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Chapter 1 Welcome to the Millennial Era In May 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson journeyed to Ann Arbor to address the graduating class of the University of Michigan at the “Big House,” the university’s 100,000-seat football stadium. Forty-six years later, another president, Barack Obama, drew almost 80,000 people to hear him address the university’s 2010 graduating class. The two speeches had more in common than venue and large crowds, however. Both presidents implored their listeners to join in an effort to revitalize and rebuild the United States and to rekindle a sense of community in the nation. Those dual goals reflected the values and attitudes of America’s two most recent civic generations, Johnson’s own GI Generation and the Millennial Generation that had done so much to elect Obama president. Both generations earned the sobriquet “civic” because of their interest in fixing societal problems and building new institutions. To a large extent, President Johnson’s address was a valedictory plea to the GI Generation, which, in its youth, had overcome the ravages of the Great Depression and the threat of fascism. In 1964, his generation was at the height of its political power and the nation enjoyed a full measure of prosperity and tranquillity. In that positive context, the president , using the military language so familiar to his generation, urged those in attendance, to join him in making one final effort to perfect the Great Society in America: Will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin? Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty? 9 Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace—as neighbors and not as mortal enemies? Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit? ( Johnson 1964) As a member of a civic generation, he was certain his call would be answered and that Americans would unite once again to achieve great things. But history now remembers the speech as the end, not the beginning , of an era dominated and shaped by a civic generation. The first members of the Baby Boom Generation arrived on campuses the next semester and openly rebelled against the president’s war in Vietnam, specifically, and the beliefs of the GI Generation, generally. It was the beginning of a bitter political debate both over the efficacy of government and over social issues such as abortion, societal disorder, and crime that divided the generations and the country for forty years. Barack Obama, by contrast, spoke at the beginning of a new era, at a time of great economic difficulty and frenzied political debate. An emerging civic generation, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003, in numbers even larger than Boomers, had elected him president, and his rhetoric and behavior reflected that younger generation’s beliefs and attitudes. He offered a different formula for ensuring that American democracy would thrive in the years ahead—a formula that captured the fundamental beliefs of the Millennials seated before him. He began by extolling the value of a government capable of helping the nation respond to change. He described “two strands in America’s DNA.” One favored limited government and individual freedom; the other recognized “the need for a government that, while limited, can still help us adapt to a changing world” (Obama 2010). “There are some things,” Obama said, “we can only do together, as one nation—and our government must keep pace with the times.” Quoting Abraham Lincoln, “the role of government is to do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves,” and citing Theodore Roosevelt, “the object of government is the welfare of the people,” he sought to rise above partisan debate about the size of government and to focus instead on what type of government would be needed in the twenty-first century. He called for a government that “shouldn’t try to C h a n g e C r e a t e s F e a r , U n c e r t a i n t y , a n d D o u b t 10 [18.224.64.226] Project MUSE...

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