think that that's something to be commended and in some ways. i mean in many ways we'll never know how far lincoln would have evolved because he was assassinated after the end of you know a week after the civil war came to an effective end, but but i think that's another example of making sure that we understand things like emancipation in more nuance complicated terms rather than saying like in the emancipation proclamation freed the slaves when it actually is a more the rationale behind it. and the reason it came into existence was a bit more complicated than that. all right folks. we are at time. i want to thank all of you for coming out. i want to thank our panelists adam and clint for this wonderful discussion. welcome folks. thank you for coming. um, my name is fish stark. i'm your moderator for this

session and excited to have you all here. just if before we get started if you could remember to please silence your cell phones. the session is being filmed. and now without further ado i want to introduce john delavalpe who is an expert in the political attitudes and engagement of young people. he's the director of polling at the harvard kennedy schools institute of politics. and of course the author of the book fight how gen z's channeling their fear and passion to save america. so thanks john for joining us. and i wanted to start off with a pretty simple question, which is you. the you mentioned that the one of the reasons that you wrote this book was the idea that everything we knew about generation z or thought we knew is wrong. what are people getting wrong about generation z and their political attitudes and and why did that inspire you to sit down with young people across the

country and write a book about what they were thinking. thank you very much fish. if just set the table when i you know, talk about gen z we're talking about 70 million. young americans, they are the most diverse most educated group of americans. we've known roughly spanning the ages of middle school age to folks in their mid-20s, right? i'm not someone who who believes they need to be born on a certain day and a certain month or certain year to be part of a generation right? it's the cloth collective of experience of folks coming of age. so i'm 26 and my agency that you right? why not right, right if you're 26, i think you're right on the right on the on the cusp there and i hope by the end of our conversation. you'll be proud to be a member of gen z, right. so what made me focus on this book right now, is that for 21 years? i've been fortunate to study the attitudes and opinions of young

americans. you know from from the perch of the institute of politics and also through other work, especially i spend definitely every summer and many other month during the year traveling around the country starting most conversations with the same couple of questions. know what keeps you up at night? you know what connects all of you in this room. how how do you think about like america and i found in? some of 2017, you know when the oldest zoomers i call them zoomers or gen z coming of age the conversations just felt different, you know rather than seeing or sensing some hope and optimism. it was anything but they was. fear the words that people were describing back in those days, you know five or so years ago was terrifying to divided. i'm fearful fearful of what i'd ask fearful of everything my health the people i care about the future.

so i just began to notice something quite different. around mental health, you know and certainly how our public discourse was impacting that so i began to pay closer attention and then very quickly. we saw charlottesville didn't help. saw the las vegas shooting amanda. leban, october 1st fall just a few months later by the parkland shooting on february 14th and rather than turning away. i saw the beginning of this generation stand up take responsibility for their own future but challenge us and every time those students and those activists were travel whether it's a suburbs or rural america or an urban centers. people fall only do they follow but they're registered to vote. only do the register to vote. they began to turn out. so i really decided that i had to do this book now the day after the 2018 midterm election

when we we noticed that all jen's ears broke, i mean young young voters broke the historical records of turnout when baby boomers and my generation gen x and when millennials were in their teens and twenties only about 15 or 16 or 17 percent vote in midterm elections. so baby boomers actors millennials 85 out of 100 stayed home and in 2018, we saw twice that number still plenty of room for improvement, but we saw about 34 35 percent of young people turn out shut it everyone's expectations and it resulted in 10 seats moving from red to blue and something was different the attitudes were changing and they were channeling that fear that we talked about into into something very very positive. thank you for that john. i want to come back in a few minutes to the electoral politics of gen z, but one of the things you talk about in your book, is that gen z's politics really come from their

relationships and especially their relationship to a couple seminal events that have happened during their lifetime you talk about five key events. can you tell us what those are and how those have sort of shaped generations these political consciousness? yes, and by the way, all of these events happened before covid. okay, so so they don't stop okay, but these were the events up until just a couple of years ago. the first i think may surprise. some folks is i'd argue. it's occupy wall street. in occupy wall street was a was a movement that was gifted from a member of the silent generation. so folks, you know in the mid to late seventies and older a canadian publisher gifted the idea of this movement to millennials and helped organize in the early days in 2011 in ducati park in manhattan, but it was zoomers who were coming of age 8th grade ninth grade 10th grade thinking about politics the first time through that lens of inequality a fairness of corporate responsibility of questioning capitalism. it doesn't mean that their

