And excited to discuss your book is called the vanishing american adult and what i find striking is that i think the idea for this probably originated long before he became a senator is not political and the need to talk more about where the idea originated from. Thanks for having me the book won a dispersant not about politics 99 not about policy but upstream issues but prior to that you are right my background as a business turnaround guy by a trading ina historian i spent five years as a College President i was brought in because i cared about this liberal Arts Institution i have family connections my parents went to the school my grandfather worked at this college after 35 years and growth of this campus and it was in trouble but it was nothing connected to student culture, restructuring the debt campus operations or free would expand into omaha but i saba was happening with student culture so in the senate to 1 2 years one of five that was never a politician before so that never entered my mind before host you paint a story of a Christmas Tree only have decorated that was a key reason that you explore the topic more deeply . Edits the emergence of the perpetual adolescents a concept only 2,000 years old perpetual is really different i realized i was discovering best in that economic momentum fran retract the yet that crystallized the of Christmas Tree that you mentioned we have a lot of special kids at this college a nebraska than those that can work in the Athletic Department or in the Fundraising Department tend to be some of the best of the best we have a big athletic arena one year they were decorating the facilities for holiday with a 20foot Christmas Tree assembled in the atrium entrance to the basketball rena. The students were assigned to decorate the tree these were kids that should be meeting in day decorated the bottom 8 feet. The one of the president happened by to say but is going on why isnt it done . They said we used all the decorations on the bottom half and she said the ince refused to bring a ladder did anybody ask . They would just shrug with passivity. This is constructive it is not get off my lawn screaming but there was something there that the idea of passivity rather than figuring out how to solve the problem and there are a bunch of ways across the generation that has grown up insulated to be 18 and not already have 10 years of actual Work Experience in your history this is a new thing in american life. You talk about this passivity as a decline among the generation of kids coming up now so bader these forces . The page these and a vivid picture that your friends daughter was of the cell phone as the story plays out of lead is driving that decline of agency . Between production and consumption that we should feel this in our belly at the richs time in history we should be grateful the nation of 320 million is overwhelmingly free but one of the downside is the moment of economic history largely insulated from the experience of work than 11,000 years ago you didnt have a job choice you just did more of what a grandma or grandpa did so law was a defined profession by and large do not have the concept of a job choice then it was scary and unsettling the then new migrated from the oceans but we live in the era to have job choice forever more but they dont hound that exposure in that household arrangement also weakened talk about that Media Consumption environment so on this topic of the post Industrial Age expecting them to work multiple jobs that was one of the Key Driving Forces with an argument were not sure the Younger Generation and is prepared to move from job to job that question if we can move to adapt. I think that our teenagers and 20 somethings have to be more resilient than ever before we tend to bubble wrap them were not celebrating that scar tissue that is the foundation of future character you mention the job change right after high school but by and large students that will graduate this spring and summer will change jobs, not just jobs but industries and all those of unsettling scary things that produced progressivism was about the idea that Job Disruption created these unsettling ripples into social networks a lot of people panicked and that is what we will experience at twerps speed but have 50 yearold being disrupted out of whole industries to create a civilization of lifelong learners and no civilization has ever done that so be a bubble wrap that kids longer and longer your birth through adolescence. There is no blame it is meant to be constructive but it is directed at parents and grandparents not to have these new challenges that will be required it isnt about millenials being lazy bus having a conversation about Lifelong Learning would look like. So the closest that you get is the education in chapter with the cater 12th you can see the failings and is it true that you home school . We consider a hybrid school basically were geographical be split as a family be live in a farm town and my wife is a Public High School teacher and so did i. We love the American Educational system but for geographic reasons i gave the only commuting dad in the u. S. Senate so why bring a kid with me every week i get all my a wife tells me which kit annoyed her the most and that is my date so we do take them on the road reduce some tutoring we do hire out some public schooling and some online we use the academy as well. In addition to having this intentional conversation about economic disruption what can we change with Public Policy and the Education System . Is that better preparing people for this economy . Do want to reiterate this is 99 not about policy but i knew people would want to talk about policies where wrote a post script that was not policy but if it were here is what we would talk about and if you of the