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Millennials Don't Think America Was Ever That Great
PJ Media ^ | 08/24/2018 | Rick Moran

Posted on 08/24/2018 9:01:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Hitler once said, "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future." Totalitarians like Hitler and Lenin knew that any opposition by the population to their policies would be erased in a couple of generations if they could capture the minds of young people.

Hitler had the Hitler Youth. Lenin, the Young Communist League. In the case of the Hitler Youth, membership was eventually made mandatory. The Young Communist League was seen as a vital stepping stone to the good life for children in the Soviet Union.

I bring this up because while conservatives were busy making tons of money in the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s, liberals were busy taking over the entire educational establishment. The fruits of their labors? A couple of generations of kids who are clueless about the complete history of the country they grew up in.

There's nothing wrong with teaching about slavery, about Jim Crow, about the denial of equality and opportunity to many millions of Americans in the past -- and the present. But, as was made clear by Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips when he interviewed young people in New York about Governor Andrew Cuomo's "America was never that great" remark, millennials are ignorant of the real accomplishments and achievements of all Americans, of many colors and ethnicities, through the centuries.

When asked if there was ever a time in America’s history when we were great, the majority of the people I spoke with made it clear: they were siding with Governor Cuomo. “I don’t believe America has been great for all folks, ever. Even today,” said one respondent, while another added simply, “I would have to agree with Governor Cuomo.”

One person elaborated on their reasoning for saying America was never great, saying, “The idea that there was this once great America is pointing towards this false sense of nationalism…What, it’s talking about white America? Yeah, it’s not great.”

Another respondent cited similar points, declaring that “America has been great…for straight white men.”

Wondering if this thought process stemmed from what was being taught in the classroom, I followed up by asking if they’d ever been taught American Exceptionalism in school.

Just one person said it was a concept they’d been taught in class.

“I’ve never heard of it before,” conceded one, while another explained that “I personally wasn’t taught American Exceptionalism because I went to a very forward thinking liberal school…”

I never learned about American exceptionalism in school. I was able to figure it out for myself. The problem, as I see it, is how history is taught in schools, not so much what is taught.

A million years ago when I was in primary and secondary school, American history was taught as a narrative -- a broad, sweeping story with heroes and villains, famous events, and significant places. Names, places, and events were easy to memorize and it was easy to quantify the progress of the pupil in knowledge gained.

In truth, while narrative history is very entertaining, it doesn't tell the whole story. Too many things are happening at the same time to capture the essence, or "the truth" of history. The emphasis on the "Great Man" theory of events ignored the currents and eddies that drove history forward -- the movements, ideas, and beliefs of ordinary people that made "Great Men" captives to events.

So for all its value as a simple and expedient way to teach and read history, the narrative leaves much to be desired.

How do you write history that comes closer to the reality of what happened? Social history, which is nothing more than studying the lives of individuals in the context of the times they lived, offers an intriguing alternative to narrative history. But the value of social history has been subverted to serve a modern political agenda. The teaching of American "history" has been fashioned to undermine universal values of freedom and liberty, substituting the social history of oppressed and discriminated minorities as the main point of emphasis. This is no doubt important, but how much closer is the student to discovering the "truth" of what happened?

Lost in the telling are the overarching themes of progress, redemption, and change that make America an exceptional nation. It's not surprising that millennials would reject an exceptional America when they haven't been given the total picture -- the good, the bad, the ugly, and the sublime.

The left is winning the battle for the hearts and minds of young people and America is suffering as a result.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: america; greatness; millennials; rickmoran
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To: robowombat

Sorry WW2 vets, its Salerno.


21 posted on 08/24/2018 9:31:51 AM PDT by robowombat (Orthodox)
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To: Night Hides Not
I was talking with a 20ish coworker the other day about the new Mission Impossible movie (I haven't seen it yet). I mentioned that I grew up watching the TV series religiously every week, it was one of my favorites. He gave me a stunned look, and blurted "it was a TV series?" No wonder Hollywood gets away with rebooting everything good from the 60s and 70s...lol.

I had one who actually believed that the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise was named after the TV starship, and not vice-versa.


22 posted on 08/24/2018 9:33:19 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: SeekAndFind

Key phrase:

“...the majority of the people I spoke with...”

Get off the New York leftist college campuses, Moran, and you’ll find other opinions. New York City does not represent America.


