Don't trust anyone over 30.
December 15, 2019 5:40 AM Subscribe
Since the financial crisis, voting in the United Kingdom (2018) (2019) and the United States (2018) has become increasingly polarized by age. Why is the divide so large? And is the divide actually important? Maybe. Maybe not.
They taught us in school about equality and justice, and now that we see that was a lie, instead of sucking it up we're going to make it real.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:17 AM on December 15, 2019 [31 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:17 AM on December 15, 2019 [31 favorites]
I'm a millennial who was radicalized to the socialist left recently, and I think the arc of my political development is quite representative of my peers. I came to political awareness during the GWB administration. Their anti-intellectual, racist rhetoric, their constant fearmongering about terrorism, and the disaster of the Iraq War was enough to make sure I didn't go the republican route. I was glued to the 2008 election and a huge Obama supporter. His election was a wildly exciting event. I thought the Obama administration would completely transform American life.
Then the recession hit while I was in college. My dad lost his job and I was constantly hearing about how terrible the job market would be when I graduated. I saw my future prospects drain away. The complete failure of the Obama administration to punish the bad actors involved in creating the recession (and failure to punish the criminals in the Bush administration) stung hard. I learned that if you have enough money in the US, you can commit whatever crimes you like.
When the Occupy protests happened, I was energized by their repudiation of concentrated wealth, and I was introduced to some basic leftist ideas, but I didn't go fully down that rabbit hole. I was disappointed when Occupy ended, but I felt they made a difference by changing the conversation around wealth disparity in the US. Seeing people online crowing (strangely proudly) about how Occupy had no message and failed, this was the first time I remember being really annoyed with moderate liberals.
At the end of Obama's presidency, I began to feel a little down on his legacy. He never seemed to live up to the promise of his 2008 campaign. US politics didn't seem to change much, and he always seemed to be compromising to Republicans. His administration failed to deliver universal affordable healthcare, or anything else particularly transformative.
In 2015, Bernie Sanders' primary campaign was a huge deal for me. Here was a politician who promised to carry forward the message of Occupy and use his power to hold the wealthy accountable and improve the lives of regular people. I was totally on board with his campaign.
In 2016, we saw him defeated by Hillary Clinton. I felt that her politics were totally standard, mainstream Democratic party politics, utterly uninterested in any substantive change. I supported her all the way though. I thought "this is just going to be 4-8 more years of Obama, but it's a hell of a lot better than that psychotic fascist. And hey, it would be great to have a woman president." Then I watched her completely mismanage her campaign, I saw her campaign and supporters insult me and other Sanders supporters, tarring us as misogynist, racist "bros," trying to smear anyone with left politics as unfit for polite society. I saw her say things I completely disagreed with, like "America is already great", and praising Nancy Reagan. I felt that her rhetoric on climate change was just not sufficiently radical, at a time when I was becoming more and more aware that it will probably be my cause of death someday.
When that totally smug, frustratingly realpolitik campaign completely crashed and burned, I was as surprised and disturbed as any sane person. I was desperate for some kind of answer to what the hell just happened. As it happened, the only satisfying analysis I ever found was that of the far left. I began listening to leftist podcasts, I picked up books by Marx, Bookchin, Chomsky, and Le Guin. I did a deep dive on socialism, communism, and anarchism. It was a wonderful way of coping with the despair of 2017. I started developing my own political philosophy and way of seeing. Things started to make sense, and I was heartened by seeing a new left movement with its own consistent analysis and political program emerge among others of my generation. Inspired by the 2015 Sanders campaign, the DSA became newly energized, and scores of young people joined it and got organized, including me.
From talking to other people my age, this seems like a pretty common trajectory. The political zeitgeist millennials came up in really does point us toward the far left.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:36 AM on December 15, 2019 [84 favorites]
Then the recession hit while I was in college. My dad lost his job and I was constantly hearing about how terrible the job market would be when I graduated. I saw my future prospects drain away. The complete failure of the Obama administration to punish the bad actors involved in creating the recession (and failure to punish the criminals in the Bush administration) stung hard. I learned that if you have enough money in the US, you can commit whatever crimes you like.
When the Occupy protests happened, I was energized by their repudiation of concentrated wealth, and I was introduced to some basic leftist ideas, but I didn't go fully down that rabbit hole. I was disappointed when Occupy ended, but I felt they made a difference by changing the conversation around wealth disparity in the US. Seeing people online crowing (strangely proudly) about how Occupy had no message and failed, this was the first time I remember being really annoyed with moderate liberals.
At the end of Obama's presidency, I began to feel a little down on his legacy. He never seemed to live up to the promise of his 2008 campaign. US politics didn't seem to change much, and he always seemed to be compromising to Republicans. His administration failed to deliver universal affordable healthcare, or anything else particularly transformative.
In 2015, Bernie Sanders' primary campaign was a huge deal for me. Here was a politician who promised to carry forward the message of Occupy and use his power to hold the wealthy accountable and improve the lives of regular people. I was totally on board with his campaign.
In 2016, we saw him defeated by Hillary Clinton. I felt that her politics were totally standard, mainstream Democratic party politics, utterly uninterested in any substantive change. I supported her all the way though. I thought "this is just going to be 4-8 more years of Obama, but it's a hell of a lot better than that psychotic fascist. And hey, it would be great to have a woman president." Then I watched her completely mismanage her campaign, I saw her campaign and supporters insult me and other Sanders supporters, tarring us as misogynist, racist "bros," trying to smear anyone with left politics as unfit for polite society. I saw her say things I completely disagreed with, like "America is already great", and praising Nancy Reagan. I felt that her rhetoric on climate change was just not sufficiently radical, at a time when I was becoming more and more aware that it will probably be my cause of death someday.
When that totally smug, frustratingly realpolitik campaign completely crashed and burned, I was as surprised and disturbed as any sane person. I was desperate for some kind of answer to what the hell just happened. As it happened, the only satisfying analysis I ever found was that of the far left. I began listening to leftist podcasts, I picked up books by Marx, Bookchin, Chomsky, and Le Guin. I did a deep dive on socialism, communism, and anarchism. It was a wonderful way of coping with the despair of 2017. I started developing my own political philosophy and way of seeing. Things started to make sense, and I was heartened by seeing a new left movement with its own consistent analysis and political program emerge among others of my generation. Inspired by the 2015 Sanders campaign, the DSA became newly energized, and scores of young people joined it and got organized, including me.
From talking to other people my age, this seems like a pretty common trajectory. The political zeitgeist millennials came up in really does point us toward the far left.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:36 AM on December 15, 2019 [84 favorites]
For most socially progressive people... equality is about equality of opportunity. That no matter one's station in life, if they work hard they should achieve success ...
For the MAGA boomer cohort, ... everyone plays the hand they are dealt with everyone following the same rules.
The great thing about this set-up is if you're a capital holder and you get the working class to believe "if they work hard they should achieve success" then they slave away for you even harder!
Meanwhile, if you adhere to "everyone plays the hand they are dealt with," you don't have to be threatened by all the people below you scrambling for your approval.
posted by Borborygmus at 7:45 AM on December 15, 2019 [11 favorites]
For the MAGA boomer cohort, ... everyone plays the hand they are dealt with everyone following the same rules.
The great thing about this set-up is if you're a capital holder and you get the working class to believe "if they work hard they should achieve success" then they slave away for you even harder!
Meanwhile, if you adhere to "everyone plays the hand they are dealt with," you don't have to be threatened by all the people below you scrambling for your approval.
posted by Borborygmus at 7:45 AM on December 15, 2019 [11 favorites]
I’m in the older end of the millennial bloc and it can be so , so hard to talk to people even just ten years older about the material reality of everyone I know - never being out of debt, dying of preventable conditions, never being able to retire or own a home or advance beyond wage slavery, the very real possibility of dying in a climate change related disaster - they say it can’t possibly be that bad and all the media they consume gets rich off telling them it can’t be that bad.
It’s like the line from MEANS TV “When you’re poor, everyone thinks you’re lying.” I’m so tired of having to explain that the thing directly in front of my face is, in fact, in front of my face.
Our shitty, sham democracy is the only thing we have and short of advocating things that woukd get me out on a list I don’t know what else we can do.
posted by The Whelk at 8:05 AM on December 15, 2019 [52 favorites]
It’s like the line from MEANS TV “When you’re poor, everyone thinks you’re lying.” I’m so tired of having to explain that the thing directly in front of my face is, in fact, in front of my face.
Our shitty, sham democracy is the only thing we have and short of advocating things that woukd get me out on a list I don’t know what else we can do.
posted by The Whelk at 8:05 AM on December 15, 2019 [52 favorites]
From talking to other people my age, this seems like a pretty common trajectory.
I'm 48 and I did much the exact same thing as you described. (Except I was prepared in advance to be disappointed in how not-leftist Obama was.)
posted by Foosnark at 8:11 AM on December 15, 2019 [15 favorites]
I'm 48 and I did much the exact same thing as you described. (Except I was prepared in advance to be disappointed in how not-leftist Obama was.)
posted by Foosnark at 8:11 AM on December 15, 2019 [15 favorites]
I feel so alienated when I read this stuff. I'm 60 years old so I'm called a Boomer. Yet I've always thought that people should have a good life no matter how hard they work, equality and justice is always worth fighting for, and the older I get the more radical I become. I've never been out of debt, never achieved my parents standard of living, will never own a home or retire.
Generations are not coherent concepts. Generations are tools to keep us from uniting.
posted by SyraCarol at 8:39 AM on December 15, 2019 [69 favorites]
Generations are not coherent concepts. Generations are tools to keep us from uniting.
posted by SyraCarol at 8:39 AM on December 15, 2019 [69 favorites]
I thought the Obama administration would completely transform American life.
I didn't, but then I'm a Boomer ... albeit, a rather late arrival for that crowd, so I mostly saw the older kids getting all the breaks (the proverbial shelves being comparatively picked clean by the time I could reach up that high). Anyway, you live through Nixon (resigned around my fifteen birthday) and Reagan (arrived around the time I hit twenty-one) ... onward through 9/11 and the absurdly savage incompetence of Bush Jr and his crowd (288,000 dead in the Iraq War ... and counting) ... and let's just say, I saw Obama as at best a reprieve, a turning down of the evil-stupid-obscene (similar to what happened with Bill Clinton), not the end of it . Because I just don't think the end of it can be Political.
