MSNBC Poll: Hillary's "Young people think work is a 4-letter word" comment

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

After telling an audience that young people today "think work is a four-letter word," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she apologized to her daughter. What do you think of her remarks?

24101 responses

She was right the first time. Young people have an unwarranted sense of entitlement these days. (47%)

It's an overgeneralization. There are hard workers and lazy people in every generation. (40%)

She's off-base. Young people are growing up, and thriving, in an increasingly complex and advanced world. (12%)

I'm not sure. (0.9%)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12798823/

Sen. Clinton apologizes for work ethic remarks
Lawmaker tells daughter, ‘I didn’t mean to convey ... you don’t work hard’

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12591415/

[swag]

1. Echoes of George Wallace.

[ShortnFiery]

2. There's something VERY disturbing by these divisive statements.

It's almost as if "The Ruling" Political Class wants to keep us "little people" at each other's throats.

I'm disgusted that such a comment came from a Democrat. Just disgusted. :puke:

[BR_Parkway]

7. As long as "we" are fighting with each other, pointing fingers and calling

names - "they" get to keep running the place, to their benefit - regardless of what the people they claim to represent want.

[libhill]

10. Makes one wonder

if the Libertarians aren't correct - the Dem's and Repubs are all the same, they're all out to put the screws to us, and the "left / right" paradigm is a phony construct....just speculating, don't flame me... but that comment by Hillary sounds like something you would expect from a Repub... I have a world of respect for Hillary, but I am disappointed.

[Rose Siding]

3. Oh, geeze

Of course they'd run with this :eyes:

It was a divisive over-generalization. She apologized. the end.

[union_maid]

40. The end of her?

It should be. I'm seriously tempted not to vote for her in the Senate primary, although I will, of course, vote for her in the general. We have huge problems involving income disparity. Kids have huge student loans to deal with. We didn't. In our generation - mine and Hillary's - education was more affordable and for a good student there were grants and even food stamps if you needed them to get by and get your education. Once out of school, getting into and staying in, the middle class was is much harder. What's a more complicated thought, but just as true is that living in a young person, subsistance kind of way, while you get started is harder too. In area where there are a lot of jobs, for instance, there is often little or no low cost housing to be had. It's all being gentrified at an incredibly rapid rate. Combine that with the student loans and kids have out of pocket expenses that are out of line with their status as recent graduates.

Democrats are supposed to address people's problems. Republicans are supposed to blame us for them.

[wtmusic]

4. Not only that -- they listen to loud music,

dance obscene dances...oh, the humanity!

[Wickerman]

6. I've seen 'em playing cards, too eom

[Arugula Latte]

23. And some of them boys got them some long hair!!

You can't tell if they're boys or girls!!

:eyes:

[enough already]

25. And some of them even dress "suggestively"

We never did that back in the day....

[Fleshdancer]

5. The poll is ridiculous but I'm very glad she apologized

and I hope Chelsea gave her an earful about it regardless.

[enough already]

34. She only "apologized" to Chelsea

She didn't retract her stupidity as it applied to every other kid out there. She's no Bill.

[Truthy Nessy]

8. I prefer Hilary to stay a senator.

My intuition says she will not be the best choice to run for president. I don't feel 100 percent with her especially after her meeting with Murdoch and her vote for the Iraq war. Most young Americans don't have the best opportunities like the elite American clan children do. There is no accountability for the government officials actions , and that works the same way with our youth in education and work ethics. Lotteries,games,gambling, contests and law suits are the easy money of America that is so highly promoted. Why work hard or strive for something when its easier making money those ways.
My mechanical engineer cousin once told me that the US education system of producing engineers is a scam. Colleges get tuition. Big Business hires new graduates, then fires them after a few years and then hires new graduates to save money. That's why there are so many "consultant" engineers.

[Hoping4Change]

20. Hi Truthy Nessy. Good post. .

I share the misgivings about Hillary which peaked upon hearing about her association with Murdoch.:puke:

BTW a fellow Canuck here. Welcome to DU. Glad your here.
:hi:

[Solon]

9. So, she is coveying a complaint that is as old as time?

STONE AGE MAN: "Damned kids nowadays, have to walk upright, walking on hands is too good enough for them, and make us have to look up to them. They don't know how good they got it, why, back in my day, we walked on sharpened obsidian, with both hands and feet, dragging our food behind us on sleds, now they got this damned wheel, fucking spoiled brats."

OK, no scientifically accurate, but what the hell.

[libhill]

12. Yup -

I am unable to find the quote, but I read somewhere that Socrates bemoaned the perversion of "youth", their alleged laziness and disrespect for elders, way back in his day. Ms. Clinton should be reminded that the very same remarks were made about her / my generation, back in the day...

[Solon]

15. I don't think he was the only one either...

I think some Roman writers, of a later age, were bitching about the exact same thing. The Generation Gap wasn't created recently, we all know that. Just in this past century there were complaints about the "Swing Kids" of the 1920s, the depravity of rock music and hippies of the 1950s-60s, disco kids of the 1970s, and GenXers of the 1990s to today. Its an old complaint, no question about it, people forget that their generation was just as depraved as the previous generation, and the generation before that, and the generation before that, since the dawn of humanity.

[libhill]

18. Well said - and so very true...

N/T

[libhill]

19. It's funny

that I have heard my own daughter, a twenty something, griping about her own kids, saying that they are spoiled brats, that "she would never have been allowed to behave that way" - seems the more things change, the more they stay the same -- :)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. I was about to post the same thing.

Maybe Hillary's been channelling Socrates recently.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

13. Yep, the "when I was your age, I walked 20 miles in snow to school" bit.

There will ALWAYS be a segment of "young people" who shun "work."

For that matter, there will always be a segment of ""middle aged" and "elderly" people who shun work, too.

