EVERETT Carll Ladd, a political scientist, once remarked, "Social analysis and commentary has many shortcomings, but few of its chapters are as persistently wrong-headed as those on the generations and generational change. This literature abounds with hyperbole and unsubstantiated leaps from available data." Many of the media's grand pronouncements about America's post-Baby Boom generation -alternatively called Generation X, Baby Busters, and twentysomethings,would seem to illustrate this point.
The 1990s opened with a frenzy of negative stereotyping of the roughly 50 million Americans born from 1965 to 1978: they were slackers, cynics, whiners, drifters, malcontents. A Washington Post headline captured the patronizing attitude that Baby Boomers apparently hold toward their successors: "THE BORING TWENTIES: GROW UP, CRYBABIES." Then books and articles began to recast young Americans as ambitious, savvy, independent, pragmatic, and self-sufficient. For instance, Time magazine described a 1997 article titled "Great Xpectations" this way: "Slackers? Hardly. The so-called Generation X turns out to be full of go-getters who are just doing it -- but their way."
Stereotyping aside, some disquieting facts jump out regarding the political practices and political orientation of young Americans. A wide sampling of surveys indicates that Xers are less politically or civically engaged, exhibit less social trust or confidence in government, have a weaker allegiance to their country or to either political party, and are more materialistic than their predecessors. Why are so many young people opting out of conventional politics, and what does this mean for the future of American democracy? Might it be that today's political establishment is simply not addressing what matters to the nation's young? And if so, what is their political agenda?
The Disengaged Generation
ALTHOUGH political and civic engagement began to decrease among those at the tail end of the Baby Boom, Xers appear to have enshrined political apathy as a way of life. In measurements of conventional political participation the youngest voting-age Americans stand out owing to their unprecedented levels of absenteeism. This political disengagement cannot be explained away as merely the habits of youth, because today's young are markedly less engaged than were their counterparts in earlier generations. Voting rates are arrestingly low among post-Boomers. In the 1994 midterm elections, for instance, fewer than one in five eligible Xers showed up at the polls. As recently as 1972 half those aged eighteen to twenty-four voted; in 1996, a presidential-election year, only 32 percent did. Such anemic participation can be seen in all forms of traditional political activity: Xers are considerably less likely than previous generations of young Americans to call or write elected officials, attend candidates' rallies, or work on political campaigns. What is more, a number of studies reveal that their general knowledge about public affairs is uniquely low.
The most recent birth cohort to reach voting age is also rejecting conventional partisan demarcations: the distinction between Democrats and Republicans, which has defined American politics for more than a century, doesn't resonate much with the young, who tend to see more similarities than differences between the two parties. Even those young adults who are actively engaged in national politics see partisan boundaries blurring into irrelevance. Gary Ruskin, an Xer who directs the Congressional Accountability Project, a public-policy group in Washington, D.C., puts it this way: "Republicans and Democrats have become one and the same -- they are both corrupt at the core and behave like children who are more interested in fighting with each other than in getting anything accomplished."
Surveys suggest that no more than a third of young adults identify with either political party, and only a quarter vote a straight party ticket. Xers are the group least likely to favor maintaining the current two-party system, and the most likely to favor candidates who are running as independents. Indeed, 44 percent of those aged eighteen to twenty-nine identify themselves as independents. Not surprisingly, young adults gave the strongest support to Ross Perot in 1992 and to Jesse Ventura in 1998.
More fundamental, Xers have internalized core beliefs and characteristics that bode ill for the future of American democracy. This generation is more likely to describe itself as having a negative attitude toward America, and as placing little importance on citizenship and national identity, than its predecessors. And Xers exhibit a more materialistic and individualistic streak than did their parents at a similar age. Moreover, there is a general decline in social trust among the young, whether that is trust in their fellow citizens, in established institutions, or in elected officials. These tendencies are, of course, related: heightened individualism and materialism, as Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out, tend to isolate people from one another, weakening the communal bonds that give meaning and force to notions of national identity and the common good.
