Joshua Gorman's blog

This blog is drawn from some writing I have in the mix for an upcoming article and was also prompted by a Future Majority post this past week titled Consensus, Millennial Politics, and the Common Good.

Bergerc84 kicked things off with the following line:

Peter Levine blogged about consensus today, and it got me thinking about Millennials, their affinity for collaboration, and how this impacts the current political environment.

His thoughts became my muse as well. Will a new generation that is prone to collaboration bring an end to decades of hostile culture wars, bitter partisanship, and relentless political gridlock? Will we too spend the vast majority of our political energy engaging in back-and-forth diatribes over the hot-button issues of abortion, gay marriage, gun control, and global warming? Or will our generation finally rise above, forge a working consensus, and move our nation forward?

Joshua Gorman is a student and youth activist living in Washington DC, a member of Students for Barack Obama, part of the leadership team for Barack the Youth Vote, and a passionate supporter of the Obama youthroots movement as a whole.

Yes, Barack Obama went through his own troubling youth identity-crisis. He has openly admitted he inhaled; he’s been wasted and hung-over more than once in his youth; and he often found himself feeling lost and uncertain about his identity and his ultimate place within the world. But that’s not the youth identity-crisis we’re talking about here. (For the engaging story about this first one, check out Obama’s autobiography Dreams from My Father .)

Barack Obama has another youth identity-crisis taking place today: with his unprecedented youthroots movement. The Obama youth movement is by far largest and most energetic of all the 2008 presidential campaigns. Currently the national student network Students for Barack Obama (SFBO) is the official student wing of the Obama campaign, but as Barack Obama continues to rally young Americans from all sectors of the broad youth demographic with his fresh spirit and generational call-to-action, the question is arising as to how best to integrate this rapidly growing movement into the most effective and efficient structure that can accommodate the broadest number of young Americans—students and non-students, youth activists and young professionals, and the countless other youth and young adults who are ready to change our nation and transform the world.

In a post that appeared earlier this week, Mike Connery recommended an article titled "Generation Why” by Liz Brown, the daughter of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). At the start of the article, Liz quotes a student named Andrew Lyubarsky who states, “The election of 2000 is definitely what politicized me, caused me to think critically about the American system.” His remark, a not-so-surprising statement, triggered a larger reflection: What are the ways that young people today are being politicized?

By politicization I mean simply: “to give a political character to.” I’m using it in a very broad and positive sense, as in the catalyzing of active citizenship and the formation of critical consciousness in a democratic society. What activates young Americans? What calls them to action and causes them to think critically about politics and society?

The following list is in no way an attempt at being comprehensive. These are only initial thoughts that I am offering as a simple reflection and for further conversation.

This past week Barack Obama proved that if any 2008 Presidential campaign has the potential to serve as the vehicle for a bottom-up people’s movement, his is by far the one. Reporting first quarter fundraising numbers that rallied right behind frontrunner Hillary Clinton, Obama’s staggering $25 million came from over 100,000 donors, half of whom made small online donations from their computers all across the nation. These numbers were more than double that of any other candidate in the race, and they clearly demonstrate a large and supportive base.

Obama has continued to frame his campaign as "a movement" and himself as a community organizer working on a national scale. “The movement for change begins with you!” he declared in advance of his first-of-a-kind Community Kickoff gatherings that took place on March 31st. This national call-to-action day titled “Hope. Action. Change.” set out to accomplish what Howard Dean’s campaign was unable to do in 2004: turning online support into offline action. More than 5,000 Community Kickoffs took place in homes, libraries, coffee shops, and community spaces throughout the country. Participants came together to network, fundraise, create local campaign projects, and to engage in community dialogues about pressing issues and the troubling state of our union.

While these community gatherings connecting Obama’s national movement with the local grassroots were an inspiring start, many were anxious to see Obama's campaign take its “participatory” potential to the next level.