Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
"Speaking For Us: How Jon Stewart Gave Millennials A Voice In American Politics"
We are products of our times. Growing up, we all have a vague sense of history but that sense cannot help us understand the times in which we live. Baby boomers would have no idea how their world would be shaped by post-WWII policies. Generation X would have no idea how their world would be shaped by the Vietnam conflict. Generation Y would have no idea how their world would be shaped by Reaganomics. And currently, we millennials had no idea how our world would be shaped by the events of September 11th.
We try to understand our situation in its historical context, but for each situation there had been no historical context with which to draw comparison. We had never had to rebuild after a second global conflict. We had never had to unite against an unpopular war. We had never had to adapt to top-down economic theory. And we never had to experience a terrorist attack on American soil. With each of these situations, we were left without a blueprint for how to feel, how to act, or how to live our lives in the most meaningful way. Each situation briefly brought us together and then each situation inevitably drove us apart.
As a sixteen-year-old, I remember watching the Twin Towers fall. I had no idea what it meant. I had no idea America even had enemies. When a student in my math class asked to vote for which country attacked us, I raised by hand for Iraq because I vaguely knew we were involved in some kind of war over there a decade earlier. The names Al Qaeda or Bin Laden were foreign to all of us. In the coming days, as our nation struggled to deal with the terrorist attack, I did what everyone in my small New Hampshire home town did: Bought a miniature flag and duct taped it to my car. At the time, it was the only way I knew to fight terrorism.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, American patriotism was at an all-time high. George W. Bush's approval rating soared to 90%, the highest in Gallup history. Comedian Will Ferrell, appearing as George W. Bush for the Concert for New York in October of that year, remarked that he could smoke the terrorists into caves, then out of caves, then back into caves because "My approval rating is, like, 106% right now." We saw the president as a beacon of hope in an otherwise uncertain world and we knew what he was doing was right. Our nation knew that justice must be served for those horrific acts on September 11th, and so we supported the Bush administration when it said it had evidence that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that war was our only option.
We try to understand our situation in its historical context, but for each situation there had been no historical context with which to draw comparison. We had never had to rebuild after a second global conflict. We had never had to unite against an unpopular war. We had never had to adapt to top-down economic theory. And we never had to experience a terrorist attack on American soil. With each of these situations, we were left without a blueprint for how to feel, how to act, or how to live our lives in the most meaningful way. Each situation briefly brought us together and then each situation inevitably drove us apart.
As a sixteen-year-old, I remember watching the Twin Towers fall. I had no idea what it meant. I had no idea America even had enemies. When a student in my math class asked to vote for which country attacked us, I raised by hand for Iraq because I vaguely knew we were involved in some kind of war over there a decade earlier. The names Al Qaeda or Bin Laden were foreign to all of us. In the coming days, as our nation struggled to deal with the terrorist attack, I did what everyone in my small New Hampshire home town did: Bought a miniature flag and duct taped it to my car. At the time, it was the only way I knew to fight terrorism.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, American patriotism was at an all-time high. George W. Bush's approval rating soared to 90%, the highest in Gallup history. Comedian Will Ferrell, appearing as George W. Bush for the Concert for New York in October of that year, remarked that he could smoke the terrorists into caves, then out of caves, then back into caves because "My approval rating is, like, 106% right now." We saw the president as a beacon of hope in an otherwise uncertain world and we knew what he was doing was right. Our nation knew that justice must be served for those horrific acts on September 11th, and so we supported the Bush administration when it said it had evidence that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that war was our only option.
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
