Young Iranians: Takes more than Tweets to Make a Revolution

Seventy percent of Iranians are under 30.

These young people have twice the presence in the population of that country as America's largest generation, Millennials (born 1982-2003), has in ours.

In the immediate aftermath of Iran's disputed presidential election, text messages became the tool for organizing post-election protests. Hundreds of thousands of tweets provided more, if not clearer, information about what was happening each day than traditional media. Opposition and government Facebook pages poured out dueling messages on the Internet. It suddenly seemed as if not only had American democratic values erupted on the barren landscape of a theocratic society, but also that young people's technological capabilities might produce a regime change that no one anticipated. Clay Shirky announced, "This is it. This is the big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media." And the notion that this was a "Twitter Revolution" quickly became the meme for the entire series of post-election events.

But then the entrenched establishment fought back using the very same Internet-enabled technologies to isolate, spy on, and ultimately shut down the resistance. Thanks to new capabilities recently acquired from two European telecom companies-Nokia and Siemens-as part of their country's upgrade of its mobile networks, the Iranian government was able to monitor the flow of online data in and out of sites like Twitter and Facebook, from one central location. The Iranians deployed a technology called deep packet inspection, first created to put a firewall around President Clinton's emails in 1993, to deconstruct digitized packets of information flowing through the government's telecom monopoly that might contain what they considered to be seditious information before reconstructing and sending it on to destinations they were also able to track and monitor. The result was a 90% degradation in the speed of Internet communications in Iran at the height of the unrest, and a previously unseen capability to determine who the government's enemies were down to the individual IP address level.

Once again the world learned that technology does not arrive with a built-in set of values that makes it work either for good or evil. Even though Internet technology has many virtues, it is not inherently liberating or enslaving. Instead how it is used is determined by the values of those who access it. Libertarians celebrate the individual empowerment that the Internet makes possible. But even though Ron Paul supporters used the technology to take on the Republican establishment in 2008, the end result that year was the election of a group-oriented, civic-minded candidate, Barack Obama, whose campaign used the very same technology to guide millions of people to undertake a collective agenda of change that Libertarians certainly did not "believe in."

The difference between what libertarians wanted and what Obama achieved came from the generational attitudes and beliefs of Millennials, Obama's key supporters, not from the technology that generation was so adept at using.

One of the founders of generational theory, Neil Howe, points out that the under-30 population of Iran grew up during a religious awakening in the Islamic world that came later than America's "cultural revolution" of the 1960s. As a result, Iranian youth resembles Generation X, Americans now in their 30s and 40s. Like our own Gen X, these young Iranians are "pragmatic, individualistic, commercial, and anti-ideological (which is why they hate Ahmadinejad so much)."

Those values make them anti-establishment in the current crisis. We are fortunate that they feel deeply enough about the potential of democracy to risk their lives to "tear down that power structure," to paraphrase what President Ronald Reagan, Generation X's political hero, said in a different context. But now the central task of our government must be to translate that democratic impulse into a deeper belief in Millennial Generation values, such as the power of consensus, the peaceful resolution of differences and the need to find win-win solutions to our problems.

That is why the President Barack Obama's recent Cairo speech should be the bedrock on which America continues to engage large young Muslim populations throughout the world, including Iran:

"No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

This statement has the potential to become a governing creed for a new generation of young Muslims. If they come to have, as President Obama does, "an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose," then the power of 21st century technologies will be used to advance the cause of freedom in Iran, rather than suppressing it. But tweeting those words won't make it happen. Believing in them and acting upon them will.

A Generational Guide for Watching the Conventions

The key to waging a successful presidential campaign by either Barack Obama or John McCain will be their ability to use their respective conventions to overcome generational tensions. What happens in Denver and the Twin Cities could give the nominees freedom to embrace the generational changes that will shape American politics for decades to come.

If the candidates pay proper attention to generational politics, each convention will begin with a nod to their party’s Boomers and then pivot away from the past to address, on the final night, new voters whose support they will need to win in November.

The candidates must take the lead in managing their party’s convention so that the ticket and its platform reflect the desire of the electorate to move beyond the cultural wars of the 1960s. Each party’s understanding of this generationally driven challenge will be evident in how it handles the iconic, Boomer figures demanding center stage at their conventions.

