16 April: Millennial Makeover

Morley Winograd

Michael Hais

We recently chatted about a new generation of young Americans called the Millenial Generation, and the internet-based communications technology they are using to transform American politics.

Generational theorists Morley Winograd and Michael Hais joined T2A to discuss what they see as another in a series of periodic political makeovers that happens in America every forty years. It's all detailed in their new book, Millennial Makeover.

- Transcript Follows  -

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Arslan Nazeer: What is Millennial Makeover all about?

Mike: It's a book about the coming political realignment or makeover that is occurring in the U.S. and will be taking place in this year's election. What we posit in our book is that because of the rise of a dynamic new generation and its use of new communications technology to mobilize that generation, every 40 years or so we see a major makeover of the American political process, usually leading to a new majority party in the U.S. but not invariably, and it leads to great changes in voting behavior and political coalitions and in public policy.

Morley: In the book we trace the history of realignments in American political history and for the first time, identify two different types of makeovers; one lead by idealist generations like baby boomers and the other led by civic generations such as the GI generation of 80 years ago and the millennial generation that is having that impact on this year's election. And we demonstrate that this realignment is underway and we describe the impact that it will have on the American political landscape.

Mike: Let me explain the differences between the idealist and the civic generational archetypes. An idealist generation, the most recent example being the baby boomer generation, is a type of generation whose members are driven by their very strongly held internal moral belief or ideology which they attempt to implement through the political process, and usually this type of generation is highly divided, its members taking extreme positions on one side or the other of the political spectrum -- and as a result, the country's politics tend to be deadlocked or gridlocked and the country finds it difficult to handle longstanding political problems. In addition there tends to be a focus on social issues such as abortion, gay rights, issues of that type. By contrast, civic generations are generations in which the members are driven by their desire to work with others in a group setting to resolve political issues in a way that benefits the entire group or society or country, and they seek to find win-win solutions to our nation's problems. And so as a result of civic realignments, we would normally see a greater focus on basic economic and foreign policy issues and much less concern with divisive social issues, and that's the type of thing we expect to see occurring in this next election.

Morley: In short, idealist generations are generations of dreamers and ideologues and civic generations are generations of builders and doers. And that is the most striking difference between the young people of today and their counterparts of some 40 years ago.  The span of ages of the millennial generation, are people born between 1982 and 2003.

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Morley: Actually, it's more the reverse of the way you said it. In other words, every one of these dynamic generations that come along every 40 years finds itself more adept at a new communications technology than older people. For the GI generation, it was the radio -- for the boomers it was television, but even in the 19th century - Abe Lincoln's time it was the telegraph and printing presses. The use of a generation to organize itself in civic endeavors only occurs when civic generations arrive, so idealist generations tend to use the new medium to rebel against existing institutions and to tear down different elements of society on behalf of causes such as in the 1960's the civil or women's rights movements or the anti-Vietnam war protest. Their effective use of television was designed to remove institutional barriers, not to build new structures. The use of television to tear down existing political institutions was actually done by boomers on both sides of the political aisle. So civic generations, given the same opportunity with a new technology but nevertheless a communications technology use it to organize civic endeavors and political action to rebuild institutions. So Sean is right to say social networks and other internet-based communications make it easy to organize but it is the civic attitudes and beliefs of the millennial generation that cause it to use those technologies for that purpose.

Mike: Again, just to reinforce what Morley said, the technology really neutral, in the sense it enables each generation to operate in its own distinctive manner. So even to going back to the GI generation, they used radio technology for building and it was a group effort, they operated together with their peers to get things done, using the technology in such a way to basically reinforce or bring forth group goals to solve problems.

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Morley: In 2006 the U.S. senate became Democratically controlled when two incumbent Republican senators who were favored to win their races lost their elections through the use of this new Internet technology and a large turnout of millennial voters. In both cases, the Democratic candidate captured their opponent saying or doing bad or stupid things on video -- and then posted those videos on YouTube and those videos were more watched than the campaign commercials and ruined the images of the two Republican incumbents. On Election Day in Virginia and Montana, college towns turned out in record numbers and gave the victories to the Democratic challengers whose elections produced a new Democratic majority in the U.S. senate.