Explanation X
Many explanations have been advanced for the political apathy of Generation X, but none seems to tell the entire story. One theory holds that television, which the average child now watches for forty hours a week, is to blame for the cynicism and lack of civic education among the young. Another is that growing up during the Reagan and Bush presidencies, when government-bashing was the norm, led many Xers to internalize a negative attitude toward politics and the public sector. A third theory blames the breakdown of the traditional family, in which much of a child's civic sensitivity and partisan orientation is said to develop. And, of course, the incessant scandals in contemporary politics deserve some blame for driving young people into political hiding.
Each of these theories undoubtedly holds some truth, but a simpler and more straightforward explanation is possible -- namely, that young Americans are reacting in a perfectly rational manner to their circumstances, at least as they perceive them.
As they enter adulthood, this explanation goes, Xers are facing a
particularly acute economic insecurity, which leads them to turn
inward and pursue material well-being above all else. They see
the outlines of very real problems ahead -- fiscal, social, and
environmental. But in the nation's political system they perceive
no leadership on the issues that concern them; rather, they see
self-serving politicians who continually indenture themselves to
the highest bidders. So Xers have decided, for now, to tune
out. After all, they ask, what's the point?
To be sure, today's young have a great deal to be thankful for.
Xers have been blessed to come of age in a time of peace and
relative material prosperity -- itself a significant historical
aberration. And the positive legacy they are inheriting goes
much deeper: Generation X enjoys the fruits of the civil-rights,
women's-rights, and environmental-conservation battles waged
by its parents. Finally, who could deny that today's young are
benefiting from significant leaps in technology, science, and
medicine? But for all these new opportunities, the world being
passed on to young Americans is also weighed down by truly
bedeviling problems. Prevailing ideologies have proved
incapable of accommodating this seeming contradiction.
Ever since the pioneering work on generational theory by the
German sociologist Karl Mannheim, in the 1920s, political
generations have been thought to arise from the critical events
that affect young people when they are most malleable. "Early
impressions," Mannheim wrote, "tend to coalesce into a
natural view of the world." At the very heart of the Xer world
view is a deep-seated economic insecurity. In contrast to Baby
Boomers, most of whom came of age during the period of
unparalleled upward mobility that followed the Second World
War, Xers grew up in a time of falling wages, shrinking
benefits, and growing economic inequality.
Since 1973, while the earnings of older Americans have mostly stagnated, real median weekly earnings for men aged twenty to thirty-four have fallen by almost a third. In fact, Xers may well be the first generation whose lifetime earnings will be less than their parents'. Already they have the weakest middle class of any generation born in this century.
Falling wages and rising inequality have affected all young Americans, regardless of educational achievement. During the said-to-be economically strong years 1989-1995 earnings for recent college graduates fell by nearly 10 percent -- representing the first time that a generation of graduates has earned less than the previous one. And circumstances are far worse for the roughly 67 percent of Xers aged twenty-five to thirty-four who don't have a college degree. In 1997 recent male high school graduates earned 28 percent less (in dollars adjusted for inflation) than did the comparable group in 1973, and recent female high school graduates earned 18 percent less. When politicians and the media continually extol the economy's performance, many Xers just scratch their heads in disbelief.
The economic hardship facing today's young cannot be overstated: America's rate of children in poverty -- the highest in the developed world -- rose by 37 percent from 1970 to 1995. During the same period the old notions of lifetime employment and guaranteed benefits gave way to the new realities of sudden downsizing and contingent, or temporary, employment. Forty-four million Americans lack basic health insurance today, and Xers -- many of whom are part of the contingent work force -- are the least insured of all. To compound these problems, many Xers received a poor education in failing public schools, which left them especially ill-prepared to compete in an ever more demanding marketplace.