Obama, in an acknowledgement of the generational strains in his party, has agreed to Hillary Rodham Clinton's request to not only address the convention in prime time on Tuesday night, but to have her name placed in nomination the following night. In return, he has gained the agreement of former president Bill Clinton to, in effect, lead the Boomers in the Democratic Party to embrace and endorse Senator Obama's nomination on Wednesday night.

As tough as that challenge has been for Obama, the problem is more acute for John McCain. President Bush's job performance ratings are among the lowest of any president. But he remains popular with Boomer ideologues in the GOP, who are continually looking for signs that McCain has stayed from party orthodoxy. Any attempt to deny a sitting president the spotlight at their national convention, as Democrats did in keeping Lyndon Johnson from addressing their 1968 convention, will be met with cries of “I told you not to trust him” from Republican true believers.

It appears that McCain’s advisers have decided to throw cultural war red meat to the delegates with appearances by Bush and Vice President Cheney on Monday, in hopes that the electorate won’t pay too much attention until later in the week.

If history is any guide, the place where both candidates will be willing to make concessions to their party’s ideological base will be the party’s platform. Since this policy statement is debated early in the convention, with little penalty for abandoning a plank or two later in the campaign, platforms are the easiest way to throw a bone to ideological purists. The Generation X and Boomer Democratic blogosphere has previously attacked Obama for failing to adhere to hard left positions on post 9-11 issues and offshore oil drilling.

Similarly, a number of conservatives have condemned McCain's former positions on climate change, immigration, and campaign finance reform.

The choice each candidate must make is whether to use the platform debate to give the cultural warriors in their party a final opportunity to replay the political drama of the nation’s Boomer past or to use the platform debate as a “Sister Souljah” generational moment and decisively break with that kind of divisive politics.

In the end, however, there will be no better place for the two candidates to demonstrate their break with the politics of past generations than in their acceptance speeches.

The McCain campaign has signaled its intention to use their candidate’s story of personal sacrifice on behalf of the nation throughout the convention. This effort will likely culminate in an acceptance speech attempting to simultaneously distinguish his life’s experience from those of the Woodstock generation (“I was tied up at the time”) and arouse the passions of his party’s Boomer base.

The challenge, however, is how to do that that without awakening a set of related thoughts among Millennials about just how old and potentially out of touch with their generation he is. Millennials weren’t around for Woodstock, don’t care about it, and prefer that everyone “play nice” together. Passion displayed as anger turns them off. To capture a new and winning coalition in this campaign, McCain would be better off using his acceptance speech to underline his national security credentials based on a lifetime of service, both of which appeal greatly to Millennials.

Obama’s decision to deliver his acceptance speech before a large outdoor audience on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech comes with its own set of risks. Echoes of that remarkable speech are sure to arouse the passions of the liberal half of the Boomer generation. But, it will also remind viewers of the turmoil of the 60s that drove a majority of the nation to embrace the Republicans’ appeal for “law and order.”

Obama’s rhetoric will need to inspire a new generation to take the next steps toward achievement of King’s dream, without creating a backlash among the rest of the electorate that wasn’t enamored with the racial overtones of the Democratic primary campaign.

To succeed in November, both candidates will have to speak explicitly to the future and demonstrate that their campaign represents the hopes of a new generation. The country is waiting for a new leader with a new approach to guide it out of the Boomer briar patch in which it has been stuck since 1968. After the conventions, we will have a clearer idea who can best lead the country into a new era of American politics.

Millennials Are About to Give America an Extreme Political Makeover

Just as America's political landscape shifted dramatically with the 1968 victory of Californian Richard Nixon's "law and order" campaign, the demand for change from a new generation is about to shift the center of political gravity, not just in California, but across the country.

This year's political shakeup will result from the emergence of the Millennial Generation (Americans born between 1982 and 2003). When generations such as Millennials this year, Baby Boomers in 1968, and the GI Generation in 1932, enter the electorate in large numbers, they shift the balance of power between the parties, alter the nature of our nation's political discourse, and change the direction of public policy.