The final stamp will be political, but not the actions, tactics, strategies that achieve it. These will be more cultural, social, legal even. In my experience, substantive long term political change seems to trail everything. If the law is an ass, the republic is a slug.
Our shitty, sham democracy is the only thing we have and short of advocating things that woukd get me out on a list I don’t know what else we can do.
Thank you for not advocating direct action, forcing change etc. Certainly not on the large scale. Given the current state of division in so-called United States of America, I can only see that leading to Civil War 2 (bigger-longer-worse). Which leaves us where? As a half-drunk friend of a friend who's no idiot ranted the other night.
"It's simple really. First, you gotta accept that there's a certain percentage of folks, mostly white middle age types, who just ain't gonna change. They watch their Fox News, they follow their Russian Bots, they do what they're told, they're fucking idiots and time spent in their vicinity is time wasted. But they're only what? 30-35-percent? Fuck it, focus on the rest. Which doesn't mean hang out with your friends and fellow travelers who are already on some committed left trajectory. Nah, you gotta go the other way. Which means you're going to be hanging with people who you're going to be disagreeing with on a bunch of stuff. So what! You're not perfect either, they might be right about some of that stuff, certainly not as wrong as you think they are (based on what your Russian bots are telling you). What matters is that you connect with them in some way that is what I'd call pre-ideological. Earn their trust and vice versa. And then who fucking knows what happens? But I guarantee you one thing. If you think it's as easy just getting somebody you like elected and then everything's easy-peasy, all I can is You're Absolutely Wrong. I guess I agree with Marx on that much -- the revolution is permanent, but I prefer evolution. Yadda-yadda-yadda."
posted by philip-random at 8:40 AM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
I didn't, but then I'm a Boomer ... albeit, a rather late arrival for that crowd, so I mostly saw the older kids getting all the breaks (the proverbial shelves being comparatively picked clean by the time I could reach up that high). Anyway, you live through Nixon (resigned around my fifteen birthday) and Reagan (arrived around the time I hit twenty-one) ... onward through 9/11 and the absurdly savage incompetence of Bush Jr and his crowd (288,000 dead in the Iraq War ... and counting) ... and let's just say, I saw Obama as at best a reprieve, a turning down of the evil-stupid-obscene (similar to what happened with Bill Clinton), not the end of it . Because I just don't think the end of it can be Political.
The final stamp will be political, but not the actions, tactics, strategies that achieve it. These will be more cultural, social, legal even. In my experience, substantive long term political change seems to trail everything. If the law is an ass, the republic is a slug.
Our shitty, sham democracy is the only thing we have and short of advocating things that woukd get me out on a list I don’t know what else we can do.
Thank you for not advocating direct action, forcing change etc. Certainly not on the large scale. Given the current state of division in so-called United States of America, I can only see that leading to Civil War 2 (bigger-longer-worse). Which leaves us where? As a half-drunk friend of a friend who's no idiot ranted the other night.
"It's simple really. First, you gotta accept that there's a certain percentage of folks, mostly white middle age types, who just ain't gonna change. They watch their Fox News, they follow their Russian Bots, they do what they're told, they're fucking idiots and time spent in their vicinity is time wasted. But they're only what? 30-35-percent? Fuck it, focus on the rest. Which doesn't mean hang out with your friends and fellow travelers who are already on some committed left trajectory. Nah, you gotta go the other way. Which means you're going to be hanging with people who you're going to be disagreeing with on a bunch of stuff. So what! You're not perfect either, they might be right about some of that stuff, certainly not as wrong as you think they are (based on what your Russian bots are telling you). What matters is that you connect with them in some way that is what I'd call pre-ideological. Earn their trust and vice versa. And then who fucking knows what happens? But I guarantee you one thing. If you think it's as easy just getting somebody you like elected and then everything's easy-peasy, all I can is You're Absolutely Wrong. I guess I agree with Marx on that much -- the revolution is permanent, but I prefer evolution. Yadda-yadda-yadda."
posted by philip-random at 8:40 AM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
I campaigned for Obama in 2008 but never considered him any kind of leftist. His campaign promises were mostly pretty middle-of-the-road stuff that Democrats had been talking about for years.
posted by octothorpe at 8:41 AM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 8:41 AM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
From the Maybe link: But these characters are stereotypes, and bad ones at that. It’s ludicrous to think that a poor person born in 1950 shares more with a billionaire born the same year than a poor person born in 1995. And it’s wrong to call huge groups of people lazy or untrustworthy because of their innate characteristics, whether that’s race, gender, religion, or birth year. A story that depends on this prejudicial logic is a bad story.
That's the danger in using marketing department hype to classify people as a shortcut, because in the old days they had to make crude and broad guesses about their target audience and people loved to play along, and it played right into identity politics. It should be remembered that prejudice isn't just wrong because it is presumptuous, but because it often wrongly classifies or assigns individuals to a group, known as the fallacies of division and composition. This often costs people their lives and livelihoods. It also tends towards polarized black and white thinking, and it explains a lot of hypocrisy, such as when people tend to openly blame someone (for being part of a perceived group), then take personal offense when someone they individually like is criticized by the same mistake. Polarized thinking is also dangerous to one's well-being, because in a gamed situation, such as politics, it can actually push us into corners and marginalize our chances at getting enough votes. This happens when we take any spectrum of linear abstraction too seriously and let it decide our current issues or candidates because they are deemed more true or good or pure by being more polarized (as if it should balance out the other side or something).
posted by Brian B. at 8:41 AM on December 15, 2019 [10 favorites]
That's the danger in using marketing department hype to classify people as a shortcut, because in the old days they had to make crude and broad guesses about their target audience and people loved to play along, and it played right into identity politics. It should be remembered that prejudice isn't just wrong because it is presumptuous, but because it often wrongly classifies or assigns individuals to a group, known as the fallacies of division and composition. This often costs people their lives and livelihoods. It also tends towards polarized black and white thinking, and it explains a lot of hypocrisy, such as when people tend to openly blame someone (for being part of a perceived group), then take personal offense when someone they individually like is criticized by the same mistake. Polarized thinking is also dangerous to one's well-being, because in a gamed situation, such as politics, it can actually push us into corners and marginalize our chances at getting enough votes. This happens when we take any spectrum of linear abstraction too seriously and let it decide our current issues or candidates because they are deemed more true or good or pure by being more polarized (as if it should balance out the other side or something).
posted by Brian B. at 8:41 AM on December 15, 2019 [10 favorites]
Civil War 2
I mean we’re averaging what a weekly white nationalist or related terror attack a week now? They don’t even make the news anymore. I think that ship sailed a long time ago. Also, you know there’s been an ongoing class war for the last oooooh 275 years so-
(Note to the Goverment officials reading this, no one here is an illegalist.)
My galaxy brain take on the whole thing is that the 90s Telcom Act fucked us over in ways we can’t even begin to understand because it created permeant, concentrated mass media monopolies run by reactionary billionaires. The whole idea of a liberal media is a huge Gobbles style “big lie” used to disguise the fact that every major media outlet is run for and by the wealth hoarders who scream and wail at even mild social democracy but readily give interviews and space to dapper fascists. Many of the nice, Liberal well off older folks I know live in a completely separate reality then me just because they habitually watch cable news for an hour or so a week so they think Amy Klobchar is a real thing they have to take seriously and also somehow the knock out game?
We see this happening all over the world with news monopolies - hell just take a scroll down the Wikipedia list of news outlets Comcast owns and then wonder why none of have given airtime to the proposals for free public broadband or breaking uo Comcast’s Gilded Age grip on coverage.
I’d say it’s as bad as Hearst and the yellow journalists but they didn’t have a ticking clock for the end of human civilization ticking louder and louder in the background.
posted by The Whelk at 9:07 AM on December 15, 2019 [34 favorites]
I mean we’re averaging what a weekly white nationalist or related terror attack a week now? They don’t even make the news anymore. I think that ship sailed a long time ago. Also, you know there’s been an ongoing class war for the last oooooh 275 years so-
(Note to the Goverment officials reading this, no one here is an illegalist.)
My galaxy brain take on the whole thing is that the 90s Telcom Act fucked us over in ways we can’t even begin to understand because it created permeant, concentrated mass media monopolies run by reactionary billionaires. The whole idea of a liberal media is a huge Gobbles style “big lie” used to disguise the fact that every major media outlet is run for and by the wealth hoarders who scream and wail at even mild social democracy but readily give interviews and space to dapper fascists. Many of the nice, Liberal well off older folks I know live in a completely separate reality then me just because they habitually watch cable news for an hour or so a week so they think Amy Klobchar is a real thing they have to take seriously and also somehow the knock out game?
We see this happening all over the world with news monopolies - hell just take a scroll down the Wikipedia list of news outlets Comcast owns and then wonder why none of have given airtime to the proposals for free public broadband or breaking uo Comcast’s Gilded Age grip on coverage.
I’d say it’s as bad as Hearst and the yellow journalists but they didn’t have a ticking clock for the end of human civilization ticking louder and louder in the background.
posted by The Whelk at 9:07 AM on December 15, 2019 [34 favorites]
Generations are not coherent concepts.... I'm 60 years old so I'm called a Boomer. Yet...
"Not all boomers" isn't an optimal response to well-documented societal trends.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:33 AM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
"Not all boomers" isn't an optimal response to well-documented societal trends.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:33 AM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
"Not all boomers" isn't an optimal response to well-documented societal trends.
I think "not all boomers" is exactly the point of the Jacobin piece: "We have no place in our politics for the bad story of generations."
Ignoring the many white heads at all the recent marches is accepting the divisions imposed by bad generalizations and ignoring your many allies in all generations. It benefits only those you are challenging.
posted by Botanizer at 9:49 AM on December 15, 2019 [44 favorites]
I think "not all boomers" is exactly the point of the Jacobin piece: "We have no place in our politics for the bad story of generations."