A Legacy of Debt
BESIDES struggling against downward economic mobility,
Generation X is inheriting a daunting array of fiscal,
social, and environmental debts. Although most media
reports focus on the national debt and the likely future
insolvency of Social Security, the real problem is actually much
broader. When they envision their future, Xers don't just see a
government drifting toward the political equivalent of Chapter
11; they also see a crippled social structure, a dwindling middle
class, and a despoiled natural habitat. Despite bipartisan
fanfare about balancing the federal budget, the fiscal outlook
remains quite bleak for young adults -- and for reasons seldom
discussed. Long before Social Security and Medicare go
insolvent under the burden of Boomer retirement, entitlement
payments will have crowded out the public investments that are
essential to ensuring a promising future. Government spending
on infrastructure, education, and research has already lessened
over the past twenty-five years, from 24 percent to 14 percent
of the federal budget, and the downward squeeze will only
worsen. In other words, Xers will be forced to pay ever higher
taxes for ever fewer government services.
Financially most frightening, however, are the nation's
skyrocketing levels of personal debt and international debt.
With all the focus on balancing the federal budget, not enough
attention has been paid to the fact that American families, and
Xers in particular, are increasingly unable to balance their own
books. Xers carry more personal debt than did any other
generation at their age in our nation's history; in fact, a full 60
percent of Xers carry credit-card balances from month to
month. In addition, those who attend college face the dual
burden of soaring tuition bills and shrinking federal education
grants. From 1977 to 1997 the median student-loan debt has
climbed from $2,000 to $15,000. The combination of lower
wages and overleveraged lifestyles is doubly worrisome to a
generation that wonders if it will ever collect Social Security.
Then there is America's ballooning international debt. For the
past two decades the nation as a whole has consumed more
than it has produced, and has borrowed from abroad to cover
the difference -- nearly $2 trillion by the end of this decade, or
more than a fifth of the total annual output of the U.S.
economy. In the short life-span to date of most Xers, America
has gone from being the world's largest creditor to being its
largest debtor. At some point in the future, especially as interest
on our international debt accumulates, investors in other
countries will become reluctant to keep bankrolling us. When
they do, we will have no choice but to tighten our belts by
cutting both investment and consumption. In other words, just
as Xers start entering their prime earning years, with their own
array of debts and demographic adversities awaiting them, they
may well find themselves having to pay off the international
debt that Boomers accumulated in the 1980s and 1990s.
Despite the penumbra of long-term debt, the U.S. economy remains the envy of the world; U.S. social conditions, however, are certainly not. America has some of the worst rates of child poverty, infant mortality, teen suicide, crime, family breakup, homelessness, and functional illiteracy in the developed world. In addition, many of our inner cities have turned into islands of despair, a frightening number of our public schools are dangerous, and almost two million of our residents are behind bars.
Many Xers sense that the basic fabric of American society is
somehow fraying. Traditional civic participation, community
cohesion, and civility are in decline, and not just among the
young. The long-held belief in the value of hard work is under
assault, as many Americans work longer hours for less pay,
watch the gap between rich and poor grow ever wider, and
see their benefits cut by corporations with little allegiance to
people or place. The result is a fundamental loss of trust:
between citizens and elected officials, between employees and
employers, and, ultimately, between individuals and their
neighbors. Yet trust and civility are the pillars on which any
well-functioning democracy and free-market economy depend.
Finally, Xers face large environmental debts that stem from the
use and abuse of our natural resources. Well over half of the
world's major fisheries are severely depleted or overfished;
loss of species and habitat continues at an unprecedented rate,
with some 50,000 plant and animal species disappearing each
year; freshwater tables across the globe, including parts of
America, are falling precipitously; each year America alone
loses more than a million acres of productive farmland to
sprawl; and emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases continue to rise, threatening to raise global temperatures
by two to six degrees within the next century.
Global warming is a revealing case study from the perspective
of Generation X. There is nearly unanimous scientific
agreement on the problem, and a consensus among economists
that the nation could reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions
without harming its economy. In addition, there is ample
evidence -- ranging from temperature increases to abnormally
frequent weather disturbances to icebergs breaking off from the
poles -- to warrant deep concern. Yet our political
establishment has resigned itself to virtual inaction. Why act
now, politicians appear to reason, when we can just pass the
problem on to our kids?
