Any focus on the “me generation” would be remiss if it did not examine this generations’ alliance to the current political campaign of Barack Obama. The younger enlightened youth has been targeted for a reason. What has Barack Obama triggered in the 2008 campaign that has attracted so many young voters? And why has the turn-out of millennials far out paced any other in last fifty years? Does the ability of this candidate to connect to this significant demographic provide some insight for employers who are now in the position of recruiting, training and managing the latest generation entering the workforce?
According to a recent Los Angeles Times’ article, the youth vote has played a key role in the majority of primaries. “In South Carolina, 18- to 29-year-olds accounted for 14% of voters, up from 9% in 2004. And in Iowa, the young voter turnout rose 135% from the previous presidential primary.” That gave Obama an unprecedented win with roughly 20,000 votes ahead of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.
By the time this entire cohort reaches voting age, out of the total adult population of 225 million, this generation is on track to register one-third of the US Electorate by 2015. The Millennials have emerged, and their growing numbers of 82 million are a force to be reckoned with, both in the political arena as well as becoming a burgeoning segment of the labor force.
Some of the reasons for Barack Obama hitting a chord with this generation have to do with the attributes of the demographic as well as the generational shift that seems to reappear every four generations.
According to Millennials Rising by authors Neil Howe and William Strauss, the “me generation” is one that is very interested in voting, a characteristic that was not as evident with their preceding generation, the X-Generation. However, they are less interested in actually pursuing politics or government as a career and they are deeply distrustful of the media. They get their political information less through traditional adult news sources than through faux-news outlets like Jon Stewart’ Daily Show, and candidate appearances on Jay Leno or David Letterman leave quite an impression.
They are attracted to social media networks, chat rooms, instant messaging, texting and other forms of communication that are instantaneous. They are naturals at using the tailor-made online campaign infrastructure of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. In Growing Up Digital author Don Tapscott describes their "very strong sense of the common good and of collective social and civic responsibility." Online sites such as Kids Voting USA, Children's Express and others present forums for them to discuss issues, participate in polls, and organize mock elections, at times quite energetically.
In many ways, Millennials replicate more of the Veteran or Traditionalist Generations’ (1922 – 1943) characteristics than they do of their immediate forebears. The GI generation's accomplishments include saving the world from tyranny by fighting and winning World War II, building institutional pillars such as Social Security and the United Nations, fueling the post-war economic expansion, conquering space, and leading the nation through the Cold War and the demise of Communism. Veterans were a civic-minded organization of builders. Like this generation, the Millennials are coming of age during a time of crisis (September 11th and the War on Terror). They share innovation, interdependency, and global citizenship as key differentiators between them and what went before. These traits produce a different political mindset from what America experienced with either Baby Boomers or Generation X.
With the growing amount of data that is now accruing, Millennials' civic-mindedness, and their votes for Obama are indicative of a fundamental shift that has occurred in youth voting patterns. If young voters continue to consistently show up at the polls, then our nation's political landscape will be fundamentally altered. And a similar generation, three times removed from its Veteran lineage is once again emerging
On New Year’s Eve, 2007 in Hollywood at a forum known as the Party for the Presidency, one hundred and fifty representative (demographically and attitudinally) leaders of the Millennial Generation gathered for a weekend of networking to complete their self-proclaimed declaration called “Democracy 2.0”. The conference was the culmination of three years of effort by mobilize.org, an organization of Millennials, established to implement their generation’s desire to “upgrade democracy” for the 21st century and generate a series of action plans, to involve youth in the 2008 campaign.
Building from the results of smaller gatherings held during the last two years, the conference also sought to identify the unique traits of this generation that will enable it to attain its goals. The traits garnering the most votes had to do with how adept the generation is in the use of communication technologies, especially social networks.
By the time they were done, as the ball dropped to signal the arrival of 2008 in Times Square, this group of Millennials had put the country on notice that its generation is “uniquely positioned to foster community engagement through social networks of all kinds,” as its draft Democracy 2.0 declaration states, and assume “our responsibility to use information and technology to transform communication and advance political engagement and civic participation.” As the draft declares in its conclusion, “It is our democracy. It is time to act.”
Smart, savvy and civically engaged, there is no doubt Millennials will affect profound change on the all levels. When they start occupying positions within companies and organizations, expect new initiatives to protect children, promote literacy and safety and reform dysfunctional educational systems. Experts also anticipate this generation will affect profound political change on a consumer level, especially concerning where and why they open their pocket books. Their loyalty will lie with socially responsible business practices. Similar to their Veteran role models, they will focus on sound economic principles.
If Obama’s campaign is a movement, it’s due in part to providing a textbook case of micro-targeting and peer-to-peer lifestyle marketing in action. From a cultural standpoint, if Barack Obama has targeted the millennial demographic correctly, it will affect not only our political lives but it will mark the beginning of the end of the Boomers' cultural dominance in the workplace as well. Prophetically, in the not so far in the distant future, the circle of life will inevitably roll out a new set of leaders, when our children and grandchildren become our bosses. ♦♦♦
Ron Callari is a freelance journalist and editorial cartoonist whose work has appeared in Alternet, Counterpunch, Sacramento News & Review, Albion Monitor and the World and I. He is author of “Uncle Dubya’s Jihad Jamboree”, published in 2005, and the creator of kidd millennium’s editorial cartoons, www.kiddmillennium.com
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