Millennial Generation

The latest unemployment numbers and poll results have led most observers to predict a major setback for Democrats in the 2010 Congressional elections. But a year is a lifetime in politics and much can change between now and then to influence next year's vote.  As Ron Brownstein recently pointed out, the demographic makeup of the electorate is likely to be a key factor in whether or not the Democrats can maintain their current majority margins in 2010. While traditionally Democrats have focused on turning out African-American and Hispanic voters to offset Republican strength among white male voters that equation is no longer the only calculation Democratic strategists need to make. 

Today the level and intensity of interest among Millennials young voters 18-28, is equally important in ensuring Democratic victories. But for that group of voters to turn out in large numbers, Congressional Democrats will have to make a much more concerted effort than they have to date to deliver on a series of policy issues of major concern to Millennials, the generation that provided Barack Obama 80% of his popular vote margin over John McCain in 2008.

As with most other Americans, the number one concern among Millennials is the state of the economy and the need for jobs. But Millennials have a unique perspective on this issue, one that Congress must understand and address.  Millennials believe there is a clear link between education and employment and are increasingly concerned that the pathway through the educational system into the world of work is becoming increasingly more difficult and expensive to navigate. Two-thirds of Millennials who graduate from a four-year college do so with over $20,000 in debt.   A job market with Depression-level youth unemployment (18.5%) and a wrenching transformation of the types of jobs America needs and produces makes the implicit bargain of education in return for future economic success harder for Millennials to believe in every day.

Recently Matt Segal, Executive Director of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) and Founder and National Co-Chair of the "80 Million Strong for Young Americans Job Coalition" presented some ideas to the House Education and Labor Committee on what Congress could do to address this challenge.  He advocated increased entrepreneurial resources be made available to youth; Senate action on the student debt reform bill recently passed by the House; more access to public service careers through   internships and loan forgiveness programs; and the creation of "mission critical" jobs in such fields as health care, cyber-security and the environment that would tap the unique talents of this generation. Coupled with the recent passage of the Kennedy Serve America Act, enacting these initiatives would demonstrate that Democrats are serious about improving the economic situation of Millennials and, at the same time, provide organizing ammunition in the 2010 campaign.

Of course no economic program can ignore the impact of health care on this generation's-and America's-economic well being. Many of the entry-level jobs young people seek and obtain come from employers who simply can't afford to provide health care coverage under today's system. Young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 represent nearly a third of all uninsured Americans, and two-thirds of those uninsured young people reported going without necessary medical care in 2007 because they could not afford to pay for it. 

As a result, polling has consistently indicated that a majority of young people support President Obama's health care proposal, especially if it contains a public option to control costs.  One of the more compelling components of the president's plan for Millennials is that it would allow parents to cover their children through the family's health insurance up to the age of 26 instead of the current limit of 19.  And Millennials expect Congress to act. Only a third of Millennials, as compared with half of older generations, are concerned that the government will become too involved in health care.

Yet many pundits continue to perceive health care reform as an "old people's issue," likely to increase the turnout of seniors, but not Millennials, in the 2010 elections. Some have even suggested that Millennials will object to a health care system that limits the differential in premiums insurance companies can charge relatively healthy young people vs. older, less well adults. But this theoretical inter-generational transfer of wealth is not likely to stir up much opposition among Millennials.   Unlike the Baby Boomers of four decades ago, Millennials do not speak to their elders across a generation gap, but have actually formed strong and enduring bonds with their parents and come to the public arena determined to find solutions that work for people of all ages.  Already, Young Americans for Health Care Reform has accumulated 1200 fans on Facebook since the group was formed less than a month ago.   If Congressional Democrats can successfully negotiate passage of a health care reform bill that provides cost-effective coverage for the 30% of Millennials who currently are not insured, Democrats will have another major arrow in their quiver going into the 2010 election.

Millennials, like their GI Generation great grandparents in the 1930s, are facing economic challenges that caught them by surprise and for which no one prepared them.  But Millennials aren't looking for a handout or sympathy. Instead, in the "can do" spirit of their generation, they are organizing to overcome the challenges created for them by their elders.  It's time for Democrats in Congress to recognize these concerns and the loyalty of a generation that identifies as Democrats over Republicans by a 2:1 margin.   One way to accomplish this is by passing meaningful health care reform while helping to create new pathways to economic opportunity, especially for young people who are just entering the work force. Doing so now, as the battle for 2010 shapes up, will help energize the newest and most loyal element of the Democratic Party's 21st Century coalition, the Millennial Generation.  

While the nation has been right to focus on the most recent outbreak of incivility, if not downright hostility, directed toward President Obama generally and his health care proposal specifically, the diagnosis of what ails the country and what must be done to end this type of behavior has been way off target.

Republicans, who were quick to compare the actions of their party's fringe elements to harsh, sometimes over the top Democratic criticism of   former President George W. Bush missed the qualitative difference between expressing strong policy disagreement with the opposition, which is fair game in any political season, and taking guns to Presidential appearances.  Ironically, Republicans are guilty of the same "moral equivalency" judgment error that they accused Democrats who minimized Communist war crimes in Vietnam and the actions of urban rioters of in the 1960s of committing.     Speaker Nancy Pelosi was closer to the truth when she likened today's vitriolic rhetoric to the hate speech directed toward gays in San Francisco in the 1970s, but she failed to pursue the historical analogy far enough.

This kind of anger, born out of a sense of fear of a rapidly changing world, and directed at those that seem to be causing the world to move both too fast and in the wrong direction, has erupted regularly whenever America has gone through the type of generational change it's now experiencing.

As generational theorists, William Strauss and Neil Howe pointed out, an idealist generation animated by moral beliefs, such as today's Baby Boomers, have, in their youth, regularly shaken American society by confronting the cultural values of older generations. Such generations have always been followed by an alienated, individualistic generational archetype, which tends to be rude and disrespectful, especially toward its elders.  The most recent historical examples of this archetype are the Lost Generation who came of age in the 1920s and Generation X, born 1965-1981.  As members of these two types of generations mature and assume positions of leadership, society coarsens and rhetoric escalates from being merely confrontational to speech that is deliberately designed to provoke and incite. It's the difference between Boomer rock n' roll and Gen X rap--or between Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.