How, Xers have every right to ask, can one generation justify
permanently drawing down the financial, social, and natural
capital of another?
But whining will do no good. The only way for Xers to reverse
their sad situation -- and to realize the promise of the economic
opportunities and technological innovations of the next century
-- is by entering the political arena that they have every reason
to loathe. After all, collective problems require collective
solutions. Xers cannot reasonably expect the political
establishment to address, let alone fix, the sobering problems
they are to inherit unless they start participating in the nation's
political process, and learn to flex their generational muscle.
Whether or not they do so will depend on two more immediate
questions: Does this generation share a set of political beliefs?
And if so, how might these translate into a political agenda?
"Balanced-Budget Populism"
THREE quarters of Generation X agree with the statement
"Our generation has an important voice, but no one
seems to hear it." Whatever this voice may be, it does
not fit comfortably within existing partisan camps. "The old
left-right paradigm is not working anymore," according to the
novelist Douglas Coupland, who coined the term "Generation
X." Neil Howe and William Strauss, who have written
extensively on generational issues, have argued in these pages
that from the Generation X perspective "America's greatest
need these days is to clear out the underbrush of name-calling
and ideology so that simple things can work again." If Xers
have any ideology, it is surely pragmatism. In an attempt to be
more specific Coupland has claimed, "Coming down the pipe
are an extraordinarily large number of fiscal conservatives who
are socially left." The underlying assumption here is that the Xer
political world view stems simplistically from a combination of
the 1960s social revolution and the 1980s economic revolution.
This kind of thinking has led some to describe young adults as
a generation of libertarians, who basically want government out
of their bedrooms and out of their pocketbooks. As it turns
out, however, the political views of most Xers are more
complex and more interesting than that.
To say that Xers are fiscal conservatives is to miss half the
economic story; the other and equally powerful force at play
can best be described as economic populism. In fact, the Xer
consensus represents a novel hybrid of two distinct currents of
economic thought that have rarely combined in the history of
American politics. It might well be called "balanced-budget
populism."
On the one hand, many Xers are worried about the debts being
loaded onto their future, and therefore support fiscal prudence,
balanced budgets, and a pay-as-you-go philosophy. On the
other hand, Xers are more concerned than other generations
about rising income inequality, and are the most likely to
support government intervention to reverse it. The majority
believe that the state should do more to help Americans get
ahead.
What makes the Generation X economic agenda so surprising
is that its two main components have thus far proved to be
mutually exclusive in contemporary politics. Fiscal
conservatism, widely viewed as the economic philosophy of the
Republican right, has generally been accompanied by calls for
lower taxes, smaller government, and reduced assistance to the
neediest. Meanwhile, concern about the distribution of wealth
and helping low-income workers, customarily a pillar of the
Democratic left, has been associated with notions of
tax-and-spend liberalism and big government. Xers appear to
be calling for a new economic synthesis. Like conservatives,
they favor fiscal restraint -- but unlike the conservative
leadership in Congress, only 15 percent believe that America
should use any budget surplus to cut taxes. Like Democrats,
they want to help the little guy -- but unlike traditional
Democrats, they are unwilling to do it by running deficits.
The Generation X social synthesis is no more conventional.
Although the young are presumed to be more tolerant and
socially permissive than their elders, today's young are returning
to religion, have family-oriented aspirations, and are proving to
be unsupportive of some traditional liberal programs, among
them affirmative action. There are numerous indications that
Xers -- many of whom grew up without a formal religion -- are
actively searching for a moral compass to guide their lives, and
a recent poll suggests that the highest priority for the majority of
young adults is building a strong and close-knit family.
Wade Clark Roof, a professor of religion and society at the
University of California at Santa Barbara, who studies the
religious life of Generation X, says, "It is too early to predict
whether today's young adults will form lasting commitments to
particular religious denominations or institutions, but it is quite
clear that there is a renewed level of interest in religion and
spirituality among the post-Baby Boom generation. Many, in
fact, have embarked upon a spiritual quest." As if they were
spiritual consumers, young adults are shopping around among a
wide range of religious traditions. In the process they are
finding new ways to incorporate religion into their daily lives:
for instance, church socials are rapidly becoming the new
singles scene for Xers who want to combine their devotional
and romantic ambitions. A clear majority of older Americans
believe that a more active involvement of religious groups in
politics is a bad idea, but Xers are divided on the issue.
