21st Century America Project

The debate over legislation to stop online piracy  revealed not only the threat that a new generation of consumers presents to the entertainment industry’s traditional business model but the equally shaky future of  the way Congress currently conducts its business. The high tech, Internet-based companies that Hollywood most fears used their clout with the most coveted customers, young Millennials, to stop an attempt to rush to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and its Senate twin, Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

The success of the Wikipedia-led Internet blackout demonstrated the way Congress goes about its business is as susceptible as the entertainment industry’s business model is to disruption from the energy and attitudes of a new, digitally native generation, Millennials (born 1982-2003). The film and television industry’s foundation, built on the notion that content will triumph ṻber alles, was shown to be  just as prone to destruction by the Napster virus as its  cousin in the recording industry was a decade ago. It turns out that consumers like companies, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, more than they like the companies who produce and package the content and insist on being paid for it.

  But the fact that many in Congress suddenly abandoned their support of SOPA or PIPA  in the face of this consumer revolt also sent a clear warning to those pushing the bills, using traditional methods of high--priced lobbying and closed-door decision making, that their way of doing business is equally in jeopardy. Wikipedia’s blackout Facebook page was liked or shared around 1.2 million times. A petition organized by Google in opposition gained over seven million signatures. When Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced on Facebook that he was withdrawing his support for PIPA, his action generated 4,700 likes.  Between midnight and 4 PM on the Wednesday of the “blackout bomb”, Twitter recorded over 2.4 million tweets on the subject. The Internet community’s insistence on a more open decision making process forced the Congress to ultimately abandon their confrontational, large-contributor  approach to the problem.  If Congress actually learned the larger lesson from this experience and  adopted a process that incorporates the Millennial Generation’s desire for win-win solutions derived from bottom up  participation designed to forge a consensus, they might finally reverse the continuing decline in popularity with their customers—the American electorate.   

Today, all national surveys show approval of Congress at historically low levels. ) Since the Republic was conceived, communication technologies have evolved to reduce the time and distance that separate Congress from the public, but most of Congress’s procedures and practices have remained trapped in a time warp of its own traditions. Creating a new connection between citizens and their representatives by using Millennials’ favorite technologies to build a more transparent, open and participatory legislative process is the essential first step in reversing this decline in Congress’s credibility.

This alternative approach to the legislative process was actually utilized by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon and Republican U.S. Representative Darrell Issa in drafting their alternative to SOPA/PIPA. The two lawmakers published a draft of their approach last year on the web at www.KeepTheWebOpen.com and asked for comments from interested parties. Based on the suggestions of those who visited the site, they proposed a bi-partisan alternative--the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, or OPEN Act--that uses a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer to address the problem. It empowers the U.S. International Trade Commission to cut off the money supply of the several dozen foreign piracy sites that do most of the damage to content creators.

Although Internet companies and online activists liked both the process and the outcome, organizations such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) continued to insist that the danger presented by these sites to their business model is so great that they can’t wait for the niceties of legalities and due process that the Wyden/Issa solution would involve.  The fact that the entertainment industry’s solution is perceived to be so  threatening to the freedom of users of the Internet that it united civil libertarians on the left and Libertarians on the right in opposition to SOPA/PIPA has not dissuaded those wedded to the old ways of doing business in Congress that they need to change their tactics. Their stubbornness is reminiscent of the attempt by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to halt the proliferation of peer-to-peer music sharing sites by suing its teenage customers, before RIAA finally gave up and acquiesced in a new business model for the industry built around Apple’s iPod. 

It’s time for Congressional leaders to use the learning experience of the SOPA/PIPA debate to throw off their generational blinders and find a way to concede power gracefully to a new generation with new ideas. To restore its credibility, Congress will have to use new tools to fully involve Millennials and older generations in the decision-making process. It should make a new bargain with the American people, built on an increased level of citizen participation in the process of governing, rather than upon the current trade of access and constituency service in return for campaign contributions.

Only when Congress embraces this new way of doing business will the legitimacy of the country’s legislative process begin to be restored and Congress’s approval ratings start to rise again. Until then the electoral fate of Senators and U.S. Representatives will be as uncertain and as subject to disruption as the future of the entertainment moguls they sought to please by backing SOPA/PIPA. 

(Cross-posted from Huffington Post) 

Please remember to join us TODAY at Noon ET for the next in our series of exciting new spreecasts: a presentation about the Millennial Generation featuring new work from critically acclaimed authors and NDN Fellows Mike Hais and Morley Winograd.

This Spreecast is drawn from the arguments in their new and compelling book, Millennial Momentum, which takes an in-depth look at this consequential generation, the largest in our history, and where it is headed.

