Don't Underestimate the Millenial Generation (AKA Gen-Y)

http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinion/articles/6068861.html

------
Don't underestimate millennials

New generation promises interesting times for nation.

By Peter Leyden

The sleeper development that was widely overlooked in the 2006 election was the 22-percentage-point margin of support that went to Democrats over Republicans in congressional races by the up-and-coming young millennial generation. The millennial generation is made up of young people born in the 1980s and 1990s who are pouring out of college right now. It's an enormous generation, comparable to the baby boomers.

The first wave of "millennials" is now age 26 -- at about the same life stage as the oldest boomers were in 1970. Similar to the boomers, the millennials are poised to impact the country at every life stage and in myriad ways -- but particularly in politics. The millennials are an unusual generation, not like young people we have seen for a long time. They are not individualistic risk-takers like the boomers or cynical and disengaged like Generation Xers. Signs indicate that millennials are civic-minded, extremely diverse and technologically savvy. Millennials have consistently shown they hold progressive values and worldviews -- voting more heavily Democratic than other generations in their first few elections.

...

The millennial personality comes closest to that of the "GI generation," which fought in World War II and built up America and the world in the postwar boom.

William Strauss -- co-author of a series of books on generations, including Millennials Rising -- argues that millennials show deep concern for today's income inequalities and social stratification, and that looking out for everyone in society may emerge as their mission much as it did for the GI generation. Millennials tend toward progressive positions in other areas, too, as a survey at the New Politics Institute, among other sources, shows. They take concern for global warming and the environment as a given, and they don't perceive differences between genders, races or sexual preferences the way other generations do. These political beliefs show up in the elections they have participated in.
------

As a "Millennial" (born in 1986) I can definitely say this to be true.

I learned a lot from "Generations" about how American society operates. This stuff is important.

This is also a warning of very difficult times ahead, though, possibly in the very near future. Things might get really, really bad.