things i tried to flag is that this new concept is a bad idea as we should have some understanding because that is a great benefit it is a mixed blessing at the end of the civil war 1 percent of americans were highschool graduates by world were to almost 80 percent today it is not much more there hasnt been a lot of change from the 40s until today but we have that experience for those 18 yearold son because of industrialization a melting pot experience but fundamentally we realized it was a lot of work that it was dangerous in dehumanizing with child labor but before that to grow up as hunter gatherers and our National Conversation that we need to institutionalize this time between 14 and 18 i am a strong believer of funding of these educational experience but we should have debate of the institutional form we need more polarization to take these kids to say we should spend a majority of your waking hours five days a week sitting inside a classroom as a passive recipient of knowledge so to see what it is like to be an active lerner that deliberates about your body with enter generational experiences what is intentional the muddying of consumption and i worry we just have a over learned those lessons of secondary education but to expand that into Higher Education so about 50 governors right now are remaking their k12 education but this is a debate we should have been a great 13th through 60 is a dangerous idea we dont want to take education to remake that on a secondary model of passivity. We want pluralized institution for career read job a job retraining we want to teach our kids that at some point in their learning you go from a passive recipient in front of the classroom to be an active lerner to open the doors to the library to open the trees and was socrates said that the soil is not fertile for you just cannot machine gun or fire jose 21 drolled think they will learn you need to be asking questions. That needs to be on the plural form. Host that is interesting. Mentioning grade 30 the idea that really made me think was the whole idea of age segregation and how the School System promotes that i think of my own personal life of having the value of friends older of me to see a broader view of the world of what is coming and you talk about how age segregation can have a detrimental effect can you explain that more . Across culture and time to have your cohort just people be born in your birth year so now you dodo or experience life for people from different ages your frontal lobe is forming as a teenager your developing self restraint to become aware and developing wisdom but one way to do that is now live in that narcissistic experience who people that believe every challenge that did not exist my older daughters are girls we have two teenagers it can feel painful that this would last forever but then if you know, people who were 7085 that tell you stories about their life of the work ethic and the ways they have persevered people they have loved to lost and they recovered so it turns out if you go down and bake cookies with her it isnt quite as blasting and immediate we need a lot more intergenerational relationships to put a curb on Plastic Surgery consumption right now and maybe those needs for certain things but it isnt just a natural pursuing of the fountain of youth but the fact that the world is broken but there is Something Different at has that narcissistic attachment only of the immediacy of this minute so with fat is a little bit of wisdom says something that the teenagers know about babies or people that our dependent and responsibility so we do some odd things we figure out how to babysit together not because it is fun that we have limited time but a power kids have to learn how to care for somebody else that helps the community. So with that perpetual adolescence transition into adulthood talk about reasoning skills and the willingness to endure shortterm sacrifices for longterm game gain so with congress and a perpetual state of adolescence . There is shortterm thinking in this city with the American Experience the center of life is not politics or power we distinguish the words government and community but to tokyo when he traveled to america as a travel writer with democracy in america it is 1500 pages but if you ripoff the spine and a binding leave it around your house that is how it was built and he said he wanted to understand that economic dynamism and his cultural pluralism and free speech religion and protest that american exceptionalism is about the claim of Human Dignity nobody thought you have economic dynamism so all of a sudden theres all this dynamism with the canal revolution and putting down the system so he comes to america and says since they had economic dynamism i went to washington d. C. To find the meaning of america that he gets there and it is a swamp it isnt that interesting so he travels into states capitals to figure out the meaning of america it is communal they believe in persuasion butted is voluntary and not compulsory but so much of america is about where you raise your kids or participate or volunteer or coach and right now washington d. C. Is a strange place because the river of money flows where the lobbyist with but yet were not focused on anything long Term Political Party is explaining what the other is worse than they are now we talk about the lesser of two evils there is a perpetual adolescents rigid to become less and less historically minded and were not having a longterm conversation about cyberthat we talked about before the show i think one of the future industrious in the senate . I a. M. The only ph. D. The leeway to persuade my mom but but frequently freshmen members would take almost one year of listening and learning before speaking on the floor and you did negative it elected 20141 