight for climate justice, or the Civil Rights movement, or the anti-war movement, or the women’s movement, it’s always the Millennial Generation that is out there on the front lines. I just want to give a big thank you to all the Millennials who are here today, and to assure you that you are our priority” Jill Stein said.
According to many leading pollsters, millennials are also a group that, in 2016, is becoming increasingly open to the possibility of voting for a third party alternative to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Stein tapped into this widespread disenchantment with the establishment many times throughout her remarks.
“No society has ever survived by devouring its younger generation, but that is exactly what is happening right now. Your generation has become the latest cash cow in a predatory economy that has deprived you of jobs, that has deprived you of a climate future, and then has saddled you in predatory student debt,” Stein said.
Stein was also quick to propose solutions to current issues that Millennials face, including cutting the defense budget in half, achieving full clean energy by 2030, and free access to public higher education.
“…in order to survive in today’s economy you can’t do it with just a high school degree. It is absolutely unthinkable that we are in the business now of putting people in debt for the rest of their lives for the simple right to have the skills you need to survive in this economy. You should not have to buy survival with lifelong debt,” Stein said.
Stein also touched upon foreign policy issues such as the spread of ISIS and the need for an increased humanitarian aid budget.
“We need a weapons embargo and a freeze on the bank accounts of our allies that refuse to stop letting the money flow and letting the weapons flow to terrorist enterprises…we can do [this] peacefully without creating the next wave of terrorism,” Stein said.
According the the Green Party’s “Green New Deal,” it is also proposed that 20 million new jobs be created to provide employment to communities still dealing with the effects of the economic recession and to give an opportunity for those who work in unsafe conditions to leave their current jobs.
“We can create those jobs — 20 million of them — and that is about what we need because we truly have an economic emergency, and we have a climate emergency…every month now is setting a new world record for the hottest month of that name in history… as soon as 2050 we could see as much as nine feet of sea level rise… we need civilization to be here in 2050,” Stein said.
Stein’s remarks also drew some hecklers from the audience, but the event as a whole proceed without incident.
