progressives

“This isn’t a wait until we grow up kind of thing. Our country needs our leadership now.”

On July 8, I had the privilege of attending the Campus Progress National Conference in Washington DC. Together with 1,000 young progressives from across the country, I listened to speeches made by some of our nation’s most inspiring leaders and participated in discussions about my generation’s role in our country’s most progressive battles.

Without a doubt, there are two issues that dominated nearly every conversation – climate change and healthcare. For the millennial generation, these issues are very real. We are, or know someone who is, uninsured. We know that the effects of climate change will begin during our lifetime if we don’t act now. We are ready to get involved and our country’s new leadership is ready for us to play a vital role.

As someone with a vested interest in the ongoing fight to pass a comprehensive climate change bill, I was particularly inspired by Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy and Special Advisor on Green Jobs to the White House, and Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi. Both gave significant credit to young people for the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act in the House and called for our continued action in the Senate debate.

Speaking to crowd of college students and recent graduates, Jones kept his focus mainly on the massive potential for job creation in a clean energy future by saying everything our country can do that will be good for the environment will also be good for jobs. He also called on our generation to unleash our sense of innovation and entrepreneurship.

“We are relying on Barack Obama to get it done, he’s relying on you to get it started.”

Following the House vote on ACES, several articles have be published showcasing the work Speaker Pelosi did to assure at least 218 votes would be cast in support of the bill. With the final vote coming in at 219-212, it is clear that her work was justified.

During her speech, Speaker Pelosi admitted the process of passing legislation can be gruesome because of the significant amount of whipping needed to get the votes, but the end result is worth it.

“A lot of people don’t like to see legislation made…but I’m willing to take the heat if it means we get the bill.”

Other speakers at the conference included Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta, Daily Show Correspondent John Oliver, and President Bill Clinton. I complied my tweets from the day in a post here and comments about the conference are being added here.

My friend Ezra Klein, Millennial heath wonk wunderkind, takes a shot at the question, "What will happen with health reform?"

He sets up the answer as an analogy to the jobs recovery bill and concludes:

The result will probably be a historic win when compared to the status quo, but I doubt it's going to feel like that for supporters of the initiative.

There is no small irony here. A major progressive thought-leader on healthcare reform is saying that he thinks we'll secure a major victory but that many progressives will not embrace it.

Reading Ezra this morning (whose sentiments I think are spot-on), I remembered another recent conversation I had with another Millennial leader whose work is mostly outside the youth-engagement community. He understood the frustrations of his many Boomer and Xer compatriots upset at the Obama Administration over some footdragging, but thought that his older friends didn't really "get it." The Obama Administration got handed one of the biggest piles of shit in history and are cleaning it up as quickly as they can and lots of different things: global warming, getting out of Iraq, equal rights, voting reform, etc., have taken a temporary backburner while we try to fix the economy and get our healthcare system sorted out. We're still in Year One of an Administration and major things are happening.

This same divide is one I've witnessed with Forward Montana's grassroots healthcare work in Montana. Our efforts come under fire by many of our traditional advocacy allies because we aren't demanding single-payer, but we repeatedly go back to the 18-30 year-olds who comprise our base and ask what they care about and single-payer has yet to come up in one of those conversations. Support for Max Baucus's white paper actually runs pretty high among our crowd.

Now, I should say that I'm not sure who is right: the older activists or my Millennial peers. But these different viewpoints highlight something else we've all long suspected about our younger activists rising through the ranks -- we are far more comfortable with working within institutions and accepting the defenses of elites than our predecessors in the activist world.

There are, of course, exceptions. Young activists don't just mimic Jane Fleming Kleeb, we also have David Sirota in our ranks. And it is also possible that this divide simply mirrors long-running divides between the young who would go into elected office and the young who are better situated to raining criticism down on the powers that be. To some extent, of course, we need both.