23 posted on 08/24/2018 9:34:08 AM PDT by sergeantdave (Teach a man to fish and he'll steal your gear and sell it)
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To: Night Hides Not
No wonder Hollywood gets away with rebooting everything good from the 60s and 70s...lol.

Half the "songs" used in today's commercials are 60's and 70's songs.

24 posted on 08/24/2018 9:34:53 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: Buckeye McFrog
I had one who actually believed that the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise was named after the TV starship, and not vice-versa.

LMAO & SMDH!!!

My next purchase will be a t-shirt with this:


25 posted on 08/24/2018 9:46:54 AM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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To: SeekAndFind
The ignorance in this article is astounding.

First of all, since when do I trust interviews of New York Millenials as the basis to make such a wide-sweeping statement about young people? I thought New York was a liberal cesspool (it's not...many good Deplorables live there but they are a vast minority) but as long as it fits the narrative that young people are dumb, why not?

Second, the general trend is for people to become more conservative as they age (recall Churchill's comment). Millenials don't stay young forever....youngsters voting for Obama in 2008 now have jobs, families, and bills. And youngsters entering college during the MAGA era, just like us Reagan kids, are likely to NOT be as easily hoodwinked had Hillary won. Try getting out of New York.

If people actually speak to Millenials, they'll find there are MANY that aren't pod-eating Antifa-loving dolts. Many of them, among other things, don't WANT want other people's stuff. To be sure, they are probably more libertarian than your average Deplorable and, for example, may bring a few gay friends who won't hit on you, or sober pot legalization fans, out to the range with them.

If people can get around those elements then you can see real hope in the youth of America. True, some men, you can't reach but the kids are getting smarter. So let some lazy reporter print this twaddle... The Dems will misread the news and keep putting up loser candidates that repel Americans. Trump is thus guaranteed to destroy whoever they put up in 2020 AND we'll have a Red Wave this November.

26 posted on 08/24/2018 9:50:06 AM PDT by DoodleBob
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To: dfwgator; SeekAndFind

I asked my 36 year-old son about the tattoo obsession [he has none and does not want any] and when it would finally pass. At 36 he is an early Millennial and him being 36 makes me feel really OLD! He said it would go on until the children of the people with tattoos figure out how disgusting they are and how hard they are to get rid of.

So far as most of these kids and young people are concerned America has not been that great in their lifetimes. At least that is what they have seen, heard and been taught.

It is going to take a long time for this prevalent attitude to be changed. Another thread on this board is about the Navy introducing critical thinking to their training. The criticisms of critical thinking posted by alleged conservatives are shocking to me. They tell me that the brainwashing against independent thought has succeeded. For me “WHY?” is one of the most important questions ever.

Based on my experience with screwl age children that I encounter they are being taught DATA. They are getting the “Google anwers” to things without understanding. It is appalling. They are being taught like animals to perform instead of think.


27 posted on 08/24/2018 9:50:18 AM PDT by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchanged our dreams for survival. We just have a few days that don't suck.)
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To: 1Old Pro
My 16YO son loves "Million Dollar Quartet". It started 4-5 years ago after a trip to Las Vegas. My BIL and I saw it at Harrah's, and I bought the CD. On the return trip, my son was rocking to it in the back seat.

A year later, we stopped at Sun Studio in Memphis, the day after we attended the Gonzaga-Memphis game. The studio tour was great, a real step back in time at the birth of rock and roll.

The following year, we saw the show at UT-Tyler during their national tour. If you haven't seen it, it's the quickest 90 minute ride you'll ever take.

This story ends a few weeks later, while my son's in drama class. His teacher's talking about how Elvis wrote Blue Suede Shoes, and my son was obviously paying attention. He corrected her, saying it was Carl Perkins who wrote Blue Suede Shoes, it's just that Elvis achieved more notoriety with it.

It took a few minutes, and researching on the computer, but she finally got it right. lol

28 posted on 08/24/2018 9:54:40 AM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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To: SeekAndFind
They had to Google it to find out.
Professor Google is a Commie.
Many of them really can’t think for themselves and their worldly awareness goes as far back as the Bush years of malaise.
29 posted on 08/24/2018 10:01:42 AM PDT by right way right (May we remain sober over mere men, for God really is our only true hope.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I respect Campus Reform and I like to rag on Millennials as much as the next Gen-Xer, but I don’t think a “man on the street” survey at a college campus gives you a fair sample on which to base such a generalization. We have nearly 2 million Millennial veterans and thousands have died for our country, and I’m not convinced this crap is any more widespread among young Millennials than it was among Xers and Boomers when they were the same age.