Topics will include Millennials' support of President Obama, Millennials' turnout in Iowa and New Hampshire, and how registration rates should shape both parties' organization efforts.  Be sure to check out Mike and Morley's latest column on the Republican primary and this great piece about Millennials and Obama.

If you wish to participate in the event please do so by going to the NDN/NPI Channel at Noon ET TODAY the webcasting platform Spreecast. On the Spreecast platform you can watch the conversation in real time over the web, chat about the discussion, ask written questions or even join the moderated conversation via video if you have a webcam.

All you have to do is click on our our Spreecast channel participate in the conversation. While it is not necessary to RSVP, we welcome you doing so on our spreecast page.

NDN's Alicia Menendez on MSNBC re: Millennial Generation Vote in 2012

America is about to enter a presidential campaign that promises to be filled with divisive rhetoric and sharp differences over which direction the nominees want to take the country. This will be the fourth time in American history that the country has been sharply divided over the question of what the size and scope of government should be. Each time the issue was propelled by vast differences in beliefs between generations that caused the country to experience long periods of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD), before ultimately resolving the issue in accord with the ideas and beliefs of a new generation.

Every eighty years America engages in this rancorous, sometimes violent, debate about our civic ethos. The first occurred during and after the Revolutionary War and resulted in the most fundamental documents of our democracy: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

The second took place during the Civil War. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments codified the outcome of that debate --- this time in favor of the federal government asserting its power over state laws when it came to fundamental questions of personal liberty and civil rights.  It took the Civil War and a massive increase in Washington’s power to accomplish the end of slavery, although it would be another century until the rights of freedom and equality were fully extended to African-Americans.

And in the 1930s, the economic deprivations experienced by most Americans from the excesses of the Industrial Revolution, and the collapse of corporate capitalism, led to support for a “New Deal” for the forgotten man that placed the responsibility for economic growth and opportunity squarely on the federal government. The government demanded by the GI Generation (born 1901-1924) greatly surpassed the conventional views of earlier generations.

In each case, the resolution of these debates depended on the emergence of a rising, young civic-oriented generation that thought the nation’s dominant political belief system   should contain a strong role for government, overturning the more conservative and limited-government views of the older generations then in power.

Now, as previously, the highly charged ideological arguments on both sides of the issue generate great agitation and anger among older generations, especially Baby Boomers, who have driven our political life towards ever wider polarization. As a result, the resolution of today’s debate over the nation’s civic ethos is not likely to come from older Americans who seem incapable of and unwilling to compromise their deeply held values and beliefs.

This time around, the largest generation in American history, Millennials, (born 1982- 2003), that  will comprise more than one in three adult Americans by the end of this decade, are destined to play a decisive role in finding a consensus answer to this critical question.   If the United States is to emerge from this most recent period of FUD, it will have to look to the newest civic-oriented generation, Millennials, for both the behavior and the ideas that will bridge the current ideological divide and spur the country into making the changes necessary to succeed in the future.

Millennials believe that collective action, most often at the local level, is the best way to solve national problems. Using social media, Millennials are organizing groups like the Roosevelt Institute’s Campus Network, to present a very different vision of America’s future. In this Millennialist future, the idea of top down solutions developed by experts in closed discussions will give way to bottom up, action-oriented movements. This will topple institutions as dramatically as Napster upended the recording industry, or the Arab Spring changed the Middle East.  Just as their parents set the rules within which Millennials were free to exercise their creative energies when they were growing up, the new generation will continue to look to the federal government to set national goals or guidelines, as has long been the view of Boomer progressives.   However, the way in which these guidelines are implemented will not be determined in remote and opaque bureaucracies, but by individuals in local communities across the country. In this way, Millennials will embrace progressive values, but with approaches that may be welcomed by many conservatives.

In the midst of the country’s current period of FUD, it is easy to despair that the nation will be unable to resolve its divisions and come to consensus about a new civic ethos. But throughout its history, when America has been equally fearful of the future, a new civic generation has risen to foster the necessary transition. In the end, this emerging generation served both itself and the country well. Now it is the Millennial Generation’s turn to serve the nation and move America to a less fearful and less divided future. 

I want to share some exciting news: NDN Fellows Mike Hais and Morley Winograd's new book, Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America is now available for purchase. Following on the heels of their critically acclaimed 2008 book, Milllennial Makeover, this newly released book, Millennial Momentum, investigates how the beliefs of the Millennials are transforming American society. About every eight decades, coincident with the most stressful and perilous events in U.S. history - the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and the Great Depression and World War II - a new, positive, accomplished, and group-oriented "civic generation" emerges to change the course of history and remake America. The Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003) is America's newest civic generation.  Get your copy today!