But inevitably, this harsh cultural style engenders a backlash from an emerging civic-oriented generation.   The most recent civic generations are Millennials  (born 1982-2003) and, in the 1930s and 1940s, the GI Generation.    Historically, the type of generational alignment we see now is associated with the most traumatic and significant crises in American history: the American Revolution and adoption of the Constitution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and World War II.  The way this generational confrontation has been resolved in American history should give pause to those who encourage incivility, either by their silence or their direct involvement.

Popular opinion was sharply divided during the Revolutionary War.  Between a fifth and a third of the population of the Thirteen Colonies supported the British. Estimates are that after the war, between sixty and one hundred thousand Loyalists fled the newly born United States.  Nor did the Constitution's ratification end our divisions. In spite of George Washington's warning against the "partisan spirit" and the intentional failure of the Constitution to mention them, nascent political parties- Republicans and Federalists -formed by the end of his administration to confront one another on the issue of the proper role and size of the federal government.

Roughly eighty years later, seemingly irreconcilable differences between generations and regions led to the Civil War. Once Lincoln assumed the presidency, he faced opposition from all sides. The words, if not the deed, of his assassin, John Wilkes Booth, "Sic semper tyrannus" ("Thus always to tyrants") succinctly expressed the thoughts of most white Southerners about Lincoln. In the North, much of the criticism was intensely personal: Lincoln was called an "ape," a "baboon" or worse. Many opposed what they perceived to be a war sacrificing the blood of white men to free blacks. Riots protesting the military draft broke out in Northern cities. In New York blacks were lynched and the city's Negro orphanage burned. Even within his own Republican party, a faction called him timid for failing to emancipate the slaves sooner than he did or to pursue a more vindictive policy against the secessionist states.

When the generational archetypes were again aligned in a similar way in the early 1930s, the country was confronted by the greatest economic crisis in its history. While a hero to many, a month before his inauguration, Roosevelt was nearly the victim of an assassination. Giuseppe Zangara, an unemployed bricklayer with anarchist leanings, fired at FDR but hit Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago instead and killed him. Once in office, Roosevelt was personally criticized from the right for being a "traitor to his class." In shrill language that is once again being tossed cavalierly around Washington today, FDR's policies and programs were labeled "foreign," "socialist," "communist" and "fascist." His Social Security proposal was derided as a severe invasion of privacy. At the same time, from the other side of the political spectrum, Roosevelt was criticized for not doing enough to dismantle the capitalist system and, in the words of Huey Long, "Share the Wealth."

History demonstrates that the first years of a transition from an ideological era, such as the one Boomers and Xers dominated from 1968 to 2008, to an era dominated by civic generations, like the GI Generation and Millennials, are initially among the most rancorous, contentious, and sometimes violent, of any in American history.  But history also provides valuable lessons for how to deal with these tensions in order to increase civic unity.

The Founding Fathers worked hard to promote an "era of good feelings," admonishing citizens to maintain decorum in their public debates, even as they privately excoriated their opponents. Lincoln confronted his detractors directly, most famously with his principled stance that "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  And FDR condemned "economic royalists" intent on defending their privileged position to the detriment of the "forgotten man."

As the newest civic era begins, both Republican and Democrats must, in President Obama's phrase, "call out," those who engage in lies and demagoguery or threaten physical violence toward governmental institutions and leaders. Both sides need to brand such actions, not just wrong-headed, but a threat to the nation's ability to successfully sail through the troubled waters of our current generational alignment.  History suggests that a true sense of national solidarity will return when the nation successfully confronts the major challenges it will continue to face.   But in the interim the least that must be done is to denounce actions and behavior that will make future unity more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. 

1. Young people think and behave the same at all times. One generation is just like the one before it and the one that follows. False: Each generation is different from the one before it and the one that follows. Today’s young people, the Millennials (born 1982-2003), are a “civic” generation. They were revered and protected by their parents and are becoming group-oriented, egalitarian institution builders as they emerge into adulthood. Millennials are sharply distinctive from the divided, moralistic Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) and the cynical, individualistic Gen-Xers (born 1965-1981), the two generations that preceded them and who are their parents.

2. Millennials are narcissistic, self-indulgent kids who think they are entitled to everything. False: Millennials have a deep commitment to community and helping others, putting this belief into action with community service activities. Virtually all Millennial high school students (80%) participate in a community service activity. Two decades ago when all high school students were Gen-Xers, only a quarter (27%) did so.

3. Millennials volunteer and serve because they are "forced" to or are trying to polish their college application resume. False: Millennials volunteer for community and public service in large numbers long after their “required” initial high school experiences. In 2006, more than a quarter (26%) of National Service volunteers were Millennials, at a time when Millennials comprised no more than 15% of the adult population. By contrast in 1989 when all young adults were members of Generation X, only 13% of National Service volunteers were in this age cohort.

4. Millennials became Democrats and liberals because they are hero worshipers of Barack Obama. False: Millennials identified as Democrats and liberals well before Obama emerged as a major political force with significant name identification. In 2007, Millennials identified as Democrats over Republicans by 52% to 30% and as liberals over conservatives by 29% vs. 16% (the rest were moderate). At that time, Barack Obama’s name identification was barely 50%, well below that of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, his chief competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination.

5. Millennials will become more conservative as they age. False: Party identification and ideological orientation are formed when people are young and are retained as they age. Prior “civic” generations, with similar belief systems to Millennials, kept that philosophy throughout their lives. The only two generations that gave John Kerry a majority of their votes over George W. Bush in 2004 were the first sliver of Millennials eligible to vote and the last segment of members of the GI Generation, all of whom were at least 80 and many of whom were casting their final presidential vote.

6. Millennials, like all young people, are apathetic and uninterested in voting. False: Young people’s proclivity to vote or not is not based upon their age but their generation’s belief in the efficacy of voting. Millennials are members of an activist and politically involved “civic” generation. They have voted heavily in the past and will continue to do so in the future. According to CIRCLE, an organization that examines youth political participation trends, 6.5 million people under 30 voted in presidential primaries and caucuses in 2008, double the youth participation rate of 2000. Fifty-three percent of Millennials voted in the 2008 general election (59% in the competitive battle ground states), up from 37% in 1996 when all young voters were member of Generation X.

