Millenial Turnover

[sbarrera]

(10-09-2018, 10:55 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-07-2018, 10:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has one of the better articles on how the Millennials might look at things differently politically.

Unfortunately, they seem more than a little distracted.  It's as if they live in a bubble that floats through the world of not-them.  They don't feel any real attachment to that world, or any responsibility for it.  They are angry about their lives; they see themselves as pawns in a game they don't play.  Many are just accepting of their fate.  It's sad, to be frank about it.  If I have to use a single term, it's lethargic.  I'm not sure what breaks that pattern.

Part of the bubble come from the fact that Millennials have a stronger relationship with their parents and so are sheltered somewhat from economic hardship. They complain but they're not really angry. 

In fact, despite the impression one might get from reading headlines on the Internet, things really aren't that bad for most people. That's where the complacency comes from.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-12-2018, 07:03 AM)sbarrera Wrote:

(10-09-2018, 10:55 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-07-2018, 10:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has one of the better articles on how the Millennials might look at things differently politically.

Unfortunately, they seem more than a little distracted.  It's as if they live in a bubble that floats through the world of not-them.  They don't feel any real attachment to that world, or any responsibility for it.  They are angry about their lives; they see themselves as pawns in a game they don't play.  Many are just accepting of their fate.  It's sad, to be frank about it.  If I have to use a single term, it's lethargic.  I'm not sure what breaks that pattern.

Part of the bubble come from the fact that Millennials have a stronger relationship with their parents and so are sheltered somewhat from economic hardship. They complain but they're not really angry. 

In fact, despite the impression one might get from reading headlines on the Internet, things really aren't that bad for most people. That's where the complacency comes from.

That fits with my niece and nephew.  He lives in a multi generation (max of 4) household.  She lived with her parents during the several years before she was able to use her degree.  Neither got anywhere near the desperate stage, but...

[David Horn]

(10-11-2018, 02:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yeah, I know Galen and folks like him would love nothing better than for millennials to not learn from Obama and not to vote, and they usually get their wish, Obama notwithstanding. But Obama tries his best.

Up to now, he's been an aloof guru on the mountain.  He needs to decide that Presidential decorum is out of style for now, and get into the fray.

[Eric the Green]

(10-12-2018, 10:08 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-11-2018, 02:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yeah, I know Galen and folks like him would love nothing better than for millennials to not learn from Obama and not to vote, and they usually get their wish, Obama notwithstanding. But Obama tries his best.

Up to now, he's been an aloof guru on the mountain.  He needs to decide that Presidential decorum is out of style for now, and get into the fray.

He does. On the other hand, though he was great at overcoming the odds and getting elected himself, his record of helping others get elected is poor, even when he tries hard.

[David Horn]

(10-12-2018, 02:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(10-12-2018, 10:08 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-11-2018, 02:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yeah, I know Galen and folks like him would love nothing better than for millennials to not learn from Obama and not to vote, and they usually get their wish, Obama notwithstanding. But Obama tries his best.

Up to now, he's been an aloof guru on the mountain.  He needs to decide that Presidential decorum is out of style for now, and get into the fray.

He does. On the other hand, though he was great at overcoming the odds and getting elected himself, his record of helping others get elected is poor, even when he tries hard.

He may have the same issue as Trump, though obviously for other reasons.  He connects personally with people and can easily gather a following, but it's his alone.  I'm not sure that's something that can be overcome.

[gabrielle]

(10-09-2018, 10:55 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-07-2018, 10:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has one of the better articles on how the Millennials might look at things differently politically.

Unfortunately, they seem more than a little distracted.  It's as if they live in a bubble that floats through the world of not-them.  They don't feel any real attachment to that world, or any responsibility for it.  They are angry about their lives; they see themselves as pawns in a game they don't play.  Many are just accepting of their fate.  It's sad, to be frank about it.  If I have to use a single term, it's lethargic.  I'm not sure what breaks that pattern.

That's interesting--young Gen Xers were described in just such a way back in the day, but the word we were summed up with was "apathetic," while here you use a word that implies that Millennials are just being lazy.  

Young people can't and shouldn't be expected to save the world.  They're still struggling to find their own footing in it, and they're also trying to enjoy their youth while they have it.  Millennials certainly have the potential, due to their numbers, to become a powerful force in shaping the future.  

But I don't think generations are as uniform in their beliefs and outlooks as some of you seem to think.  A lot depends on the prevailing winds of the times, and that involves multiple generations.

[Galen]

(10-12-2018, 11:41 PM)gabrielle Wrote:

(10-09-2018, 10:55 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-07-2018, 10:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has one of the better articles on how the Millennials might look at things differently politically.

Unfortunately, they seem more than a little distracted.  It's as if they live in a bubble that floats through the world of not-them.  They don't feel any real attachment to that world, or any responsibility for it.  They are angry about their lives; they see themselves as pawns in a game they don't play.  Many are just accepting of their fate.  It's sad, to be frank about it.  If I have to use a single term, it's lethargic.  I'm not sure what breaks that pattern.

Young people can't and shouldn't be expected to save the world.  They're still struggling to find their own footing in it, and they're also trying to enjoy their youth while they have it.  Millennials certainly have the potential, due to their numbers, to become a powerful force in shaping the future. 

The Millies were deliberately sheltered in a way that Generation X wasn't.  Where Xers will figure things out on their own a Millies expect answers to be given to them.  I have a half-sister twenty-two years younger than I am and she does not deal well with the unexpected.  She thinks that her two eldest brothers are insane, both are Generation X, and she doesn't handle it well when we a proven right.

Millies don't really get a grip an reality until life kicks the shit out of them for a while.  Those that went to college are at a distinct disadvantage compared to those that had to start working early in life.  The stupidest of the Millies have what I like to call a Starbuck's degree which is any degree that ends with the word 'Studies'.