I also hope you will join NDN and the New Policy Institute for a special event on Thursday, September 15th - a conversation with Hais and Winograd about the ways in which members of the Millennial Generation are transforming our nation.  We are proud to be hosting them here in Washington at NDN, 729-15th st NW.  For more information or to RSVP, click here.

Kristian Ramos appeared on Fox News Live with Megyn Kelly to debate the merits of the Presidents new deporation guidelines. The video is below:

The recent release of survey data by the Pew Research Center indicating that the party identification of Millennials had narrowed from 60% Democratic vs. 32% Republican in 2008 to 52% Democratic vs. 39% Republican in 2011 produced a flurry of articles by political observers.

USA Today maintained that “in 2012, youth voters may prove elusive for Obama.” Michael Barone posting in the conservative Washington Examiner under a misleading headline that “Under Obama, Millennials move into the GOP column,” could barely contain his excitement at the news that a majority of white Millennials identify as Republicans (52% vs. 41% Democratic). A careful examination of the Pew data indicates that even in 2008 a larger percentage of white Millennials identified outright as Republicans than Democrats. Most of the movement that has occurred since then was among those who leaned to the Democratic Party and had weaker ties to it to begin with.

Nevertheless, given the importance of the Millennial Generation to President Obama’s victories, beginning with the Iowa caucuses all the way through the general election, the data certainly highlighted a source of potential danger to his re-election and to Democratic hopes for regaining their position as the majority party in American politics. Such speculation however ignores some other hard facts about Millennials and why they are likely to continue to be a key part of the Democratic coalition.

Millennials are the most ethnically and religiously diverse generation in U.S. history. Forty percent of all Millennials are “nonwhite” i.e., African-American, Asian, and, especially, Hispanic. These groups will represent an even greater percentage of those Millennials turning 18 in the next decade. Virtually all of the Millennials’ movement away from the Democrats and toward the Republicans in the Pew research has occurred among white Millennials, who, in spite of their increasing Republican proclivities, still more strongly identify as Democrats to a narrow but statistically greater extent than older whites. Nonwhite Millennials continue to overwhelmingly identify as Democrats over Republicans (71% to 17%).

Millennials are also half as likely as older generations to be white Evangelicals or Catholics and a quarter less likely to be white Mainline Protestants, groups that in recent years have trended toward the GOP. While the “Teavangelicals” gathering this weekend in Texas at the invitation of Rick Perry, its governor and possible GOP presidential candidate, may represent an important part of the Republican activist base, they don’t represent Millennials. Members of America’s young adult generation are twice as likely to be Hispanic Catholics or unaffiliated with any faith and a third more likely to be non-Christians—Jews and increasingly Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists—groups that tilt toward the Democratic Party. Any political movement that attempts to use Christian doctrine as the core of its appeal is sure to turn away most Millennial voters.

There are a range of other factors that seem likely to limit a wholesale movement of Millennials to the Republican Party, so long as it adheres to its current belief system. For one thing, Millennials clearly endorse an economically activist government. A March 2011 Pew survey indicated that by 54% to 39% Millennials favored a bigger government that provides more services rather than a smaller government that provides fewer services. Moreover, most Millennials are confident that governmental activism is useful in ameliorating societal problems. A majority of them (52%) believe that government often does a better job than people give it credit for. These beliefs suggest that for many Millennials the major complaint about President Obama and his party is not that they favor “big government,” but that they haven’t used government as often and effectively as Millennials would like.

In addition, one in five Millennials has an immigrant parent. Not surprisingly then, large majorities of Millennials believe that immigrants strengthen the country (69%) and support a legal pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (82%).

Most Millennials (including white members of the cohort) are also strikingly tolerant on social issues. About two-thirds believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society (69%) and support the legalization of gay marriage (64%).

Such attitudes make most Millennials uncomfortable with the anti-immigrant and religiously conservative views that so many Republicans, particularly Tea Partiers, espouse. As a result, some young Republicans such as Meagan McCain, the Senator’s daughter and Margaret Hoover, the 31st president’s great granddaughter, have called on their party to moderate its stance on social issues in order to attract Millennial voters.

Finally, most Millennials do not approve of the GOP’s current highly ideological approach to politics. The Millennial Generation is made up of pragmatic idealists who search for win-win solutions to the problems facing the nation.

As a result, in a Pew survey conducted during the recent dispute over raising the nation’s debt ceiling, a large majority of Millennials (71% to 57% for older generations) preferred a balanced approach that would have combined spending cuts and tax increases to deal with the federal deficit. Two-thirds of the generation (65%) called on Washington politicians to compromise with those holding different views in order to prevent federal government default rather than sticking with their principles (28%). Not surprisingly, after viewing the summer’s events in the Capitol, a large majority of Millennials (60% vs. 27%) believed that the Republican rather than the Democratic Party was most likely to take “extreme” positions on issues.

