Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Young liberals convene to boost their generation's activism

Young liberals convene to boost their generation's activism

Andrew Gillum addressed his fellow Gen Xers: "You actually take time to say, 'If we had a couple of moments to dream, what would it look like?'"

Sara Swann

Hundreds of young progressives from across the country are coming together in downtown Washington this week, hoping to energize youth advocacy on the left in the 2020 campaign and beyond.

The first-ever Youth Action Summit 2020 — fittingly pronounced as "Yas"— kicked off Tuesday with a call for youth involvement in politics from Florida's Andrew Gillum, one of the nation's most prominent Democratic figures from Generation X.


At 23, while still a student at Florida A&M, Gillum became the youngest person ever elected to the Tallahassee city commission. He was elected mayor in 2014 when he was 35 and four years later lost the governorship by less than half a percentage point.

Gillum said he found a silver lining in his defeat: his contribution to boosting youth voter engagement. Three out every eight Floridians 18 to 29 voted in 2018, a whopping 15 percentage pointincrease from the previous gubernatorial election.

"The reason why we have chosen to invest so deeply in young people and the youth of our country is because for some reason y'all happen to be less encumbered," Gillum said. "You actually take time to say, 'If we had a couple of moments to dream, what would it look like?'"

He reminded the audience that two icons of the civil rights movement, Rep. John Lewis of Georgia and Martin Luther King Jr., were much younger than Gillum is now when they rose to national prominence in the 1960s.

"We are all benefactors of their sacrifice. My hope is that my children are going to be the benefactors of your sacrifice," Gillum said.

More than 200 young people involved in grassroots movements for electoral or issue-based reform attended the conference. Many of the groups these delegates represent are making a priority in the coming year of registering more young people and pushing legislation to expand access to the ballot box.

The two-day conference was put together by several progressive advocacy groups including the Alliance for Youth Action, NAACP Youth and College, NextGen America, Planned Parenthood Generation Action, Student Power, United We Dream and the Alliance for Youth Organizing.

Workshops are designed to promote best-practices for the progressive movements. For three panels on Tuesday, for example, activists divided up to learn different grassroots strategies for advancing their causes in statehouses under Republican, Democratic or split partisan control.

Other scheduled speakers included D.C.'s long-serving but nonvoting House delegate, Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, whose first political appointment came at age 33, when she was tapped to head the New York City Human Rights Commission in the early 1970s; 31-year-old actor Kendrick Sampson; transgender activist Riley Knoxx; and Bruce Franks Jr., who turned a career as a rapper into a seat representing St. Louis in the statehouse.

The purpose of the inaugural Youth Action Summit is not to have each group compete for funds or attention, but rather to form a unique model for leadership and gathering, said Sarah Audelo, executive director of the Alliance for Youth Action.

"This is a space of leaders and visionaries," she said. "We will also work to make sure that each and every one of the elected on our ballot — whether it's for city council or attorney general or Senate — will uphold our values and vision for this country."

Read More

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

The B-2 "Spirit" Stealth Bomber flys over the 136th Rose Parade Presented By Honda on Jan. 1, 2025, in Pasadena, California. (Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

After a short and successful war with Iraq, President George H.W. Bush claimed in 1991 that “the ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert.” Bush was referring to what was commonly called the “Vietnam syndrome.” The idea was that the Vietnam War had so scarred the American psyche that we forever lost confidence in American power.

The elder President Bush was partially right. The first Iraq war was certainly popular. And his successor, President Clinton, used American power — in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere — with the general approval of the media and the public.

Keep ReadingShow less
Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are
a close up of a typewriter with the word conspiracy on it

Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are

The Comet Ping Pong Pizzagate shooting, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a man’s livestreamed beheading of his father last year were all fueled by conspiracy theories. But while the headlines suggest that conspiratorial thinking is on the rise, this is not the case. Research points to no increase in conspiratorial thinking. Still, to a more dangerous reality: the conspiracies taking hold and being amplified by political ideologues are increasingly correlated with violence against particular groups. Fortunately, promising new research points to actions we can take to reduce conspiratorial thinking in communities across the US.

Some journalists claim that this is “a golden age of conspiracy theories,” and the public agrees. As of 2022, 59% of Americans think that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories today than 25 years ago, and 73% of Americans think conspiracy theories are “out of control.” Most blame this perceived increase on the role of social media and the internet.

Keep ReadingShow less
We Can Save Our Earth: Environment Opportunities 2025
a group of windmills in the sky above the clouds

We Can Save Our Earth: Environment Opportunities 2025

On May 8th, 2025, the Network for Responsible Public Policy (NFRPP) convened a session to discuss the future of the transition to clean energy in the face of some stiff headwinds caused by the new US administration led by Donald Trump. The panel included Dale Bryk, Director of State and Regional Policy at the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program and a Senior Fellow at the Regional Plan Association, and Dan Sosland, President of the Acadia Center. The discussion was moderated by Richard Eidlin, National Policy Director for Business for America.

 
 


Keep ReadingShow less