Top 5 Reasons Millennials are Actually Libertarians

by Jacob Nestle

I almost titled this article “The Top 5 Reasons Millennials Should be Libertarian.” Then I did some research and realized that doesn’t make sense. Why? Because we already are.

Millennials are often criticized for being naive. The Bernie Sanders campaign, if nothing else, proves this. This campaign duped huge numbers of millennials. For a long time, I worried that my generation would be saddled with a majority of actual socialists.

But that’s not the whole story.

Millennials, like every other group of people, have their own interests. We have our own specific concerns and problems. Those skew our perspective and make it hard to understand how things really work. It’s almost impossible to give a single, unifying point of view for us. That’s because we’re also incredibly diverse. We aren’t just diverse in race; our political beliefs land us all over the place, not just the far left, ‘progressive’ wing.

So, without further ado, here are the top 5 ways millennials like me are already headed in the direction of libertarianism. If you want more, this survey done by Reason magazine gives a lot of detail.

1. We love transparency.

Transparency is the number one way to keep government clean and above the board.

Now, we can talk all day about Hillary Clinton‘s corruption, but what’s more problematic than the corruption of one woman is the overall problems with the system. Millennials, by and large, go where the action is. Love it or hate it, the millennial tendency for activism is going to change things.

That’s why libertarian groups like Young Americans for Liberty should make sure we understand and utilize our own nature. It’s not so much about an institution but where the most can get done. Creating that environment is our job.

Now, we need to be careful, of course, not to be overeager, but millennials are the future of America. Lord help us all, you might be thinking.

But it’s encouraging to know that, unlike the previous generations, millennials tend to value transparency for the government. The ACLU ran this poll, which found millennials generally have a positive opinion of Edward Snowden. A majority (56%) of American millennials rated him as at least somewhat favorably.