30 posted on 08/24/2018 10:05:53 AM PDT by The Pack Knight
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To: SeekAndFind

From kindergarten through college, millennials have had it drummed into their heads that America is the result of stolen bodies working stolen land, so no wonder they don’t believe this country was ever great.


31 posted on 08/24/2018 10:13:04 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: SeekAndFind

The Europeans of the 50s and 60s sure did.


32 posted on 08/24/2018 10:24:17 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
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To: SeekAndFind

Not my grandchildren, whose parents have exposed them to the ideas of liberty understood by America’s men and women of the 17th, 18th and 19th Century—ideas which have made possible the freedoms those children’s professors and university leaders are abusing and misinterpreting today!


33 posted on 08/24/2018 10:24:49 AM PDT by loveliberty2
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To: bert
I agree....and millennial are not about anything other than themselves and attaining notoriety...be it via a selfie photo or criminal act it's the ‘me-me’ generation on steroids. The 'collective' mindset at best.
34 posted on 08/24/2018 10:29:00 AM PDT by caww
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To: Night Hides Not

35 posted on 08/24/2018 10:35:04 AM PDT by Bikkuri
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To: SeekAndFind

Well, of course. They’ve been brainwashed with an extremely distorted, one-sided version of American history put out by the Cultural Marxists since they were pre-schoolers. It’s takes a very independent thinker to resist the programming.


36 posted on 08/24/2018 11:16:18 AM PDT by FenwickBabbitt
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To: loveliberty2
I'm a bad "Opa" (German for grandfather). I've also exposed my 8 YO grandson to the plight of "Snuffy The Seal". lol

He knows it's fake, and thinks its hilarious. He also knows sharks have to eat, too.

O/T, last summer we were at Yellowstone. While he's complaining about "being bored", a buffalo is walking on the other side of the road, passing within two feet of our car. Sure got his attention! lol

37 posted on 08/24/2018 11:22:57 AM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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To: Night Hides Not
Another young man and I were talking about the bitcoin market. I said, I'd love to invest in it, but I lost all my money in the Dutch Tulip craze (400 years ago)

My millenial colleague tried to convince me to buy bitcoin in the $50's and I ignored. Finally bought a bunch from $350 to $400. Next time I will listen to the millenial.

38 posted on 08/24/2018 1:33:09 PM PDT by palmer (...if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive)
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To: Night Hides Not

“my son’s in drama class.”

Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.


39 posted on 08/24/2018 1:49:06 PM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: rdcbn
Millennials don't think America was ever that great - b/c they grew up and spent their formative years during the Obama Presidency.......
an individual who did everything possible to drag America down. They are right. In the Obama Era, America was not all that great.

This is the America they knew. OBAMA AS A TINPOT THIRD WORLDER IN THE WH--using the govt intel apparat against anyone who stood in his way,
(such as that Republican presidential candidate). Obama spied on reporters threatening to jail them if they did not reveal sources. Important freedoms were killed off. Due process died. More of the endless examples of lawless Obama's autocracy......

<><>His administration set records for major, costly regulations that stymie business and reduce your freedoms.
<><> His Clean Power Plan would have dictated to states that they had to get rid of certain laws.
<><> Obama set a record in refusing to release government information requested by citizens........
<><> Colleges and universities were ordered to abandon due process for sexual harassment.
<><> Obama granted legal status to illegal immigrants despite saying some 20 times it would be unconstitutional to do so.
<><> He unilaterally rewrote laws. He refused to enforce others.
<><> Obama skipped the constitutional requirement of a Senate vote on treaties.
<><> An enriched Iran is still pursuing nuclear armament and Middle East hegemony.
<><>The Obama philosophy was to ask for little, to get less and then to declare the United States a winner.

================================

HAT TIP RDCNBN----Our job is to make Millenials realize that it's not America that is not all that great,
it was Obama's ill-gotten policies that made America not all that great while he was President. Cuomo is dead wrong.

40 posted on 08/24/2018 1:53:28 PM PDT by Liz ( Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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