socialists, but it means that they questioned capitalism. so that's one of event that we can we can still clearly see the the impact of today, of course in our in our politics, you know, the second event is of course the election of donald trump and whoever was going to follow barack obama would be a transformational figure in the eyes of young americans. and what what donald trump did whether whether you're a forum or not forum you could see the tangible difference that his presidency. created and that is always the most significant predictor of whether or not someone votes. can they see a tangible difference? okay. so a lot happened even within the first 10 days that presidency. that created a tangible difference it began to kind of engage folks third event. we mentioned briefly was those six minutes. parkland literally like it took half the time it took me to get a coffee at starbucks at dca this morning for a gunman to to

end the lives of 15 students and staff members of that school. that's the third event the fourth. event. i'm not sure happens without parkland, which is during that spring of 2018. there was a very very frustrated. almost to be 9th grader in stockholm sweden. who couldn't get her classmates attention? when it came to what she saw what she believed was this climate crisis. you know gratitudinberg was so frustrated. she had entered contest actually one essay contest, but she really couldn't seem to motivate her her other classmates in her peers. and she she read that the parkland students. did a school strike? maybe i'll turn out try a school strike, you know, and i don't think that the climate we saw attitude change by the way in our harbor polling and i don't believe that climate would be had been a as critical. of an issue. it was in the 2020 democratic

presidential primary from a domestic policy, but also from a foreign policy if not for. greta the zoomer from europe and then of course the fifth. and final events during covid but in the early days of covid is of course. what young darnell frazier a 17 year old volleyball and basketball player from from minneapolis, minnesota who promised on memorial day after a high school gathering as a bonfire that you take her little her little cousin for dessert at a place called cup foods. coming out of cut foods. she was the one who filmed the murder of george floyd for 10 minutes. you know when she was being threatened with mace and the officers had their hands on their weapons as they were looking her, you know, trying to intimidate her, but she wasn't intimidated. enough to put the phone down instead. she went back and she shared that tape. with everybody so i'm not sure we know who even who george

floyd is without without darnella's bravery because there were many many other folks killed at the hands of police earlier that year. i think 13 in minnesota the year before and about 9 or 10 the year before that. so those are the the five events i think pre-covid. that have shaped the values of this generation. so one of the things i love about the book is it's so driven by the testimonies and the stories of young people and as you just laid out, they've been through a whole series of tragic or destabilizing events as you said before covid. if you had to sum up the mood of this generation or the things they're concerned about or care about as they come off of these sort of cascading crises. what are you hearing from them? it's a great question and i hear that the tired right that they're struggling. that you know, i'm much more

optimistic about their future than they are. i think you know because they're living the struggle every single every single day and and one one young person from ohio. i think said it pretty clearly. she said you know the way you think about paying your taxes and your bills she was that's the way i think about living and dying every day walking to a room like this i say what could happen that we have security. well, you know, what's you know, where's the exit what would happen if you're shooting me it stays with them all of the time right? so it's always been challenging difficult, of course for all of us in all generations, so beginning of time to be adolescents. right, but i think that the the addition of the the public events and and the discourse has made that even more challenging and you can see it's direct

correlation between the number of news alerts one gets on our telephone with a with a rate of anxiety. it's just really difficult for young person to put this into difficult enough for us to put this into perspective, but certainly difficult for a younger person to do that. and again, that's just another added way in terms of all the other concerns that folks have around social relationships body image the use of technology etc. it's this chaos. i think that is i'm having detrimental effects of mental health, but again channeling them do something about it. so we are seven months out from a midterm election and one of the things you wrote about was the decisive role that young people played in the 2018 and 2020 elections that their massive spikes in voter turnout in generations e played a significant role in the blue wave of 2018 the election of joe biden and of course they for a purpose. feel like the biden administration and the this most

