Editor’s note: This story by Scott Stafford was first published in The Berkshire Eagle.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean urged millennials to use their digital skills to help ensure the continued existence of governmental bureaucracies.
He also shared some dramatic observations about the press and the Trump effect.
Dean, the longest serving governor of the state of Vermont, a former presidential candidate and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, spoke at Williams College in the packed Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall Thursday evening as part of his visit with the Leadership Studies program.
Dean said that as an enthusiastic Clinton supporter, he was a shocked as anyone by the results. In hindsight though, he said that President-elect Donald Trump was elected by “a lot of people who have been left behind.”
“They wanted a change, and Hillary [Clinton] clearly was not the change candidate,” he said.
Dean said he wants to convince young people to use their digital skills not only to go around “clunky, unwieldy” institutions, but also to improve those same institutions.
He explained that globalization and free trade have been job creators in the U.S. and around the world, but for folks who work with their hands, many of those jobs have been lost to automation and the Internet. The nation, he said, has done a bad job of bringing those workers back into the workforce with insufficient or inadequate training programs.
“Globalization has taken a billion people out of poverty around the world, but it’s not hurting jobs. The Internet and automation killed those jobs,” Dean said.
He said the workforce now is more highly educated, that the industry has gained jobs because of international trade, and that the Internet has transformed the economy.
“What drove Donald Trump into the White House was not a rejection of young people, but by the people who are out of work and left behind,” Dean said. “There’s a lot of resentment over that.”
He also said Trump’s election happened for a reason.
“Whatever happens, he got hired because people wanted to disrupt the path the country was on,” Dean continued. “I continue to be an optimist, although we will have a very interesting time in Washington starting in about 8 days.”
Human progress is not a linear climb, Dean pointed out. There are peaks and valleys, and sometimes progress is reversed. But the implant thing to realize is that it is a generational effort, and now is the time for the generation of millennials to take up the effort.
“It isn’t fun,” Dean said. “It’s hard work and you have to keep at it. Our job is to remind you that you’ll get thrown, but you have to keep working on it. What I hope is that Trump’s election is going to convince you to vote for Democrats and become a member of the Democratic party.”
Dean noted that historically, politics has served as a substitute for war.
Politics, he said, “is all about resource allocation and succession. So is war.”
Getting involved in the political system “is a small price to pay for living in a free country,” he added. “You have a responsibility — free society dies unless you put something in the pot or the very system that gave you freedom disappears.”
Dean noted that young voters backed President Barack Obama’s election in big numbers. But to effect the change that needs to come, “your generation has to participate more in politics than you did for Barack Obama. Because there could be some more Donald Trumps out there and after more than one or two, that could become a problem.”
After his remarks, during a question and answer session, one student wondered why the press wasn’t harder on Trump during his recent press conference.
“The press, I think, is a failed institution in this country,” Dean replied. “and they’re going through a learning process.”
He said journalists now are “lazy, don’t do the research, and are too good to fact check. Why? It’s all about money. Corporation don’t give a damn about reporting the news, they care about making money. The news used to be an educational program. Now, if it bleeds it leads.”
Dean noted that during the campaign, mainstream media gave Trump the nearly exclusive platform he needed to reach millions of voters because he consistently drove ratings higher.
He said one network president, Les Moonves, was quoted as saying “it may not be good for the country, but it’s good for CBS.”
“Now, we’re seeing a tremendous transition in the business because of Donald Trump.” Dean said. “They know what they did. They gave him a platform. And now they’re getting hard on him, which they should have done eight months ago.”
