The Kids Are Alright

A lot of people have been wowed by the intensity of campaign communication this year. Fair enough. It has been intense.
But not intense like the Green Day back-beat, or Hip-Hop’s “Vote or Die,” or the amped-up slackers of 2004. I think there may be an intensity of yet a higher order still in store.
We tend to forget the shock and suddenness, the power-chord crescendos that can be released when the America of youth pumps up the volume. Every ten minutes, every tenth caller, on radio, boom-rides, MTV, BET, VH1, Star-Power and Text-Messaging–Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit–the whole municipal Pantheon of Rhythm.
If this wish does come true, if an awakened youth can be acknowledged to have gotten together and turned the tide this year, they will never forget it, and it will shape the remainder of their American political lives.