In 2014, topics like Black Lives Matter, the Middle East, and Ebola were prominent in the national discussion, with mentions of then-President Barack Obama making up a relatively small slice of the discussion on news twitter.
The robots are coming, whether we like it or not, and will change our economy in dramatic ways.
Boosting STEM education opportunities for young women globally is one critical way that the U.S. can promote women's equality, as well as economic development, around the world.
When talented, qualified women take on greater responsibility, the simple fact of being talented and qualified is hardly enough to shield them from the gender-specific animosity that will come their way.
With an economy that is going strong and a belief that tomorrow will be better than today, it may be easier to just shrug it off if, say, an internet service you use like WhatsApp gets turned off by the government as the Communist Party's national congress approaches.
Millennials easily connect the dots between good education and good opportunities, and they also understand that it isn't just hard work that determines how well a child will be educated - it also depends on where they live and the resources their parents commit to their education.
Electing Democrats means nothing happens. Elect Republicans, and at least there's a chance.
Major realigning events can reshape coalitions and change how large groups of people view politics, policy, and the parties.
In the United States, it is unmistakable that young people have broken away from the political right and have gravitated to more leftist-populist figures like Bernie Sanders.
Not all change and disruption succeeds, to be sure.
There are certainly more Republicans who like President Trump than like 'Republicans in Congress,' and certainly many Republicans who already feel like their own Congress is a brake pedal of its own.
Conservative women often make the case that 'all issues are women's issues,' and are sometimes derided by those on the Left when they do so.
The reality is that the Republican Party may have unified government but is not unified enough on many major signature policy areas.
'Staunch conservatives' and 'free marketeers' are fairly typical Republicans, while the 'American preservationists' are far less reliably a part of a GOP coalition.
Young voters may be growing up in an era of increased global connection, cooperation and commerce. But they're very open to politicians who tell them it is these very things that are keeping elites in power and keeping their generation down.
Donald Trump has had political success positioning himself as a 'law-and-order' candidate.
President Trump is right about at least one thing: No matter what he does, America cannot stop talking about him.
In the year 2000, the very youngest members of the Baby Boomer crew were in their mid-30s while the oldest Boomers were mid-50s. That year, the Boomers were a generation divided somewhat equally between the GOP and Democrats.
I do not think it is a coincidence that young people gravitated toward populist voices in the French election and that the two issue positions where Donald Trump and young voters seem to agree most - global engagement and trade - are rooted in populism.
Fast-moving views are not likely to be strongly held views. Instead, they're much more likely to be about people mirroring back the signals they see coming from the leaders they support. People can resolve dissonance by shifting their own view on issues that aren't top of mind.
I remember fancying myself a junior 'McCainiac' in 2000, though politics were rarely discussed in our household.
When polled on Donald Trump's agenda, though pluralities of young people oppose his policies on immigration and healthcare, there is one issue where Trump's position wins outright majority support, even among young Democrats: trade.
For federal races, being able to carefully navigate the Trump Era is a significant challenge.
President Trump, who made his name in the business world and built a brand as a successful CEO via a reality TV show that punished incompetence, was not just elected for a series of tough policy views.
As a member of the oldest slice of the Millennial generation, my teenage years spanned the late 1990s through the start of the new millennium. I spent that time watching a lot of MTV's 'Total Request Live', 'Dawson's Creek', and wearing out a dual VHS tape of 'Titanic'.
Hillary Clinton famously embraced the Trump-originated label 'nasty woman' as yet another way to show just how bad Donald Trump was to women.
Political science has long tried to tackle a fundamental question of voter behavior: Do voters choose politicians because those politicians hold views that they like, or do voters choose policy positions because the politicians they like say those positions are correct?
The data - on issues and on Trump himself - keep pointing back to 'one-in-four' as the true size of Trump's base. It is around one in four who like the tweeting, like the insults, the things other people say are mean or unproductive behavior.
It's not hard to assume that voters do not have deeply considered views on each and every policy issue before them but instead, perhaps, have one or two strongly held views and then allow their favored political leaders to fill in the gaps on the rest of the issues.
Donald Trump, having spent decades in the public eye as an entertainer, may not understand what the nuclear triad is, or what America's 'first use' nuclear policy is, or why starting a trade war would be a disaster. But he does understand storytelling, the power of a clear narrative, and the importance of stirring emotion.
Winning feels great, and everybody loves a winner. But the very best figure out what's coming next and don't assume they've got the winning formula forever.
I dreamed of being like Sam Seaborn on 'The West Wing'.
In the relatively short time frame of December 2015 to March 2017, nearly half of all young Republicans left their party at some point, with roughly a quarter bidding the GOP adieu for good.
I think 'Candy Crush' may be fading in popularity, but there's always something new that's popping up.
Let's think about where things stood in December 2015. By that time, Republicans had already had such epic and long-standing struggles with young people that I'd written a whole book about it. Additionally, Republicans had already had a bruising start to their primary season.
There is nothing just or fair about what happened to Jordan Edwards. And his story is yet another in a long line of tragedies that now powerfully remind us of the long way we still have to go in creating a fair and just relationship between law enforcement, our criminal justice system, and the public our laws are supposed to protect.
There's a lot of work to be done in the polling world, and a need to continue to rethink how we do what we do. We also need to be more open to the idea that any one input - in this case, polls - may not be the only way to hear what people are saying.
I have written time and again about the damage the Republican Party has done to itself with the millennial generation.
It was weird that I was a young person who was Republican. And I wanted to get at the heart of why it was that so many people of my generation thought that being Republican just wasn't for them. They thought that conservative ideas just weren't for them.
The American system is set up to have two parties competing for votes. But Americans have not had the same two parties to choose from since the beginning.
I grew up in Orlando, Florida, and I joined the debate team right around the time of the 2000 election.
After Mitt Romney's defeat, the RNC released its official assessment of what happened - a failure to reach younger voters, nonwhite voters, women - but was met with a counter-narrative that, in fact, it was Romney's failure to be conservative enough that led to a depressed Republican base.
Obamacare itself did not become popular until the middle of 2017, when the risk of repeal was the greatest; for the bulk of 2010 after passage, it was unpopular by double-digit margins.
Trump won 44.4 percent of votes in Virginia in 2016. At press time, Ed Gillespie had won 45 percent of the vote in 2017.
Being a skeptical and thoughtful consumer of polls is essential.
For Trump, the story is everything. There is no real plan to defeat the villains that Trump tees up, of course.
Obama's numbers fell by a slightly larger amount over his first few months because he enjoyed much more support right at the start from Republicans, support that eroded quickly.
Thoughtful education programs and access to effective forms of contraception are key to preventing unplanned pregnancy.
Trump was elected in part because enough Americans viewed him as a capable and strong leader, someone who is 'decisive' and 'competent.'