recent congress has delivered for young people in the way those activists hoped and what do you think young people are going to do in 2022? will they continue turning out at those historic rates or will participation revert back to where we saw in 2016? excellent. excellent. i just want to remind folks that without younger people donald trump won. the vote of everybody over the age of 45, i think everybody over the age of 40. so if not for zoomers. and also millennials so you know which by the way will will account for 40% of the electorate in 2024. if not for those two groups. arizona georgia pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin vote red okay, so and those and those five states donald trump won the vote of everybody over the age of 45, i think everybody over the age of 40. it was a 20-point average margin and those five states among

people under 30 of which zoomers aren't all of them, but they're a big chunk of that deliver the presidency. we saw the same thing in georgia and the special election. we do not have our first african american supreme female supreme court justice without this generation. we don't right. we don't have obviously a democratic senate or democratic house without this generation and one of the things i'm constantly reminding young people work tired we're struggling is think of what you've already done. so your question was has president biden and the administration delivered everything that they hoped. that's almost an impossible. that's almost an impossible feat right because there are hopes are so big because of the systemic challenges that we face. have have they delivered have they have they delivered on the youth agenda. i think that the administration including you know with the recent news about delaying, you know student loans you as as i mentioned in the book. i took a leave of absence.

um from my position at harvard for the summer and for the fall of 2020 to advise a buying a campaign, so i'm certainly biased you know when it comes to that, but i will let you know, but when we spoke with the younger people during that election if i told them that you know over the course of the first year year and a half in office if every young person who wanted or every american who wanted a vaccine to get one if they'd see the lowest level of unemployment and generations if they'd be significant bipartisan legislation, right that deals with both mental health and education as well as in climate yet. that's what that's what young people were voting for now. has that been delivered and communicated in a way in which young people are receiving that i think that's, you know clearly clearly not right, but but i think that hopefully the election will will help focus younger people on on the you know. on the reflection of what they

voted for and what has been delivered so far and regardless, i hope and expect that they will participate there's been nothing in any of the data that i've collected or reviewed that shows that we'll see a significant decline in participation. there isn't a there isn't a large. there isn't a large generation gap when it comes to the favorability or the approval ratings of president body. that's clear. i mean he is approval rating among younger people is in the low to mid 40s like it is for most other age groups and that would it's certainly kind of a concern at this stage but regardless of personal opinions today. from what i'm seeing at this point, they seem just as committed to voting as they had in the previous midterm cycle. so we think that participation in voting is going to be sticky. that's pretty good news. you know a lot of the book focuses on you know, generations these political engagement on behalf of democratic candidates and movements like howard dean barack obama, of course, joe biden, but one of the most

interesting chapters in fight, i thought was the chapter called backlash that was about ways in which sort of a smaller segment of young people have been moved and and radicalized the very far right and even participated in the charlottesville on riots there. can you tell us a little bit about those stories that you've heard and how that is working? it's easy to imagine how a young person might see what's happening at a parkland and become inspired to engage in democratic politics. but how are people bringing? how does an 18 year old get involved in in the charlottesville riots? well, you know what? i think the common thread is is use of technology one another common thread is a sense of community and trying to find a community where you feel better about yourself you feel feel accepted and and when you have we talked about the significant concerns that so many of us have around mental health and depression anxiety. it leaves for people trying to

find additional ways to make themselves feel better and i i talk about two particular stories one of which regardless of his age is is what many people would call the most prolific. um, you know white nationalist to white supremists and the country happens to be a gen zier. his name is thomas russo. he had a group called patron front out of texas just a handful of years ago. he's an eagle scout. you know his first his first let me think about the radicalization process right his first article he wrote for school newspaper was on the diversity club. right and then over the course of of that 2016 trump campaign. he became radicalized ended up organizing a group out of out of out of charlottesville was unhappy with a negative press associated with his group. who was the one responsible for murdering. the young woman with a car and

rebranded and and he is the only one who chooses to show his face. and the other members of his group. kind of wear masks and the idea is that he wants any of us to walk into our local supermarket or our cvs and look at a clean cut white young americans say is he a member of our group right? so and some pretty pretty obviously vile things? that's that's why again backlash representing a very small. but potentially increasing number of people that we need to pay attention to and i think congress democratic house has had some is that some hearings? i think we need to do a lot more right about about you know, white supremaced domestic terrace the other i i talk about is this is this a young person who's probably just 19 years old now, he's the youngest insurrectionist he grew up in a