For all of these reasons, most Millennials simply don’t like the Republican Party very much. In March, Pew research indicated that a majority of all Millennials (56%) held unfavorable attitudes toward the GOP and favorable attitudes toward the Democratic Party (57%).

Of course, none of this is etched in stone. The Democratic Party still has to convince Millennials that it can effectively use government to solve the problems confronting their generation and the nation if it is to retain the cohort’s loyalty. But the GOP is in the much more difficult position of having to change almost its entire imagery and approach to politics and government in order to win over skeptical members of the Millennial Generation. GOP attacks on Pell Grant funding and attempts to restrict student’s ability to vote suggest many Republican office holders haven’t gotten the message about the importance of this new generation of voters. The big question for Republicans is whether their ideological Boomer leadership will ever be willing to alter their ideological principles to accommodate Millennial attitudes and beliefs.

As we point out in our book, Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America (to be published in September), Millennials will comprise a quarter of the voting age population in 2012 and more than one out of every three adult Americans by 2020. In politics, as with just about everything else, which way Millennials decide to go, will determine the country’s future. Right now, that future is up for grabs.

Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of NDN and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America to be published this fall and Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics.

In the midst of increasingly frantic debt limit negotiations, it is telling that President Barack Obama took the time to speak at the NCLR Conference. With the 2012 campaign season revving up, Obama’s willingness to take time out from the furious negotiations occurring on Capitol Hill to speak before a capacity crowd of Hispanic leaders shows that he understands exactly how important the Hispanic vote will be.

The stakes were high for the President’s speech. Secure Communities and the deportation of DREAM Act students have dulled some of the initial luster that the President had when he first took office. That is not to say that the President has not been deaf to these complaints. The President has advised the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to show greater discretion in what types of undocumented immigrants to deport. DHS has also created an internal working group within the agency to find ways to improve the many problems associated with Secure Communities.

Today, Obama talked talked up his accomplishments with placing Hispanics in his administration, the recent White House Hispanic Policy Day and the work he is doing for the country as a whole. He spoke of opportunity, the economy, the recession, tax relief, trade and the work facing his administration. He spoke of sacrifice, the debt limit, the economy, energy, the rich, the poor and everything in between. The crowd sat in deferential silence as he discussed the difference between his candidacy and his Presidency.

Only when he began to talk about immigration did the crowd come alive with a monstrous roar. The speech became one of the economic benefit of immigrants, one that sought to bridge the divide between what is and what should be for the immigrant population in the country. When talking about bypassing Congress to grant deferrals for immigrants, was met with raucous chants of “yes we can.”

The President held his own, taking the full brunt of the crowd and spoke frankly: “Keep the heat on me, keep the heat on the Democrats,” he told the crowd. ”But know this we are with you. And never forget who we need to move, Republicans.”

This, surprisingly was also met with applause. The speech went on predictably from there, ending with polite applause and the sporadic chanting of DREAM activists to stop the deportation of DREAMers.

This speech was no game-changer. The President has always (mostly) said the right things on immigration. The problem has always been the expectations of what the President, should do and what he can do. The tension of what people want from him and the reality of his office has bedeviled him for his entire Presidency. This remains true after his speech today. The President knows that the he cannot win without Hispanics coming out big for him. So yes, he has checked the NCLR box, he has shown his willingness to engage. But now he has a little under a year to deliver.

File this under things we didn't see coming:  the DNC released their first ad of the cycle, ‘En Quien Confiar’ a Spanish-language spot clearly intended to counter the Crossroads GPS buy.

If you ask me, this is a pretty boring, standard ad.  The value isn't so much in the content (it reads like a book report on the Obama administration) but in the strategic decision to invest in outreach to this important growing electorate.  

Here's a translation of the ad:

CG: REPUBLICAN ATTACK AD
VO: Behind the ads that pretend to care about our children…
CG: REPUBLICAN AGENDA: END MEDICARE GUARANTEE / TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH
VO: It’s the Republicans who would end the Medicare guarantee while protecting tax cuts for the very rich.
CG: OBAMA RECORD: INSURANCE FOR OUR KIDS
VO: It was the President who extended health insurance to our children…
CG: OBAMA RECORD: FINANCIAL AID FOR STUDENTS
VO: Financial aid for students…
CG: OBAMA RECORD: MIDDLE-CLASS TAX CUTS
VO: And cut taxes for the middle class.
VO: We know who to trust, and who we can’t.  Because it’s our job to protect our families.
VO: The Democratic National Committee is responsible for the content of this ad.