With concern for the future of the United States of America, Newt Gingrich has given millennials some advice as to how combat the challenges they’ll face.
Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, talked directly to conservative students at the Young America Foundation’s National Conservative Student Conference and outlined his thoughts on the problems facing the United States.
Gingrich focused on national security as a major challenge, and the former House Speaker pointed to technology as a way to resolve the problems in the United States.
Gingrich began his lecture to millennials by forecasting that the millennial generation will both change and experience drastic changes involving bold ideas in American politics. Gingrich said that he believes there will be profound changes in the future because of the populist movements that are happening around the world and overthrowing political establishments and party elites. Gingrich also said 75 percent of Americans believe there is widespread corruption in the government.
“Your generation may end up — the word ‘may’ is important here–may end up as the most creative generation in rethinking government since the founding fathers,” Gingrich said.
“You’re going to see very bold ideas,” he said.
Gingrich then talked about the challenge that millennials face in combating ISIS and other forms of radical Islamic terror. Gingrich talked about how large the threat of terrorism is right now and how disheartening it is that the Democrats aren’t taking the threat of radical Islam very seriously.
However, when talking about national security, Gingrich also emphasized safety at home and the need to resolve tension between police and civilians. Gingrich said that part of the reason for some of the domestic problems is that America still faces racial challenges. Gingrich emphasized the need to improve African-American communities and pointed to educational reforms to help resolve these problems.
“You have a dual-safety challenge at home, which is to protect the police but protect the people the police are protecting. And that requires fundamentally rethinking the poorest neighborhoods. Second, you have a challenge of recognizing we are in a worldwide war that is going to require fundamental changes and that not winning that war could in fact mean the end of civilization.”
Gingrich said that technological advances to improve education and the VA have been shut down by the government because they will challenge bureaucratic systems in place, which led him to say that a major challenge for millennials in the future is combating corruption in the federal government.
“We have today no system for dealing the scale of corruption and the scale of dishonesty and the scale of theft that permeates the government. And that’ll be one of the greatest challenges of your generation,” he said.
At the end of his speech, Gingrich explained that he is still hopeful about the future in America that lies with the millennial generation.
“I am a strategic optimist if we can solve a couple big problems. I am very concerned about solving those problems, but I think your generation will get it done. And I believe by the end of your lifetime, we will have led the plane to even more prosperity and even more freedom and even more safety, and those should be our goals,” he said.