gated community with a five thousand square foot home homeschooled. he look on the instagram and he had plenty of photographs that has mama professional photographer for take the flag with certain weapons with with their truck right out of again. it's like using using the visual mediums right in the technology today to kind of build a brand in an image and he was so proud his parents drove him up. his father has a master's degree. his father said his father has a man they drove him up to washington dc where he actually videotaped himself, you know injuring officers and he created evidence for the for the federal authorities to quickly arrest him in the judge called him one of the most dangerous of all the insurrections based upon the track record the year on social media in terms of his interest and and buying, you know weapons and those sorts of things. so his name is bruno cool everyone knew he tried to intimidate local kids and the

school parking lot those sorts of things, but i'm sure folks were surprised when they actually look back at the history of again his his his involvement in that and that movement of course as parents in front of the judge. we were drinking the kool-aid. we apologize. it's our fault, but i believe that they lost custody when he was a minor and you know, the rest of his life is going to be obviously different that's unfortunate, you know one of the things that i have appreciated about this book and and the conversations we've had is is your interest in busting myths about the youngest generation and i think there we just busted one myth that gen z is a political monolith. i want i want to talk about two other things with you and want to see if they're myth or fact one thing that's often said about generation z is that this is a generation to whom the idea of socialism has a really

dramatic appeal you share some stats in your book that complicate that narrative is generation z is socialist generation or not. and and if not what kind of economic system do they want? what number one they're not socialist number two? they don't love capitalism. okay, and it's not a so it was so i think the the reason that the the data and the polling at harvard has been for me and for many others has been kind of so enlightening is that it's i'm channeling. i'm channeling the questions and the ideas that our students have they want to ask right so they come up with questions. we help them shape them and one of the questions that they've been asking for years and years is what political labels, you know, does our generation identify with right. are we socialists? are we feminists are we patriots etc and through that series of questions. i learned that less than half. i thought it was a mistake. we did the poll again lesson half of young americans several

years ago were comfortable calling themselves capitalist or supported capitalism. only a third. supported socialism when we did a follow-up study. we had an experiment. we actually showed to half of half of our respondents the actual did the dictionary definitions of capitalism socialism when we show those definitions support for capitalism went up support for socialism went down. okay, so so it is a myth to believe that this generation is full of socialists. however, it's very very true that the question way in which capitalism is practiced in american today, you know, don't forget. this is a generation that came of age that that was born right around 9/11. so among their first experiences are seeing most of their parents lose 20% of the wealth during the great recession 80% of all souls lost 20% of the wealth right when they may visit other family, you know, this was the time period where about half the people under 30 were living at home 20% unemployment rate when they're thinking about going to college where you know, their

parents could literally work one summer at a minimum wage job for 13 14 weeks in a ford college tuition at a public. or private institution not the case okay. so again questioning capitalism doesn't make them doesn't make them socialist. it's best explains to me by students of of i think it's helpful to think about that tr teddy roosevelt and fdr kind of economy. tr someone in the square deal someone who kind of maybe like break up the banks, you know and provide opportunity for entrepreneurs and others who may not know somebody and fdr to build like a social infrastructure to provide an opportunity for those who who work for it. so that's the kind of of economics i think in capitalism that that this generation would want to see practice and i think by the way, i think by the way, we're seeing some of that frankly in the current administration around the social

infrastructure that conversation is very much part of of the new neopolitics. and i know that gen z was a big part of pushing that agenda on to biden's plate in the 2020 election and you wrote in the book about the ways he brought generations the activists and their economic interests into his campaign. i've got another question about a myth or fact about generation gen z that you you didn't cover in the book but in the new york times a couple weeks ago there was an editorial about the the idea of cancel culture and we've seen similar takes on this, you know over the past few years this idea that young people are not tolerant as previous generations were of opposing views and their promulgating this push to silence people that they disagree with you do a lot of research on young people's political attitudes. do you think that this generation of young people is less tolerant of views they disagree with than their forebears and if if that's not true, then where's this narrative about cancel culture among young people coming from? well, i think they're less

