Excerpts from NDN Fellows' Hais & Winograd's Interview on PBS NewsHour

Last night NDN Fellows and authors of the new book Millennial Momentum spoke with Judy Woodruff about the many ways in which the Millennial Generation is remaking America.  You can watch the whole interview here. Although the entire interview is very good, there are two pieces that really spoke to me.  The first is Morley's description of Millennials' belief in bottom-up change:

 

MORLEY WINOGRAD: The most important thing is this generation's ability to generate change from the bottom up, and to do so with individual action at the local level.

They are absolutely committed to improving the country and perfectly happy with the country setting goals and laying out ambitions of what it wants to accomplish. But when it comes to actually doing those things, millennials will provide the same kind of disruptive energy that we have seen in the Arab spring, that we saw in the Napster revolution of the music industry.

This is a generation that is going to shake up every institution that thinks it can be run top-down.

 

The second was Mike's description of Millennials' belief in the role of government:

 

MICHAEL HAIS: Well, first of all, with regard to government, they certainly see a role, a major role for government. They believe very strongly -- a majority of millennials believe, for example, in a government that provides important services, that is not withdrawn from the economic system.

But they don't see government providing big, huge bureaucracies. Rather, they see government almost as a parent providing guidance, overall policies, which as millennials, they will work with one another and more at the local level to figure out a way of implementing those policies. So government provides guidelines. It may provide resources, but millennials will work with one another at the local level to implement those policies.

 

How funny that two of the best spokespeople Millennials have come from the Silent Generation.