Mike: In this year's campaign, the 2008 Presidential campaign, all the candidates, but most particularly, Barack Obama, are using internet technology in a number of ways to gain support from the electorate overall but particularly from millennials. The Obama campaign is using its website, mybarackobama.com as a means of mobilizing voters, informing voters, but most especially as a way of raising record amounts of political contributions from many many small donors. This allows the campaign to continually expand the donor base without running up against contribution limitations under U.S. election law.

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Morley: See our previous discussion on this question in this transcript.

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Morley: Millennials make their decisions through a consensus of their friends. They distrust experts and elites. They want to make sure that the result benefits everyone fairly. Some people think that expertise is needed in government decision-making, and that the millennial approach might lead to less than the best outcome. In addition, their strong attachment to their group or group of friends can often lead people who are not in the group to feel excluded and lash out at those who are excluding them, such as with the shootings at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School.

Mike: Another possibility and this follows up with Morley's last comment, is that the political eras produced by civic generations often value the institutions of the entire society and sometimes that could lead to possible violations of the civil liberties of those perceived to be outsiders. That happened during the Civil War when Abraham Lincoln suspended the right to a writ of habeas corpus in order to protect the Union from Confederate sympathizers and it happened again in World War II when Japanese-Americans who many perceived to be a security threat were interned.

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Morley: We first saw the use of text messaging to organize a political campaign in South Korea, not in the most recent election, but in the one before it. And of course that is one of the secrets of Senator Obama's organizing ability in this election, but it's copied from the experiences in Korea. And there are other campaigns around the world, which have relied upon the Internet to mobilize political activity. The difference in the U.S. is that this millennial generation is the largest generation of any generation in American history. It is twice as large as the gen-x cohort that preceded it, and has about a million more members than the baby boomers who were born before x'ers. Unlike population distributions in other countries, which may be more even, this gives this millennial generation the political clout of their large numbers.

Mike: I think it is also worth talking a little about how the millennial generation may very likely affect the way America relates or interacts with the rest of the world. Millennials are the most diverse generation in American history. 40-percent of millennials are African-American, Asian American or Latino. And about 20-percent of millennials have at least one immigrant parent. This diversity may account for the appeal of Barack Obama, who is himself multi-ethnic, to this generation and it is also likely to influence the way millennials will help to guide American foreign policy in the future. Millennials are not an isolationist generation. They are very concerned with affairs elsewhere in the world. Morley adds here, especially because they are connected to the world through the Internet all the time. Mike says that because of their comfort with other cultures in other nations -- and their willingness to work with others in a group, millennials are far more likely to favor a more multi-lateral approach in America's relationship with other countries rather than the more unilateral approach that boomers tend to favor.

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Morley: In the book we cover a lot of the history of generational cycles, first identified in the books on generations by the late William Strauss and his co-author Neil Howe. Their theories would suggest that in the future, millennials would end up raising an idealist generation that will rebel against the very institutions that millennials will create over the next 40 years. But we don't pretend to know what will happen in 2050, let alone 2030 or 2020.

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Mike: Again, the technology in and of itself is neutral. What's really important is that the millennials are a civic generation. And like all civic generations, millennials are highly involved and concerned with politics. And we're seeing that in this year's election with a very high turnout of young voters. In the eras led by civic generations, we always see consistently high voter turnout and positive attitudes toward political institutions, including the political parties and government. So while the technology may help to facilitate those attitudes and behaviors, it is really the style and approach of the generation itself that's most important.

Morley: We've enjoyed this dialogue very much and look forward to further interactions with people around the world interested in this new millennial generation and its impact on American politics. And Mike adds this: I also enjoyed this and really am honored to have an opportunity to describe and discuss our book Millennial Makeover with members of the VOA community. You can learn more at this website: www.millenialmakeover.com

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