After growing up with Trump chaos & covid, young people are finally seeing an optimistic, forward looking & generous America.

If elected, Kamala Harris will be the first post-baby boom president. (Barack Obama was on the cusp.) This really is a passing of the torch. For young Americans, it is a stunning moment- the one where they realize they really are citizens of a great nation.

The boomer generation changed America in every way. Whole suburbs were built to house them. Thousands of schools were constructed, and new curricula developed to teach them. In their young adulthood they were sent to war but did not go quietly. They protested. They experimented with drugs. They were the first generation with reliable contraception. They drove counterculture ideas into the mainstream. Their music became America’s soundtrack.

Younger Americans had almost given up waiting for their turn. They grew up with the chaos of a Trump Presidency and then the harsh reality of COVID. They were sent home from their schools. They entered the workforce but worked alone and from home. They lived on social media, with all its perversion of reality. They lived with climate change dread. They were generations removed from their presidents. They felt helpless and unseen.

All that changed when Joe Biden stepped aside. Suddenly, there was a chance to elect someone they relate to, and who they think sees them. For these Americans the idea of a first woman president isn’t controversial, it’s overdue.

Baby Boomers gave us Title IX, a gift from one generation to the next. Since then, women have soared. How perfect for the first post-boomer President to be a woman.

American culture has always ridden on young backs. In every era, our music, our theater, the memes we see everywhere through ubiquitous marketing, all are driven by youth culture. Until Joe stepped aside, the gap between that young culture and our governing realities was as big as it has ever been.

Photo Credit: Julia Beverly/Getty Images

Now, suddenly, that’s all changed. For younger voters, America is roaring back, and they are making it happen— optimistic, forward looking, generous, ambitious, hard working. They are stepping up because they sense that they might, if they shoulder the responsibility, make a difference in our national trajectory. Now, they too, might have the chance to “bend the arc of the moral universe.”  Their sudden euphoria stems from the sad reality that many of them never thought they would live in a country anything like the one they are now discovering we still are. It is joy mixed with gratitude.

This is not a left right moment; it is a coming together moment. What’s happening in those large and joyous gatherings is not so much a political rally as a celebration. A celebration of America. We may look a bit different than in the past, but once again, we are proving to be the nation earlier generations fought and died to keep alive. And, once again, young Americans are getting involved and feeling like they have a role to play in making the future.

How lucky to live in a time that matters!