7. Like Boomers and Gen-Xers before them, Millennials are cynical and disillusioned by the problems facing them and America. False: In spite of the fact that they are far more likely to be unemployed and far less likely than older Americans to have health insurance, Millennials are more optimistic than older generations. A May 2009 Pew survey indicates that about three-quarters of Millennials in contrast to two-thirds of older generations are confident that America can solve the problems now facing our country.

8. Millennials care only about what happens in their own country, community, and lives and not on what goes on in the rest of the world. False: Most Millennials have visited foreign countries and through social networking technology, are connected to friends around the world. They are open to working with people in other countries to solve the problems of the world community. Millennials are far more likely than older generations to support free trade agreements like NAFTA (61% vs. 40%) and far less likely to believe in military solutions to international concerns (39% vs. 58%). Millennials are also about three times more likely than seniors to have opinions on major international concerns like Israeli/Palestinian relations.

9. Millennials, like all generations, are rebels who are hostile to civic institutions and government. False: Millennials have significantly more positive attitudes toward government and its activities than older Americans. Millennials are much less likely to believe that if the government runs something, it is usually wasteful and inefficient (42% vs. 61%) or that the federal government controls too much of our daily lives (48% vs. 56%). They are much more likely to feel that government is run for the benefit of all (60% vs. 46%).

10. Millennials are more focused on trivialities such as celebrities than on the big issues facing America. False: Unlike some previous generations, Millennial celebrities and musical tastes are more acceptable to and compatible with their parents’ values because they reflect the generation’s love of teamwork and service to the community rather than rebellion. For example, a recent Pew survey indicates that rock music is the preferred genre of Millennials, Gen-Xers, and Boomers. Rock, the music of rebellion in the 1950s and 1960s, is now mainstream. Moreover even as early as 2006, two years before Barack Obama’s candidacy, more than twice as many Millennials had voted for president than had voted on American Idol.

Cross-posted at NewGeography

In the 1993 movie, Groundhog Day, self-centered TV weathercaster, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is doomed to continuously repeat the events of his life. Only the counsel and eventual love of his producer, Rita, (Andie MacDowell) allows Phil to break the never-ending cycle that keeps him in place. Like Phil Connors, many Washington pundits and politicians act as if they and the country are destined to keep on reliving 1993. The latest of these is former George W. Bush speechwriter, William McGurn. In a Wall Street Journal column McGurn maintains that the failure of Congress to enact healthcare reform during the first year of the Clinton administration forced the president to move to the right, announce that the "era of big government is over" and thereby save his presidency. At least by indirection, McGurn recommends that Barack Obama would benefit if he did the same thing.

But it's not 1993 and it's now finally time to break the Groundhog Day pattern of American politics. The United States has moved to a new political era driven by the emergence of America's next civic generation, Millennials (born 1982-2003), and marked by a new pattern of partisan identification and changed attitudes. Strategies that may have been useful nearly two decades ago are not likely to be effective now. Failure to recognize these changes by adhering to old and worn out approaches, in fact, will be counterproductive.

One thing that has changed since the early 1990s is that the American electorate is no longer evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. In 1994, according to the Pew Research Center, an equal number of voters identified as or leaned to the Democrats and Republicans (44% each). Now Pew shows an electorate in which half of the electorate, or slightly more call themselves or lean to the Democrats and only a third identify as or lean to the Republicans. Millennials identify as Democrats over Republicans by an even larger margin (56% vs. 30%).

Moreover, the U.S. electorate is now more open to governmental activity and economic intervention, more positive toward government, and less driven by moralistic fears on social issues than it was on the eve of the Gingrich revolution in 1994.

Unfortunately, many inside the Beltway seem intent on reliving 1993 rather than moving to the new Millennial civic era. For Republicans and conservatives, who see resistance to change and derailing Obama administration initiatives as the way back to political power, this isn't surprising. After all, failure to pass health care reform in the first two years of the Clinton administration contributed to the GOP sweep in the 1994-midterm elections. Republicans are hoping that, as in Groundhog Day, history will repeat itself. For Democrats, the results of acting like it's 1993 are already worrisome and could soon become disastrous.

In a review of recent Gallup Poll data Real Clear Politics polling analyst, Jay Cost, points out that since mid-July Barack Obama's job approval rating among 18-29 year olds (primarily Millennials) has fallen from 71% to 60%. Cost argues that this decline results from the volatility of young voters who are early in the process of forming lifelong political preferences. To support his contention, he says that young Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) preferred George McGovern in 1972 and later switched to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Actually, however, Gallup data indicates that a slight majority of Boomers voted for Richard Nixon over McGovern in 1972 (52%). In 1980, by contrast, a plurality of Boomers (47%) voted to reelect Jimmy Carter against Reagan. A disproportionately large number of Boomers (11%) voted for Republican congressman, John Anderson, running as an independent and who was, in many respects, more liberal than either of the major party candidates.  More than anything, these close results point to the fractured nature of Boomer political preferences, sharp divisions that persist to this day. The "youth vote" didn't turn solidly Republican until 1984, when 60% of 18-29 year olds voted to reelect Reagan, and even more so, 1988, when 63% voted for George H.W. Bush. By then, however, a new generation of young people, the individualistic and relatively conservative Generation X (born 1965-1981), had come into the electorate.

Given the solidly Democratic party identification and liberal political attitudes of Millennials, the decline in Barack Obama's job approval score among young people more likely stems from disappointment that the president and congressional Democrats have not yet delivered on a campaign message built around change and reform. Certainly the decline is not based on distress that the president is pushing change too far or too fast.