year from election day 11 months after arriving so eventually he delivered an extraordinary meeting speech on the floor there reductionism in debate and that shortterm thinking in the us senate and it struck me throughout this book that we not only be done revitalization in the way we are reaching kids are Building Communities but in the institutions of democracy there seems there is a catch between the two. Reduce your direct correlation . The Senate Considers itself the greatest deliberative body and it should be but clearly it is not. In the 25,000 person town on a big river i could name a dozen not for profits in my town to do better deliberation and the United States senate. In my town people distinguish between what problem we try to solve before the fight about a solution between the end and the means but we dont do any of that. If you go to the gallery in the Senate Somebody is making a speech and thank you for cspan yet there are other senators on the floor and teaching in their debate it is grandstanding for the audience i and a business turnaround guide and i did some private equity and because of that timing the internet was blowing up i went into a lot of businesses in crisis in one of the things i learned that when you get to ask questions and a half to know the answer to every problem there are a lot of smart people but it could be a collective action problem for cry worked for some big u. S. Airlines right before or a bit came into existence but the new Digital World would become reelected interview lot of people i decided to take that approach in the u. S. Senate the approach and from the 17 nineties freshmen senators did not speak for one year. But when i got here wanted to spend my time getting to know these people and why doesnt this network . I interviewed a majority of the senators and private to get to know them by one of the most concerted bid of concerts of my voting record but dont think any parties are impressive so i was in different to see what motivates them and what are they worried about . Warda we tackle the challenges inside the next decade . Wiring not talking about portability when they will change jobs faster and faster talking to these people in private and realized there are substantial collective action problems that i would say as we move into this post Industrial Area institutions are hollowed out americans are not polarized they are worried about enabling us but most are not consuming cable tv news or talk shows there is polarization happening for most of the public is checking out all together in one of the effects is that people think the main wave is their job is the biggest longterm thought politicians have is there own incumbency there is the longterm thinking. They are more afraid of losing a primary than to persuade the other party but at that same moment we fractionalized media because of the digital revolution but if they only. [inaudible] were here from the echo chamber of people that only agree with them and if your main goal is reelection then we need to do right by the next generation. Host i completely agree with the problem. Now how do we complete the think about reforming this institution or retraining this new generation to be a part of this solution . What do we need to be focused on . There is an important continue bomb of policy debates. One is the longerterm policy debates that is the civics so start at the top level American Government provides a framework to structure a world that the problems cannot be solved by power and has to be for about privatesector like the rotary club or churches or synagogues were places where people assemble. The difference between what government can and cannot accomplish. Assuming he would do as much at the state and local level but to say nebraska and vermont have different agriculture and challenges to think about how you regulate these environmental implications but if nebraska is the breadbasket of the world but that pile of maneuver has some very specific externalities that need to be managed. Most of that is managed at the county level the most of that is not a federal issue. So we should have state and local so those which could be the rest we should prioritize the long term staff and another that is happening so did be first degree about the First Amendment . Why does that mean you and i want to protect each others right . Our forefathers and mothers came here to argue about have been and hell and decide about the contract you cannot persuade a sold by violence so protect our right to argue and sit down to break bread and argue and talk about poetry and innovation. Were not doing that so you get a place with lowball policies for spending your time to demonize the other person so we scream at each other even though we dont know what fight were having right now political leaders are being fundamentally dishonest so we have people attacking trade that is not just the read the evidence of the American Experience with consumers on both sides and that benefits the production of both countries now there is some sector challenges that wus with more liberalized free trade we dont how trade Mitigation Networks but we should have a career for these destructive communities and we dont do that because the much bigger reason the jobs are shrinking is technology and not trade but Artificial Intelligence will a accelerate this now you told them the why is to destroy a local experience so now it is my people and that will not work. Host so with shorttermism battle lines with the story in the book increasingly the kids here raising because of technology there is a lot of Immediate Gratification and a move toward shortterm thinking and disaster do at the community lovell or something to do with the congressional level. Day eating back constant need to raise money is