This revival of spiritual and family-oriented aspirations
represents a partial repudiation of the moral relativism that took
hold in the 1960s and has since become a mainstay of
American pop culture. In essence, many Xers are struggling to
find a new values consensus that lies somewhere between the
secular permissiveness of the left and the cultural intolerance of
the right.
When it comes to race relations, Xers are particularly difficult
to categorize. They are the cohort most likely to say that the
civil-rights movement has not gone far enough. Yet, like
Americans of all ages, they register a high level of opposition to
job- and education-related affirmative-action programs. The
American National Election Survey has reported that 68
percent of Xers oppose affirmative action at colleges. This
seeming paradox can be explained in part by the fact that most
Xers -- though genuinely concerned about improving race
relations -- are among the first to have felt the actual (or
perceived) bite of the affirmative-action programs that their
parents and grandparents put into place.
Improving public education is one of the highest policy
priorities for Xers. In fact, when asked what should be done
with any future budget surplus, nearly half favor increased
education spending. They seem to understand that knowledge
will be the key to success in the information- and service-based
economy of the twenty-first century. Their strong emphasis on
education betokens a larger belief in the importance of investing
in the future. Rather than maintaining the social-welfare state,
the Xer philosophy would favor the creation of a
social-investment state.
Although Xers have forsaken conventional political
participation en masse, it would be a mistake to assume, as
many do, that they are wholly apolitical. There is considerable
evidence to suggest that volunteerism and unconventional forms
of political participation have increased among young adults.
Local voluntary activities, demonstrations, and boycotts all
seem to be on the rise within their ranks. Heather McLeod, a
Generation X co-founder of Who Cares magazine, has
provided the following explanation: "We can see the impact
when we volunteer. We know the difference is real." The
implication, of course, is that the conventional political system
has become so ineffectual and unresponsive that young people
can make a positive difference only by circumventing it.
Xers may be poorly informed when it comes to public affairs,
but they know enough to believe that our political system is
badly in need of reform. At a very basic level they recognize
that the political system is rigged against their interests. For one
thing, Xers continually see a large gap between the issues they
care most about and the ones that politicians choose to
address. For another, they understand that Democrats and
Republicans, despite an appearance of perpetual partisan
infighting, collude to favor upper-income constituencies and to
prevent a range of issues (including campaign-finance reform)
from being acted on. Seeing themselves as the "fix-it"
generation, Xers long for leaders who will talk straight and
advocate the shared sacrifices necessary to correct the
long-term problems that preoccupy them most. But today's
elected officials are far too deeply trapped in a politics of
short-term convenience to deliver anything of the sort. Not
surprisingly, then, Xers are eager to do away with the
two-party system. They register particularly strong support for
third parties, for campaign-finance reform, and for various
forms of direct democracy.
The final core belief that helps to define the political views of
today's young adults is their commitment to environmental
conservation. Thanks to the advent of environmental education
and the spread of environmental activism, Xers grew up
experiencing recycling as second nature; many actually went
home and lobbied their parents to get with the program. In fact,
the environment is one of the rare public-policy arenas in which
Xers are fairly aware. Many have incorporated their
environmental values into their lifestyles and career choices.
For instance, a 1997 Harvard Business Review article titled
"Tomorrow's Leaders: The World According to Generation X"
revealed that most current MBA students believed that
corporations have a clear-cut responsibility to be
environment-friendly in their practices. This generation does not
believe that a tradeoff is necessary between a strong economy
and a healthy environment.
Fiscal prudence, economic populism, social investment,
campaign reform, shared sacrifice, and environmental
conservation -- this constellation of beliefs transcends the
existing left-right spectrum. It should be immediately apparent
that this generation's voice is not represented by any of the
established leaders or factions in the political mainstream. And
Xers seem to recognize as much -- 61 percent agree with the
statement "Politicians and political leaders have failed my
generation." So how would American politics change if the
voice of Generation X were suddenly heard?