This increased disappointment with the outcome of the first seven months of the Obama administration among Millennials (and other Democratically-oriented groups) is reflected in changes in the Daily Kos tracking poll's generic congressional vote. Since June the Democratic lead over the Republicans has declined from a high of 14-percentage points to just 6. Almost none of this decline in the Democratic margin has come from an increased preference for the GOP. In fact, the overall percentage favoring the Republicans is actually down a point or two since May and June. Instead, virtually all of the change has come because of a decline in support for the Democrats and an increase in the percentage saying they are not sure. And, in turn, most of that is produced by increased indecision among Democratic identifiers and within demographic groups inclined toward the Democrats. In all, it appears that the biggest threat facing the Democrats is not from Republicans, but from disenchanted and disaffected voters within the groups that gave Barack Obama the presidency and Democrats a large congressional majority in the last two elections. 

In the new civic era that America is entering, suggestions by conservatives like William McGurn that Barack Obama and the Democrats move to the right or by Jay Cost that they appeal to seniors rather than the rising Millennial Generation are at best misguided and at worst dangerous. Instead, it's at long last time that Washington Democrats to leave Groundhog Day 1993 behind, start acting like Democrats, and redeem the promises that made them the majority party. One way to do that is to pass meaningful healthcare reform legislation. That would be a fitting memorial to Edward M. Kennedy, the Democratic Lion of the Senate. It would also advance the fortunes of the party he so dearly loved. 

Plans for lunch on Thursday? Stop by NDN, either in person or online, this Thursday, August 27th and catch Simon's monthly presentation of "The Dawn of a New Politics." We'll start serving lunch around noon here in our offices located just a few blocks from the White House and go live with the presentation at 12:15 pm. But if you aren't in DC or can't pull yourself away from your desk, you can always watch the presentation live online. You can even submit questions and Simon will answer them in real time.

As always, these events are free and open to the public. But be sure to RSVP if you plan to come to NDN for the presentation. (No need to RSVP if you're going to watch online.)

See you on Thursday!

Check out these recent essays from Simon to preview some of his arguments in the Dawn of a New Politics:

Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century. July 24, 2009, Demos. An essay which ran as part of a leading British think tank's series of essays on the future of center-left politics.

Obama: No Realist He. June 16, 2009, Huffington Post. Simon offers some thoughts about Obama's global brand in the early days of the Iranian uprising.  The essay drew many comments in its more than 24 hours on the front page of Huffington Post.

Making the Case for Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Why We Need it This Year. April 30, 2009, Huffington Post. Simon lays out 7 reasons why Congress should tackle immigration reform this year, or early next.

The Long Road Back. November 18, 2008, NDN Blog. Following the Democratic Party's electoral victories in 2008, Simon wrote this piece to offer some thoughts about the disconnect between the modern GOP leadership and modern Americans.

On Obama, Race and the End of the Southern Strategy. January 4, 2008, NDN Blog. At the height of the 2008 primary season, Simon wrote this essay reflecting on the composition of the field of contendors for the Democratic Party's nomination and how meaningful nominating (then Senator) Obama would be for liberating America from the pernicious era of the Southern Strategy.

The 50 Year Strategy. November/December 2007, Mother Jones. Simon and Peter Leyden offer a landmark vision for how progressives can win and prosper for many years to come.

A recent Pew Research Center survey suggests that generational conflict in the U.S. has significantly declined in the 40 years since Woodstock, NY symbolized the sharp differences between the Baby Boom Generation (born 1946-1964) and its elders. A plurality (38%) believes that strife between the generations has diminished since the late 1960's and early 1970s. Boomers are especially likely to believe that inter-generational strife is less severe than it was four decades ago: 43% of them believe it has declined. Now only a quarter (26%) of Americans perceive that there are very strong or strong conflicts between young people and older people, far less than those detecting significant discord between immigrants and people born in the United States (55%), rich and poor people (47%) and blacks and whites (39%).

But, as generational theorists, William Strauss and Neil Howe indicate, generational conflict, like the poor, is always with us. A deeper analysis of the Pew data suggests that what has changed is not so much the fact of generational conflict, but its tone. Young people and their elders may not shout at one another across the generation gap as they did four decades ago, but they still appear to differ in many ways.

The American public is right in perceiving a continuing generational conflict, at least with regard to politics. Today's young people, the Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003) are sharply distinctive from older generations in their political attitudes, identifications, and behavior. These differences will strongly benefit the Democrats and the progressive movement, but only both of those forces have the foresight and courage to take advantage of the opportunity that the emerging Millennial Generation offers. The Democratic Party and Barack Obama clearly benefitted from it in 2006 and 2008 winning first a large, presumably unassailable, majority in both houses of Congress and later the White House. Since then, however, the Democrats seem intent on frittering away the sizeable gift that the electorate, led by the Millennials, has given them.

The stakes in firmly capturing the loyalties of the Millennial Generation couldn't be higher. At 95 million, Millennials are the largest generation in American history. There are now 17 million more Millennials than there are surviving Baby Boomers and 27 million more of them than there are members of Generation X (born 1965-1981), the relatively small generation between Boomers and Millennials. In 2008, when only 40% of Millennials were eligible to vote, they accounted for about 17% of the electorate. In 2012, when Barack Obama runs for reelection, about 60% of Millennials will be old enough to vote and they will comprise nearly a quarter of the electorate. By 2020, when virtually all members of the generation will be at least 18 years old, more than one in three voters will be a Millennial. This will put Millennials in position to dominate American politics, as has no other generation before them.

So far, by any measure, the Millennial Generation has been solidly liberal and Democratic. In 2008 Millennials voted for Barack Obama over John McCain 66% to 32%, accounting for about 80% of the president's popular vote majority and converting what would have been a narrow win into a solid one. Millennials also gave Democratic congressional candidates almost the same level of support that they gave Obama (66% vs. 34%). And, as indicated in a June 2009 Pew survey, Millennials identify or lean to the Democrats over the Republicans by nearly 2:1.

Finally, Millennials are the first generation in at least four to contain a greater number of self-perceived liberals than conservatives.

In their attitudes, Millennials are "liberal interventionists" in the economy, "tolerant non-meddlers" on social issues, and "activist multilateralists" in international affairs.

Decades of political research indicates that, for most people, once attitudes, identifications, and behaviors like these are formed during youth they tend to remain in force for the rest of their lives. Coupled with the sheer size of the Millennial Generation, this gives the Democratic Party an opportunity to dominate American politics for at least the next four decades.

