During the question portion of the “Nation Magazine” forum on the 2012 election that took place on a Caribbean cruise, a college student said she would be voting for the first time in 2012 and asked how important her vote would be.
Panelist Van Jones responded that young people, the Millennium Generation, are an army because they make up a third of the potential voting population and have the ability to communicate with and organize one another through Face Book and Twitter.
Jones pointed out that the last time we had a generation like the Millennium was the post Second Wrold War Baby Boomers that came of age in the 1960s. In 1959 the country looked like “Leave it to Beaver”, He quickly added “Unless you were Black.” By 1969, it was a totally different country and apartheid was over. The Baby Boomers were receptive to civil rights and not imbued with Jim Crow racism. Their values became the values of the nation.
Jones pointed out that the millennium generation is bigger than the baby boomers and even more diverse in terms of race, gender, religion and nationality. It is ecologically smarter and has higher humanitarian values. It is by far the most technologically connected.
He joked about how the Millenniums have “stood up in 2008”, “sat down” in 2010 and now, via the Occupy movement, were “lying down.”
Jones continued: Earlier generations used to be able to get a job, not an unpaid internship. They did not have to live with parents. Nor did they graduate with huge educational debts. All this is so that the richest people in the world don’t have to pay taxes. Through Face Book and Twitter, everyone is a walking technological super power. Many individuals are an organization within themselves, bigger than most organizations ten years ago.
John Nichols observed that first time voters will need to take the place of white working class men who voted for President Barack Obama because of the economy but will dessert in 2012. The ability to elect a Democrat House and Senate will require efforts by the Millenniums to “scream” among themselves to voice the issues and ultimately to get out the vote.
The sense of the panelists was without 60 or more votes in the Senate and control of the House, little would be accomplished during Obama’s second term. Even then, he will have to be pushed because of his moderate tendencies.
The biggest hope for positive ‘change’ is a ONE-TERM Obama presidency!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!