Hillary Clinton, with former nemesis and arch-rival Bernie Sanders in tow, made an appearance at the University of New Hampshire yesterday, in order to attempt to burnish her credentials with the all-important youth demographic.

In what some wags have dubbed the 4F* tour, the two former rivals touted plans - sure to be declared DOA by Congressional Republicans, and quickly shelved and forgotten by Hillary soon after her inauguration - to provide free public college tuition for working families, as well what Sanders described as a "significant proposal" to reduce student debt.

The stakes for Clinton clearly couldn't be any higher. As reported by Bloomberg:

New Hampshire is emblematic of a larger Clinton problem. The youth vote was one of the pillars of the Obama coalition. But thus far it's proven perhaps the most difficult one for Clinton to rebuild. Polls show the nominee failing to earn the confidence of young voters—only 33 percent of those between ages 18-29 told Gallup this month that they approved of her—and running far behind where she would hope to be against her Republican opponent. The polls also show Clinton currently winning under half their votes, while Obama got over three-fifths of that demographic in both of his campaigns.

Further bad news came in the form of a recent Quinnipiac poll, which showed Clinton garnering just 31 percent support from the 18-34 age group, with Libertarian Gary Johnson in second place with 29 percent, Trump in third place with 26 percent, and Jill Stein rounding out the field with 15 percent.

[Hillary and Bernie share a tender moment prior to their appearance.]

Meanwhile, in an effort to put any lingering bitterness on the part of former Bernie supporters to rest, Hillary stated:

"I'm proud of the primary campaign that Bernie and I ran. We ran a campaign about issues, not insults. And when it was over, we began to work together to try to figure out how we could take the issues we agreed on and come together, knowing we are stronger together, to come up with specific policies in education, in health, and so much else. Thank you, Bernie. Thank you for your leadership, and thank you for your support in this campaign."

That Hillary! What a classy gal. She can always be counted on to be gracious - or at least she will be after she's done wiping her feet on your face.

"If there is hope, it lies in the proles."

So wrote George Orwell's doomed protagonist Winston Smith in the classic dystopian novel 1984. I would paraphrase that to say that if there's hope for America, it lies in the youth. Because despite the fact that apparently only about 1 out of 7 young voters is currently supporting the only sane and rational candidate in the race, the young people of today truly "get it" in a way that the great majority of their elders do not. And no doubt that is due to the fact that they have been well and truly screwed in a way that no other generation in memory ever has.

What they get is that the US of A has a closed, incredibly toxic and destructive political system that is completely indifferent to public sentiment, routinely embraces policies that damage and undermine the interests of the vast majority of citizens (particularly the young), and that contains no - that is, nada, zip, zero - self-correcting mechanisms of any kind. And that at the end of the day, giving your vote to any of the duopoly candidates only helps to strengthen, perpetuate and legitimize that system.

It really is just about that simple. And no amount of cynical pandering, no amount of hectoring by "progressive" surrogates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, is going to alter that reality or that perception one iota.

* Find 'em, Fool 'em, Fuck 'em, Forget 'em