Are Barack Obama and the Democratic Party taking advantage of this opportunity and maintaining the loyalty of the Millennial Generation, especially during the past several months as the president's approval rating has declined? The picture is mixed. On the one hand, as Daily Kos tracking surveys data indicate, Obama and his party have lost ground, albeit much less sharply, among Millennials just as they have among the electorate as a whole. Since January, favorable opinions of the president have fallen by 17-percentage points among all voters, but only by five points among Millennials. Similarly, positive attitudes toward the Democratic Party have declined by 12 points within the entire electorate, but by just two among Millennials. At the same time, Millennials remain significantly more positive toward Barack Obama and the Democratic Party than older generations.

Moreover, Democratic losses among Millennials (indeed among all voters) have not been matched by Republican gains. In fact, the GOP has lost more ground since the first days of the Obama administration than either the president or the Democratic Party. Since January positive impressions of the GOP have been cut in half among all voters and, among Millennials, have dwindled to nearly the vanishing point (only 4%).

All of this raises the question of why the administration and congressional Democrats have persisted in their well-intentioned, but now clearly ill-advised and so-far never ending effort to enlist significant Republican support on virtually all important parts of President Obama's legislative program.

The directive delivered to Democrats by voters last November couldn't have been clearer. A post-election CNN survey indicated that 59% of the electorate favored the idea of the Democrats controlling both elective branches of the federal government. Only 38% said that one-party rule was a bad idea. A Wall Street Journal poll completed at the same time confirmed those results and presented the rationale for them: when the same party controls both Congress and the presidency, "it will end gridlock in Washington and things will get done."

In spite of this, Democrats in Washington have continued to pursue the chimera of bipartisanship. The response from across the aisle was a political version of Mohammed Ali's "rope-a-dope" strategy: induce the opponent to expend major energy, accomplish nothing, and exhaust himself in the process. This recently reached the ultimate absurdity when the GOP's most visible health insurance reform negotiator in the Senate, Iowa's Chuck Grassley, said that he wouldn't vote for a bill that he himself had negotiated except in the very unlikely event that large numbers of his fellow Republicans would join him. That is why rumors that the administration and congressional Democrats may now finally be willing to go it alone in passing health care insurance are encouraging. It's been a hard lesson to learn, but better late than never.

However, to avoid missteps in the future, the Bible (and election and poll results) offers a plan: "a child shall lead them" and "out of the mouths of babes comes wisdom." The answer is with the emerging liberal and Democratic Millennial Generation on the youthful side of today's version of the generation gap. If Democrats and progressives go there, they will prosper now and in the future.

The most recent survey of volunteer activity across the nation released by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) demonstrates the "spirit of service" which animates America's newest generation, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003.  Approximately 1.3 million more Millennials offered their time without compensation to non-profit organizations in 2008 as compared to 2007, providing over a billion hours of volunteer service to our nation's communities. This increase among Millennials represented all of last year's gain in volunteerism; other generations combined showed no increase in participation levels.

The increase in volunteerism among young people was most pronounced among those attending college, who registered a 10% gain in participation.  But even teens between 16 and 19 years old, many of whom were still in high school, increased their volunteer rates by 5%. Reflecting the difficult economic times, the single largest increase among types of volunteer activity was for  "working with neighbors in the community." Young people also consistently demonstrated their desire to share their knowledge with other young people. Activities described as mentoring other young people or tutoring  and teaching  others for free garnered a combined 42% of Millennial volunteers' time.  Almost two-thirds of this youthful volunteer activity was done through religious or educational non-profit institutions. All of this Millennial volunteer work contributed over $22 billion worth of economic activity to the nation's non-profit sector (based on independent evaluations of the estimated monetary value of a volunteer hour, $20.25). (link to our earlier NDN Blog on role of service in the economy).

While Millennials are overwhelmingly Democratic in their partisan allegiance, the geographic pattern of volunteerism does not break down along red state/blue state lines. Retaining a lead established in 1989, the Midwest had the highest levels of volunteerism among all regions. The only non-Midwestern states to rank in the top ten in percentage of volunteer participation were Utah (#1), Alaska (#4), and Vermont  (#9). Yet the South, with the largest population of any region, has the highest overall number of volunteers and the West, led by Utah with its large population of service-oriented Mormons, put in more volunteer hours per person than any other region. Meanwhile, not surprisingly, the single largest number of volunteers was in the country's two most populous states, Blue California and  Red Texas. America's shared belief in the efficacy of volunteer activity, led by Millennials, therefore provides a great opportunity for building bipartisan support for increased incentives to expand this key part of the nation's economy. 

The trend toward increasing volunteerism is likely to continue. The percentage of college freshmen believing that it is "essential or very important to help people in need" rose to its highest level since 1970 (70%) when the last of the idealistic Baby Boomers entered college. Between that year and this, America experienced a generation long withdrawal from community life. Generation X, the generation between the Boomers and Millennials, led by the pronouncement by its political hero, Ronald Reagan, that "government was the problem, not the solution" focused more on the individual economic success of its members than on civic life.  

Reflecting the Millennials' belief in civic engagement, the same survey of college freshmen showed "a revival of interest in political involvement, at a level comparable and in some cases surpassing the baby boom generation of college freshmen," according to Sylvia Hurtado, co-author of the report and director of the Higher Education Research Institute. "I think this last election, and the need to attend to the nation's problems, has captured the hope and imagination of college students who will be committed to helping to devise solutions." Interest in "keeping up to date on political affairs" has risen 40% since 9/11. All of this focus on civic involvement and working together is reflected in changes in ideological self-identification, with 31% of the 2008 freshman class identifying as liberal, the highest percentage in 35 years, while conservative identification dropped slightly to 21% down from 23% just one year ago.

Millennials are now the single largest generation in America.  Their contribution to the electorate will sharply expand for the next decade. As a result, their demonstrated belief in the efficacy of collective action and their liberal political philosophy will produce a re-ordering of America's priorities. The only question remaining is how long it will take the older generations now in power in Washington to recognize this change in America and shift their public policy approach accordingly.