:patriot:

[Solon]

16. Don't forget that it was uphill both ways!

:)

[One Honest Guy]

11. Good god she is dumb.

Aside from being the most opportunist and ideologically flawed politician, she's dumb as hell on top. Honey, if it weren't for your husband, you wold be spending your days at spas, and/or spending obscene amounts of money on clothes/jewelry. Well you are doing that right now, except you got that Senator thing going on too.

You go grrrl! :sarcasm:

New Yorkers, wtf were you thinking? Oh wait...you weren't.

[PATRICK]

14. Someone point me to the context

of that gaffish remark? Ids it meant as a teasing joke or a real comment? I don't know the statistics but
personally I seem to sense that those more entitled by their parents' money are more disastrously averse to hard work and dedication than the past, but that is only a sense I would not trust to turn into a blanket statement, much less indict a whole generation. Also, those who can ill afford college and would work their tails off are being continually squeezed out and the futures they are left with may indeed be actual four letter words. And the entitled may see that very well and come to the same conclusion that, there but for the grace of cheap labor capitalism enriching my family- go I.

Well, context. And is there something else that Dems can respond with besides apologies and falling into consuming distractions?

How quickly this has triggered a Hillary flame fest. A lot(all or most?) of Dems have been caught in these PC word choice "scandals". It is all the same. Either you believe that they have poor political judgment or poor values or both and then we fall bitterly into the MSM coup du jour against the Dems.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

17. If you look at the bottom of my original post you'll see the link.

I posted the link to the poll AND the MSNBC article explaining it all.

:patriot:

[LeFleur1]

21. Hangin

Hillary is hanging out with the wrong crowd.

The kids today are facing a corrupt government whose senators and representatives take bribes to make laws, the possibility of a draft, environmental planet distruction, no social programs, debt to drown in, no privacy rights, no free press, political parties that care about their heirarchy, not the people, and the possibility that the ideas that built our republic are dead.

Young people are doing pretty well under the circumstances.

[PATRICK]

35. Context seems typical

generation gap crabbing. Encapsulating the culture and blaming "young folk these days" is so old and repeated by the out of touch wheezers it is beyond wearisome. By the time you are any age you have heard something like this so often you wonder about whether the person saying has lost their mind or simply, conveniently, their memory. Hillary has been way too far into this reactionary stance for too long already. I'm not that old. She's not that old and the dignity of experience does not require repeating the discredited nostrums of a parading generation of elders going back to the dawn of senility.

Nor is this whole thing any big deal or shock.

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

27. Yeah, wondering about the context, too

HRC has taken foolish positions on things like Iraq and had her share of gaffes (politicians have that problem in general), but I've never seen her as dumb. If she just came out and offered this sort of statement out of the blue, that would be idiotic beyond description. Was there some sort of Q&A that elicited it? It apparently was not in any way a joke by HRC based on her apology, she very much meant to say it. But what brought out the statement in the first place?

[Blue_In_AK]

22. Hillary SHOULD have apologized.

This kind of remark is completely off base.

[enough already]

24. Why would you piss off a potentially huge voting base like youth?

This is just one more example of why she would be an absolute disaster as our nominee. Can ANYONE imagine Bill saying something this politically stupid?

[ToeBot]

39. It's a demographic she cares nothing about...

they don't vote in great numbers, yet. They are not in a position to make a campaign contribution she would consider respectable. The young are an easy target without the resources to respond to her attacks in any meaningful fashion.

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

26. What was she thinking with this statement?

What was she trying to accomplish? Does she have no idea how this is going to play out? If Hillary were to be nominated, this "to our youth, work is a 4-letter word" comment would be repeated ad nauseum against her, not just by the GOP but by the talk show hosts, the pundits, Leno and Letterman and Conan-- they're having a field day with it and they wouldn't let a day go by without bringing it up again.

Of all things, the demographic targeted in this statement is precisely the group of people that Hillary most needs. Other age groups are more suspicious of her, and the younger generation of people (especially in and just out of college) have if anything been one of her most important bases. Now, she's said something designed to get right under their skin and alienate them. Combined with her Iraq war stands and inclinations on Iran and Syria, it makes one question her judgment.

[Radical Activist]

28. In a time when more young people are voting Republican

because Democrats completely ignore the youth vote in favor of soccer Mom's and seniors, she just had to exacerbate the problem with a comment like that. What a fucking moron.

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

30. Yeah, one of the first rules of politics is

that you don't ever unnecesarily take swipes at any voting segment-- this had the appearance of being gratuitous. That's why I wonder if there was something about the context that led her into that and framed it in a different manner. At some level, I do sympathize with Hillary and other politicians, in that they and their statements are under a microscope on a daily basis. All of us, I'm sure, would be caught on occasion making dumb gaffes under circumstances like that-- it inevitably occurs when you're thinking and talking on your feet.

Nevertheless, not all gaffes are equal, nor are they equally probable. That's why this one seems especially puzzling to me-- what was she trying to accomplish with it? Why tar such a large group of people with such an obviously and needlessly broad brush? It just doesn't make sense.

[Radical Activist]

31. She was speaking to the US Chamber of Commerce

She was pandering to a conservative curmudgeon audience. Its part of her basic nature.

[libhill]

32. Hillary aside -

let's see how long they'll continue to vote Repuke when the neo cons institute a draft, to collect cannon fodder for the perpetual war program...

[Radical Activist]

29. I guess her generation never expected anything to be handed to them.

Why does every generation suffer from amnesia?

[dogman]

36. It's what I would expect from a Goldwater Republican.

Retro is always in style, isn't it?

[PassingFair]

37. Will it take a village....

to get her to SHUT UP?

[oasis]

38. "Sense of entitlement....growing up in a culture of instant gratification"

Context is important.