America’s millennials are a fascinating generation. They don’t generate the same amount of headlines and think pieces now that the younger Generation Z is in the spotlight, but they’re still a highly interesting cohort to study.
Being born in the mid 80s and early 90s, millennials came up in a uniquely prosperous time. Most of them were born around the time the Soviet Union finally collapsed, so they have no living memory of communism or the horrors of the Cold War. They have no concept of what it’s like growing up hearing that a nuclear bomb could be dropped on Washington DC at any given moment.
They were also the first generation to have access to use the internet as something other than a pure utility. By the time most millennials got to college, they were documenting their entire social lives online. They idea of losing touch with an old friend is almost completely alien to them — unless it happens on purpose.
So, in the midst of this unprecedented prosperity, economic productivity, instant access to information, and with the looming threat of authoritarian communism written off as a historic fact rather than an active memory, it’s no wonder why so many millennials no longer saw “socialism” as a dirty word.
If things go the wrong way in the next election, they could be in for a harsh lesson…