In 1969, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published a groundbreaking book, On Death and Dying, suggesting that people facing death went through five emotional stages before they could accept their fate.  While never proven by subsequent studies, the five stages of grief have entered the realm of conventional wisdom and are often cited to explain the behavior of groups, as well as individuals, facing a life-threatening crisis.  The actions of Republicans, and their conservative supporters, in attempting to disrupt Town Hall discussions of President Obama's health care reform proposal suggests that the concept is alive and kicking in politics as well.

According to Kubler-Ross, the first stage in dealing with impending doom is to deny it's happening. We witnessed this behavior in the immediate aftermath of the Democrats' overwhelming victory last November. Republicans reacted almost identically to the way Democrats did after Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980. The election results were attributed to poor campaign tactics by the loser, or the failure to develop a winning message by the campaign's media strategists, or a plot by reporters to ensure the victory of the winning candidate, if for no other reason than to give them something new to write about.  In the classic words of death deniers throughout history, Republican leaders continued to insist well into January 2009 that they "felt fine" and the results had  "nothing to do with me" -- the Republican party and its message. The only thing that was about to die, we heard GOP leaders like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Steele assert, was the muddled attempt at moderation by Senator John McCain and the failure of their party to adhere to its most conservative principles.

The second stage of grief according to On Death and Dying is anger, and this summer the Republican Party and its minions have clearly moved beyond denial to anger.  Enraged mobs of extraordinarily well informed "average" citizens have descended on Democratic Town Hall meetings to demand that their Representative not follow Speaker Nancy Pelosi's party line and instead vote against specific provisions of health care legislation that would, for instance, incent the writing of living wills, or substitute the judgment of health insurers for that of objective government entities on what treatments would be allowed based on their cost effectiveness.  Above all the evil of government involvement in the health care system is to be labeled for what it is - the work of the devil, who is clearly a socialist, through his agents in the U.S. Congress. The fact that many of those most vociferous in their opposition to government supported health care are carrying their sacred Medicare card in their wallet is only ironic if you ignore the degree to which anger and denial are related emotions. In fact, Kubler-Ross points out that people often oscillate between those stages before moving on.  This makes the denial of Barack Obama's Hawaiian birth by many of these same angry protesters understandable, if not any more credible.

So what can the country expect once the Republican Party moves on to the next stage of dealing with the demise of its former electoral dominance?  According to Kubler-Ross, the third stage of grief is "bargaining." Here the individual or group hopes that it can at least postpone or delay death by promising to reform or turn over a new leaf. There are already early signs in the writings of Peggy Noonan, President Reagan's speechwriter, that this next stage is coming to the fore.  She suggests that if only President Obama would rethink the broad scope of his proposals and join in true bipartisan negotiations, Republicans in Congress would support a bill that leaves most of today's health care system in place but without the nasty practices of denying health coverage to those with pre-existing conditions or canceling people's insurance at the first sign that they might actually need medical treatment. The country can expect to hear more such offers from Republicans this fall when Congress returns and the real bargaining over the scope of health care reform takes place. But the party's past misdeeds in building a majority coalition based on the racist premise of its Southern Strategy or its failure to appeal to the civic beliefs and attitudes of the emerging Millennial Generation or its most recent decision to sacrifice its future among Hispanics by voting against the nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, make any such offer a fool's bargain. The demise of GOP dominance is inevitable and Democrats should take no part in postponing the inevitable.

If congressional Democrats have the courage to use their majority to pass health care legislation and then go to the voters with an economy on the mend, the 2010 elections should serve to move Republicans to the fourth stage of grief-depression. Suffering from a series of unexpected and unexplainable defeats, Republicans are likely to go off on a prolonged period of silence, punctuated by bouts of crying over just how unfair politics has become. Kubler-Ross suggests that it is important not to try and cheer up the person in this stage of grief, but to let the individual work his or her way through the inevitable depression on their own. That way, her book says, the dying can finally come to the final stage of grief-acceptance. 

This stage represents the end of the struggle and a willingness to accept one's fate. The Republican Party as we have known it since 1968 will die for lack of political support. It may not accept that fate until after President Obama's re-election, by a landslide, in 2012 just as the Democratic Party's New Deal liberals did not accept their fate until after Ronald Reagan's complete demolition of Walter Mondale's candidacy in 1984. Still the end is inevitable, as many of today's leading thinkers in the GOP are beginning to realize.

But Republicans can take heart in what Democrats were able to do after reaching the clarity of mind that comes with accepting one's fate.  By recognizing the death of its old ideas and rethinking their approach to the electorate after their landslide defeat in 1984, the Democrats eventually found a new road to victory-tentatively in 1992 with Bill Clinton and then more confidently with Obama's victory in 2008. At that rate the GOP only has to wait until 2020 to have its next real shot at winning the presidency.  If Republicans want to get to that goal sooner, psychologists might suggest that they move quickly out if their  "summer of anger" phase, don't bargain or obstruct too much over health care or anything else when Congress returns, and get ready for a good cry in 2010.  Even better, such a course of therapy will improve the rest of the country's mental health as well.

Recently the attention of the Washington punditry has focused on the possibility of Republican gains in next year's midterm elections. This focus stems from the release of several polls suggesting movement toward the GOP on the so-called "generic ballot" question measuring the intention of survey respondents to vote for or prefer the congressional candidates of one party over the other. An article by the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, headlined "The Generic Ballot, 2010, and a Republican resurgence?" neatly summarizes the issue. But, at this point, 15 months before the elections, the answer to Cillizza's question is neither clear nor obvious.

In fact, even the relative strength of the two parties on the generic ballot question is far from certain. Rasmussen, which consistently has the greatest Republican tilt in its results of any public polling firm, gives the GOP a 5-percentage point edge on its generic ballot question. The Daily Kos weekly tracking survey, which leans toward the Democrats in its findings about as consistently as Rasmussen does toward the Republicans, shows the Democrats with a 10-point margin. Falling in between are surveys conducted by Democrat Peter Hart and Republican Bill McInturff for NBC and the Wall Street Journal and Stan Greenberg for NPR. The Hart-McInturff survey gives the Democrats a 46% to 39% lead. Greenberg portrays the race as essentially even, giving the GOP a statistically insignificant 43% vs. 42% edge.

