The Boomers Had Their Day. Make Way
for the Millennials
By
Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais
The
scene at American University last
week was electric: thousands of
young people filling an arena to
hear venerable Massachusetts Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy endorse Barack
Obama for president and praise the
Illinois senator's ability to
inspire and move a new generation of
Americans.
It was
the perfect setting for Obama, who
has been focused on this new
"millennial generation" from the
start. Almost a year ago, in a
speech to African American leaders
in Selma, Ala., he underlined the
differences between two different
types of generations: the "Moses
generation" that led the children of
Israel out of slavery, and the
"Joshua generation" that established
the kingdom of Israel. The first was
a generation of idealists and
dreamers, the second a generation of
doers and builders.
With
that speech, in which he associated
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton with the
former generation and claimed the
mantle of the latter for himself,
Obama fired the first shot in an
election battle that's being fought
along the dividing lines between
these two generational archetypes.
American history suggests that about
every 80 years, a civic (or Joshua)
generation, emerges to make over the
country after a period of upheaval
caused by the fervor of an idealist
(or Moses) generation. In 1828,
1860, 1896, 1932 and 1968, as
members of new generations —
alternately idealist and civic —
began to vote in large numbers, the
United States experienced major
political shifts. This year, the
civic-minded millennials, born
between 1982 and 2003, are coming of
age and promising to turn the
political landscape, currently
defined by idealist baby boomers
such as Clinton and George W. Bush,
upside down.
Reared
by indulgent parents and driven by
deeply held values as adults,
members of idealist generations
embroil the nation in heated debates
on divisive social issues as they
try to enact their own personal
morality and causes through the
political process. (Remember that
boomer-era rallying cry, "The
personal is political"?) In the
idealist eras that began in 1828 and
1896, the nation divided between the
forces of tradition and those
advancing a more modern approach to
morality. In 1828, Andrew Jackson's
Democrats gave rural traditionalism
a victory. In 1896, the tables were
turned as Mark Hanna, the Karl Rove
of his day, guided Republican
William McKinley to victory over
William Jennings Bryan and his
agricultural allies, on behalf of
industrial-age companies and their
urban workers.
By
1968, however, it was the
Republicans' turn to take up the
cause of traditional values — and
end an era of dominance by a
Democratic Party that seemed
increasingly unable to maintain "law
and order." Richard Nixon's victory
in 1968 began an era of seven
Republican presidential victories
and firmly established the GOP as a
traditionalist, Southern-oriented
party.
It may
surprise some to see baby boomers,
so often represented as a generation
of peaceniks and civil rights
activists, producing this Republican
realignment. But boomers were — and
still are — a highly divided
generation that actually tilts a bit
to the right. On the college
campuses of the 1960s, there were
twice as many members of the
right-wing Young Americans for
Freedom as of the left-wing Students
for a Democratic Society. It's no
different 40 years later. A survey
done last month by the media
research company Frank N. Magid
Associates found that twice as many
boomers call themselves conservative
as liberal. The only thing that
unites this generation are its
members' efforts to impose their
diametrically opposed ideals, values
and morality on everyone else
through the political process.
Though
each party has come out on top in
one idealist era or another, the end
result has been weaker government
institutions and political deadlock.
As politics becomes more polarized,
voters sour on the two political
parties. In the 1950s, most voters
had favorable attitudes toward at
least one and often both parties,
but by the 1990s, most had negative
impressions of both.
Because idealist generations are
unwilling to compromise on moral
issues, they've always failed to
solve the major social and economic
problems of their eras. In the
decades after the 1828 election, the
country was pulled apart over
slavery, ultimately leading to the
Civil War. After the 1896 campaign,
the United States couldn't find a
way to help blue-collar workers and
farmers to share fully in the wealth
generated by the Industrial
Revolution. It took the Great
Depression to usher in the sense of
urgency that led to Franklin D.
Roosevelt's New Deal. Today, issues
such as affordable health care or
quality education or climate change
are endlessly debated but never
resolved by two sides unwilling to
set aside their ideological agendas
for the common good.
