Note: The following commentary is adapted from “Reagan’s Children: Taking Back the City on the Hill” by Hans Zeiger (Broadman and Holman, 2006). Used by permission.
“Conservatism youth” was once considered an oxymoron. The British Social Attitudes Survey published in 2004 demonstrated that young Brits born around the time of Margaret Thatcher’s conservative term as prime minister are personally conservative. They side with their parents on many issues, causing the Guardian to declare that “the age of teenage rebellion is over” in its Dec. 7, 2004, issue. The British press calls them “Thatcher’s Children.”
“Thatcher’s Children” was coined to describe England’s economically conservative young people. The Adam Smith Institute polled British youth that were between the ages of 16 and 21 at the turn of the millennium. According to Grover Norquist in the May 1999 issue of American Spectator, 48 percent of British respondents declared a desire to own a business, while only 1 percent admitted a desire to work in local government or civil service. While only 7 percent of young Britons say that a background of privilege is the measure of success, 72 percent say that individual determination is essential. Clearly, Margaret Thatcher’s drive for deregulation, lower taxes and smaller government paid off in the political and economic views of young Brits.
Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform and the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, first proposed that Americans refer to the savvy young entrepreneurs who came of age during the Reagan years as “Reagan’s Children.” In the article for American Spectator magazine, Norquist wrote, “Ronald Reagan has already entered the history books as the man who brought down the Berlin Wall, but he is also the father to the new investor class that is changing American politics. If America’s establishment press was as colorful as the British tabloids they would be known as ‘Reagan’s children.'”
In referring to the “new investor class,” Norquist pointed to three trends. First, labor union membership, as a percentage of the total voting population, has been on the decline. Second, the percentage of American workers who are employed by the government is decreasing. Finally, political age demographics are shifting away from the World War II generation toward younger voters. And young people, of Generation X and the Millennials, are technologically savvy, innovative and enterprising. Their economic aspirations make them more fiscally conservative than their parents or grandparents.
The fact is the title of “Reagan’s Children” could apply as well to any of three generations. Baby boomers worked to elect Reagan, and most of today’s boomer conservative leaders were influenced by Ronald Reagan’s words and ideas. The Reagan years were formative for Generation X; Norquist’s analysis would qualify them for the label.
Within our generation, a minority is returning to the traditional moral and intellectual foundations of America instead of rebelling against our heritage. These young Christians and conservatives are well situated to take on key positions of influence in every realm of ideas, policy, culture and faith in which there has been a dearth of conservative ideas during the past several decades. More specifically, the majority of cultural institutions of the West have come to be dominated by verifiably liberal ideas. And among what we’ll call Reagan’s Children are young Americans who are dedicated to replacing liberal establishments with reinvigorated institutions and right ideas.
Reagan’s Children are at the leading edge of the generation. The 30 million of us born when Ronald Reagan was president are the first half of the generational cohort broadly considered to be Generation Y, the Millennial Generation or Generation Next. Though present trends suggest our younger siblings will be more morally conservative than we are, the Reagan’s Children cohort is the group that is currently emerging, providing the most important evidence of a national conservative shift.
At the present moment, Reagan’s Children are voting for the first time, going to college, forming our worldview ideas and choosing our first jobs. We are the young soldiers fighting the war on terrorism, the first cohort to have been born with MTV and the first cohort to have grown up with the Internet.
The signs of a more actively conservative generation are numerous. Homeschooling has long been on the rise. Enrollment at evangelical Christian colleges is outpacing the enrollment at other colleges and universities, and membership is thriving in conservative youth groups like the Boy Scouts of America. While advocates of abortion go on aborting their children, evangelical Christians are having large families. The ’60s generation of radical professors is about to retire, and the rebels on campus aren’t all liberals anymore. The video game generation is defying the odds by embracing faith, volunteering in communities across the land and winning a war on terrorism.
All of this may come as a fright to those who’ve worked hard for the past few generations to tear up the foundations of the American order. Sensing their place on the losing end of the generation, young liberals are appropriately gloomy. “It’s hard not to feel that we were born at the wrong time,” liberal writer Anya Kamenetz writes. “We’re Reagan Babies; the pendulum has been swinging in one direction for most of our lives.”
More than a pendulum is swinging, though. Providence is on the move.
So take heart and take part, because a generation of young Americans is rising up to take back the city on the hill.
Related special offer:
“In the Face of Evil: Reagan’s War in Word and Deed”
L.A. fires: 1-party city and state blames ‘climate change’
Larry Elder