The 2008 presidential election unleashed a potent new
force in American politics. It is the Millennial Generation:
Americans born since 1982, now age 26 and under.
Politicians and pundits alike were surprised by the waves
of young volunteers who manned the campaign front lines,
phone banking, blogging, canvassing door-to-door, and
organizing large groups of peers to do the same. Politics
was suddenly cool, pushing Time to jump ahead of longtime
favorite Cosmo as the most popular magazine on college
campuses. Youth turnout in the primaries jumped
dramatically–in many states doubling or more since 2004
while older adults showed only marginal gains. In the general
election, Millennials turned out in record numbers for
their age bracket and cast their votes overwhelmingly, by
roughly two-to-one, for Obama. So decisive was their preference
that, without it, the sizable 7 percent popular-vote
margin for Obama nationwide would have been effectively
erased. Not since the 1930s have youth had such a large
quantitative impact on the national outcome.
Rejecting the pundits’ outmoded (Generation X) image
of the disinterested and disengaged youth voter, these
Millennial youth have now made their first major impression
on American politics. This is just a prequel. In the
coming decades, we predict they will become America’s
next political powerhouse.
The emergence of Millennials on the national political
stage is the latest chapter in a generational story that
has already been building for many years. Over the past
decade, parents, teachers, military recruiters, faculty and
(most recently) employers have all noticed that Millennials
have brought with them a very different set of attitudes and
behaviors than the youth who preceded them: a confidence
and conventionality, a preference for group consensus, an
aversion to personal risk, and a self-image as special and
as worthy of protection. The generation that has already
transformed K-12 classrooms, the enlisted ranks, college
campuses, and the entry-level workforce is now beginning
to transform politics.
Who is this Millennial Generation? Cynical Gen-X slackers
are giving way to a new kind of youth–civically engaged
organizers like tweenager Talia Leman, recent guest on
the Today Show, who used the Web to persuade middle
schoolers across America to donate funds to build schools
in Cambodia and provide clean water to African villages.
The hard-edged Gen-X celebrities are giving way to a nicer,
friendlier model, like teen icon Miley Cyrus, who recently
threw a community service-themed “Get Ur Good On”
Sweet Sixteen party. The Millennials are pressured and programmed.
They are bonded to their parents and networked
to their friends. They want the system to work and are
eager to contribute. They are optimistic about their future.
No one would have described young Boomers this way in
the 1970s or young Gen Xers this way in the 1990s.
In 2008 there appeared several excellent accounts of
how Millennials approach politics, covering mainly their
policy views, their technology, and their organizational
style. These include Millennial Makeover by Mike Hais
and Morley Winograd, Generation We by Eric Greenberg
and Karl Weber, and The Progressive Generation by David
Madland and Amanda Logan. Our essay will focus more
on the Millennials’ underlying beliefs and life priorities,
on why they differ so dramatically from those of older generations,
and on how this generation is likely to change the
substance and tone of America’s political life for decades
to come. A long-term perspective is important. We predict
that Millennials over their lifetime will greatly strengthen
the connection between citizen and community, between
ordinary people and public institutions at all levels of government.
By the time they reach the age of national leadership,
they will forge a new social contract. Some generations
tear down civic trust, and others build it up. Having
watched so many of their elders tear it down, Millennials
are poised to become a builder generation.
If history offers an example of a youth generation similar
to the Millennials, it is the G.I. Generation (born 1901-
1924), who grew up in an era of tightening child protection
and improving behavior, earning a reputation as upbeat,
team-playing, and civic-minded youth. In their adult years,
the G.I.s pulled America out of Depression, saved the
world from fascism, unleashed nuclear power, founded
suburbia, and took mankind to the moon. It may be that
the Millennials will dominate the history of America in the
twenty-first century just as the G.I.s have dominated the
history of America in the twentieth.
To explain how the Millennial story could unfold, we need
to appreciate what political generations are, how regularly
in history they appear, and how they are shaped by their
formative years and collective life story. Because most
political scholars regard youth merely as an age bracket,
they cannot account for sudden shifts in how people in
their teens or twenties think and behave. By looking at
birth cohorts aging through time–that is, by looking at
political generations–we believe we can explain these
nonlinear shifts.
Applying this method over the past twenty years has enabled
us to make useful predictions about the behavior of young
people and draw a detailed picture of Millennials as a generation–
all of which is recapitulated in this essay. Finally,
we offer a detailed thematic overview of the Millennials’
political views, with special emphasis on views that are
likely to remain unchanged as Millennials grow older.
One of our major conclusions is that Millennials think
about politics in ways that cut across the “liberal” and
“conservative” labels used by older generations. Another is
that Millennials constitute a new political generation with
attitudes towards politics, government, and social issues
that today’s policy makers cannot afford to ignore. Already,
they show early signs of becoming a political generation
of unusual power that will strengthen civic trust, build
national institutions, and forge a new sense of teamwork
and optimism in American politics. As their influence
rises, the Millennials are likely to translate these priorities
into a new social contract, radically re-drawing the institutional
connection between citizen and state.
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