There are now one million more Millennials alive than Baby Boomers and twice as many Millennials as members of Generation X (born between 1965 and 1981). Almost 40 million Millennials will be eligible to vote in 2008. They are already voting in sufficient numbers to upset the prognosticators' predictions in the early primaries.

Millennials are rebelling against the divisive personal morality and alienation of Boomers and Generation X in favor of a revitalization of Americas' civic institutions. Right here in Hollywood, a dedicated group of over one hundred Millennials, gathered by mobilize.org, met the weekend before New Year's Day to finalize their own Declaration of Independence, entitled "Democracy 2.0." Citing a need to "upgrade" our nation's system of governance, the gathering identified the challenges that previous generations had failed to resolve, especially "economic inequality, America's role in the world, and the effect of money on the democratic process." But then, instead of condemning those in power for the nation's problems and walking away as Gen Xers might have done, or attempting to tear down the political system as some Boomers did, they asserted the need for their generation to fix each of those concerns. Their manifesto declared, "Our generation...is uniquely positioned to foster community engagement through social networks... It is our responsibility to use information and technology to upgrade democracy, transform communication, and advance political engagement and civic participation." Having assumed responsibility for solving America's problems, the group then generated a series of action plans to assure maximum civic participation by Millennials before adjourning to welcome 2008, the year that will mark the beginning of the Millennial era in American politics.

Millennials are the largest and most ethnically diverse generation in American history -- 40 percent are African-American, Hispanic, Asian, or of mixed race. Unlike any previous generation, Millennial males and females enter and graduate from college and professional schools at equal rates. As results from surveys by the Pew Research Center over the last year reveal, this experience of being diverse and not being bound by traditional gender roles makes Millennials a very tolerant generation. About six in 10 Millennials believe that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle and favor legalized gay marriage. Virtually all approve of interracial dating, have friends of a different racial group than their own, and reject a return of women to traditional roles. Two-thirds of all Millennials favor policies providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and 54 percent reject a fence along the Mexican border.

Millennials also overwhelmingly favor the expansion of the federal government, to deal with societal and economic concerns such as economic inequality, health care, and the environment. Pew survey data shows that almost three-fourths of Millennials believe government should take care of people who can't take care of themselves. An equal number support federally guaranteed health insurance for all citizens even if this requires raising taxes. Almost seven in ten Millennials interviewed in 2007 by Harvard University's Institute of Politics said that protecting the environment should be just as high a governmental priority as protecting jobs, and 43 percent favored environmental protection even at the cost of economic growth.

Not surprisingly, these attitudes cause Millennials to identify as Democrats by a margin of nearly 2:1. Recent surveys by media research firm, Frank N. Magid Associates, show Millennials to be the first generation in at least four decades in which more members call themselves liberals than conservatives.

Andy Sachs, the heroine in the first Millennial Generation "coming-of-age" movie, The Devil Wears Prada, exemplifies her generation in life style, career experiences and relationships. Unlike Benjamin Braddock, in The Graduate, a similar story but about Boomers, Andy is not a depressed, rebellious loner. Unlike Joel Goodsen, in the Gen X coming-of-age movie, Risky Business, Andy doesn't profit from her friends' sexual urges. She doesn't despise or lie to her parents either. Instead her friends and parents are her prime source of advice and support. More like Andy Hardy, the hero of the most representative GI Generation coming-of age movies, after some struggle, Andy Sachs lives for and by her ideals, even while managing and benefiting from her relationship with the Devil herself.

This spirit of "one for all" and concern for the group is the signature belief that distinguishes Millennials from Boomers or Gen Xers. As they bring this attitude into the electorate, America's public policy debate will shift way from limited government and lower taxes toward a new commitment to reinforcing the common good. While Democrats with their more societal, inclusive approach, appear to have the edge among Millennials, if the Republicans should nominate a candidate who responds to the attitudes of this generation, as did Abraham Lincoln to a similar generation in 1860, the GOP still can become competitive in the Millennial era.

At this early point in the presidential campaign, we can't be certain which candidate will be elected president and have the opportunity of leading America in a new era. Nor can we know for sure exactly what issues he or she will face in office. But, history does provide clear evidence that the path to success lies in understanding and gaining the support of America's next great generation -- the Millennials.