Alyosha
10-01-2013, 04:17 PM
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-washington-20131001?mrefid=LeadStoryTiles_normal
Obama's job approval numbers are already slipping. For the first time in months, more voters disapprove of his performance than approve. Two-thirds of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. The "wrong track" metric is one that often tracks the president's popularity. A government cataclysm this month will heighten voters' anxiety and Obama's jeopardy.
The salt in voters' wounds is that this fight does not directly address their biggest issue, jobs. It also not about the nation's long-term, entitlement-fed debt, an existential issue both parties stopped trying to solve.
Where does all this lead beyond the next election cycle or two? Nobody knows, but the best place to look for answers is within the Millennial Generation, the nation's rising leaders and voters. Last month, in a lengthy essay on Millennials [ The Outsiders: How Can Millennials Change Washington If They Hate It? (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-outsiders-how-can-millennials-change-washington-if-they-hate-it/278920/)], I concluded that their revolutionary view of government and politics points toward two possible outcomes. One is that they might opt out of Washington, which leads us to some dark places. The second and more likely outcome is they will blow up Washington ("disruption" is the tech-inspired term they use), and build something better outside the current two-party dysfunction.
Millennials don't fit neatly into either the Democratic or Republican parties. They are highly empowered, impatient, and disgusted with politics today.
"This tension – two parties thinking they are in the trenches dueling it out, and a burgeoning generation who reject trench warfare altogether – is, for me, the key," said Michelle Diggles a senior policy adviser at the Democratic think-tank Third Way and an expert in demographics and generational politics. "Washington doesn't get that change isn't just a slogan. It's about to become a reality,"
"Neither party," she said, "gets what's coming down the pike."
What happens in Washington this month might make a Millennial Revolution all the more likely.
This warms my cold, dark heart just a bit.
Obama's job approval numbers are already slipping. For the first time in months, more voters disapprove of his performance than approve. Two-thirds of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. The "wrong track" metric is one that often tracks the president's popularity. A government cataclysm this month will heighten voters' anxiety and Obama's jeopardy.
The salt in voters' wounds is that this fight does not directly address their biggest issue, jobs. It also not about the nation's long-term, entitlement-fed debt, an existential issue both parties stopped trying to solve.
Where does all this lead beyond the next election cycle or two? Nobody knows, but the best place to look for answers is within the Millennial Generation, the nation's rising leaders and voters. Last month, in a lengthy essay on Millennials [ The Outsiders: How Can Millennials Change Washington If They Hate It? (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-outsiders-how-can-millennials-change-washington-if-they-hate-it/278920/)], I concluded that their revolutionary view of government and politics points toward two possible outcomes. One is that they might opt out of Washington, which leads us to some dark places. The second and more likely outcome is they will blow up Washington ("disruption" is the tech-inspired term they use), and build something better outside the current two-party dysfunction.
Millennials don't fit neatly into either the Democratic or Republican parties. They are highly empowered, impatient, and disgusted with politics today.
"This tension – two parties thinking they are in the trenches dueling it out, and a burgeoning generation who reject trench warfare altogether – is, for me, the key," said Michelle Diggles a senior policy adviser at the Democratic think-tank Third Way and an expert in demographics and generational politics. "Washington doesn't get that change isn't just a slogan. It's about to become a reality,"
"Neither party," she said, "gets what's coming down the pike."
What happens in Washington this month might make a Millennial Revolution all the more likely.
This warms my cold, dark heart just a bit.