"Blame it on boomers"
Dec. 21st, 2017 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osewalrusMy great insight on learning demographics as a teenager was the generational warfare that is playing out today.
https://www.vox.com/2017/12/20/16772670/baby-boomers-millennials-congress-debt
Do you have any idea what it is like to make a prediction over 35 years ago and pray for 3 decades you will be wrong, only to see it playing out with Hari Seldon-ish precision? It is NOT FUN.
On the "plus" side, the continued decline in life expectancy will make the transition period somewhat quicker -- I hope.
I do agree strongly with one thing in this article:
"On an abstract level, I think the worst thing they’ve done is destroy a sense of social solidarity, a sense of commitment to fellow citizens. That ethos is gone and it’s been replaced by a cult of individualism. It’s hard to overstate how damaging this is."
OTOH, they are wrong that Gen Xers and Millennials could have kicked out Boomers significantly sooner by voting in larger numbers. As I wrote all the way back in 2012, it was not until 2012 that we crossed the line from Boomers constituting a majority of the potential electorate. First opportunity to vote Boomers out en masse wasn't until 2014.
And, amusingly, that is sort of what happened. Republicans have drawn younger candidates, despite the fact that their voting base is older. For example, in the Arkansas '14 Senate race, Republican Tom Cotton (b. 1977) replaced D Mark Pryor (b. 1963). There are a lot of reasons for this, not least of which is that the Democratic Party "Watergate Babies" will not let go of their death grip on power until it becomes an actual death grip.
And, as I predicted, Gen X will be the absolutely weakest political generation ever.
Demographics suck.
https://www.vox.com/2017/12/20/16772670/baby-boomers-millennials-congress-debt
Do you have any idea what it is like to make a prediction over 35 years ago and pray for 3 decades you will be wrong, only to see it playing out with Hari Seldon-ish precision? It is NOT FUN.
On the "plus" side, the continued decline in life expectancy will make the transition period somewhat quicker -- I hope.
I do agree strongly with one thing in this article:
"On an abstract level, I think the worst thing they’ve done is destroy a sense of social solidarity, a sense of commitment to fellow citizens. That ethos is gone and it’s been replaced by a cult of individualism. It’s hard to overstate how damaging this is."
OTOH, they are wrong that Gen Xers and Millennials could have kicked out Boomers significantly sooner by voting in larger numbers. As I wrote all the way back in 2012, it was not until 2012 that we crossed the line from Boomers constituting a majority of the potential electorate. First opportunity to vote Boomers out en masse wasn't until 2014.
And, amusingly, that is sort of what happened. Republicans have drawn younger candidates, despite the fact that their voting base is older. For example, in the Arkansas '14 Senate race, Republican Tom Cotton (b. 1977) replaced D Mark Pryor (b. 1963). There are a lot of reasons for this, not least of which is that the Democratic Party "Watergate Babies" will not let go of their death grip on power until it becomes an actual death grip.
And, as I predicted, Gen X will be the absolutely weakest political generation ever.
Demographics suck.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-21 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-21 08:00 pm (UTC)the steps that will be necessary to clean up this shit pile will fairly draconian, and they will in the short term fall on the least politically powerful -- Gen X.
I continue to pray I am wrong. I'd really, really like to be. But while I do indeed see much idealism, I see a lot of resentment. And worse, it is coupled with a refusal to believe that anything that came before can have any relevance for policy today. "Nothing learned, and everything forgotten."