Politics & Polls #213: Millennials in Politics (Charlotte Alter)

Dec 15 2020
By B. Rose Huber
Topics Politics
Source Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

A new generation in American politics is emerging as millennials are now taking up political offices. Emboldened and energized, these young leaders are challenging conventional party leadership in the hopes of moving beyond today’s deeply embedded divisions.

Charlotte Alter joins Julian Zelizer in this episode to discuss this new generation of leadership, which she details in a new book: “The Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America.”

Alter is a national correspondent at TIME Magazine covering politics and social issues. She has covered the 2016, 2018, and 2020 campaigns, the Women’s March and anti-Trump resistance, and the rise in activism around gun violence and climate change. Her coverage often has a special focus on women in politics, social movements, and youth activism.

*This episode was recorded on Oct. 26, 2020, as a virtual webinar sponsored by Princeton SPIA.

ABOUT THE HOST

Zelizer has been among the pioneers in the revival of American political history. He is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and a CNN political analyst. He has written more than 900 op-eds, including his popular weekly column for CNN.com and The Atlantic. This year, he is the distinguished senior fellow at the New York Historical Society, where he is writing a biography of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel for Yale University's Jewish Lives Series. He is the author and editor of more than 19 books including, “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society,” the winner of the D.B. Hardeman Prize for the Best Book on Congress. In January 2019, Norton published his new book, co-authored with Kevin Kruse, “Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974.” In spring 2020, Penguin Press will publish his other book, “Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, The Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party.” He has received fellowships from the Brookings Institution, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation and New America.