Millennial Makeover was of special interest to me because it is about my so-called “Millennial Generation,” those of us born between 1982 and 2003, and how we will shape the political landscape for decades to come. The authors predict a generational shift in civic engagement attributable to “Millennials,” but also state that the Millennial generational change fits into an identified pattern with a forty year cycle. They conclude that Democrats will win more elections than Republicans in the next 40 years.
Since I am a Democrat, I like their predictions, but I was a bit skeptical from the title and the cover of the book, which featured MySpace, instead of the now worldwide phenomenon that is facebook! I was also skeptical about some of the authors’ observations, which did not strike me as groundbreaking, e.g., “'history suggests that those who find ways to integrate the new technology with existing tactics to produce multi-faceted campaigns that reach all voters will be especially successful in future elections.” With the exponential growth of online tools and social media like Twitter, Winograd and Hais’s “prescient” prediction about integrating “new technology” already seems outdated.
Two factors influencing the Millennial generation that rang especially true for me was that our generation is more likely to vote than older generations (likely because we want to be involved, and we ARE the social networking generation.) It is not surprising that the 2008 Obama campaign used these factors to great advantage in building its supporters among young adults with online social media tools.
Predictably, the Obama campaign is already back at it with the 2012 election’s earliest and foremost tool (their website), which asks simply (and appealingly) “Are you in?” I think this appeals to Millennials especially, who want to be included and increasingly connect online.
Chapter 2 explored “Idealistic and Civic Eras in American History.” This was new learning for me, and definitely a new understanding of these terms in the context of “realignments,” or “major political upheavals.” The authors state that a civic realignment is “strongly centered on cooperative efforts to resolve societal problems,” and they argue that the Millennials are moving the political landscape towards such cooperation.
This is compared to an idealistic realignment, which the authors define as “attempts to use the political process to achieve or defend deeply held personal values above all else.” Further, this chapter emphasized that such realignments occur regardless of ideological orientation, they are not driven by either Democratic or Republican ideology. Another factor that dovetails with the authors’ analysis of the Millennial generation is that “voters stay interested in civic era politics,” which rings true today.
As might be expected, a book making predictions has gotten much right, and some things wrong. It will be interesting to see if the Millennial generation (exemplified by Obama’s army of young supporters) stays involved and actually helps chart a realignment of forty years duration.
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