What's missing in the fight for progress

Sam Smith - As the son of a Roosevelt administration official and as a guy who got involved in political action in the 1960s I've been feeling for some time a growing lack of enthusiasm for positive change of late among those who used to be its leaders.  Some of the numbers back this up. For example, one poll in 2021 ago found only 17% of Gen Z registered as Democrats while 39% of those born before 1946 were in that camp. 

I suspect an important part of the reason for this change is that older Americans came out of periods including the Great Depression in which economic issues were paramount. Now, according to a 2019 survey, 39% of Millennials have some college education while only 15% of those in the Silent Generation do.

As the percentage of college degrees have increased the useful relationship between the young and working class Americans has declined. Despite someone as bad as Trump leading the GOP race there is nothing close to the 1960s to be found on our college campuses.

We need to understand that as our society becomes better educated, it also becomes more conservative as the gap between those educated and comfortable and those less educated and poorer increases.

This is not just a political matter, it is a cultural one and the first step is to recognize it and the second step is to do something about it.
 

It is possible. My father, for example, went to Oxford but still worked in the New Deal and I went to Harvard, where I graduate magna cum probation because I was so busy on journalistic and political projects.

Among the cures is to emphasize the false economics of Trumpism and push programs that aid the working class. It's not impossible, it's just a matter of moving more of one's mind from your old college campus and current economic status and into the communities where people really need your help.