In response to an article I penned this morning, I have received some questions regarding what Millennials actually believe. Are they really “conservative”? Who are their intellectual mentors? Are they capitalists? Aren’t they more likely to support “establishment” politicians who “speak to their generation?” I haven’t wanted to answer these questions, because I do not want to overgeneralize a generation to which I do not belong. However……
The political disposition of the majority of Millennials I’ve met could be easily confused with the kind of cynical corporatism portrayed by many who’ve made quite a lucrative business out of being in Republican leadership on The Hill. However, to assume that this is because Millennial Republicans are “moderate” seems to mistake many of their primary motivations. Generation X’ers grew up with the Reagan Revolution and in the great prosperity of the Clinton Years. All of us were working during during President George W. Bush’s administration, but reflect upon those years in terms of the rise of Islamist Terrorism and the great housing market crash. The older Millennial came of age during the Bush Administration as well, but their experience of that time was not one of economic hardship. Afterall, the vast majority of them did not own homes, work in real estate or mortgage insurance. Their experience of the George W. Bush years was one of bitter political division.
In 2007 and 2008, many Republican youths were swept up in the Ron Paul Revolution, and a kind of libertarian enthusiasm swept over the Millennials. Oddly, many of these same Millennials, who did not fully understand Libertarianism, ended up supporting Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. How is this possible? To begin with, Millennials essentially saw a political climate dominated by two political parties that had failed to keep America out of war and from economic collapse, and who were constantly at each other’s throats. It was not that Millennials were ever very Libertarian (in the case of Ron Paul) or Socialist (in the case of Bernie Sanders), but rather that they have been frustrated by and annoyed with the idea of a bitterly divided two party system, where neither side offered any inspiring solutions to anything. Worse yet, both political parties have ignored the issues facing the Millennials themselves.
The rise of the TEA Party in 2008 and 2009 certainly didn’t create a better climate for Millennials curious about Republican politics. The political civil war which has dominated the Republican Party since the years of Goldwater and Nixon never really caught on with young Republicans. For them, all this fighting and perpetual bickering was repulsive. I think, eventually, they will have a greater appreciation for the events which led us to the TEA Party movement in 2008, but until then, one cannot blame them for being turned off by a party pulling itself apart. What is surprising is that Millennials took an interest in Republican Party politics at all.
Republican Millennials are not necessarily moderate. They are simply unimpressed with both sides of the Republican divide. Furthermore, with three generations of debt looming over their heads, which neither political party seems particularly interested in solving, they have their own issues they want addressed; and if you want Millennials to get involved, to volunteer, or to support you, then you damn well better address them. College Loans and the Federal Debt are two monumental issues for a generation we all told “had to go to college”. Upon graduating from this supposedly necessary exercise in higher education, they quickly discovered that their degrees were no longer worth what they once were. There are 5 students coming out of college for every 1 job in their field. Then they were told that if they wanted to get a high paying job, then they needed to attend graduate school, and rack up yet another thirty to sixty grand in student debt.
For those who have bothered to read this far, hoping to discover whether Republican Millennials are conservative, I believe you are beginning to realize that I am not going to answer that question. Why not? Because Republican Millennials have yet to discover what they are going to be. Some will end up moderate and some conservative; but their ideological destinies are far from decided.
Millennials are essentially political Nominalists. That is, they are not ideologues. They aren’t really going to buy into something called “Liberalism” or “Conservatism”. They use the language (what is essentially “our language”), but they don’t take it all that seriously. They want practical solutions to actual problems and they understand that they don’t have a great deal of time to waste. The one thing that Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders (and even Donald Trump to a lesser degree) have in common, is that they appeared to be fighting both political parties in order to solve problems. Whether it’s socialism or libertarianism wasn’t the point, at least not for Millennials.
For those looking to coopt Millennials onto your side of the Republican Civil War, forget about it. I don’t think they are interested.
But they are interested in the financial and economic security of this country. They are interested in a government that governs effectively. They are interested in having a better country in thirty years than the one their parents and grandparents have left them. Millennials will be the first ones to tell you that they don’t have all the answers, but if any of us older and wiser folks had the answers, why haven’t we implemented them? The Republican Millennials I’ve met are searching for answers intently and they aren’t wasting time; they know they don’t have time to waste. They aren’t looking for solutions that only benefit them. They are willing to sacrifice quite a lot in order to have the kind of economic opportunity their parents and grandparents enjoyed.
If you are worried that Millennials will go astray, then mentor them. But do not expect them to care about the issues you care about or look at the world the way you look at it. Republican Millennials are not stupid and they do not want to be used. They are likely to demand a fair exchange of advocacy and ideas. Can you blame them?
Post Script: I am not a Millennial, so I cannot rightly speak on their behalf. I am simply explaining my own impression regarding a generation that faces unbelievably difficult obstacles not of their making.
16 comments
Millennials are pushing 35 now and have children of their own. If the GOP hasn’t figured out how to reach them by now, they won’t ever.
Rush Limbaugh periodically rants about Millennials based an an incredibly flawed understanding. He has this concept that Millennials have been trained to be pessimistic through public education and pop culture, and that such pessimism is not the natural American tendency.
Millennials are pessimistic because they have been screwed financially by previous generations, because the economy is in the toilet (due to attempts to fix it through government action), and because nothing they were promised about education has materialized. I’m sure I could be given an extensive further list from the real world experience of Millennials. An old elitist Republican or conservative attitude that Millennials are brainwashed automatons who therefore are pessimistic is the key to the problem. A pessimistic Millennial is inherently rational and simply responding to the real world stimuli that govern their daily lives.
