I believe you overlook one important difference wrt Millennials—tertiary education. Millennials are the most degreed cohort ever birthed. That is to say, 40+% have post high school “degrees” of some sort. This is a product of their Boomer parents, who themselves did not achieve such, but did provide the resources and encouragement to their offspring to achieve this “golden ticket”. Of course, this makes a farce of a college degree since there really are many fewer Millennials who can make good use of such an advanced education. The university system quickly adapted to the lack of such talent—not by holding standards firm and rejecting the unqualified, but by expanding their faux degree programs and loosening standards across the board.
Is it any wonder that the Millennials have anxiety about their future in society or that those Millennials who enter the job market are malcontents who expect more in salary compensation than their parents? After all, they do hold the “golden ticket”. They have every reason to be anxious, but they need to look within—not without—to find answers to their plight in modern America.
AOC is a perfect example of what I speak of. She was sent by her parents to university. She double-majored in international relations and economics—whatever that is. She moved back to the Bronx, becoming an activist and worked as a waitress and bartender. In short, she wasted her time and the nation’s resources by majoring in nothing of importance or practical use.
I hope for a return to regional politics as a foundation for whatever comes after this generational clown show. Regional politics was the default organizing principle of national American politics until the destruction of white Southern political power in the 1960s. The building blocks are there to move beyond divisive generational politics and create new systems of patronage and power that span generations. Of course, curbing urban (and "urban") polities stranglehold on regional, rural, Jeffersonian ideals and people will have to happen. A President Vance could be a avatar of "our people" and possibly have the impact of a Jackson- a true man of the people from the people, if he chooses to be.
I largely don't blame boomers for the state of the world because a cohort of 75 million doesn't act in concert. The BIG exception was the reaction to COVID, which was their fault insofar as they were still largely in charge, and as their (bipartisan) and sickeningly female hysterical fear of death (that they gleefully spread to the rest of the country via the media) was the animating principle of what really may have been the cultural, demographic, and economic suicide of the United States. We're now left with a situation in which fixing our most pressing issues (mass deportations, cost of living, family formation) is going to result in a crash in housing prices with everyone too undercapitalized to buy into the system. All over a fucking nursing home disease.
The reaction to the shutdown was consistent across the generations at least where I live (suicidally blue). Geezers, boomers, millennials, Gen Z all swallowed the entire thing wholesale. I have friends that still run out and take a “covid test” at the first sign of a sniffle. Like everything else in the modern age the “generation gap” is manufactured.
But the thing I find interesting is nobody talks about what happened including the fact that there was no die off. Life was made intolerable for 2 years over nothing. Is it because people don’t want to consider the idea they were duped? Or that there is something so monstrous out there that this type of thing is acceptable to contemplate let alone implement?
“No one has time for the hysterical and childish politics of the AOC side when there is work to be done, debts to be paid and institutions to be restructured. “
As a Gen X-er, the AOC/blue haired/obese-types echo the hippy (Boomer) generation we encountered in HS while Reagan was prez. The ‘84 & ‘88 elections we were all solid R’s. We were repulsed by the excesses of the hippies, how they acted & how they treated Vietnam Vets.
Quite possibly we’re seeing a similar backlash against the excesses of the Boomer generation by Millennials.
Great observation on millennials-I’m a millennial who was brought up by 2 boomer conservative parents-politics was always described to me by my dad as the Dems like welfare and handouts, Rs believe in personal responsibility. So through a materialist/economic lens. The part about my generation expecting what was promised to us hits hard. This realization hit me especially hard after I graduated college in 2010 and had trouble finding a job in my field
'Millennial politics could be the domination of the organizational men, who take pride in making the machine operate and have no tolerance for throwing sand in the gears.'
I believe you overlook one important difference wrt Millennials—tertiary education. Millennials are the most degreed cohort ever birthed. That is to say, 40+% have post high school “degrees” of some sort. This is a product of their Boomer parents, who themselves did not achieve such, but did provide the resources and encouragement to their offspring to achieve this “golden ticket”. Of course, this makes a farce of a college degree since there really are many fewer Millennials who can make good use of such an advanced education. The university system quickly adapted to the lack of such talent—not by holding standards firm and rejecting the unqualified, but by expanding their faux degree programs and loosening standards across the board.
Is it any wonder that the Millennials have anxiety about their future in society or that those Millennials who enter the job market are malcontents who expect more in salary compensation than their parents? After all, they do hold the “golden ticket”. They have every reason to be anxious, but they need to look within—not without—to find answers to their plight in modern America.
AOC is a perfect example of what I speak of. She was sent by her parents to university. She double-majored in international relations and economics—whatever that is. She moved back to the Bronx, becoming an activist and worked as a waitress and bartender. In short, she wasted her time and the nation’s resources by majoring in nothing of importance or practical use.
I hope for a return to regional politics as a foundation for whatever comes after this generational clown show. Regional politics was the default organizing principle of national American politics until the destruction of white Southern political power in the 1960s. The building blocks are there to move beyond divisive generational politics and create new systems of patronage and power that span generations. Of course, curbing urban (and "urban") polities stranglehold on regional, rural, Jeffersonian ideals and people will have to happen. A President Vance could be a avatar of "our people" and possibly have the impact of a Jackson- a true man of the people from the people, if he chooses to be.
I largely don't blame boomers for the state of the world because a cohort of 75 million doesn't act in concert. The BIG exception was the reaction to COVID, which was their fault insofar as they were still largely in charge, and as their (bipartisan) and sickeningly female hysterical fear of death (that they gleefully spread to the rest of the country via the media) was the animating principle of what really may have been the cultural, demographic, and economic suicide of the United States. We're now left with a situation in which fixing our most pressing issues (mass deportations, cost of living, family formation) is going to result in a crash in housing prices with everyone too undercapitalized to buy into the system. All over a fucking nursing home disease.
The reaction to the shutdown was consistent across the generations at least where I live (suicidally blue). Geezers, boomers, millennials, Gen Z all swallowed the entire thing wholesale. I have friends that still run out and take a “covid test” at the first sign of a sniffle. Like everything else in the modern age the “generation gap” is manufactured.
But the thing I find interesting is nobody talks about what happened including the fact that there was no die off. Life was made intolerable for 2 years over nothing. Is it because people don’t want to consider the idea they were duped? Or that there is something so monstrous out there that this type of thing is acceptable to contemplate let alone implement?
“No one has time for the hysterical and childish politics of the AOC side when there is work to be done, debts to be paid and institutions to be restructured. “
As a Gen X-er, the AOC/blue haired/obese-types echo the hippy (Boomer) generation we encountered in HS while Reagan was prez. The ‘84 & ‘88 elections we were all solid R’s. We were repulsed by the excesses of the hippies, how they acted & how they treated Vietnam Vets.
Quite possibly we’re seeing a similar backlash against the excesses of the Boomer generation by Millennials.
Great observation on millennials-I’m a millennial who was brought up by 2 boomer conservative parents-politics was always described to me by my dad as the Dems like welfare and handouts, Rs believe in personal responsibility. So through a materialist/economic lens. The part about my generation expecting what was promised to us hits hard. This realization hit me especially hard after I graduated college in 2010 and had trouble finding a job in my field
'Millennial politics could be the domination of the organizational men, who take pride in making the machine operate and have no tolerance for throwing sand in the gears.'
From your lips to Gods ears