Ignoring the many white heads at all the recent marches is accepting the divisions imposed by bad generalizations and ignoring your many allies in all generations. It benefits only those you are challenging.
posted by Botanizer at 9:49 AM on December 15, 2019 [44 favorites]
Im over 30 and I don't trust myself. Im still a grad student though and I know a lot of young people.
They've got this.
posted by klanawa at 9:52 AM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
They've got this.
posted by klanawa at 9:52 AM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
They've got this.
They’d better, because don’t have very long to do it, if they’re gonna. The onrushing climate disaster is going to be used (and probably very effectively) as a force-multiplier for their enemies. People everywhere will fall at the feet of their latest Big Daddy who promises to keep them safe. If Big Daddy demands they enslave themselves, they’ll do it with a grin and then they’ll gun down refugees just to prove their perfect obedience.
posted by aramaic at 10:05 AM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]
They’d better, because don’t have very long to do it, if they’re gonna. The onrushing climate disaster is going to be used (and probably very effectively) as a force-multiplier for their enemies. People everywhere will fall at the feet of their latest Big Daddy who promises to keep them safe. If Big Daddy demands they enslave themselves, they’ll do it with a grin and then they’ll gun down refugees just to prove their perfect obedience.
posted by aramaic at 10:05 AM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]
From The Outline link:
> The fundamental determinant of wages is the value of labor, and the value of labor in the postwar U.S. was extremely high: the rest of the worlds’ factories were destroyed, while ours were not.
Boomers thought they won the race because "American exceptionalism" or whatever, when it was because the rest of the world's leading powers kneecapped themselves through the mass destruction of WWII. Europe and Asia have long recovered now, Africa and South America are gearing up, and the US is stuck trying to compete in an actual level playing field, while still dragging around hundreds of years of unresolved social issues caused by racism and class warfare. No wonder it's not doing so well.
posted by bring a tuba to a knife fight at 10:11 AM on December 15, 2019 [12 favorites]
> The fundamental determinant of wages is the value of labor, and the value of labor in the postwar U.S. was extremely high: the rest of the worlds’ factories were destroyed, while ours were not.
Boomers thought they won the race because "American exceptionalism" or whatever, when it was because the rest of the world's leading powers kneecapped themselves through the mass destruction of WWII. Europe and Asia have long recovered now, Africa and South America are gearing up, and the US is stuck trying to compete in an actual level playing field, while still dragging around hundreds of years of unresolved social issues caused by racism and class warfare. No wonder it's not doing so well.
posted by bring a tuba to a knife fight at 10:11 AM on December 15, 2019 [12 favorites]
It's not even about the media. The most effective thing you can do to get people to vote for you is to knock on a door and have a genuine conversation.
I think what the campaigns don't realize is that you need to inspire people but not scare them. Take Medicare For All for instance. The issue with the US healthcare system for people under 65 is access not quality. The US system has ridiculously high quality satisfaction scores, medium satisfaction with coverage, low satisfactions with companies.
So you have a large swath of the electorate is by and large extremely happy with the quality of their services. Then the Democrats come in saying "Medicare For All!" and it's a great rallying cry for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. But now you have half the electorate is terrified that it's going to screw with their coverage. The quality of the services. Remember Obama? Keep your plan? What reason do they have to trust us?
Now if it were me? If I was trying to build a coalition of progressives and fiscal conservatives on healthcare? Three basic tenets: Coverage for those without. Freeloading companies pay their share. Private remains private.
The implementation?
1) Everyone who has an SSN and who doesn't have private health insurance gets a Medicare card. Straight up. Even if you have Medicaid, you now get Medicare too. Gets rid of the coverage gap. Progressives on board.
1b) States that didn't expand Medicaid? Well you just got your #1 issue to run on. Governor a dick? Well vote for us, we'll bypass them and get you coverage anyway. Get out into the Appalachians. Get out into Dixie. Show people a picture of a Medicare card. "This is what we want to give you. Insurance." It's so tangible it's so easy to sell. If you vote for us, give our party power, we will give you this card and you will get the same good insurance that old people get.
2) Every business who doesn't offer a plan equivalent to the coverage of Medicare gets hit with a payroll tax per employee. It's defacto insurance premiums for lazy businesses. No longer will business be able to free ride off the Medicaid loophole. You've got your talking point, how to pay it, and also some red meat for fiscal conservatives. Also, this stops employers from refusing to enroll their employees out of spite.
3) Every business can sign their employees up to Medicare if the employee chooses to move otherwise employers must let people keep their current plan. Premiums scaled on taxable income, payroll tax fixed percentage which is a tad lower than the refuse to insure payroll tax. Private insurance can still be offered if employers like which goes above and beyond Medicare (VSP, Dental). Drill it into people: The person retains the choice. Conservatives love that shit.
3b) If an employee has private insurance coverage or puts up a self-insurance bond, they're exempt from both the payroll tax and the premiums. The employee gets both in their pocket and can either be returned at tax time or can be put in the weekly check as taxable income. Libertarians can do whatever they want. Conservatives love that shit.
3c) You can drill into the fiscally conservative part of the electorate the lower costs that businesses will have as they move onto Medicare, freeing up more money for investment. Fiscal conservatives love shit like that. Level playing field for business! Everyone pays the same basic rate! Free markets! Woo!
3d) Drill into conservatives and free market types that this will encourage America's entrepreneurial spirit. Can't start a business because healthcare is expensive? Now you can! At minimal cost! More business? MORE ECONOMIC GROWTH. Fiscal conservatives will eat this shit up!
3e) The linking of every covered person to a payroll tax means the outlay for a plan like is low and Medicare rolls grows with revenue from premiums and payroll taxes. The only cost is giving out cards to the uninsured and that can be reclaimed as Medicaid and CHIP wind down under near-universal Medicare coverage.
4) Collected income can also be used to build nationally funded, state or county run hospitals in undeserved areas, replacing the private hospitals that have closed. Go into rural Kansas and Oklahoma where hospitals are closing left and right and drill this shit into people's heads.
5) Medicare for seniors becomes "Medicare Plus". All current benefits are absolutely 100% locked in for over 65s. Government can only improve services offered. Seniors will never be worse off, only ever better. This will enshrine older entitlements into law and with new revenue coming in from premiums and payroll taxes on the wider, younger, healthier population, it will ease the financial burden on the program. Holy shit did we just disarm the biggest argument for entitlement reform? I think we just did.
6) Nationwide mandated private plan with coverage same as Medicare at the same unsubsidized premium + percentage cost as the payroll tax in #3. People without an SSN can sign up to it, no questions asked and can be taken out of a paycheck. This means undocumented immigrants, DACA kids, etc can have insurance and while it would cost more than what a citizen or LPR would pay, it means it's less likely to be voted down out of spite. Fiscal conservatives? "Illegal immigrants will no longer be a drain on the hospital system paying the full cost of their insurance."
6b) Cash prices receive most favored nation status. Medicare receives most favored nation status. That means people who are paying cash and Medicare both pay the lower of either the Medicare negotiated rate to private hospitals or the lowest rate any private insurer has negotiated.
So what are our talking points here:
* Coverage for the uncovered. (and for the love of god, don't use the word "all")
* Don't lose coverage when you lose your job.
* No more business freeloading off Medicaid.
* Lower startup and ongoing costs and level playing field for businesses.
* Americans are free to start businesses with healthcare from day 1 of their venture.
* Private health system remains private health system. Premium service for premium cost.
* Target to get number of uninsured people to zero. Hospitals will be better funded and medical bankruptcies will fall.
* Cash prices lower for those who want to pay their own way.
Get all your surrogates to say these simple phrases. Get them on CNN, MSNBC. Get them onto every channel. Drill these talking points into the populace.
Q: How are you going to pay for it?
A: "Stop businesses freeloading off Medicaid."
A: "A covered worker joins, the worker and business immediately start contributing."
Q: Will people's coverage changes?
A: "Private health system remains separate and private".
Q: It's a cost on businesses?
A: "Healthcare is already a huge cost. This will lower it and make sure more businesses share it."
Q: Medicare for None?
A: "Medicare for the uncovered, Medicare Plus for Seniors".
Q: It'll destroy Medicare!
A: "The young, the healthy, the upper classes will all be pitching in what they should."
Q: "What about seniors?"
A: "Seniors are guaranteed to receive top quality healthcare"
A: "With the increased revenue, seniors no longer have to fear the words entitlement reform and the subsequent stripping of coverage."
Q: I don't want government in my healthcare!
A: "Private insurance is both still legal and available. This is about covering the uncovered."
A: "Cash prices for services will come down enabling you to pay reasonable rates for individual healthcare procedures."
There. You've turned away from a polarizing electoral boogeyman into something you can probably run on everywhere and target every political demographic. Democrats need to adapt and give multiple short sound bites that reach different groups that people can immediate assimilate "my life will be better" and reassure themselves about their concerns. You can tell people different messages, that's perfectly fine. As long as they're all right at the same time.
Plus it puts the responsibility of explaining any nuance on Republicans. It'll put them on the defensive for once. The public has been hammered with logical and reassuring soundbites. In five seconds you've told them how this is going to make their specific life better. Extend the olive branch. Be very public during the process that you're continually looking for input to tweak the system and help improve it.
Rhetorical strategy of "Coverage for those without. Freeloader companies pay their share. Private remains private.", "Why do Republicans hate Americans making their own businesses?", "why won't they give seniors a guarantee of coverage?" If you've been drilling the talking points into the public you've already locked it up in mindshare that everyone stands to benefit and nobody, except freeloading businesses and maybe health insurance companies, are going to be worse off. Who can think of a less unsympathetic target to stand up for?
Anyway, this is the sort of thing I wish Democrats would do more of.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:37 AM on December 15, 2019 [13 favorites]
I think what the campaigns don't realize is that you need to inspire people but not scare them. Take Medicare For All for instance. The issue with the US healthcare system for people under 65 is access not quality. The US system has ridiculously high quality satisfaction scores, medium satisfaction with coverage, low satisfactions with companies.