A New Political Agenda
DESPITE its feeble rates of political participation,
Generation X has already -- if unwittingly -- exerted an
influence on the substance of our politics. This may seem
counterintuitive, but who would deny that young Americans
were a major force in pushing the balanced-budget cause to
the fore? In part this is owing to the large number of Xer votes
cast in 1992 for Ross Perot, the candidate who staked much of
his campaign on balancing the federal books. Though Perot
lost, his pet issue gained momentum as candidates from both
parties scrambled to win over Reform Party voters, and the
young ones in particular. Recognizing that Generation X makes
up a large and particularly unpredictable voting bloc,
candidates from across the spectrum have gone out of their
way to woo the youth vote, usually by paying lip service to
some of young people's more obvious concerns, including,
most recently, Social Security reform. Over time, however,
Xer support for issues such as balancing the budget and saving
Social Security will turn out to be only part of a much broader
agenda, one that could come to challenge the status quo on
everything from taxes to social policy to political reform.
For years the nation's tax debate has revolved around the
question of how much to tax, with the left arguing for more and
the right for less. In keeping with the concept of
balanced-budget populism, the Xer economic agenda would
start with the assumption that the government's share of
national income should remain roughly constant. It would focus
instead on a far more profound set of questions: What should
be taxed? Who should be taxed? What should we invest in?
and Who should get the benefits? Over the past several
decades the tax burden has crept further and further down the
income and age ladder, with the benefits going increasingly to
the elderly and the well-to-do -- the government now spends
nine times as much on each elderly person as it does on each
child. If Xers had their way, the collection of taxes would
become more progressive and the distribution of benefits more
widespread.
One would never know it from partisan skirmishes over
income-tax cuts, but the payroll tax actually constitutes the
largest tax burden borne by 70 percent of working families and
by a full 90 percent of working Americans under age thirty. It is
also the most regressive of all taxes, because it kicks in from
the first dollar earned, falls exclusively on wages, and is capped
at $72,600. An appealing solution to this problem would be to
replace payroll taxes with pollution taxes, thereby boosting
wages, promoting jobs, and cleaning up the environment, all
without raising the deficit. Taxing waste instead of work is
precisely the kind of innovative and pragmatic proposal that
could help to galvanize the members of Generation X, who
have been put to sleep by the current tax debate.
Sooner or later Xers will figure out that America could raise
trillions of dollars in new public revenues by charging fair
market value for the use of common assets -- the oil and coal
in the ground, the trees in our national forests, the airwaves and
the electromagnetic spectrum -- and the rights to pollute our
air. We currently subsidize the use of these resources in a
number of ways, creating a huge windfall for a small number of
industries and a significant loss for all other Americans. The
idea of reversing this trend by charging fair market value for the
use of common assets and returning the proceeds directly to
each American citizen plays to a number of Xer political views
-- it is populist, equitable, libertarian, and pro-environment all
at once.
The populist economic leanings of young adults will also lead
them to rethink various other elements of the social contract
between citizens, government, and business. For one thing,
ending corporate welfare would appeal to a generation weaned
on the principle of self-sufficiency. The hidden welfare state,
composed of corporate subsidies and tax loopholes that
overwhelmingly benefit the well-to-do, has grown several times
as large as the hotly debated social-welfare state that benefits
the disadvantaged through means-tested programs. Yet today's
politicians are too much indebted to the beneficiaries of this
governmental largesse to do anything about it. Here, then, may
be the key to keeping the budget balanced while funding the
social investments that are so important to Xers: all of the
money raised or saved by charging for the use of common
assets, ending corporate welfare, and closing unproductive tax
loopholes could be used to make a topnotch education
affordable and accessible to all and, just as important, to make
every American child a "trust-fund" baby from birth.