tolerant of hates. i think they're less tolerant of homophobia of racism. that's what they're less tolerant about and they this other myth that they don't like to use their voice right that they're on the phones all the time, right, but i bet probably not in this school, but many schools i've visited when a young person sees someone being bullied or or someone being singled out for for his or her race or some other form of their identity. they typically would stand up and say something about it something that i'm not sure a lot of folks in my generation did certainly not as often as this generation. so yes, they do they do believe in standing up to defend specifically the most vulnerable, but does that equate to cancel culture? i don't think so, right. i don't think so. in fact when you when you really like pushed like what's where i think about like who's truly been canceled like the folks in america? the celebrities have been

canceled are you know, i don't know literally rapists. okay, or pedophiles or folks who have committed, you know sexual assault over many many years, okay. kevin spacey's cancel. mm-hmm james franco. cancel, armie hammer canceled or cancel, right? they're also have a significant history of significant abuse with people more vulnerable. so that's i think what they're staying up for the narrative, you know is a perhaps another example of a backlash right and and older folks making it. making you know, perhaps trying to try it attention to the to themselves in some way and talk about kind of kids these days. i mean forever that's always been older generations. i've said kids these days, you know, there's not as whatever as good or is great as we were and this is something but i think sometimes it can go overboard.

okay, of course with with any sort of kind of cultural moment, but it comes from i think a good place which is to protect the most vulnerable people. you know, i think that point about kids these days commentary is right on the nose. there was a there was a study done by the berkeley media studies group that said about 99% of news stories or articles written about young people are negative. right? they're they're lazy. they're apathetic. they're violent. they're mentally ill and you put you present, you know, i think a well researched and very positive portrayal of today's high school college students young adults. what is it? that gives you hope when you think about this generation in their future, maybe even more hope than some young people have for themselves. i think that the two things that's the the this extreme. anxiety in feeling of hopelessness, you know a majority of people under the age of 30. most days in the last couple of

weeks. i've done the survey multiple times. we're not the only ones indicate that they've had feelings of hopelessness or depression 26% millions of people were talking about 26% indicate. those feelings are so bad. they've considered cell farm 26% 6% of folks in authority say this every single day. from a relative stable period between 2000 you know the first part of the new century. the they used suicide rate was was stable thankfully, you know, and now it has increased. close to 200 percent over the last several years of it's a second leading cause of death. it's increased in every single state including the just in plus the district of columbia. so despite this like this significant crisis we have around mental health. i see young people trying to make themselves better and trying to make their communities

ultimately the country better and i just think that's a really good thing and they're participating at levels that no one has ever seen before, you know, and i think they have the ability if they can carry these values through if we can survive our democracy can survive the next handful of years, you know, i think it's going to be just a much better place when you're when you're when people have those values that we talked about protecting the vulnerable, you know engaging your values not just in politics, but in the other kind of decisions that one makes i think that speaks, you know, really really well about you know that better. more perfect unit let's i've got one final question for you and that i'd love to open it up to questions from the audience. so folks have questions. please come up to the mic in the center and we want to leave a lot of time for you to you to ask some things but just to finish this off. i knew what i was gonna say and then i forgot it. um, what? you you had a line in the book.

i bookmarked it because i enjoyed it so much were you talked about the anxieties the concerns the hopes of young people and and i appreciated this. he said i say we helped them. you know for adults in the audience who are close to young people who want to think about how they can have empathy for them or empower them or support them to take action or just feel a greater sense of ease in the midst of all these, you know, tumultuous circumstances. what advice do you have? you know, you spend your days listening to young people and empowering them. what advice do you have for folks to help support the young people in their lives right now? thank you. i think that's part. that's kind of how i close it, right and and i often talk about their struggles. it doesn't mean that other generations also. didn't struggle. i'm not saying it was easy to be a baby boomer. that's a whole nother conversation. i'm not saying it's easy being any grown up in any period of

time right? but that doesn't necessarily take away. the experiences and the trauma that our kids are having today right number one. number two these kids today these rumors unlike baby boomers. they saw jfk rfk mlk. assassinated vietnam women's rights civil rights. they were still some bright moments there. you know mania woodstock the moon landing same for other generations. this generation hasn't seen an opportunity when all of us have been united. i thought i'm an optimist. i thought covid might have brought us together perhaps perhaps, obviously, right but perhaps, you know situation in ukraine and russia could potentially still still do that. i don't know. but anyway, so number one is you can help them by not comparing. your trauma where there are trauma. now, it's number one right number number two.