So you have a large swath of the electorate is by and large extremely happy with the quality of their services. Then the Democrats come in saying "Medicare For All!" and it's a great rallying cry for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. But now you have half the electorate is terrified that it's going to screw with their coverage. The quality of the services. Remember Obama? Keep your plan? What reason do they have to trust us?
Now if it were me? If I was trying to build a coalition of progressives and fiscal conservatives on healthcare? Three basic tenets: Coverage for those without. Freeloading companies pay their share. Private remains private.
The implementation?
1) Everyone who has an SSN and who doesn't have private health insurance gets a Medicare card. Straight up. Even if you have Medicaid, you now get Medicare too. Gets rid of the coverage gap. Progressives on board.
1b) States that didn't expand Medicaid? Well you just got your #1 issue to run on. Governor a dick? Well vote for us, we'll bypass them and get you coverage anyway. Get out into the Appalachians. Get out into Dixie. Show people a picture of a Medicare card. "This is what we want to give you. Insurance." It's so tangible it's so easy to sell. If you vote for us, give our party power, we will give you this card and you will get the same good insurance that old people get.
2) Every business who doesn't offer a plan equivalent to the coverage of Medicare gets hit with a payroll tax per employee. It's defacto insurance premiums for lazy businesses. No longer will business be able to free ride off the Medicaid loophole. You've got your talking point, how to pay it, and also some red meat for fiscal conservatives. Also, this stops employers from refusing to enroll their employees out of spite.
3) Every business can sign their employees up to Medicare if the employee chooses to move otherwise employers must let people keep their current plan. Premiums scaled on taxable income, payroll tax fixed percentage which is a tad lower than the refuse to insure payroll tax. Private insurance can still be offered if employers like which goes above and beyond Medicare (VSP, Dental). Drill it into people: The person retains the choice. Conservatives love that shit.
3b) If an employee has private insurance coverage or puts up a self-insurance bond, they're exempt from both the payroll tax and the premiums. The employee gets both in their pocket and can either be returned at tax time or can be put in the weekly check as taxable income. Libertarians can do whatever they want. Conservatives love that shit.
3c) You can drill into the fiscally conservative part of the electorate the lower costs that businesses will have as they move onto Medicare, freeing up more money for investment. Fiscal conservatives love shit like that. Level playing field for business! Everyone pays the same basic rate! Free markets! Woo!
3d) Drill into conservatives and free market types that this will encourage America's entrepreneurial spirit. Can't start a business because healthcare is expensive? Now you can! At minimal cost! More business? MORE ECONOMIC GROWTH. Fiscal conservatives will eat this shit up!
3e) The linking of every covered person to a payroll tax means the outlay for a plan like is low and Medicare rolls grows with revenue from premiums and payroll taxes. The only cost is giving out cards to the uninsured and that can be reclaimed as Medicaid and CHIP wind down under near-universal Medicare coverage.
4) Collected income can also be used to build nationally funded, state or county run hospitals in undeserved areas, replacing the private hospitals that have closed. Go into rural Kansas and Oklahoma where hospitals are closing left and right and drill this shit into people's heads.
5) Medicare for seniors becomes "Medicare Plus". All current benefits are absolutely 100% locked in for over 65s. Government can only improve services offered. Seniors will never be worse off, only ever better. This will enshrine older entitlements into law and with new revenue coming in from premiums and payroll taxes on the wider, younger, healthier population, it will ease the financial burden on the program. Holy shit did we just disarm the biggest argument for entitlement reform? I think we just did.
6) Nationwide mandated private plan with coverage same as Medicare at the same unsubsidized premium + percentage cost as the payroll tax in #3. People without an SSN can sign up to it, no questions asked and can be taken out of a paycheck. This means undocumented immigrants, DACA kids, etc can have insurance and while it would cost more than what a citizen or LPR would pay, it means it's less likely to be voted down out of spite. Fiscal conservatives? "Illegal immigrants will no longer be a drain on the hospital system paying the full cost of their insurance."
6b) Cash prices receive most favored nation status. Medicare receives most favored nation status. That means people who are paying cash and Medicare both pay the lower of either the Medicare negotiated rate to private hospitals or the lowest rate any private insurer has negotiated.
So what are our talking points here:
* Coverage for the uncovered. (and for the love of god, don't use the word "all")
* Don't lose coverage when you lose your job.
* No more business freeloading off Medicaid.
* Lower startup and ongoing costs and level playing field for businesses.
* Americans are free to start businesses with healthcare from day 1 of their venture.
* Private health system remains private health system. Premium service for premium cost.
* Target to get number of uninsured people to zero. Hospitals will be better funded and medical bankruptcies will fall.
* Cash prices lower for those who want to pay their own way.
Get all your surrogates to say these simple phrases. Get them on CNN, MSNBC. Get them onto every channel. Drill these talking points into the populace.
Q: How are you going to pay for it?
A: "Stop businesses freeloading off Medicaid."
A: "A covered worker joins, the worker and business immediately start contributing."
Q: Will people's coverage changes?
A: "Private health system remains separate and private".
Q: It's a cost on businesses?
A: "Healthcare is already a huge cost. This will lower it and make sure more businesses share it."
Q: Medicare for None?
A: "Medicare for the uncovered, Medicare Plus for Seniors".
Q: It'll destroy Medicare!
A: "The young, the healthy, the upper classes will all be pitching in what they should."
Q: "What about seniors?"
A: "Seniors are guaranteed to receive top quality healthcare"
A: "With the increased revenue, seniors no longer have to fear the words entitlement reform and the subsequent stripping of coverage."
Q: I don't want government in my healthcare!
A: "Private insurance is both still legal and available. This is about covering the uncovered."
A: "Cash prices for services will come down enabling you to pay reasonable rates for individual healthcare procedures."
There. You've turned away from a polarizing electoral boogeyman into something you can probably run on everywhere and target every political demographic. Democrats need to adapt and give multiple short sound bites that reach different groups that people can immediate assimilate "my life will be better" and reassure themselves about their concerns. You can tell people different messages, that's perfectly fine. As long as they're all right at the same time.
Plus it puts the responsibility of explaining any nuance on Republicans. It'll put them on the defensive for once. The public has been hammered with logical and reassuring soundbites. In five seconds you've told them how this is going to make their specific life better. Extend the olive branch. Be very public during the process that you're continually looking for input to tweak the system and help improve it.
Rhetorical strategy of "Coverage for those without. Freeloader companies pay their share. Private remains private.", "Why do Republicans hate Americans making their own businesses?", "why won't they give seniors a guarantee of coverage?" If you've been drilling the talking points into the public you've already locked it up in mindshare that everyone stands to benefit and nobody, except freeloading businesses and maybe health insurance companies, are going to be worse off. Who can think of a less unsympathetic target to stand up for?
Anyway, this is the sort of thing I wish Democrats would do more of.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:37 AM on December 15, 2019 [13 favorites]
"Not all boomers" isn't an optimal response to well-documented societal trends.
Can we not with the "not-all" snark every time somebody points out a lazy generalization?
posted by Crane Shot at 10:57 AM on December 15, 2019 [32 favorites]
Can we not with the "not-all" snark every time somebody points out a lazy generalization?
posted by Crane Shot at 10:57 AM on December 15, 2019 [32 favorites]
When it's "not all X" the response should be for the X people who are "not" to stand up even taller and do more shit. I don't want to hear another boomer say "it ain't me." That boomer should just be marching or whatever else they're capable of to effect change. Talk to other boomers or whatever.
If you have power, you have to use it for justice, and you don't do that by making the conversation about yourself.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:07 AM on December 15, 2019 [11 favorites]
If you have power, you have to use it for justice, and you don't do that by making the conversation about yourself.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:07 AM on December 15, 2019 [11 favorites]
When it's "not all X" the response should be for the X people who are "not" to stand up even taller and do more shit.
You mean they should justify their existence to people like yourself? Not wise to copy a racist paradigm. The irony here is that boomers invented the snarky attitude of mistrust over age thirty. Hippies, punks, surfers, anti-war protesters, and especially feminists, were early boomers who were once cool and invented the modern revolt. Now people think they are all CEO's.
posted by Brian B. at 11:17 AM on December 15, 2019 [16 favorites]
You mean they should justify their existence to people like yourself? Not wise to copy a racist paradigm. The irony here is that boomers invented the snarky attitude of mistrust over age thirty. Hippies, punks, surfers, anti-war protesters, and especially feminists, were early boomers who were once cool and invented the modern revolt. Now people think they are all CEO's.
posted by Brian B. at 11:17 AM on December 15, 2019 [16 favorites]
OK, boomer here. (For purposes of this comment, I will be referring to U.S.A. boomers as those born during the Truman or Eisenhower presidencies- I'm right in the middle of that)
I can identify with younger people feeling that the previous generations have left things in a mess, and I will admit that, though we didn't start the fire, we didn't put it out, either. But I'm mostly proud of the people of my generation and what we accomplished with what we were given. The biggest disappointments to me were those that went from Yippie to Yuppie. (Yes, Jerry Rubin, I'm looking at you) There are still many of us working to make this a better world. How many signs I've seen in the last 3 years- "I can't believe I'm still marching after 50 years!"
Many of us were looking forward to the day when we were allowed to be in charge. It wasn't until I was 50 that the first boomer US president was elected, and despite his neoliberalism, the economy was good. But then, pre-boomer Newt Gingrich turned congress toward the mess it is today. And folks like pre-pre-pre-boomer J. Strom Thurmond were still wielding considerable power. Nowadays there's another pre-boomer- Moscow Mitch gumming up the works. So then who? G. W. Bush? Yeah, a boomer, but not really in charge, it seemed. And then Trump. Wish I could put him in a different generation, but it doesn't seem like he's in charge either. There are still a lot of pre-boomers in power. Did I mention Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch? And less than half of the members of Congress are boomers. Where is this cultural, demographic and political dominance? We are not a coveted demographic, except for the companies selling Depends and hearing aids.
I could agree that the financial generation gap is bigger now, but I doubt that the cultural gap is. When I was born, there were still people in congress that were born in the 19th century. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, Vietnam. And people would try to put us down, just because we g-g-got around. But the love of money is a big deal, and that's really why we are where we are today. This whole 'boomers ruined it for millenials' reminds me of the kind of tactics the southern aristocracy used to tell poor white folks that the black folks were the reason they were poor. Or nowadays, it's immigrants.
