PEW RESEARCH SHOWS THE NEXT AMERICA WITH PAUL TAYLOR

Driving The Millennial Bus.

Ken Kesey Tuning Up Further
via key-z.com

Get ready for the next wave of generational change. The Millennial Generation, age 18 – 30, are old enough to run for the U.S. Senate. In five years they’ll have the Presidency in their sights.

Who are these Millennials? They are the children of baby boomers all grown up.

You may have a few lurking around the house. I do, and they’re a fascinating study.

The Pew Research Center and one of their vice presidents, Paul Taylor, wrote a book titled THE NEXT AMERICA.

Should we be worried? Look back at the furry freaks that propelled Boomers in the 60’s and ’70’s before you start wringing your hands.

Joshua Holland, senior digital producer for BillMoyers.com breaks it down for us. When Bill Moyers gets on a subject, you know it’s important. BoomerPDX breaks it down a little further.

Millennials carry enough of their own baggage to test a pack mule’s back, along with some of the baggage from previous generations. According to Pew Research, the kids don’t place their trust in the same institutions as the rest of us.

Start with the government. Our Millennials’ may not trust American leaders as much as leaders would like, but less than Boomers?

We watched the torch get passed to a new generation when JFK took over from Ike. The former Supreme Allied Commander from WWII, a five star general and two term president, handed the baton to who? A former PT boat commander.

The nation celebrated when the grandfatherly Eisenhower stepped aside for the boyish Kennedy’s turn to steer the ship of state. The celebration ended in Dallas, Texas. Boomers have carried that burden most of their lives.

Who among us doesn’t wonder what might have been had the ‘magic bullet’ never been fired?

Did Boomers trust the government when they and their friends opened the mailbox to find one of these?

via vietnamwardraftee.blogspot.com

The local draft board wanted more Boomers; Millennials get to choose to serve, or not.

How much faith did Boomers have in the next man up, President Johnson? Here’s a man who may or may not’ve nicknamed little Johnson ‘Jumbo,’ who may or may not have run foreign policy from his bathroom stall. What’s known for certain is the long, tall, Texan didn’t collect his second term in 1968. He didn’t want to run.

Instead, we got Nixon. Robert Kennedy looked promising until his stop in Los Angeles where Sirhan Sirhan shot him down. Nixon won in 1968 and 1972.

The ’72 elections stands out with the Watergate scandal. Here’s President Nixon, a seasoned pol with eight years under his belt as Eisenhower’s Vice President and four as the man in charge. Did he read his polls? Did he look at the numbers? He won ’72 against George McGovern by taking 49 states to McGovern’s 1.

And he still needed dirty tricks?

via www.presidency.ucsb.edu

Talk about a red state sweep?

Millennials have George Bush II and his two squirrely elections that did little to restore faith in government. Now they’ve got President Obama, who may become the next Jimmy Carter after he leaves office.

You’ve got to wonder what the Millennials want, what do they need to restore their confidence? They could get loud and start making demands. I haven’t found any documentation that the Silent Generation got loud and made demands, and they still got shipped off to the Korean War.

To rub it in, Korea is remembered as the Forgotten War. After the Boomers went to Vietnam in numbers, no one is forgetting that war.

Millennials will find their voice and it will come from unexpected places. Don’t count on hearing it from the far right pulpits of evangelical churches. No need to put your ear to the ground to hear their message from traditional information sources.

Our kids are wired to the wireless world, socially connected without leaving the house, and smart. Once they figure out the order of the world they want to leave their kids, if they ever get married and have kids, their impact will dwarf the generations that came before them just like every other generation in flux.

In America, that’s how these things work out.

Now get busy. Be sure and leave a comment.