Millennials have taken over the DNC. Good.

Quick note: As an independent journalist publishing my own site, I’m both working and not working at all times. That’s why last week I decided to officially log off, enjoy vacation, read a book, and try not to pay much attention to whatever unhinged JD Vance video resurfaced that day. It’s amazing how the constant access to news makes you crave it, and choosing to remain ignorant can feel like a radical act. So thanks for your patience in my absence, and for allowing me the respite. Now I’m back and there’s a Democratic National Convention to cover, so let’s get to it. 

As soon as I heard Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was in contention for VP Kamala Harris’s running mate, a ridiculous phrase ran through my head: “Balls to the Walz.” And soon after, imagined song lyrics: “To the window/to the Walz.” It can only be described as a broken millennial-brained response. 

I am, after all, a millennial—a person born between the years of 1981 and 1996—and the phrase “balls to the wall” was a staple in middle school and high school vernacular. Similarly the Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz lyric “to the window/to the wall” from the song “Get Low” was blasted at every middle and high school dance (no matter how inappropriate). So when Lil Jon himself showed up Tuesday night with the Georgia Democratic delegation to perform his 2002 mega-hit, it was settled: Millennials were in control of this thing.

While we’ve long been derided as the avocado toast generation that can’t afford to buy houses, millennials are currently in our prime years and the prime targets for advertising and consumption. When Usher took the stage at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, the initial response was, “Why? He hasn’t had a hit in years.” And then it collectively dawned on us as we applied our retinol cream: the powers that be were playing on our nostalgia. We were being catered to. As comedian Amy Ash posted at the time, “The first few notes of [Usher’s hit song] Yeah are like sleeper agent trigger words that activate older millennials.”

If we weren’t activated in February, we certainly were at the July announcement of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for President.

As Michelle Obama famously said at the 2016 DNC, “When they go low, we go high.” A few months after that, we saw where the high road took us: to crushing loss. But during this year’s DNC, even Obama herself took a new, decidedly more youthful and native-to-the-internet tack: When they go low, we take a spatula and flip them off the floor. 

To call this new approach satisfying is a woeful understatement: It feels damn good. Gone are the days when we thought fascism could be defeated with a carefully-worded op-ed or a flattering appearance on Meet The Press. No, Democrats have gone gloves off, hair back and teeth bared in order to take down a million-headed monster seeking to bring us back in time. Finally, they’ve brought a knife to a knife fight.

While candidates Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are right on the cusp of Gen X and Boomer, the spirit of this convention has been decidedly millennial—starting with speakers Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX).

"She has lived the American dream while he's been America's nightmare," Crockett, 43, said of Harris vs. Trump during her rousing, heartfelt, and just the right amount of shady speech Monday night. “Kamala Harris has a resume. Donald Trump has a rap sheet."

The Democrats’ mincer had clearly been retired in favor of a machete. 

AOC, long-considered a far-left fringe figure who has been demonized by members of her own party, delivered a fiery sermon. But instead of preaching religion, she was preaching dignity and rights for workers. 

“Donald Trump would sell this country for $1 if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends,” the 34-year-old said, calling him “a two-bit union buster.” 

“Ever since I got elected, Republicans have attacked me by saying that I should go back to bartending,” the former bartender and political organizer told the rapt crowd. “But let me tell you, I am happy to, any day of the week, because there is nothing wrong with working for a living.”

It wasn’t surprising to hear these words from AOC; It was, however, surprising to hear them front and center on the stage of the DNC and met with thunderous applause. It reflected the party’s changed orientation towards labor unions and the importance of a living wage for all people, regardless of education level. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain himself took the stage wearing a “Trump is a scab” shirt, much to the crowd’s delight.

And I found this portion of former President Barack Obama’s keynote speech Tuesday night particularly striking and reflective of this new generation of thinking:

Yes, Obama is a Boomer citing the work of a Gen X/Boomer, but the decision to put this work front and center and acknowledging that it’s not only good policy but that it’s popular is demonstrative of a party under new management.  

Even picking Walz as Vice President Harris’s running mate said to me that there’s a new guard in charge. The veepstakes came down to Walz and Josh Shapiro, the Governor of Pennsylvania. In the days leading up to the final decision, Walz played offense, doing as many TV appearances as possible and hammering home the point that Republicans are weird creeps. He was openly and shamelessly using social media to lobby for the job. He wasn’t just enthusiastic; he was thirsty. The boomers may have found it uncouth; The millennials ate it up. 

At this year’s DNC, journalists aren’t the only ones who were able to apply for credentials to cover the four-day event. For the first time, the party credentialed 200 social media creators and influencers who work across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to deliver political content to the younger masses. 

"Content creators have been doing the work for a long time,” Blair Imani, a millennial content creator who’s at the DNC, told ABC 7, “whether it's covering protests, social issues, and now we're able to cover more establishment aspects of what it means to be part of the political process.”

Sami Sage of Betches (who I recently interviewed about her new book Democracy in Retrograde) is also in Chicago as part of the creator corp, and some creators have even been official speakers on the convention floor. 

It’s also brought an inherent tension that many millennials either working or trying to work in news-gathering find themselves up against—and that includes me. “Journalists are attached to organizations and have very particular values they have to follow," influencer and digital strategist Deja Foxx told Business Insider. "Influencers often are a personal brand."

Whether or not a personal brand has a place in journalism, this DNC has proved that it most certainly has a place in politics: in fact, it’s a necessity. At one point during VP candidate Tim Walz’s speech Wednesday night (after his son Gus made us all sob), the entire arena started chanting, “Coach! Coach! Coach!” That’s because Walz coached football during his teacher days in Minnesota, and despite most people outside the state not knowing his name two weeks ago, he’s been successfully branded as America’s coach—and his running mate’s biggest cheerleader. 

The convention hasn’t been without its flaws. Protests against the Biden administration’s role in the ongoing genocide in Gaza have taken place all week, and the party has officially said it would refuse to allow a Palestinian American to speak (despite the parents of an American hostage in Gaza getting a prominent speaking spot on Wednesday.) Thursday is the final night of the convention, with VP Harris set to speak.

This feels like one spot where the old guard pulled rank, and the traditional party attitudes towards the US/Israel relationship superseded an opportunity for Harris and Walz to distinguish themselves from the current administration on a dire issue that isn’t going away anytime soon. While Gaza and Palestine and the prospect of a ceasefire have been mentioned in various speeches this week, there hasn’t been a singular voice devoted to the 40,000+ people killed since October 7th. 

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates put it best in a piece published Wednesday on Vanity Fair:

Despite this glaring and painful omission, I still remain hopeful about what this DNC says about the future of the party and the future of the country. We are no longer constrained by the respectability politics of yore because we’re not facing the Republican Party of yore. The fighting spirit of online millennial posters has finally leapt off the screen and into real life, and the Democratic Party is reaping the benefits.