Justin Aldrich Rockefeller, 26, is committed to making
disenfranchised young Americans take an active role in the democratic process.
Son of West Virginia Democratic Senator John D. Rockefeller IV and Sharon Percy
Rockefeller, CEO of public broadcasting powerhouse WETA, he helps run Generation
Engage, a nonprofit, nonpartisan democracy outreach organization. His
counterparts are three other offspring of Beltway insiders: Generation Engage
founders Adrian and Devin Talbott, the sons of former deputy secretary of state
and Brookings Institution head Strobe Talbott, and Cate Edwards, daughter of the
former vice presidential candidate. In his work, the young Rockefeller has lured
the likes of Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich and Cherie Blair to talk with young
Americans. Worth features editor Jan Alexander spoke with Rockefeller about
creating young political activists and managing his own family
alliances. Many 18-to-24 year olds, whether they are Ivy League students or
flipping burgers, see no good reason to vote.
I wouldn’t say they’re
apathetic. They just don’t see politics as a means to an end.
Certainly not the way you might when you grow up in a family
that can make things happen.
Most Americans, obviously, don’t
grow up in a household where that is the nightly dinner discussion. My father
would come home and talk about how one piece of paper in Washington, one piece
of legislation, would have a very tangible effect on the lives of coal miners
and steelworkers in West Virginia.
And it is their children you are trying to reach
now?
Generation Engage got off the
ground because we were frustrated with the outcome of the 2004 elections. Only
42 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 voted, which was 14 points
below the national average. More young people voted in 2004 than had voted in
2000. However, if you went to college you are twice as likely to vote as you are
if you didn’t go to college. We thought that if more emphasis had been placed on
civic engagement in the cycle leading up to the election, rather than just on
voter registration, a lot more young people would have voted. And we were
frustrated with the millions of dollars being spent to make 30-second television
commercials with celebrities telling young people to vote, which we thought was
rendering voting as a fad.
Our thinking is that only by really being involved in your
community do you start to connect the dots between what you need and how you can
work for what you need within the political process. We wanted to replicate the
kind of activism you find on college campuses for young people who haven’t gone
to college. About 49 percent of the 25 million 18-to-24-year-old citizens in the
U.S. don’t go to college. They don’t suffer from lack of interest; they suffer
from a lack of access to the political process.
This is the demographic that joins the military, yet I rarely hear
a campaign speech that says much about them.
There is a vicious cycle. Young
people don’t have a lot of money, so politicians tend not to court their vote.
Young people feel ignored and they don’t show up at the polls. Politicians see
that young people aren’t voting and they don’t have a lot of money, and they
ignore them even more. We want to show them by example that politicians are
willing to listen and even respond. So we pay people from their ranks full-time
salaries to form partnerships, both with other nonprofits and with the places
where young people are already hanging out. They bring young people to attend
forums with politicians or community leaders—either in person or by video
conference.
There is a question-and-answer session where young people get
to interact in a very real way with politicians or community leaders. We did one
with Newt Gingrich the morning after this year’s State of the Union address.
|