The Outline article points to 1973 (start of the avocado toast gap), which resonates with me because that was the year I graduated and started working at a job that looked like big raises were coming, but, uh-oh, Nixon's wage and price freezes. And I never caught up with folks who were a year or two ahead of me. Which is what my kids were born into, so I'm aware that I got it better than they did. So, sorry the world sucks, but I'll help you if I can.
We don't need to blame each other.
posted by MtDewd at 11:59 AM on December 15, 2019 [22 favorites]
I can identify with younger people feeling that the previous generations have left things in a mess, and I will admit that, though we didn't start the fire, we didn't put it out, either. But I'm mostly proud of the people of my generation and what we accomplished with what we were given. The biggest disappointments to me were those that went from Yippie to Yuppie. (Yes, Jerry Rubin, I'm looking at you) There are still many of us working to make this a better world. How many signs I've seen in the last 3 years- "I can't believe I'm still marching after 50 years!"
Many of us were looking forward to the day when we were allowed to be in charge. It wasn't until I was 50 that the first boomer US president was elected, and despite his neoliberalism, the economy was good. But then, pre-boomer Newt Gingrich turned congress toward the mess it is today. And folks like pre-pre-pre-boomer J. Strom Thurmond were still wielding considerable power. Nowadays there's another pre-boomer- Moscow Mitch gumming up the works. So then who? G. W. Bush? Yeah, a boomer, but not really in charge, it seemed. And then Trump. Wish I could put him in a different generation, but it doesn't seem like he's in charge either. There are still a lot of pre-boomers in power. Did I mention Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch? And less than half of the members of Congress are boomers. Where is this cultural, demographic and political dominance? We are not a coveted demographic, except for the companies selling Depends and hearing aids.
I could agree that the financial generation gap is bigger now, but I doubt that the cultural gap is. When I was born, there were still people in congress that were born in the 19th century. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, Vietnam. And people would try to put us down, just because we g-g-got around. But the love of money is a big deal, and that's really why we are where we are today. This whole 'boomers ruined it for millenials' reminds me of the kind of tactics the southern aristocracy used to tell poor white folks that the black folks were the reason they were poor. Or nowadays, it's immigrants.
The Outline article points to 1973 (start of the avocado toast gap), which resonates with me because that was the year I graduated and started working at a job that looked like big raises were coming, but, uh-oh, Nixon's wage and price freezes. And I never caught up with folks who were a year or two ahead of me. Which is what my kids were born into, so I'm aware that I got it better than they did. So, sorry the world sucks, but I'll help you if I can.
We don't need to blame each other.
posted by MtDewd at 11:59 AM on December 15, 2019 [22 favorites]
I think that this whole issue could put aside if people would use words like "republican" instead of boomer.
posted by ThreeCatsBob at 12:06 PM on December 15, 2019 [26 favorites]
posted by ThreeCatsBob at 12:06 PM on December 15, 2019 [26 favorites]
Civil War 2I don't think you understand what the Civil War refers to if you think that we're in an equivalent state. According to a random site on the internet that seems reasonable, 620,000 American soldiers died in the Civil War, out of a population of around 31,000,000. Nearly another million were injured. Today's population is around ten times that of the1860's. That would be the equivalent of around a million deaths per year today. Conditions are not great now, but they're nothing like that bad.
I mean we’re averaging what a weekly white nationalist or related terror attack a week now? They don’t even make the news anymore. I think that ship sailed a long time ago.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 12:25 PM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]
Heartened to read folks in this thread rejecting straw-boomer crapola.
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:29 PM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:29 PM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
Here's the plan I see beginning to be played out. The Trump tax cuts have made it impossible to fund the government and the debt is skyrocketing. There is a large reserve of cash just waiting to be raided and exploited - the Social Security trust fund and all medicare funding. Tell young people that S.S. will be bankrupt by the time they get there and the money coming out of their weekly pay checks is just going to support those fat cat retired boomers. Young people support Trump's plan to cut these "entitlements" thus pauperizing huge sections of the people and further dividing the U.S. population and distracting the people from their real enemy. So that's my vision of the future. I'm 81 years old (thus a pre-boomer) and have seldom been wrong in predicting shitty eventualities.
posted by charlesminus at 12:32 PM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by charlesminus at 12:32 PM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]
thank you Gilgamesh's Chauffer for making a point that I was thinking about trying to make myself. Because those kinds of numbers ...
the equivalent of around a million deaths per year today.
are precisely what I'm thinking about when I worry about American Civil War 2.
we’re averaging what a weekly white nationalist or related terror attack a week now? They don’t even make the news anymore.
they don't make the news, I fear, because that's considered "business as usual" for a culture as divided and alienated and armed as today's US of A.
posted by philip-random at 1:35 PM on December 15, 2019
the equivalent of around a million deaths per year today.
are precisely what I'm thinking about when I worry about American Civil War 2.
we’re averaging what a weekly white nationalist or related terror attack a week now? They don’t even make the news anymore.
they don't make the news, I fear, because that's considered "business as usual" for a culture as divided and alienated and armed as today's US of A.
posted by philip-random at 1:35 PM on December 15, 2019
In the wake of UK, I read a decent article about conservative framing of liberal policies and I think there's some truth to the idea that it's more the framing of millennial politics that pisses off the moderate boomers who could conceivably vote liberal than it is the actual policies. There's a lot of evidence showing most voters don't actually analyze policy in detail, and instead go off of cultural cues and media representation, and media representation derives heavily from rhetorical framing. I don't think there's a huge cultural difference in what boomers and millennials actually do, but there's a big difference in how they talk about it
posted by JZig at 1:44 PM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by JZig at 1:44 PM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
Old people tend to be more conservative because poor people die young.
posted by Reyturner at 2:15 PM on December 15, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by Reyturner at 2:15 PM on December 15, 2019 [9 favorites]
There is a large reserve of cash just waiting to be raided and exploited - the Social Security trust fund and all medicare funding.
I think the SS trust fund is Treasury bonds, not cash. I don't know if that makes any difference to your scenario, though. It's money that has already been borrowed and spent, and has to be paid back to the SSA, to finance benefits. The tax cuts that could result from defaulting on that obligation have pretty much already happened, so selling this as any kind of windfall would indeed be a very cynical lie.
I don't think you understand what the Civil War refers to if you think that we're in an equivalent state.
Vice had a terrifying article imagining what a second Civil War could be like, which I won't describe in detail, because it would be upsetting to the people here who always complain about catastrophic speculation. Complications: it won't be clearly defined by region like the first one was, and will feature plenty o' asymmetric warfare.
posted by thelonius at 2:23 PM on December 15, 2019
I think the SS trust fund is Treasury bonds, not cash. I don't know if that makes any difference to your scenario, though. It's money that has already been borrowed and spent, and has to be paid back to the SSA, to finance benefits. The tax cuts that could result from defaulting on that obligation have pretty much already happened, so selling this as any kind of windfall would indeed be a very cynical lie.
I don't think you understand what the Civil War refers to if you think that we're in an equivalent state.
Vice had a terrifying article imagining what a second Civil War could be like, which I won't describe in detail, because it would be upsetting to the people here who always complain about catastrophic speculation. Complications: it won't be clearly defined by region like the first one was, and will feature plenty o' asymmetric warfare.
posted by thelonius at 2:23 PM on December 15, 2019
There's a little more to dig into here than the current discussion is touching on.
I say this as a child of boomers, but frankly I don't see how stereotyping people indiscriminately according to when they were born is any less shitty than where, what color, or with what genitalia, and I sorta thought we were better than that around here. As usual the problem is actually rich people.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:57 PM on December 15, 2019 [10 favorites]
I say this as a child of boomers, but frankly I don't see how stereotyping people indiscriminately according to when they were born is any less shitty than where, what color, or with what genitalia, and I sorta thought we were better than that around here. As usual the problem is actually rich people.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:57 PM on December 15, 2019 [10 favorites]
"Young people support Trump's plan to cut these "entitlements" thus pauperizing huge sections of the people and further dividing the U.S. population and distracting the people from their real enemy."
How does that work when young people don't like Trump, didn't like his tax cuts or the rest of his economic agenda, appear likely to have a bleak retirement future without Social Security and currently have absolutely no way to care for their elderly family members if Social Security were to be raided?
posted by Selena777 at 3:09 PM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
How does that work when young people don't like Trump, didn't like his tax cuts or the rest of his economic agenda, appear likely to have a bleak retirement future without Social Security and currently have absolutely no way to care for their elderly family members if Social Security were to be raided?
posted by Selena777 at 3:09 PM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
"How does that work when young people don't like Trump, didn't like his tax cuts or the rest of his economic agenda, appear likely to have a bleak retirement future without Social Security and currently have absolutely no way to care for their elderly family members if Social Security were to be raided?"
I hope you are right but you may be overestimating the amount of foresight in young people. A lot of young people that I know have no opinion about Trump or politics in general and will be easily deceived. This divide to conquer technique has been used successfully in two tier union busting strategies, in the elimination of fixed benefit pension plans, the raising of the SS retirement age, and in the way health insurance is funded. I'm not an economist, but this is the way it has looked to me over the years as I've seen these benefits chipped away
posted by charlesminus at 3:32 PM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
I hope you are right but you may be overestimating the amount of foresight in young people. A lot of young people that I know have no opinion about Trump or politics in general and will be easily deceived. This divide to conquer technique has been used successfully in two tier union busting strategies, in the elimination of fixed benefit pension plans, the raising of the SS retirement age, and in the way health insurance is funded. I'm not an economist, but this is the way it has looked to me over the years as I've seen these benefits chipped away
posted by charlesminus at 3:32 PM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
I don't see how stereotyping people indiscriminately according to when they were born is any less shitty than where, what color, or with what genitalia, and I sorta thought we were better than that around here.
If you can articulate how millennials may use this divide to systematically incarcerate, oppress, and exploit boomers, I'll take that analogy. As it stands, not in this timeline. Otherwise, there are orders of magnitude of difference in "shittiness" factor, as it were.