i think that there's a too many of us because of the piper partnership in our schools our communities even our families turn away from anything related to politics right? and that's the worst thing to do. in fact that was that piece of advice would give them to me after i spoke at a conference with like the room was filled sadly with survivors of suicide, right? what moms and dads and i kind of apologize for bringing up some of these facts and they said you can't because you can apologize. we have to have this conversation right and you can have a conversation about what people are concerned about without talking about politics, right every conversation every focus group every time meaning i ever start with. say i want to talk about the state of education system or their inflation. i start what's a good day? what keeps you up at night? right and you can learn just so much about life and about politics by having those conversations to me people in my position as a poster. we start asking we on the right track or other the wrong track.

of the country i'd say how about your life? okay, and where are the barriers what is between here? and where you want to kind of being a chief and you'll find out what those stretches are right. i asked someone i ask a lot like what's your best life? what's your visual best life? and often i hear from from a young. zoomer about to graduate college they have a best life is it's i would argue. it's pretty modest. it's finding an apartment. without having to scour the internet for like three roommates because you can't afford it wherever you live right and having enough money to park it afterwards to go to therapy. that's their best life, right? that's their best life. i'm not sure that you know as a gen xero when i was 22 if that's what i would have said, right but understand that's where they're coming from and they just want to kind of be connected with other like-minded people and it's just even harder obviously because of the what the last two years. has rob i want to open it up to

the audience now and see if there are any questions. i see right here. here. yes. this is maybe three parts of three-part question here, but first is when we talk about generations. baby boomer generation you've got people who fit in into that age group. from barack obama almost at the younger and of it to donald trump, right? so so just talking about a generation. i mean, you're not talking about people who are all the same by any means. but i'm going to assume you agree. with that i do i do. i think i think there are some generations that have more centrality in their views and their values than others, right? but yes, and then the baby blue generator is is really two generations like demographers would say people born between 1946 and 1964, you know, so

clearly there's a of diversity but i start i started by measuring things that i can i can see in quantify around politics right one of the reasons. i believe this there is such a thing as a generation z is because of this winding generation gap that we're seeing our politics. so in 2000 when gen xers who don't have us centrality to their views most of the youth vote in 2000 was gen x was with some millennials those 50/50 bush vigor. okay, so there was no difference between a younger a voter an older voter in terms of their views. in fact the roads are slightly more progressive what we've seen over the course of those 20 years based upon these and other events is a strong identity with basically consumer mode. i'll call these progressive values emerge so we think about this country being divided 50/50 it is but it's really divided two thirds one third.

two-thirds of folks under the age of 40 feel a certain way about a variety of different issues two thirds of folks who over 55 or 60 feel a very different way and it's those baby boomer. i mean those gen xers folks kind of in my cohort born mid to late 60s through 80 or so that 15 year period will really like the swing bow 50/50 55 45 55 and so of these races so okay. second one, okay. the difference and again this you have to generalize a lot but the difference between gente white people and black people could you address that? yes, so it is it because generally it sounds like we're talking about white people. what? not you, but i'm just in general it seems that way. i don't know. i mean, i think that i think that you know those four or five events. i think it was special about the

four or five events was particularly special about about the fifth event around george floyd is when i ask younger people. what they what makes them proud to be an american if i ask to challenge in question for many young people right based on what we talked very very challenging. it's much easier to get a response to what made you a not proud, right? but the thing that made the most part especially in my research. people of color is how their entire community in cohort seemed to come together during the george floyd protests and unlike the civil rights movement. it wasn't a movement. you know lead and organized and attended by predominantly african-american and blacks that and that's something that does kind of connect this generation now young when we talk about it was still clearly kind of a racial divide millennials, you know, we pulled barack obama's approval writing for eight years

