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In "Youth to Power," blogger Michael Connery writes the first chronicle of youth politics in the 21st century.
By Tim Fernholz
May 7, 2008
College students protest proposed education budget cuts in Kentucky. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)Is the recent increase in youth political participation a reaction to Barack Obama’s singular charisma and merely a flash in the pan? Is it a result of a deep-seated antipathy to the current administration that will pass after President Bush leaves office? Or have claims about young people’s interest in politics this year been overblown entirely?
These are just a few of the theories pundits have concocted to explain why the Millennial generation has approached the 2008 presidential race with overwhelming enthusiasm. And, for the most part, each of these theories is wrong. The recent increase of youth political participation is the natural result of a grassroots movement that began to take form at the turn of the century. Over the past few months, we have witnessed the results of that movement: the political awakening of America’s largest generation, one that will make up well over a third of the country’s voters by 2016. This argument is the thrust behind Michael Connery’s first book, "Youth to Power: How Today’s Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority," a quick and dirty look at the activists and institutions behind today’s youth politics.
The book, more of a snapshot than a polemic or a history, argues that a future progressive majority depends on the Democratic Party’s willingness reach out to young people, capitalize on their skills, and ignite their passions. Democrats can do this, Connery argues, by funding groups dedicated to peer-to-peer youth outreach and voter registration, building serious policy around issues that matter to young people, and integrating their organizational and technological skills into the party infrastructure. Connery’s ideas are correct, but his suggestions about how progressives can implement them still need some work. For Connery, peer-to-peer fundraising means trying to make politics “cool,” but at the end of the day, we shouldn’t pretend that raising awareness about politics is the same as the real work of organizing; we need both cultural outreach and traditional fieldwork. The Obama campaign has done well in this respect, avoiding patronizing young people with silly attempts to make political participation cool or relying too heavily on celebrity endorsements. Instead, it has offered them a chance to be part of a larger progressive movement.
The meat of "Youth to Power" is an inside-baseball look at the last four years of youth activism and the people and institutions behind it. It begins with a brief on the Millennials, the generation of Americans born between 1978-1996 who were shaped by the 2000 election, 9/11, and the war on terror. It then goes on to explain that earlier this decade, there was a burst of reorganization in the progressive movement that launched dozens of initiatives like the Center for American Progress (which created Campus Progress, of which I am an advisory board member), Young People For, and Media Matters. This energy also fueled Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign and, later, his rise to the head of the Democratic National Committee. With these institutions came a new dedication to youth outreach and empowerment, in which Connery played a role as the founder of a progressive get-out-the-vote organization in 2004, a MyDD.com contributor, and the proprietor of his own blog, Future Majority.
"Youth to Power" speaks to the diversity of young people’s engagement in politics, and its descriptions of the activists, funders, and operatives kick-starting organizations around the country for purposes of electoral victory and social justice are inspiring and useful. Connery takes the correct sides in the conflicts that arise in youth politics. He rightly describes the more organic National Hip Hop Political Convention as an improvement over the politics-cum-entrepreneurship of Russell Simmons and Sean "Diddy" Combs. He also argues that the Young Democrats of America (YDA) is more effective than the College Democrats of America (CDA) because YDA isn’t a part of the formal structure of the Democratic Party and thus is able to spend more on youth-focused field programs. (Not surprisingly, those affiliated with CDA didn’t appreciate the snub.)
But Connery is being a bit unrealistic when he predicts that campaigns will be replaced with decentralized networks, and suggests that the establishment doesn’t understand the “entrepreneurial freedom of the new progressive youth movement.” His case in point is Joe Anthony’s creation of an Obama MySpace profile and its eventual takeover by Obama’s campaign. Whether or not one thinks it was right for the campaign to take control, the decision isn’t evidence that it didn’t understand Internet politics. It speaks to how quickly the campaign grasped the power of the kind of network Anthony created.
Though Connery seeks at every turn to hype the serious importance of the youth vote, he also, surprisingly, falls headlong into stereotypes about young voters. This comes through most clearly in the book’s ultimate conclusion about how to reach out to youth: that young people need politics to be “fun” before they get involved, and that they are more interested in having a good time than in doing the gritty, tough work behind successful political movements.
Connery argues that we need more peer-to-peer cultural outreach at places where youth gather—bars, coffee shops, local music scenes: “Young people should not have to choose between going to the latest Arcade Fire show and volunteering to canvass an apartment complex. The two activities can be one and the same. …. Canvassing strangers is scary; bitching to friends about the Iraq war during a set break at a concert is just a regular Saturday night.” This is surprising, coming from the same commentator who regularly excoriates pundits who traffic in stereotypes about supposedly apathetic young people. Ask any youth activists around and they will be glad to tell you exactly how little “bitching to friends” actually accomplishes. The fact is that politics is often hard work, and despite Connery’s disdain for “cookie cutter political activities,” they are successful.
There’s been nothing abstract or particularly complicated about the very real on-the-ground efforts of young activists and voters this campaign season, both in working for candidates currently still in the race and in helping to launch “dark horse” candidacies like Mike Huckabee’s. Unfortunately, rather than focusing on these successes and how to replicate them in the future—admittedly, the bulk of the book was written before the current presidential race began—Connery plumbs into Malcolm Gladwell’s pseudoscience to try and make a case for lowering the barrier of political participation, arguing that a correct model would see “mavens, connectors, and salespeople work together to change a community defined by apathy into one that embraces a specific political ideology or form of engagement.” This sounds more like sales-speak than a primer for effective organizing, and what it means in practice is far from clear.
The nature of our progressive “youth movement” is that it’s really not much of a movement at all. What we have is an engaged, progressive generation that happens to have grown up around some pretty useful technology. What we don’t have is a defining ethos or a unified vision. This lack of organization leads to the questions that persist in Connery’s final chapter: Which is more effective, peer-to-peer organizing or centralized online networks? Will progressive youth change the Democratic Party? Will the majority of young people outside of college see real outreach? These questions don’t have easy answers, and, for the most part, the outcomes are up to us. "Youth to Power"‘s greatest use, as the first chronicle of youth politics in this century, may be as a mid-term report card. Hopefully, we will be ready in time for finals.
Tim Fernholz is a senior at Georgetown University and former Editor-in-Chief of The Georgetown Voice. He is also a member of the Campus Progress Student Advisory Board.
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excellent post.
— Altapills - May 15, 06:29 AM - #