Thread by @aseitzwald

NEW: Fire up the avocado toast and participation trophy factory — Millennials, forged by recession and ridicule, are ascendant in Washington.
nbcnews.com/politics/congr…

Millennials were ridiculed as “lazy, self-entitled narcissists,” as Time mag put it — but actually they were defined by near-constant crises that could make them the 1st gen in years to do worse than parents.

Now they’re taking power. They didn’t forget. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…

Crank up the MGMT and follow me back to circa 2010, when there was a new crisis facing the American workforce: MILLENNIALS.

Millennials, we were told, had too many participation trophies to learn work ethic and were too busy taking selfies and texting about Paris Hilton to care about ISSUES.

A HS graduation speech entitled "you are not special" went viral and led to book deal.

Time Magazine called millennials "lazy, entitled narcissists." A book called them "the dumbest generation" and its NYT review
lamented, “never have American students had it so easy, and never have they achieved less.” Management books treated millennials like aliens.

In addition to killing marriage and golf and "breasturants" (think Hooters), we were told millennials were a threat to democracy because they didn't care about politics.

The director of the Stanford Univ. Center on Adolescence (left) and Time (right)->

Well, now millennials are in the Senate and Cabinet and Congress and White House, and they are indeed ready to hashtag disrupt Washington -- but not in any of the ways we were told they would.

Here's what Sen. Jon Ossoff told me:

Instead of easy street, millennials aged into adulthood during a time of enormous disruption, rising costs and stagnant wages, endless wars, crumbling institutions. “Millennials have had once-in-a-generation experiences a couple of times a decade," Rep. Peter Meijer said.

tl;dr: This quote from Rep. @SaraJacobsCA:

"I was very bad at sports, but I always ended up with a trophy... I think I turned out OK."

Narrator: She's the youngest person ever elected to Congress from California.

nbcnews.com/politics/congr…

Millennial congressmen take paternity leave

Got a lot of good notes in response to my millennial story, but this might be my favorite, from an 86-year-old honorary millennial.