partly what attributes to the short termism . I do. First of all, i do believe in the George Washington tone George Washington and eisenhower view of the world that Public Service but they want to get back home because that is where you innovative but right now we have a Political Class people are desperate to get to the new imperial rome tuesday for their whole lives in very attentive to read a go of their loss they want to stay forever then they went to be sure they have a place to land so i dont think term limits are a panacea but i do believe strongly that is part of the revolving door policy we should have fundraising is one of the lifeblood of the pursuit of their own incumbency and hugely troubling that they spend so much of their time fundraising. Some public believes that means theyre in a the quivered perot pro quo its not that but theyll line with what they already believe in a way that limits their creativity to have a conversation so one basic example millenials dont expect to stay at the same job herbalife in the mid1970s it was two and a half decades to day average duration is about four years so people are going through disruption of benefits every time they change jobs. Washington has done important work three decades ago to get portability we went from a defined benefit world to defined contribution that was portable our Health Care Conversation is so behind the times thinking whether obamacare did a good i have my own views on that but the bigger problem is if you take obamacare adding it to the system or you dont, but in both worlds we were moving toward a system with more portability and obamacare is not helping portability and that is the main driver of an insurance if you look at the pond in setter interviewed people think it is preexisting conditions or poverty. Actually that is not the main driver. The main driver is people have four or six months of no insurance after they change jobs. That is when you have a car accident or have the preexisting conditions in 15 years we can solve the population today the number is not actually about large it is over 10 million probably dead is complete the solvable and a nation of 320 million but you cannot solve the extra people that will develop preexisting conditions because we dont have an old policy that goes with you across geographic changes and that is a we should look at washington is not focused on that fundamentally because people raise money for the industry of today there is no portability Health Insurance market in years from now so there is a focus problem. Millenials get that because that is the economy with those early adopters of Economic Trends but speaking of millenials we work with the money all action project across the country for those just Getting Started at the beginning of their career this generates out older end of the demographic maybe theyre in College Church just graduated so to grownup in those dynamics with facebook and you tube and social media as they enter Public Service what issues or reforms should they be focused on . Because we hear the we have a broken political system so do they make changes through other means . So lets focus on these democratic reforms to enhance that functioning of the system itself and then do our best to legislate. I. M. A uber driver ive loved to work alongside people not just a way to put bread on the table but the fundamental anchor i started to drive last october it has been a wonderful experience a dont make any money the money goes to a charity. I am at a level five right now people are at surprise when the senator shows up but it is a good experience. I think culturally we youre making a mistake to allow the word in national or communitybased to become synonymous with political we need more places to get to know our neighbors not to starting with assumptions and i have not experienced on a commute and i can tell you when a senator tries to tackle cyberissues how many people complain about espn it used to be at a place they had a shared experience without politics republicans than democrats will tell me sports but now it feels like it is an echo chamber this is about the thrill of victory were the pursuit of human achievement or excellence we want to get together with neighbors or break bread but dont start with that political left right divide that is some of vice. But politically people should not presume these parties are in during in their current form and there should be more skepticism for both parties i think of myself functionally because neither of these parties is very impressive if you ask the American People to identify if you dont give them the choice and dont give them the option most of them interrupt to say none of the above. These parties are not very impressive but people dont want to be locked into a belief i think there will be disruption in this space we could talk about donald trump in a lot of different ways but one of the things he did was open the eyes for oprah and George Clooney and the rock and they said that is dysfunctional and i could communicate around them i am not sure that will play out to but i think reality tv and that campaign and presidency will cause people to rethink a bunch of assumptions. And with those fundamental challenges the first is the question of the career economy i sense that most are well aware they will have to be retrained as a huge part of the open your aids crisis that is a true and tragic epidemic from what is happening mid career there is a bunch of things happening with contributing factors with supplyside but one of the things that is happening buying in large there never played again there are little bits and pieces of this but i think we have to recognize we will have a multi a career economy in the future to reorient about the traces the you make about education