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while…
As briefly as possible:
Those of us like me (and SBT) that are in the waning days of “gen X” or at the beginning of the millennials don’t fit well into either category. I agree with some of the commentary that there is a distrust of institutions, be it government, political parties, or corporations. There is not a strong understanding that the corporations that cause the problems are actually the result of crony capitalism. There also is not a strong understanding of the connection between student loans and rising tuition costs. Student loan indebtedness is worse due to government subsidization of education.
A refusal to engage in entitlement reform and out of control general spending are nothing more than a mortgage on the futures of younger Americans. The powers that be of both parties are responsible. The public debt crisis is coming. Democrats are busy trying to buy off Millennials with perks we can’t afford. Republicans (in office) view Millennials as unreliable R votes and don’t even try to buy them off. In the mean time Republican elites talk down to the next generations. Millennials struggle to reconcile their innate distrust for institutions with the promises being made by Democrats by looking for “common sense solutions.” Dare I say, there may not be any. Can the BS talking points and tell Millennials what you really see going on to win them over.
Comments on Rush Limbaugh below.
I think most Millennials are more libertarian at the federal level than anything. State by State, they may range from conservative to libertarian to liberal, but they’ve seen the scope and size of government increase at exponential rates from their early childhood til now…there’s a natural reaction against that and I believe it is fiscal restraint, free markets, and free people. Social tolerance and deregulation appears to be the trend for most. Polling would say the same. And you are correct to say that they havent figured it out yet, seeing as they have a massive distrust of the political institutions that are both parties. Hopefully we on the right can adjust accordingly and provide a true option devoid of hypocrisy…the young people seem to sniff that out very quickly (hence their attraction to Ron Paul in 08 & 12 or even Bernie in 16)
I really wish I wasn’t part of this generation. Maybe in 10-years, most of my age group will see the bigger picture.
I’m an older millennial who was born at the end of 1982. I turned 18 about 2 weeks after election day 2000 and was in college at the time. The GOPe is actually why millennials are hesitant to call themselves republicans. When a political party claims to stand for fiscal responsibility but absolutely refuses to reform entitlements, it’s hard to take them seriously. Honestly, I’d have to say that most would rather get rid of Social Security in favor of letting us keep our money and invest it in a 401K. The one area where liberals resonate with most of them seems to be in their claim that corporations need to pay their “fair share”. Tax reform would appeal to them as long as it gets rid of the insane amount of carve-outs given to certain industries who have their lobbyists making deals with politicians. As far as student loans, schools are sitting on piles of cash because they charge a lot more for an education than it actually costs. UVA has cash reserves of $2.3 billion – three times as much as the state’s rainy day fund – and they just increased tuition 11% last year! They charge more because they know the federal gov’t will cover it and the result is that graduates are stuck with paying it off in an economy where it’s a lot harder to find a good paying job. We just keep seeing more and more debt on our shoulders, whether it be student loans or gov’t spending, and no one will do a thing to fix it.
Becca, thank you. That is excellent feedback. I think if the Republican Party took on Corporatism (which Democrats are now even more involved in than the GOPe) it would play extremely well with Millennials, who seem to disdain hypocrisy more than my Generation X. Of course, I was born in 1979, just at the end of Generation X. The most important thing the Republican Party can do, I believe, to reach out to Millennials, is to begin honestly explaining how the government is functioning and offering simple solutions to fix the areas that have become the most problematic. I don’t think younger Republicans are looking for massively disruptive changes. They don’t respond well when conservative activists say things like, “We just need to cut the Department of Education completely!” Millennial Republicans also seem to me to be incredibly open minded and willing to listen to listen to explanations of problems and possible solutions. They just don’t want to here rhetoric though. Keep it simple. Keep it straight to the point.
Why do Republicans need to reach out to Millennials? How about they, to paraphrase you, “start being honest”. This targeting on specific demographics sound like something right out of the Democrat playbook.
No argument from me. I was born in ’86 and turned 18 in time to vote Dubya and Cantor in ’04. I’ve become quite skeptical of the GOP since then, but still participate in GOP functions primarily because of like-minded supporters–not so much the actual candidates and office-holders.
Well written and apropo.
I want my young adult children to be conservative. They are. Where they (my kids at least) turn their nose up is in the minutia, angst and anger that is put forth by those supposed adults in conservative circles who insist on the use of sophomoric insults/name calling, hyperbole and easily refuted histrionics. You know, the same type of ridiculous crap that we implore them to grow out of.
Give them a chance to grow, learn and yes, challenge you. They’re not like you. It’s ok.
Exactly right. They really don’t respond well to hyperbole and rhetoric. They do seem to respond to matter of fact explanations and common sense solutions (Lord, I hate the phrase).
After twenty years of free trade agreements and corporations seeking H1B visas to employ foreign slave labor, perpetuated by the corporate GOP and their cohorts in the Dem camp, millenials might rethink their support for globalists.
The only advantage the GOPe has over conservatives, is that they come off relaxed, thoughtful, and happy; while conservatives (who are in the minority in our government) come off angry, intolerant, and bitter. I think conservatives need a change in attitude, not in principles.
I’m not saying that a change in attitude wouldn’t help their image. But conservative anger is perfectly justifiable given the circumstances.
Its hard to smile while your house burns down.
That’s true – but at the same time, we need to do what we have to do.
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