As far as usefulness, though, I definitely think the assertion that both approaches are flawed, limiting, and not particularly useful carries more weight.
posted by avalonian at 4:14 PM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
If you can articulate how millennials may use this divide to systematically incarcerate, oppress, and exploit boomers, I'll take that analogy. As it stands, not in this timeline. Otherwise, there are orders of magnitude of difference in "shittiness" factor, as it were.
As far as usefulness, though, I definitely think the assertion that both approaches are flawed, limiting, and not particularly useful carries more weight.
posted by avalonian at 4:14 PM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
It’s not catastrophizing when you’re just describing the news. There was a report recently on therapists reporting back that CBT wasn’t working with people anymore, mostly around climate change and creeping authoritarianism cause you can’t in through the nose out through the mouth hard data about methane releases and how many children died in cages this week.
It’s important to be clear eyed about how bad things are and how the under 40s are going to bear the worst of it. That’s what I meant above, I cannot tell you the number of times I hear from older folks “it can’t possibly be that bad.” Or “it’ll get better.”
It is, and it won’t. Not unless we do something drastic in the next ...9 years now?
posted by The Whelk at 4:42 PM on December 15, 2019 [19 favorites]
It’s important to be clear eyed about how bad things are and how the under 40s are going to bear the worst of it. That’s what I meant above, I cannot tell you the number of times I hear from older folks “it can’t possibly be that bad.” Or “it’ll get better.”
It is, and it won’t. Not unless we do something drastic in the next ...9 years now?
posted by The Whelk at 4:42 PM on December 15, 2019 [19 favorites]
Yeah I think if you have seriously worked through the implications of climate change it is laughable to talk about waiting out the Federalist society monsters in the judiciary.
posted by PMdixon at 4:48 PM on December 15, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by PMdixon at 4:48 PM on December 15, 2019 [6 favorites]
Also we’re going to have to have this conversation in person very soon cause when the next big hit comes, and it’s going to be big, the majority of seniors in this country have not recovered from 08. If they own home they won’t be able to sell them. Healthcare will bankrupt ore then half of them and everyone is have to move back in with their kids. Expect a large increase in our already high homeless rate. Expect a lot more dodgy “nursing homes”.
posted by The Whelk at 4:49 PM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 4:49 PM on December 15, 2019 [4 favorites]
They’d better, because don’t have very long to do it, if they’re gonna... [etc.]
Buried in here (but not very deep), the presumption that young people don't know what's going on and aren't doing anything about it. It's funny how we either spend our time destroying the world or yelling at the young ones for not doing enough to fix it (or both), but we can't just say, "it's gonna be your world soon, what can we do to support you?"
They're already telling us what they want at the polls. Why not listen?
posted by klanawa at 5:04 PM on December 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
Buried in here (but not very deep), the presumption that young people don't know what's going on and aren't doing anything about it. It's funny how we either spend our time destroying the world or yelling at the young ones for not doing enough to fix it (or both), but we can't just say, "it's gonna be your world soon, what can we do to support you?"
They're already telling us what they want at the polls. Why not listen?
posted by klanawa at 5:04 PM on December 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
If you can articulate how millennials may use this divide to systematically incarcerate, oppress, and exploit boomers
If you don't know that elderly poor people in the US are socially oppressed, effectively imprisoned, and exploited, then I'm assuming you either don't have a ton of cross-generational exposure or just aren't paying attention. To put it as generously as I can without swearing.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:05 PM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
If you don't know that elderly poor people in the US are socially oppressed, effectively imprisoned, and exploited, then I'm assuming you either don't have a ton of cross-generational exposure or just aren't paying attention. To put it as generously as I can without swearing.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:05 PM on December 15, 2019 [8 favorites]
It’s not catastrophizing when you’re just describing the news. There was a report recently on therapists reporting back that CBT wasn’t working with people anymore, mostly around climate change and creeping authoritarianism cause you can’t in through the nose out through the mouth hard data about methane releases and how many children died in cages this week.
Yeah this. I'm back in school to get a master's degree in social work, in no small part because regardless of what happens at next year's election, there will be a tremendous need for resistance and/or rebuilding (both, either way, really) of our society, and it's a little disheartening to be learning about interventions to improve mental health et cetera when nope -- many people, particularly millennials, people of color, LGBTQ people* and women rightly understand how fucked we are, and teaching coping mechanisms will only go so far.
And I want to be a part of that difficult and painful work. Not want -- no, rather I can't imagine not being a part of that work.
If you don't know that elderly poor people in the US are socially oppressed, effectively imprisoned, and exploited, then I'm assuming you either don't have a ton of cross-generational exposure or just aren't paying attention.
We know! We're fighting for a decent life for retired white people too, even as most of them spit in our faces and vote to oppress us. We know.
*Hi, I'm all three of those
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:15 PM on December 15, 2019 [15 favorites]
Yeah this. I'm back in school to get a master's degree in social work, in no small part because regardless of what happens at next year's election, there will be a tremendous need for resistance and/or rebuilding (both, either way, really) of our society, and it's a little disheartening to be learning about interventions to improve mental health et cetera when nope -- many people, particularly millennials, people of color, LGBTQ people* and women rightly understand how fucked we are, and teaching coping mechanisms will only go so far.
And I want to be a part of that difficult and painful work. Not want -- no, rather I can't imagine not being a part of that work.
If you don't know that elderly poor people in the US are socially oppressed, effectively imprisoned, and exploited, then I'm assuming you either don't have a ton of cross-generational exposure or just aren't paying attention.
We know! We're fighting for a decent life for retired white people too, even as most of them spit in our faces and vote to oppress us. We know.
*Hi, I'm all three of those
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:15 PM on December 15, 2019 [15 favorites]
Buried in here (but not very deep)...
No, buried in there (but not very deep) is the presumption that unless older people get off their couch in a really huge way, really really damn soon, it won't matter if younger folks think "they've got this".
All the bad guys have to do is wait for the first megadeath, and then the world is theirs. All of the megadeaths that follow won't shift things in a better direction.
posted by aramaic at 5:17 PM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
No, buried in there (but not very deep) is the presumption that unless older people get off their couch in a really huge way, really really damn soon, it won't matter if younger folks think "they've got this".
All the bad guys have to do is wait for the first megadeath, and then the world is theirs. All of the megadeaths that follow won't shift things in a better direction.
posted by aramaic at 5:17 PM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
When it comes to climate change and long-term-we're-fucked-ery, though -- I do think that it's not helpful to despair. Not that things aren't bad and going to get worse -- but the only chance for planetary survival is to get progressive governments installed in as many world powers as we can (particularly the US, which realistically means a Democrat as far to the left as we can manage). That's an actionable goal.
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:21 PM on December 15, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:21 PM on December 15, 2019 [5 favorites]
As a young gen x-er, I would guess that the psychic burden of genuinely not knowing what the future holds (or, indeed, if you even have a long-term future) due to what we know about climate change, is substantial, to say the least. At my age (early 40s), it is very hard for me to grapple with, and I can imagine it is magnitudes more so for those younger than me. I think about this when I see my like-minded boomer friends and family going the "not all boomers" route.
Obviously no one ever knows the future, but I grew up with an idea of the different paths my future could take, and a reasonable certainty that it would generally play out that way, despite not knowing exactly how political, social and cultural issues would change. Everyone older than me had the same privilege. Climate change has upended that security and we're walking into genuinely uncharted and scary waters. To be 20 years old and facing that seems unfathomable and terrifying to me. I really hope that we'll give the kids a break on the whole boomer thing and continue to stand and fight with them for their future for as long as we can.
posted by triggerfinger at 6:26 PM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]
Obviously no one ever knows the future, but I grew up with an idea of the different paths my future could take, and a reasonable certainty that it would generally play out that way, despite not knowing exactly how political, social and cultural issues would change. Everyone older than me had the same privilege. Climate change has upended that security and we're walking into genuinely uncharted and scary waters. To be 20 years old and facing that seems unfathomable and terrifying to me. I really hope that we'll give the kids a break on the whole boomer thing and continue to stand and fight with them for their future for as long as we can.
posted by triggerfinger at 6:26 PM on December 15, 2019 [7 favorites]
There. You've turned away from a polarizing electoral boogeyman into something you can probably run on everywhere and target every political demographic.
Your Childhood Pet Rock, I can see a potential flaw for sticking the landing with your plan.
What if you're pitching it to someone (bigots) who want immigrants to be specifically excluded from Medicare because they're brown?
posted by Quackles at 6:48 PM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
Your Childhood Pet Rock, I can see a potential flaw for sticking the landing with your plan.
What if you're pitching it to someone (bigots) who want immigrants to be specifically excluded from Medicare because they're brown?
posted by Quackles at 6:48 PM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]
If I was going to target that person in particular? Right now the system is broken. Illegal immigrants walk into hospitals, get treatment as per the law, walk out again. It drains hospital resources, creates unpaid bills, and generally results in poorer care for all of us. However, if we get those people paying the full unsubsidized cost of Medicare we're not giving them any sort of privilege are we? So they pay more, hospitals don't get screwed, and we leave immigration enforcement to the immigration enforcement people.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:06 PM on December 15, 2019
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:06 PM on December 15, 2019
It's not even about the media.
given the way the UK election played out i'm gonna say it is indeed about the media.
posted by JimBennett at 10:52 PM on December 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
given the way the UK election played out i'm gonna say it is indeed about the media.
posted by JimBennett at 10:52 PM on December 15, 2019 [3 favorites]
That's only because the bits of the election and British culture in general that you're aware of and that you can verify are the bits of the media that leech onto the internet. It's a lot more complicated.
posted by Grangousier at 1:35 AM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Grangousier at 1:35 AM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
Never underestimate the willingness of conservatives to enthusiastically enable their own suffering if it means someone else suffers more.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:58 AM on December 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:58 AM on December 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
If you don't know that elderly poor people in the US are socially oppressed, effectively imprisoned, and exploited,
But not by millennials as a group. By the same political and economic systems that are being called out when people talk about boomers.