Making economic incentives more progressive and redirecting
budgetary priorities is only one part of an Xer economic
agenda. Today's young adults, more than any other group at a
comparable age, are concerned about their economic outlook
and their ability to balance the conflicting demands of work and
family. If such problems worsen as a result of economic
globalization, then the populism of Generation X, which up to
this point has been relatively mild, may suddenly become more
pronounced. For instance, the 2030 Center, an advocacy
group concerned about the economic well-being of Generation
X, is launching a campaign to promote a contingent workers'
bill of rights, which calls on employers to provide health care
and other benefits to more of their workers.
Even as they were being told that education is the key to a
promising future, many Xers were learning the hard way how
bad our urban schools have become, and how inequitable is
the access to a high-quality education. Neither party is
providing a palatable solution: Republicans are all but writing
off public schools by emphasizing vouchers that favor private
schools, and Democrats are perpetuating many of the worst
public-school problems by refusing to challenge the teachers'
unions. There are no simple solutions to the predicament, but
an obvious starting point would be to sever the traditional link
between public-school funding and local property taxes, which
only exacerbates existing socioeconomic inequalities. (Several
states have already begun moving in this direction.) Another
significant improvement would be to increase the skill level of
our public-school teachers by imposing stricter standards and
offering more-competitive salaries.
Xers would support enacting new policies to advance racial
integration and civil rights in America -- policies that avoid the
divisiveness and unintended consequences of race-based
affirmative action. Although such policies made sense when
they were introduced, many Xers believe, race is no longer the
determining factor in who gets ahead. In the twenty-first
century poor black Americans will have more in common with
poor white Americans than they will with upper-middle-class
blacks. If the goal is to help those most in need, it would make
a lot more sense to pursue class-based affirmative-action
programs. Doing so would enable all those at the bottom --
regardless of race -- to get the help they need, in a way that
promoted national unity and racial integration. Another
promising alternative to race-based affirmative action is the
Texas Ten Percent Plan, whereby all students graduating in the
top tenth of their high school classes -- whether in inner-city
schools or in elite private ones -- are automatically accepted
into the state's public universities.
Fundamental campaign and political reform is the sine qua non
of a Generation X political agenda. Like most Americans, Xers
would like to see bold steps taken to get money out of politics.
But persuading America's young that their individual votes
matter is likely to require reforms far more radical than any
currently under consideration.
Until recently most political-reform movements in the United
States were based on the assumption that the problem was not
the two-party system itself but rather its corruption by special
interests and incumbency (hence the proposed cures of
campaign-finance reform and term limits). But neither the
reduction of private campaign contributions nor the
implementation of term limits for elected officials will alter what
seems to alienate Xers most of all: the political duopoly of
Democrats and Republicans. The rules of today's two-party
system actively discourage a third or a fourth party.
Consequently, there is growing interest among the young in
replacing our archaic electoral process (itself a remnant from
eighteenth-century England) with a modern multiparty system.
With three or four parties contesting many races, politics might
become exciting enough to draw in disenchanted Xers who
believe, correctly, that in most elections today their votes do
not count.
As the vanguard of the digital age, Xers will also be inclined to
support experiments with electronic democracy. For instance,
one Xer has launched an effort to make information about the
sources of campaign contributions immediately available to the
public and the media over the Internet. But the full potential of
digital democracy runs much deeper. Already groups are
experimenting with electronic town-hall meetings and various
forms of deliberative democracy, in which individuals are
provided with a full range of information on a particular issue
and can register their opinions with the push of a button. It is
not hard to imagine a day when citizens will be able to register
and vote online, and to monitor the performance of their
elected officials with electronic scorecards.
The introduction of electronic communication within corporate
America has helped to flatten organizational hierarchies, boost
information flows, increase decision-making speed, and, most
of all, empower workers. It is at least conceivable that the
introduction of electronic forms of democracy could serve to
re-engage a generation that has been alienated by today's
money-, spin-, and celebrity-dominated politics. And if Xers
do eventually enter the fray, their agenda will transform
America's political landscape.
