US After Trump: Millenials Coming of Age (Part 2)

Millennials are reaching homeownership age, that stage beyond college politics and free-spirited idealism to enter the realities of paying off student debt and family home mortgages. In five more years they will be also paying for their children's education.

Much has been said about the M generation, and most could be wrong or at least outdated. Coming of mortgage age has taken longer -thanks to the many tankings of boomers' roller coaster  economy- than the two generations before. But as older millennials hit their 40s, financial responsibility, taxes and jobs become priorities.

The view from this perspective is certainly sobering: record student debt maturing right when the economy rolls down in a likely record recession; low rate-mortgages fueling a binge of homeownership and a forced flight from overtaxed, overpriced and overcrowded coastal "liberal blue" urban centers to affordable and safer "conservative red" small(er) town-America.

This migration will likely have several consequences that should be the basis for realistic assessments instead of rosy or gloomy projections of the past.

1. Millennials will become more tax-conscious and government-averse
2. Blue cities will lose population and political and economic power, turning red
3. Red cities will turn "bluer" in social and cultural politics but will remain "red" in economics
4. Multicultural happy talk will be replaced by realistic nationalism and protectionism
5. Left-wing populism might swing to right-wing populism

Progressives used to consider the party of the future as much as conservatives were the party of the past. There is a role-reversal going on already, as small businesses and cities struggle with unintended consequences of protest rallies -so popular in college years- run in their own hard-paid backyards and shops.

Conservatives used to spell "doom and gloom" and fear for the future but might now have to deal with a more positive message for a new generation dealing with debt, poor economy and broken government.

It's time to look to the present with the perspective of a new generation.