Also, I'd kind of like to question one aspect of "there are lots of left-wing boomers". There definitely is, but I also feel like within the broader left, the older someone is the more radical they generally aren't. The bulk of the "I'm left-wing but socialism is genocide" voices I hear are from, unsurprisingly, people who lived through the paranoia and propaganda of the cold war.
A lot of those people aren't exactly enemies, but they'll never be allies either and they're very clear about that.
posted by Acid Communist at 4:14 AM on December 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
But not by millennials as a group. By the same political and economic systems that are being called out when people talk about boomers.
Also, I'd kind of like to question one aspect of "there are lots of left-wing boomers". There definitely is, but I also feel like within the broader left, the older someone is the more radical they generally aren't. The bulk of the "I'm left-wing but socialism is genocide" voices I hear are from, unsurprisingly, people who lived through the paranoia and propaganda of the cold war.
A lot of those people aren't exactly enemies, but they'll never be allies either and they're very clear about that.
posted by Acid Communist at 4:14 AM on December 16, 2019 [7 favorites]
but I also feel like within the broader left, the older someone is the more radical they generally aren't
Not my experience (I'm 65).
But the larger, more important point is that your particular experience and my particular experience simply aren't relevant. And any attention paid to trying to parse exactly what percentage of a given age cohort is "one if us" is wasted energy that could be better used.
posted by she's not there at 5:00 AM on December 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
Not my experience (I'm 65).
But the larger, more important point is that your particular experience and my particular experience simply aren't relevant. And any attention paid to trying to parse exactly what percentage of a given age cohort is "one if us" is wasted energy that could be better used.
posted by she's not there at 5:00 AM on December 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
Leftist movements didn't just spring up in the last ten years; they've been built and maintained by activists for over a hundred years. My mother is gone now but would be in her late eighties if she were still around and was a leftist activist for most of her life. Growing up most of the adults I knew were working in civil rights, housing rights, women's rights, gay rights, the anti-war movement, etc. My mother advocated for fair and affordable housing for forty years as a staff member and then later board member of a non-profit housing rights group, chairperson of my hometown's rent-control board and then later president of the housing authority. She also did things like taught AIDS prevention to women at the county jail and volunteered a homeless shelter.
She was proud about having to quit a job at the post office in the 1950s because they were forcing employees to take an anti-communist oath and she wasn't going to do that. She was in favor of universal healthcare, free education and universal housing sixty years ago. None of this stuff is new. I'm super impressed and happy that ideas like that are finally getting some traction but they've been around for along time and lots of us olds were and are in favor of them.
posted by octothorpe at 7:30 AM on December 16, 2019 [11 favorites]
She was proud about having to quit a job at the post office in the 1950s because they were forcing employees to take an anti-communist oath and she wasn't going to do that. She was in favor of universal healthcare, free education and universal housing sixty years ago. None of this stuff is new. I'm super impressed and happy that ideas like that are finally getting some traction but they've been around for along time and lots of us olds were and are in favor of them.
posted by octothorpe at 7:30 AM on December 16, 2019 [11 favorites]
it’s important to remember the 40 year absolute hegemony right-wing market fundamentalism had over the US and UK , shaping people’s ideas about what was possible and their political imagination inti these stunted little bonsai trees. It was the ulterior motive of the project, to remove alternates. Maintaining that status quo has been the goal of every UK/US Government until recently, when they just kind of forgot why they needed that status quo in the first place (Long story shirt, the marks for the con are now running the con and don’t know it’s a con). It would take tremendous dedication to maintain an unpopular and publicly derided political Ideology for decades in the midst of realtive prosperity and the seeming success of a competing one - also when so many activists got straight up murdered.
(Also, I always mention the AIDS crisis here cause in the US it was absolutely used as a tool to kill activists and political enemies . At the very least a lot of NYC landlords got to take a lot of rent controlled units off the market once their inhabitants died.)
posted by The Whelk at 9:40 AM on December 16, 2019 [11 favorites]
(Also, I always mention the AIDS crisis here cause in the US it was absolutely used as a tool to kill activists and political enemies . At the very least a lot of NYC landlords got to take a lot of rent controlled units off the market once their inhabitants died.)
posted by The Whelk at 9:40 AM on December 16, 2019 [11 favorites]
I am still confused as to why "not all boomers" is somehow different from "not all men" or "not all white people", especially given the people saying "ok boomer" were almost all born after the majority of carbon emissions were already in the atmosphere.
Allies can come from all corners of life, but I hope I wouldn't see white people on here piping up about how they're not benefitting from white supremacy or men talking about how they're feminists and can't benefit from patriarchy.
In any case, the majority of world-destroying carbon emissions were generated before 1989 and before the vast majority of Millennials, Generation Z, and beyond were born. To be upset at our language and our tone in the face of complete annihilation after decades of inaction is truly an astonishing act of entitlement.
posted by Ouverture at 5:38 PM on December 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
Allies can come from all corners of life, but I hope I wouldn't see white people on here piping up about how they're not benefitting from white supremacy or men talking about how they're feminists and can't benefit from patriarchy.
In any case, the majority of world-destroying carbon emissions were generated before 1989 and before the vast majority of Millennials, Generation Z, and beyond were born. To be upset at our language and our tone in the face of complete annihilation after decades of inaction is truly an astonishing act of entitlement.
posted by Ouverture at 5:38 PM on December 16, 2019 [5 favorites]
But not by millennials as a group.
Neither is it boomers as a group who are fucking everyone over. It is the absurdly wealthy.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:38 PM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
Neither is it boomers as a group who are fucking everyone over. It is the absurdly wealthy.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:38 PM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
also, lets look at “there are left wing boomers too” electorally.
According to exit polling from 2016 The tipping point for more likely to vote GOP is about age 40, and it skews further the older they get. So if there are a significant number of left wing boomers, why don’t they show up in numbers?
Possible reasons:
Left wing boomers are clustered in already blue areas.
General Voter suppression, either by race, disenfranchisement, or gerrymandering to ensure right wing victories regardless of voter intent.
Disinterest in voting, either by being disillusioned with electoralism (perfectly understandable) or a lack of candidates who they think can change anything/a belief that voting doesn’t matter. This is an interesting thread cause the 08 election brought out a lot of silent generation dem voters and a huge upswing in black and Latino voters. Having causes and policies that actually fire people up is a good thing.
Money, not only do poorer people die earlier and thus less likely to join the over 60 super voting bloc, but income is strongly correlated with voting frequency - either by having interests to protect or just cause someone working three jobs can’t get the time to vote (see above, deliberate suppression)
Overton Window shifts, Boomers who consider themselves “left wing” are working from the politics of 35 years ago where their positions would’ve been considered left wing but are now solidly right of center in the new emerging politics. Also a lot of moderate republican boomers peeled off the Republican Party in the last decade and change, some joined the democrats (Schumer’s infamous family of three in the suburbs ) but the majority just became , for lack of a better term, culturally Republican nonvoters (except maybe in local races)
All of it leads to a situation where older right wing voters are much more likely to vote and left wing boomers are electorally irrelevant by accident and design.
Anyway, as I said before it’s not so much “OK Boomer” so much as “Ok Reagan Democrats who remade the party in their image.” And also “Okay Boomers Who Refuse To Realize 35 years of immiseration occurred and everything is different and awful now”
But y8 know, that’s not as catchy.
posted by The Whelk at 7:09 PM on December 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
According to exit polling from 2016 The tipping point for more likely to vote GOP is about age 40, and it skews further the older they get. So if there are a significant number of left wing boomers, why don’t they show up in numbers?
Possible reasons:
Left wing boomers are clustered in already blue areas.
General Voter suppression, either by race, disenfranchisement, or gerrymandering to ensure right wing victories regardless of voter intent.
Disinterest in voting, either by being disillusioned with electoralism (perfectly understandable) or a lack of candidates who they think can change anything/a belief that voting doesn’t matter. This is an interesting thread cause the 08 election brought out a lot of silent generation dem voters and a huge upswing in black and Latino voters. Having causes and policies that actually fire people up is a good thing.
Money, not only do poorer people die earlier and thus less likely to join the over 60 super voting bloc, but income is strongly correlated with voting frequency - either by having interests to protect or just cause someone working three jobs can’t get the time to vote (see above, deliberate suppression)
Overton Window shifts, Boomers who consider themselves “left wing” are working from the politics of 35 years ago where their positions would’ve been considered left wing but are now solidly right of center in the new emerging politics. Also a lot of moderate republican boomers peeled off the Republican Party in the last decade and change, some joined the democrats (Schumer’s infamous family of three in the suburbs ) but the majority just became , for lack of a better term, culturally Republican nonvoters (except maybe in local races)
All of it leads to a situation where older right wing voters are much more likely to vote and left wing boomers are electorally irrelevant by accident and design.
Anyway, as I said before it’s not so much “OK Boomer” so much as “Ok Reagan Democrats who remade the party in their image.” And also “Okay Boomers Who Refuse To Realize 35 years of immiseration occurred and everything is different and awful now”
But y8 know, that’s not as catchy.
posted by The Whelk at 7:09 PM on December 16, 2019 [9 favorites]
If you don't know that elderly poor people in the US are socially oppressed, effectively imprisoned, and exploited, then I'm assuming you either don't have a ton of cross-generational exposure or just aren't paying attention. To put it as generously as I can without swearing.
Thank you for your restraint. Yes I am aware of how time disables and poverty accelerates/compounds. You're welcome to keep your unfounded assumptions about my life experiences to yourself.
My point was not that they were necessarily different in kind but in magnitude. As stated in my second paragraph irt "shittiness." Stereotyping or generalizing about groups of people isn't great. I'd even say it's shitty. But the act of stereotyping takes on a different magnitude when coupled with power. Authors throwing shade at boomers is not as shitty as systemic racism, sexism, xenophobia, nor ageism. Me saying "ok Boomer" is not the same as other identify-based pejoratives. They're both stereotyping. One is way shittier
posted by avalonian at 7:22 PM on December 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
Thank you for your restraint. Yes I am aware of how time disables and poverty accelerates/compounds. You're welcome to keep your unfounded assumptions about my life experiences to yourself.