The Future of American Politics
REPUBLICANS and Democrats will be tempted to
dismiss the Xer agenda, because it threatens their
electoral coalitions and the politics of short-term
convenience. But both parties will do so at their peril, because
many of the issues that Xers care most about are already rising
to the political surface. A glimpse of the future may come,
strangely enough, in the election of Jesse Ventura as governor
of Minnesota. Much of Ventura's support came from young
adults, who took advantage of Minnesota's same-day
registration law and stormed the polls, helping to create a
record turnout. This suggests that if a political candidate can
somehow capture the passion of young adults, they will do their
part. Ventura offered young Minnesotans something refreshing:
a clear alternative to Democrats and Republicans, and a
willingness to take on the status quo. But Jesse Ventura is no
figurehead for Xers; he is just an early beneficiary of their
pent-up political frustration.
As the Xer political agenda starts to take hold, it will further
strain existing loyalties. On the Republican side, the
odd-bedfellow coalition of social conservatives and economic
libertarians that has defined the party for the past two decades
is coming apart as a result of the Clinton impeachment saga,
whose most lasting legacy may be that it dealt a coup de grace
to the political aspirations of the religious right. The Democratic
coalition is just as fragile, particularly since it has been losing its
base of working-class white men, and the potential retreat of
the religious right may deprive Democrats of an obvious
opponent against which to rally. As these de-alignments unfold,
major shifts in the makeup and core agendas of both parties
become almost inevitable.
The stability of today's political consensus is also contingent on
the promise of an economy that continues to expand. Take that
away, and the props of the status quo -- a balanced budget
and the novelty of a budgetary surplus, a booming stock
market and stable price structures, low unemployment and
rising wages, falling welfare rolls and crime rates, and the
illusion of a painless fix to Social Security -- all topple at once.
No business cycle lasts forever, and the global economic crisis
of 1998 should come as a warning of what may lie ahead. The
prospect of a significant recession leaves the future of
American politics wide open.
Turning points in our nation's political history, occasioned by
the collapse of an existing civic and political consensus, have
usually been accompanied by rampant individualism, weakened
institutions, and heightened levels of political alienation. On
these scores Xers are playing out their historic role remarkably
well. But such periods of civic unrest have also stimulated new
political agendas, which eventually force one or both parties to
remake themselves around new priorities and coalitions. Could
the Generation X political agenda serve as the basis of
America's next political consensus?
Balanced-budget populism, social investment, no-nonsense
pragmatism, and shared sacrifice could resonate quite strongly
with Americans of all ages -- particularly the increasing number
who are fed up with conventional politics. What is more, the
Xer synthesis of a middle-class economic agenda with a
moderate social one could remake the powerful alliance
between progressives and populists that dominated national
politics (and brought widespread upward mobility) from the
1930s to 1960s, when it was ripped apart by the cultural
upheaval of the Baby Boom. In practical terms this new politics
-- based on fiscal prudence, economic populism,
family-friendly morality, social investment, campaign reform,
environmental conservation, and technological innovation --
could eventually take hold in either of the major parties, both of
which are now searching for a coherent agenda and a lasting
voter base. For Democrats it could mark a return to the party's
New Deal roots, and for Republicans it could give substance to
heretofore vague calls for a "compassionate conservatism."
Since this new politics could speak to many of those who are
alienated by the current political order, Xers and older
Americans alike, it could give birth to our nation's next
majoritarian coalition. Such a coalition could do a great deal to
reinvigorate our nation's democracy, benefit the majority of its
citizens, and restore legitimacy to our political system.
When history books are written at the end of the twenty-first century, it is unlikely that the post-Baby Boom generation will still be referred to as a nondescript "X." One way or another, this generation will be judged and labeled by its legacy. Today's young adults will be remembered either as a late-blooming generation that ultimately helped to revive American democracy by coalescing around a bold new political program and bringing the rest of the nation along with them, or as another silent generation that stood by as our democracy and society suffered a slow decline.
The great question of twenty-first-century politics is whether a
critical mass of Xers will eventually recognize the
broader
potential of their agenda, and outgrow their aversion to politics.