The Media Missed The Youth Wave

Media pundits love to talk about so-called "wave" elections. The wave narrative dominates coverage of congressional races. Watch this typical example: CNN's John King in 2017 musing about the possibilities for a 2018 Blue Wave.

In 2010, the establishment narrative was that the Republicans rode a wave of TEA Party generated antagonism toward the Affordable Care Act (i.e. Obamacare) and thus gained 63 seats in the House of Representatives. This was allegedly a "Red Wave."

Eight years later the establishment narrative tells us of the alleged "Blue Wave": riding a wave of anti-Trump sentiment and suspicion that the Republicans really have no plan to protect health care access, the Democrats gained 40 seats (and maybe 41) in the House of Representatives.

My problem with the establishment's partisan flavored "Wave Narrative" is its implication that the results of elections have anything to do with voter attitudes toward the Republican and Democratic parties. When the Republicans won those 63 seats in 2010, does anyone seriously think that it was because the GOP was perceived as willing and able to do the business of The People? As we approach 2019, does anyone outside of the most indoctrinated partisans think that the Democratic Party has now been cured of its addiction to corporate cash and will finally fight for a People-centered agenda? Sure, there will be individual Dems who will fight for such things, but they will find the establishment Democratic Party to be as much of a barrier as the Republicans. (Case in point: Rep. Barbara Lee, a tireless champion of progressive values for many years, was not able to break into the leadership ranks of the new Democratic majority because of what she called "institutional barriers.").

If not Red and Blue Waves, then What? 

By now it should be clear that Americans view the major political parties not as vehicles for change, but as impediments to it. Unfortunately those parties maintain such a tight grip on the electoral processes in each state that it is virtually impossible to gain legislative power via the route of third parties. Recognizing this pathetic state of affairs, change agents often come to the conclusion that the only real way to make new legislation is to participate in the major party structures.

Seen in that light, "waves" represent movements of people attempting to grab controls of the levers of power in what is presented to them as the most practical way to do so. Depending on the trajectory of the particular movement(s), the majority of the votes can go toward the R or D columns. As such, the midterm elections of 2010 were an "Anti-Establishment" wave rooted in the strong belief that an iron triangle of insurance company greed + pharmaceutical industry greed + government enabling of insurance and pharmaceutical greed (under the guise of "regulating" them) was a betrayal of the "hope and change" that brought Barack Obama to power in 2008. There's little evidence that the elections of 2010 were an endorsement of the Republican Party as much as a message to Barack Obama that Republican-lite endorsements of special interest lobby solutions to life-and-death issues like health care were not going to be met with enthusiasm. Many sent that message to the President simply by staying home and not voting. 

Not surprisingly, a majority of Americans--including 52 percent of those who call themselves Republicans--now support a "Medicare For All" solution to health care. That's where the trajectory has been headed all along. (I still firmly believe that if the Democrats had used their majority in 2009/2010 to create a Medicare for all system, they actually would have gained seats in subsequent elections, much as they controlled Congress for multiple generations after passing New Deal programs in the 1930s).

In 2018 the lines of a Buffalo Springfield song might be the best descriptor of where we are: "There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear."  Given the record numbers of women elected, we could could easily see 2018 as a Women's Wave. Large numbers of women who ran for office this year were Generation X or Millennials. I believe we are in the early stages of a "Youth Wave," with the midterms of 2018 representing especially the Millennial generation's political coming out party. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's stunning victory over Nancy Pelosi favorite Joe Crowley in a New York city congressional primary might have been the most visible symbol of something new happening: young people are no longer going to "wait their turn" or just continue to "hope" that the elders to the right thing. Some clear signs of the youth wave:

*In Rhode Island, young people are literally suing the state in an effort to get better civics education. If their suit is successful it could have dramatic and positive consequences for political engagement across the nation.

*According to the Atlantic, early voting among youth in 2018 saw a 188 percent increase compared to 2014.

*When the new House of Representatives convenes in January, 26 members will be Millennials, up from 5 at the start of departing House in 2017.

*According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), 31 percent of youth turned out to vote in the 2018 midterms compared to 21 percent in 2014. CIRCLE's research suggests youth are pumped up for change; 72 percent of people 18-24 agree that "dramatic change could occur in this country if people banded together." And 73 percent agree that "we can work together to promote important political goals even if we face difficulties."

*Where I teach (the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh), students who interned for the campus American Democracy Project chapter engaged in a number of positive activities including voter registration, organizing a student activist forum, and organizing a forum for third party candidates. Voter turnout on the campus increased by 4 percent over 2014. When all the votes were counted in Wisconsin, Democrat for governor Tony Evers had a 23 point edge over Republican Scott Walker among voters under 30 (compared to only a 4-point advantage for Democrat Mary Burke four years ago.).

*Across the country a number youth led organizations are leading the way for change. One that I am familiar with is the Green Bay based Intellegere Project, an effort to raise the bar for social media discourse so as to promote civility and progressive change. The organization recently raised enough funds to support undergraduate research on the issue of why youth vote or do not vote.

*No discussion of the Youth Wave would be complete with giving major kudos to all of the survivors of the horrible massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Emma Gonzalez's now iconic "We Call BS" speech will forever be a wake-up call not only to people who want to see sane gun legislation, but for advocates on all issues who know they could and should be doing more to make change. The March For Our Lives movement shows no signs of slowing down, much to the chagrin of the NRA. Writing in the Madison Badger Herald, student Tatiana Dennis argues that "the results of recent elections in Wisconsin and across the nation show the NRA is losing its grip on the GOP and the American electorate." We have mostly high school students to thank for that.

What's special about this new generation of youth activists is that they do not seem at all interested in exploiting any kind of "generation gap" in order to motivate youth. Rather, they appear eager to work with their elders for a People centered agenda. In that regard they are very much like the American Youth Congress of the 1930s. In the 1936 Declaration of the Rights of American Youth, the AYC said:

We declare that our generation is rightfully entitled to a useful, creative, and happy life, the guarantees of which are: full educational opportunities, steady employment at adequate wages, security in time of need, civil rights, religious freedom, and peace . . . 

We recognize that we young people do not constitute a separate social group, but that our problems and aspirations are intimately bound up with those of all the people.

The mainstream media in the United States so far doesn't appear to grasp breadth and depth of the Youth Wave. Today's  youth have about as much regard for the mainstream media as they do for the mainstream political parties, perhaps even less. If I am correct that we are in the early stages of a Youth Wave that's on the brink of producing some dramatic changes in our society, such changes will unquestionably upset mainstream media business models. Who knows, maybe the days of seeing readers and viewers as mere "demographics" whose only value is in being "sold" to advertisers could be coming to an end. The Correspondent, a Dutch news platform that is on the verge of becoming a journalistic force in the United States (I'll write about it in a future rant), is rooted in a unique model of interaction with readers. If the elections of 2018 taught us anything, it is that youth are demanding genuine interaction with institutions of power, not just in politics but in the press.