My point was not that they were necessarily different in kind but in magnitude. As stated in my second paragraph irt "shittiness." Stereotyping or generalizing about groups of people isn't great. I'd even say it's shitty. But the act of stereotyping takes on a different magnitude when coupled with power. Authors throwing shade at boomers is not as shitty as systemic racism, sexism, xenophobia, nor ageism. Me saying "ok Boomer" is not the same as other identify-based pejoratives. They're both stereotyping. One is way shittier
posted by avalonian at 7:22 PM on December 16, 2019 [1 favorite]
anyway, these charts are more effective
posted by The Whelk at 11:23 PM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 11:23 PM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]
So if there are a significant number of left wing boomers, why don’t they show up in numbers?
But they do? If we're using the generic binary rubric your CNN poll used, "who voted for which major candidate," then somewhere between 44-45% of those over fifty who were sampled actually voted blue (the older part of that group also doesn't include the baby boom, but that's neither here nor there I suppose).
Me saying "ok Boomer" is not the same as other identify-based pejoratives.
No, for sure. Sorry to be cranky. I also find "Gen X" and "Millennial" to be absurd. I just don't think these generational signifiers are nearly as useful as a more nuanced discussion of class, and they're often short form for some pretty toxic ageism.
I've just been hearing about the awful boomers for most of my life, and as far as I can tell a big chunk of my own generation (which is either the youngest Gen X or the oldest Millennial, since we lost the in-between somewhere in my 20s) used "my parents fucked the world up already" as an excuse for a pretty profound apathy we're still trying to dig our way out of.
I am still confused as to why "not all boomers" is somehow different from "not all men" or "not all white people"
Well for one thing more than half of boomers are women and close to a third are POC.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:28 AM on December 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
But they do? If we're using the generic binary rubric your CNN poll used, "who voted for which major candidate," then somewhere between 44-45% of those over fifty who were sampled actually voted blue (the older part of that group also doesn't include the baby boom, but that's neither here nor there I suppose).
Me saying "ok Boomer" is not the same as other identify-based pejoratives.
No, for sure. Sorry to be cranky. I also find "Gen X" and "Millennial" to be absurd. I just don't think these generational signifiers are nearly as useful as a more nuanced discussion of class, and they're often short form for some pretty toxic ageism.
I've just been hearing about the awful boomers for most of my life, and as far as I can tell a big chunk of my own generation (which is either the youngest Gen X or the oldest Millennial, since we lost the in-between somewhere in my 20s) used "my parents fucked the world up already" as an excuse for a pretty profound apathy we're still trying to dig our way out of.
I am still confused as to why "not all boomers" is somehow different from "not all men" or "not all white people"
Well for one thing more than half of boomers are women and close to a third are POC.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:28 AM on December 17, 2019 [3 favorites]
I heard a lot about the awful boomers, too, but I'm thinking about comments made during the 60's from older people.
A lot of it you might recognize today being used to refer to younger generations.
posted by MtDewd at 11:53 AM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
A lot of it you might recognize today being used to refer to younger generations.
posted by MtDewd at 11:53 AM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Oh, and I just got back from the impeachment rally downtown, and it was mostly boomers.
posted by MtDewd at 4:59 PM on December 17, 2019
posted by MtDewd at 4:59 PM on December 17, 2019
I just don't think these generational signifiers are nearly as useful as a more nuanced discussion of class
Amen to that! But hopefully and I am assuming, the "anti-boomer" thing is a shorthand and maybe gateway towards young people getting woke and educated about socialism. It is fine with me. There are plenty of entitled rich youth, the hoarders are breeding their progeny and grooming them to be the new overlords, and I doubt there will be an age check when it comes to taking their wealth.
See you on the barricades!
posted by Meatbomb at 5:57 PM on December 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
Amen to that! But hopefully and I am assuming, the "anti-boomer" thing is a shorthand and maybe gateway towards young people getting woke and educated about socialism. It is fine with me. There are plenty of entitled rich youth, the hoarders are breeding their progeny and grooming them to be the new overlords, and I doubt there will be an age check when it comes to taking their wealth.
See you on the barricades!
posted by Meatbomb at 5:57 PM on December 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
It's definitely been said before in these boomer threads, but the problem with encoding that much information into boomer is as soon as usage leaves those circles it gets co-opted, repurposed and so on. I do think it would be good to try and stop using it as much and as widely.
I know it feels good to kick back against all the avocado nonsense but where Meatbomb is right, we should often be opening that gateway and being direct about where the problem lies.
posted by Acid Communist at 6:07 PM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
I know it feels good to kick back against all the avocado nonsense but where Meatbomb is right, we should often be opening that gateway and being direct about where the problem lies.
posted by Acid Communist at 6:07 PM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
Boomers who consider themselves “left wing” are working from the politics of 35 years ago where their positions would’ve been considered left wing but are now solidly right of center in the new emerging politics.
The left of 35 to 55 years ago was more casually environmental and nature-bound, without much debate or corporate push-back to confuse the issue, and more concerned with over-population and feminism than now, because religious values were less strident post-war until Reagan's conservative revolution. It was a time of more economic equality and shared upbringing through public schools and neighborhood interactions (perhaps inconceivable to some people today). Littering was a sin, but leering was not, for example. Communists were considered by youths then to be arch-conservative, stodgy and orthodox and blindly dogmatic worldwide, fifty years behind the times and sinking fast from without ever being elected or removed from office. They resembled fundamentalist personality cults with hundreds of millions of malnourished followers who worked in outdated factories, where expression beyond fawning was a crime and human rights were absurdly defined collectively as not applying to individuals, but only to the one true party. (Even Deng's breakout reforms in China were originally based on one obscure line in Marx that hinted that firms could hire up to seven people without becoming corrupted, illustrating that fundamentalist-literalism can also be secularized.) In America, the Southern states had switched parties from Democrat to Republican in only a few short years, right before Reagan, as a reaction to civil rights legislation. It was Reagan who ushered in a new conservative era in America, and argued from a top-down supply-side theory of government spending and party-first propaganda, deregulating everything possible and borrowing more money than all former presidents combined. That debt still hangs over everyone and has a lot to do with growth-frenzy economics, which is a trickle-down pyramid-scheme that needs a high birth rate to foist the debt onto. They also embraced religiosity and charter or home school to prevent mental contamination and prove their anti-government point. (In contrast, old-school Eisenhower believed in taxing to an upper margin of 90%, to illustrate how leftwards the country leaned on some issues compared to now.) What happened since the 1980's is that conservatives out-bred liberals by a margin of three to one and then brainwashed their kids to hate liberals, Democrats and Hillary Clinton by name. Many in the new left in America are coming straight from these broods with the normal rebellious adventure, but also some idealism baggage of purity and truth that may be informed by familial orthodoxy as a mindset. I would even suggest that so-called boomers subconsciously rebelled, if even to a small degree, against their orthodoxy while the modern left now flirts with orthodoxy for direction. In Mao's China, they also shamed their older generation when things fell apart, and youths sent the outspoken ones to work camps to learn how to think like an old man named Mao.
posted by Brian B. at 12:55 PM on December 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
The left of 35 to 55 years ago was more casually environmental and nature-bound, without much debate or corporate push-back to confuse the issue, and more concerned with over-population and feminism than now, because religious values were less strident post-war until Reagan's conservative revolution. It was a time of more economic equality and shared upbringing through public schools and neighborhood interactions (perhaps inconceivable to some people today). Littering was a sin, but leering was not, for example. Communists were considered by youths then to be arch-conservative, stodgy and orthodox and blindly dogmatic worldwide, fifty years behind the times and sinking fast from without ever being elected or removed from office. They resembled fundamentalist personality cults with hundreds of millions of malnourished followers who worked in outdated factories, where expression beyond fawning was a crime and human rights were absurdly defined collectively as not applying to individuals, but only to the one true party. (Even Deng's breakout reforms in China were originally based on one obscure line in Marx that hinted that firms could hire up to seven people without becoming corrupted, illustrating that fundamentalist-literalism can also be secularized.) In America, the Southern states had switched parties from Democrat to Republican in only a few short years, right before Reagan, as a reaction to civil rights legislation. It was Reagan who ushered in a new conservative era in America, and argued from a top-down supply-side theory of government spending and party-first propaganda, deregulating everything possible and borrowing more money than all former presidents combined. That debt still hangs over everyone and has a lot to do with growth-frenzy economics, which is a trickle-down pyramid-scheme that needs a high birth rate to foist the debt onto. They also embraced religiosity and charter or home school to prevent mental contamination and prove their anti-government point. (In contrast, old-school Eisenhower believed in taxing to an upper margin of 90%, to illustrate how leftwards the country leaned on some issues compared to now.) What happened since the 1980's is that conservatives out-bred liberals by a margin of three to one and then brainwashed their kids to hate liberals, Democrats and Hillary Clinton by name. Many in the new left in America are coming straight from these broods with the normal rebellious adventure, but also some idealism baggage of purity and truth that may be informed by familial orthodoxy as a mindset. I would even suggest that so-called boomers subconsciously rebelled, if even to a small degree, against their orthodoxy while the modern left now flirts with orthodoxy for direction. In Mao's China, they also shamed their older generation when things fell apart, and youths sent the outspoken ones to work camps to learn how to think like an old man named Mao.
posted by Brian B. at 12:55 PM on December 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
That's such a totally weird analysis of why the US skewed to the right over time (conservatives outbred liberals, are you serious with this?). And that's a deeply condescending and confused read of young leftists today. Today's left is far less concerned with orthodoxy than much of the New Left of the 60's, and there's a far stronger libertarian/anti-authoritarian character to it.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 6:31 PM on December 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 6:31 PM on December 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
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For the MAGA boomer cohort, equality is about the level playing field. Everyone plays the hand they are dealt with everyone following the same rules. Don't pay any attention to all the structural advantage that has been built in for their caste. If you can't achieve a secure and dignified existence, you must change your station in life for yourself despite our current system quite clearly requiring a brutalized underclass working for poverty wages.
This is essentially the divide in US politics today.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:08 AM on December 15, 2019 [49 favorites]