So where does the contest really stand? On the one hand, as the party out-of-power in both elective branches of the national government, history should help the Republicans. On the other, recent changes in the demography, attitudes, and identifications of the electorate suggest that Democrats may be in better shape to withstand the GOP assault than incumbent parties often are. We can't be sure yet exactly how these strengths and weaknesses will be arrayed in the months ahead, but we do have a clear picture of the advantages and disadvantages of the two parties going forward.

Republican Advantages

• History. The GOP does have history on its side. Parties positioned as the Republicans are now, controlling neither the White House nor Congress, almost invariably add congressional seats in midterm elections. Only twice since 1900 has the president's party made gains in the first midterm election of his administration-1934 and 2002. In the former, the electorate endorsed Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal economic policies and the Democrats gained 9 seats in the House. In the latter, in response to George W. Bush's leadership after 9/11 the GOP picked up 8 new House seats. Nate Silver points out that since World War II the president's party has lost an average of 24 House seats in midterm elections. Stuart Rothenberg says that such averages are meaningless because they disguise major variations in results. Regardless, midterm gains by the "out" party are the rule. If history is a guide, the GOP should be in position to retake some of the congressional seats it lost in 2006 and 2008.

• The Democrats have more ground and rougher terrain to defend than the Republicans. The Democrats gained more than 50 House seats in 2006, 2008, and subsequent off year elections. Many of these were in Midwestern and Southern rural and small town districts that frequently preferred Republican presidential candidates in previous elections. Of the 256 House districts currently held by Democrats, John McCain carried nearly one in five (49) in 2008, winning 23 by greater than 10-percentage points. The members who represent such districts are likely to be most vulnerable to GOP challenges next year and would benefit from a successful Obama presidency. But these numbers do explain the reticence of many moderate and conservative Democrats to wholeheartedly support the president's program.

• Declines in President Obama's approval ratings. In six national surveys completed since July 26, Barack Obama's job approval rating averaged 55%. This is a slight uptick in his marks since mid-month and puts them right at the level Gallup uses to designate a presidential honeymoon. If Obama's approval marks stay at or just above that level through the end of the summer, they would give him one of the longer presidential honeymoons in Gallup Poll history. However, they would still be below the 65% level that Nate Silver's statistical calculations say would be necessary to avoid Democratic losses in 2010. Scientific survey research had not yet been developed in 1934, so it is impossible to know what FDR's approval rating was when the Democrats made their rare gains that year. But, George W. Bush's positive job performance mark was indeed that high when the GOP gained congressional seats in November 2002. The outcome of the 2010 midterm elections may ultimately hinge on how high Barack Obama's job approval ratings are in the months ahead. Fortunately for Democrats there are positive factors that could maintain the president's marks at a solid level.

Democratic Advantages

• Demographic change. The U.S. population is very different than it was when the GOP made its congressional gains in 2002. These demographic changes work to the advantage of the Democratic Party. A new civic generation, the Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003 is emerging. Millennials are the largest generation in U.S. history. They comprised 17% of the electorate in 2008, as large a share of the vote as that of senior citizens, and will contribute 20% in 2010.  The American electorate is also increasingly diverse: greater than a quarter of the 2008 electorate was non-white, about double the percentage of just two or three decades earlier. These newcomers to the electorate are solidly Democratic. Millennials contributed 80% of Barack Obama's 2008 popular vote, identify as Democrats by a greater than 2:1 margin, and are the first generation in at least four to contain more self-perceive liberals than conservatives. Upwards of 90% of African-Americans and more than two-thirds of Latinos and Asians opted for Obama over John McCain last year. There is nothing to indicate that the strong Democratic loyalties of any of these expanding groups are diminishing. In the latest Daily Kos generic ballot, Millennials prefer the Democrats by 4.5:1. African-Americans do so by 8.5:1, Latinos by more than 2.6:1, and Asians by 3:1.

• Changes in Party Identification. In 2002, when the Republicans made midterm history, the two parties were tied in party identification (43% each in Pew Research Center surveys). Now, in large part due to the demographic changes just described, the Democrats are clearly the majority party. Currently the Democratic edge is about 16 percentage points. Overall, a bit more than half of the electorate identifies with or leans to the Democrats while around a third are Republicans or lean to the GOP. The Daily Kos survey indicates that about 80% of both Democratic and Republican identifiers want to see the party they prefer win Congress in 2010. The Democratic Party's edge in party ID gives it a built-in electoral advantage that fully accounts for its 10-point lead in the Daily Kos poll.

• Continued diminution of the GOP brand. While Barack Obama's job performance ratings may have drifted downward somewhat during the past several months, there is little to indicate that the appeal of the Republican Party has grown correspondingly over the same period. In the recent Hart-McInturff survey, voters held positive over negative impressions of the Democratic Party by a 42% vs. 37% margin. By contrast, their attitudes toward the GOP were 28% positive as opposed to 41% negative. As the following table indicates, things were even worse for the Republicans in the Daily Kos tracker, in which Republicans trailed their Democratic counterparts in favorable evaluations by margins of between 2 and 4:1. If they persist, these weaker perceptions of the GOP could limit Republican gains in 2010.

• The potential for a continued economic turnaround. In the end, nothing is likely to drive the outcome of the 2010 midterm elections more than voter feelings about the economy. Recent surveys have pointed to improved attitudes about the current state of the economy and increased optimism about the future. A CBS poll indicates that since mid-July the percentage believing that the U.S. economy is getting better has increased from 21% to 32%; the percentage saying it was declining fell from 33% to 22%. As a result, the number believing that the country is now on the right track grew from 35% to 42%. Barack Obama gets some credit for this improvement. A majority (51%, up three points) now approves of his handling of the economy and by a 56% to 25% margin voters believe that the President rather than congressional Republicans is likely to make the right economic decisions. The electorate is increasingly confident about the future. A solid majority (57%) believe that the economic stimulus package passed into law earlier this year has or will create a substantial number of new jobs and a clear plurality (44% in the Hart-McInturff survey) expects the economy to be better in a year than it is now, a number that is up from 38% in April.