in most of those eight years. he was underwater with white millennials. underwater so less than 50% approval writing overall. why would certainly be more conservative than people of color, but overall they still share the same. they're moving in a more progressive way every single time just as i'm thinking about this. even republicans. okay. there are issues. where the party affiliation is far less prominent than the generational cohort affect. initials around capitalism initials around education issues. there is very little difference between the way a younger republican a young democrat thinks about some of those issues even around race. there are much larger differences between younger and older republicans and younger and older democrats. so so there is again a commonality around values around some issues even with people who choose to vote for trump versus

biden based upon their party. okay last part third part. i'm obviously of what would be called the baby boom generation and i'm okay with that. it's you know, it didn't use a huge it shows you you didn't choose it. yeah. yeah, it's just when you were born. yeah, so but i wonder if you could address some of the differences between what we think of things of the baby boom generation in terms of social change. yeah seems to have been a period of a lot of hope, you know, even though there were a lot of terrible on. war in vietnam. yeah. all kinds of especially racial i guess rebellion. yeah in this country, but there was still a sense. at least to me, it seems like there was a great sense of hope. with the gen z and i think you

were talking about this a little bit earlier. there seems to be more of a sense of helplessness and anxiety and what what can we do even though people have been propelled into action? yeah, if you could address that. yeah. i'm not sure. it's helplessness. i i think it's it's a difficult time for all of us to be hopeful about the country. i think frankly right and you know a couple things that when i understood about the baby boom generation couple things one of which is the music and the culture that folks, you know, we're responding to the 60s and the activism were really a response to the silent generation, right the beatles of stones hendrix, you know, john lewis silent generation, you know offering up this culture and these movements for for boomers to kind of respond to baby boomers actually in college younger baby boomers. we're actually before the draft. we're more supportive of vietnam than even older americans at the time before the draft. okay and white baby boomers.

i don't think ever voted democrat perhaps maybe in 96 with with the with the with the clinton dole kind of landslides, right? so so there's been a big big divide between people of color and white, baby. the generation and baby boomers today still again. it's not a monolith still are kind of the heart and soul of the republican party and the ones who elected you know, and continue to vote for for trump again. it's just what it is, right? so yeah, so i think that's kind of that's a little bit of mythology. i think that baby boomers kind of create. around the how radical they were because many were in many fought for change, which is incredible and there was a lot of good things that came from that but when i look at their voting patterns, they really started voting, you know in a fairly conservative way and really never evolved or change over the course of the 50 years, by the way, and that i think is again

additional proof of of why i think generations are worth talking about right because those know, they people didn't change, you know, it's the events that you grew up under in and those continue to influence. thanks for questions. and this half the question and do you think there's an element of the things were just intolerable and that that's what propels different generations into action. i think so in in the need to the to do something. about this i'm generations are more active than others. thanks one thing. i were. bitesy and awesome millennials. i feel like a lamp here and say the wasted water than the parents senilation because if you think about by then his queen feels an r apathy and z and he was talking about fdr one thing about the greatest in the least.

it was also called the fdr7 wasting so always a scene the greatest thing in silence and back but as millennials and see so i think i think that that a couple things about first about about biden. okay, is that you know, not a lot of young people vote for joe biden the primer, okay, but over the course of between by the end of the primary by the general election significant change and in in his favorability rating and he did as well as barack obama in 2012 was used though 60 60 percent because he shared a sense of values. you know, he said i hear you. i listen he made a concerted effort to reach out to those who do not vote for him to pay attention to to address these systemic issues that they were that they were concerned about and i think the kind of the greater challenge that we all have is we're in a

transformation moment in many ways, but also in the media in terms of how we think about communication and what fdr data obviously with the fireside chats and kennedy with his press conferences reagan and even trump with twitter. i think that we all need to think about most effective ways to kind of for government and elected officials and others to communicate and reach out to younger people on a regular basis. thank you. thank you and with that we need to wrap up our session, but i'd like everyone to join me in thanking john for coming and spending time with us. and we're headed over to the activity building where he'll be available to sign copies of fight. th our speaker is a political reporter? and an