But
now, with another civic generation
emerging, the times, as boomer
troubadour Bob Dylan sang, they are
a-changin'. Civic generations react
against the idealist generations'
efforts to use politics to advance
their own moral causes and focus
instead on reenergizing social,
political and government
institutions to solve pressing
national issues. Previous civic
realignments occurred in 1860, with
the election of Abraham Lincoln, and
in 1932, when the GI generation put
Roosevelt in office. It's no
coincidence that these "civic"
presidents, along with George
Washington, top all lists of our
greatest presidents. All three led
the country in resolving great
crises by inspiring and guiding new
generations and revitalizing and
expanding the federal government.
Today's millennials look a lot like
the GI generation, born between 1901
and 1924, which FDR described as
having "a rendezvous with destiny" —
a phrase Ted Kennedy echoed last
week in his endorsement of Obama. In
1930, the GI generation was nearly
twice as large as the two previous
generations combined. Today's
millennials are the largest
generation in U.S. history — twice
as large as Generation X and
numbering a million more than the
baby boomers. Though nearly 90
percent of the GI generation was
white, it was diverse for its time.
Many members were immigrants or the
children of Catholic and Jewish
immigrants. About 40 percent of
millennials are of African American,
Latino, Asian or racially mixed
backgrounds. Twenty percent have at
least one immigrant parent.
Civic
generations are committed to
political involvement and believe in
using and strengthening political
and government institutions. In the
1930s, young members of the GI
generation regularly voted in
greater numbers than older
generations. Similarly, millennials
have led this year's surge in voter
participation, especially in
Democratic contests.
In the
New Hampshire Democratic primary,
turnout was up by more than 50
percent over 2000 among voters under
30, while among older voters it rose
by only a bit more than 10 percent.
According to one research firm that
tracks millennials' civic
engagement, voters 25 and under
accounted for 18 percent of all
Democratic voters in New Hampshire
this year. In 2000, the same age
group (which then consisted mostly
of the disaffected Generation X)
made up only 13 percent of the New
Hampshire Democratic primary vote.
In Iowa, according to CNN, the
differences were even more dramatic:
Twenty percent of Democratic caucus
participants were young voters, four
times the number in 2004. Similarly
unprecedented levels of voter
participation in this year's
Democratic elections in Nevada,
South Carolina and even Florida's
"beauty contest" primary have been
driven by the enthusiasm of
millennial voters.
Millennials' political style is also
similar to the GI generation's. They
aren't confrontational or combative,
the way boomers (whose generational
mantra was "Don't trust anyone over
30") have been. Nor does the
millennials' rhetoric reflect the
cynicism and alienation of
Generation X, whose philosophy is,
"Life sucks, and then you die."
Instead, their political style
reflects their generation's constant
interaction with hundreds, if not
thousands, of "friends" on MySpace
or Facebook, about any and all
subjects, increasingly including
politics. Since they started
watching "Barney" as toddlers, the
millennials have learned to be
concerned for the welfare of
everyone in the group and to try to
find consensus, "win-win" solutions
to any problem. The result is a
collegial approach that attracts
millennials to candidates who seek
to unify the country and heal the
nation's divisions.
Unlike
the young baby boomers, millennials
want to strengthen the political
system, not tear it down. According
to a study last year by the Pew
Research Center, most millennials
(64 percent) disagree that the
federal government is wasteful and
inefficient, while most older
Americans (58 percent) think it is.
A 2006 survey by Frank N. Magid
Associates indicated that
millennials are more likely than
older generations to believe that
politicians care what people think
and are more concerned with the good
of the country than of their
political party.
It
also showed that millennials, more
than their elders, believe that U.S.
political institutions will deal
effectively with concerns the nation
will face in the future.
Given
the public's disapproval of both
Congress and President Bush, we're
going to need all the optimism and
change we can generate to overcome
those challenges. Luckily, the
millennial generation, like its GI
generation forebears, is arriving
right on time to deliver just what
America needs.