and Work Ethic Development across different industries. And we still tend to act like that we are once and for all done with it. We need a generation of winners. That i do think cyberworld transform the nature of warfare in the line between military targets and Civil Society we are not already for what comes next bed i believe an american can producer demonstrate is unparalleled of replied our mind to task right now we have adversaries around the globe that is planning for the future of cyberand we your not. That is one of the most fascinating things with the demographics the fastestgrowing political affiliation is no affiliation because now they identify as independence so there will be a breaking point either they have to reinvent themselves to be more responsive to have constructive debates or there will be an emergence of an another identification that drives the future of policy because millenials dont want to be boxed in the field both parties were not effective that is why there are so many independents that believe is still the barrier is too high a but dont lose that the independent thinker because that is what we need right now. Well said provide baghdad and husband and football addict and a christian and conservative but if i get those identities out of order i and a dad and tusker football add it. I know you like as badgers. [laughter] we have had a bumpy decade but but my football weltys in nebraska is a communal experience is a second identifier but if i got those ahead of my responsibilities as a dad there is something tragically wrong. So the danger of those who want to be engaged in politics thank you have to take that identity of loyalty at the top that is bizarre and it creates the formed people and they do think these Political Parties dont have a long term vision for what comes next so i find it encouraging that they say will not be encouraged by those thank you can make a strong case that donald Trump Success successfully navigated the party but he certainly doesnt have republican views so whether you agree or disagree with republicans or and mr. Trump but in retrospect the parties looked invincible than somebody says i will see is that as a tool and the democrats are probably little more fragile than they recognize it would be healthy for a lot of people that want to be cynically engaged to have a healthier dose of skepticism. Host manchin President Trump. He is not in the book once you do make implicit references to a ham, talk about the consequences of a declining civic culture playing out today. So i wonder if you make those references to President Trump or the phenomenon of our president to as more authoritarian dependency or someone to handle them all . How do you reconcile with the primary demographic supporting president trompe it wasnt the millenials but the american base so how do you reconcile that . Once you get to the binary choice a lot of strange things can happen and people can argue about their treasonous but most of why i live in public life one at a five people in the senate have never been a politician. Rarely are they actually doing something on tuesday that will change the world. There is the budget process over the last 39 years of the four times have we spent 30 we just get to the end of the fiscal year with a crisis than the government shuts down there is not a serious longterm view of this place but i do think we do have a crisis of shorttermism it is evident in our politics especially to the 2016 president ial cycle of how you cultivate apathy so the book the vanishing american adult is two thirds constructive project so i talk about being issue should be spending your time here on as they try to think about ltd. Consumption or work ethic or travel not the rich person european travel that going to get people in a Community Social or eating or Work Experiences and literacy is worth focusing on gutenberg is the father of america if you want to find one person that if you did not have then you could not have america is the Gutenberg Printing press because he created a mass literacy highly correlated with the mass middle class that assumed the things that make you happy is not just aristotles philosophy and theology social sciences confirming only four drivers of Human Happiness are pretty basic a local community of friends that feel your pain when you hurt and pleasure because they love you or if philosophical framework or work that is meaningful . Those all drive people back to agency or action not to a passive dependency to have a daddy in public life to solve my problems literacy is different than that frenetic pace obviously as the driver for uber there are habits and passions and deliberations better form and cultivated by us being a reader but in terms of appetite do you have a reading list for a habit of reading . Right now were not doing that you can see that playing out in political life the average american eats 19 minutes a day the older you are the more you read the millenials are reaching much less as we live in that seven minutes dopamine hit that is not working the delivered to the process. Host you talk about the bookshop is about 40 pages and i do think that is under added it. [laughter] what is on your bookshelf . So i am doing more of my a reading but at home my wife has become obsessed with totalitarianism starting with north korea so then she started reading other things and then started to read them to our kids. There is an interesting book called the children of monsters. So there has been a lot of deliberation and my house what has led us to renew profound appreciation. The idea the media is the enemy of the American People is an antiamerican claim we need to celebrate that together so we have been thinking about that in the humanistic cents and as a cautionary tale that like