The 2010 midterm elections are still 15 months away and making political predictions this far out is risky business. History alone would point to the potential for Republican gains next year. But, a continuation of economic optimism, linked to its significant advantages in demographics, party identification, and party imagery, may position the Democratic Party to overcome the difficulties that an incumbent majority normally confronts. If so, the Democrats could surprise a few D.C. pundits and, along the way, create a little history of their own.

While the recent focus of the inside-the-Beltway pundits and cable TV commentators has understandably been on the American economy, the prospects for health care reform and the president's approval ratings, there is a world beyond the District Line and the borders of the United States. And, in that broader world, by at least one measure, the ascension of Barack Obama to the presidency has been a big plus for America.

A recently released Pew survey indicates that in more than a dozen countries on virtually every continent public attitudes toward the United States have improved since Obama's inauguration, in many cases substantially. The following table compares favorable perceptions of the United States in 2008, the last year of the Bush administration, and in 2009, the first year of the Obama administration, in 24 foreign countries.

Positive perceptions of America increased by 10 percentage points or more in 11 of the 24 nations and by between 4 and 9 points in six others. Attitudes have improved most strikingly among America's Western European allies and our two North American neighbors, Mexico and Canada, and to a slightly lesser extent in Asian nations such as India, Japan, South Korea, and China. They have remained relatively stable in six countries and have fallen significantly in only one, Israel, where in spite of a seven percentage point decline, an overwhelming majority of Israelis (71%) remain favorable toward the U.S.

Ironically, contrary to persistent claims by some right wing dead enders that he is a secret Muslim, with one exception, since Obama took up residence at the White House favorable attitudes toward the United States increased least and remain lowest in Muslim countries. That one exception is Indonesia, his boyhood home, where positive perceptions of America increased by 26 percentage points between 2008 and 2009 (from 37% to 63%).

In part, of course, the president's style and persona have contributed to more favorable attitudes toward the United States. But also playing an important part is Barack Obama's approach to other countries and to foreign policy: publics in 23 of the 24 countries are more likely to have confidence in President Obama than in President Bush.

Obama's foreign policy approach is both shaped by and reflected in the beliefs, behavior and demographic characteristics of his strongest supporters, the Millennial Generation (Americans born 1982-2003).

In contrast to the generational stereotypes many people hold of them, Millennials are very much concerned about and connected to the world around them--more so, in fact, than many older Americans.  Responding to questions on foreign policy in a recent Pew Research Center survey, only 9% of Millennials were unable to express an opinion on how President Obama is doing in working with our allies, while almost a quarter of senior citizens had no opinion on the same subject. On the knotty question of Israeli/Palestinian relations, all but 7% of Millennials could tell survey researchers what they thought of American foreign policy in this area. On the other hand, 26% of senior citizens could not. 

The concern of Millennials with foreign affairs is shaped by the fact that they are the most diverse generation in American history. About 40% of them are non-white, most of Latino or Asian descent. Like their favorite president, one in five Millennials have at least one immigrant parent.

 In addition to its high level of concern and personal connection with other nations and international matters, the Millennial Generation's ability to make virtual friends on Facebook or Twitter Iranian protesters instantaneously provides a unique perspective on how to deal with America's foreign policy challenges. 

Perhaps most notable is how the Millennial Generation deals with the concept of "threats". A majority of Millennials does see Al Qaeda (59%), and the nuclear programs of North Korea (51%) and Iran (55%) as "major threats" to the United States, but by margins 15 to 20 points lower than older generations. Other more intractable but less direct security concerns, such as the drug trade in Mexico, China's emergence as a world power or conflicts in the Mideast ranging from Pakistan to Palestine, are not considered a major threat among a majority of Millennials. To be sure, some of these attitudes may reflect the inevitable naiveté of young people, but the underlying beliefs of Millennials suggest an alternative explanation.

Millennials have been taught since at least high school that the best way to solve a societal problem is act upon it locally, directly, and as a part of a larger group.  Tired of exalted rhetoric from Boomer leaders that rarely produced results and frustrated by their older Gen-X siblings lack of interest in pursuing any collective action to address broad social problems, Millennials have embraced individual initiative linked to community action. Eighty-five percent of college-age Millennials considers voluntary community service an effective way to solve the nation's problems. Virtually everyone in the generation  (94%) believes it's an effective way to deal with challenges in their local community. No wonder one of Barack Obama's first legislative successes, the Kennedy National Service Act, was in response to the desire to serve of his most loyal constituency, the Millennial Generation.

And, when it comes to public service Millennials are putting their money where their mouth is, although lack of opportunity in the private sector also could be accelerating this public service trend. Teach for America, which places new graduates in low-income schools, saw a 42% increase in applications over 2008. Around 35,000 students are now competing for about 4,000 slots. U.S. undergraduates ranked Teach for America and the Peace Corps among their top 10 "ideal employers," ahead of the likes of Nike or General Electric.

This penchant for public service shapes the beliefs of Millennials on how the United States should deal with the problems it faces around the world.  In last year's contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, Millennials believed Barack Obama was right and Hillary Clinton was wrong about whether to conduct direct talks with our enemies.   And they thought Sarah Palin was completely off base when she declared in her acceptance speech at the GOP convention that "the world is not a community and it doesn't need an organizer." In fact, Millennials believe that what the world needs most is thousands of community organizers, working on the ground to solve their own country's and the world's problems, linked electronically, of course, to friends around the globe.

Given the distinctions Millennials make between the seriousness of direct military threats, such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation, as opposed to squabbles over power or territory, America's foreign policy is likely to shift towards a more multi-lateral, institution-building focus as this generation assumes our country's leadership. This approach will only be a reflection of the core attitudes of the Millennial Generation as demonstrated in a May 2009 Pew Research Center survey in which only 39% of Millennials, in contrast to 58% of older generations, agree that U.S. military strength is the best way to maintain peace.

It may take a decade or two before we know precisely how the Millennial Generation's beliefs and behavior will impact America's overall foreign policy.  But in the interim we have already seen an initial indication that Millennial attitudes, carried forward in the international approach of the Obama administration, have led to more favorable attitudes toward the United States by people around the world.