greeting intelligence products. Obviously these are timely threats from abroad and one thing you mentioned is kids who are comingofage in this crisis not prepared to be active citizens that making america an idea again chapter we want to raise strong kids but it isnt just a question for families but the entire country or the health of our republic the weather people can control themselves or submit to the control of another so i have to think you were thinking of Current Affairs . More than just this year or last year but self restraint selfgovernments all that is pretty glorious in history where people believe the individual citizen or the local community was possible that type of Self Governance and also presumes a certain habit pattern people will take your life and liberty and we need security and people will be fearful of a world that could degenerate so there will be order keeping so the american republican experiment presumes that local citizens snowden of virtues of self restraint and i worry we are not deliberating about bad enough that as a common age but asking if were having a broader debate they dont tend to know instinctively between production and consumption even though all the data shows more consumption does not lead to do satisfaction but the cotton candy hanover but after seven minutes my a consumption but digital consumption can lead to shorttermism that what has happened in the last 12 minutes i like twitter it isnt a staffing but a commuting dad who was educated my kids on the road like twitter but theres something wrong with my habits the fighting died missed out on something on the last 20 minutes were not tending to the best formation for teenagers right now. I will paint an additional negative for the response so millenials today you are concerned about young people shaping the future of our democracy they have the highest Service Participation rates in the country working more jobs than ever before and increasingly independent minded and as a historian political transformation historically whether dr. Dr. King wrote when he delivered i had a dream jefferson was 33 when he wrote the declaration of independence James Madison was 36 of the constitution 29 elected to congress. Sometimes we forget that day wore powdered wigs but when you look at this the majority of the Founding Fathers were under the age of 40 so a question becomes does the next generation of millenials candy energy or those skills that you talk about . And adjust the back to them from the volunteer standpoint study showed that the number one factor in their career is what impact they can have on their community so how do reconcile that narrative with the book . That is a great distinction. First of all, i would say do day have the upper wherewithal . Absolutely current cabinet . We are not doing it and if you talk about the millenials understanding the different jobs that the future is a multi carrier economy is understand that the millenials understand more of that massive economic changes of the past like industrialization or urbanization is the approximate analogy that those were injured generational changes postindustrial we dont use that term post agricultural we talk about industrialization because we know what came next we dont know what comes next right now so we say that as another way to throw in the towel with the Digital Economy wordy i t economy ; post industrial so then the farmer and his wife did not leave the farm when reduced labor they realize kids would have to be the form so our millenials do notes that they will grow up ben their kids have to do Something Different they know they will be portable but at that exact time to have a debate with the affection and that leads to the skills that navigate well were doing more and more bulbul rapping with helicopter parent chain. What should be deeply troubling 31 percent of americans under 35 a think the First Amendment might be dangerous because you could hurt somebody elses feelings. Actually that is what america is about that we can have an agreement to protect each other from violence so that we can debate so that i might recognize maybe i need to be persuaded that we should have a meal together to wrestle to those questions but if you think they are never supposed to encounter ideas they dont agree with whitey pay for tuition . So we have a protective bubble experienced parents tried to facilitate the we should really be celebrating scar tissue that is the foundation of future character. You write the book begins you are optimistic about the future and we need to have this conversation now. I do think that. One of the key moments that led me to write a book but a little over a year ago might wife and i ship to the daughter of to a cattle ranch with some tough love experience it would have 600 baby cows in over a month and nebraska is cold in march board at 3 00 in the morning could get frostbite or could be separated from, my daughter would have to go out and suffer. This was a new tough love experience. Even in the midst of a controversial president ial campaign, the main thing nebraskans wanted to talk about was how their kids could suffer. Given the ranchers a phone number because they wanted to ship their kids for a worth academic character forming experience. There is a burgeoning movement of people in america who want to be having a shared conversation with their neighbors and with her extended kin network about how we do right by kids, how we build more perseverance and grit into them. Its not chiefly a political conversation its a neighborly conversation. Host thats why i wish we had more time to talk to when i have kids go get the manual on content labor on a cattle ranch. The book is called the vanishing american adult, senator, bens, thanks for joining me today. Guest real pleasure