They may yet become the equal of their grand-parents but it will come at great cost.  Just as the Lost saved what they could so will Generation X but the Boomers will never like our choices because they never really could deal with reality.

[pbrower2a]

(10-12-2018, 04:15 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-12-2018, 02:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(10-12-2018, 10:08 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-11-2018, 02:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yeah, I know Galen and folks like him would love nothing better than for millennials to not learn from Obama and not to vote, and they usually get their wish, Obama notwithstanding. But Obama tries his best.

Up to now, he's been an aloof guru on the mountain.  He needs to decide that Presidential decorum is out of style for now, and get into the fray.

He does. On the other hand, though he was great at overcoming the odds and getting elected himself, his record of helping others get elected is poor, even when he tries hard.

He may have the same issue as Trump, though obviously for other reasons.  He connects personally with people and can easily gather a following, but it's his alone.  I'm not sure that's something that can be overcome.

He cannot keep his following (22nd Amendment).

All Presidents are unique whether for the good (FDR) or ill (Trump). The President most similar to him (someone has to be!) is Dwight Eisenhower, as you have seen in some of my arguments. Like Ike, he is also unable to get people elected on his behalf. Just look at the 1958 midterm election, when Republicans got torched politically.

The political Regeneracy will depend upon someone building a coalition that crosses lines of ethnicity, region, and social class. Obama came close to doing that in 2008, but did not quite succeed. It is unlikely that Trump will  do so. His all-for-the-few economics will satisfied the economic elites, and his vulgarity appeals to 'low-information' voters who share his rudeness and vulgarity can win over people who want to give people who are not politicians a chance to solve our political and economic problems. Although the political process has always room for politics that satisfy the economic desires of economic elites who can buy their spokesmen for their reactionary causes, no political movement has been able to win with that alone in a democratic order. To fully achieve a political order that serves such elites those elites must kill democracy with either an aristocratic order or with genocidal fascism.  Trump has pitted lower-class white people against the middle class and poor non-white people while siding with the economic elites who want America to become an aristocratic plutocracy side with people that they never need meet.

Trump hurts people, and he delights in hearing people that he hurts curse him much as a stage or screen villain 'loves to be hated'. But the stage and screen character of a gangster, brigand, or Nazi is all for show. The rest of the world is something other than show. Just think of how tiresome, or worse, it would be to do this in family or social life. Edward G. Robinson was by all accounts a very good person, and played gangsters because he looked like one. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are not Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in real life. Some of the most convincing Nazis on celluloid are British (we know the role of the Brits in World War II) or Jewish (OK, you may have seen me say that there was nothing wrong with the German people in the first half of the twentieth century that Judaism would not have solved; in some respects, the Germans were the gentiles most similar to the Ashkenazim, the Yiddish-speaking Jews that the Nazis obliterated in central and eastern Europe. Oh, the irony!)

Americans are going to have Obama as an expression of  the better angels of their nature (from Lincoln's first inaugural address) in contrast to the economic folly of Dubya and the hollow cruelty of Trump's design for an aristocratic plutocracy. The elites needed someone willing to bail themselves out of the dangerous eco0nomic meltdown from the bursting of the real-estate bubble of Dubya -- and then they wanted all the recovery for themselves. People other than themselves were to be livestock at best and vermin at worst in an economic system that sees people solely as their economic functions. Maybe there would be a need for some welfare to keep Marx' "reserve army of the unemployed" from either starving or rebelling, if not both. To describe 'our' elites of ownership and management as an aristocratic plutocracy is to compare them to the sorts of people who made the American Civil War possible (I recall reading an old article in American Heritage in which it exposed that the slave-owning planters saw themselves as benefactors to their slaves) or a proletarian revolution. 'Our' elites would love to use patriotism and nationalism as pretexts for excusing their exploitation.

We are more than our economic functions, or else we are not fully human.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-12-2018, 11:41 PM)gabrielle Wrote:

(10-09-2018, 10:55 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-07-2018, 10:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has one of the better articles on how the Millennials might look at things differently politically.

Unfortunately, they seem more than a little distracted.  It's as if they live in a bubble that floats through the world of not-them.  They don't feel any real attachment to that world, or any responsibility for it.  They are angry about their lives; they see themselves as pawns in a game they don't play.  Many are just accepting of their fate.  It's sad, to be frank about it.  If I have to use a single term, it's lethargic.  I'm not sure what breaks that pattern.

That's interesting--young Gen Xers were described in just such a way back in the day, but the word we were summed up with was "apathetic," while here you use a word that implies that Millennials are just being lazy. 

I don't think the millennials are as desperate as the GIs were.  The GIs came of age dealing with the Great Depression.  Members would join an alphabet soup agency and send most of their salary home.  Millennials will live with their parents for a few extra years until college debts are paid off.  In both cases we saw too great a division of wealth, family countering government failure, and economic stress, but the stress today speaks of a political solution for which there is no agreement yet for which solution.

With GIs, a breakdown of the democratic - capitalist system could be seen, with the answer being a Marxist autocratic revolution.  With millennials the see saw might be flipped in four of eight years, but there is little talk of revolutions or autocratic government being being necessary or even desirable.  They lost the Cold War, after all.

(10-12-2018, 11:41 PM)gabrielle Wrote: Young people can't and shouldn't be expected to save the world.  They're still struggling to find their own footing in it, and they're also trying to enjoy their youth while they have it.  Millennials certainly have the potential, due to their numbers, to become a powerful force in shaping the future. 

 

Well, they are up to date with social media and know how to organize.  That is what I liked most of the above article that opened this thread.  They have also seen how the rich have bought government.  I am hopeful that they will fight against both big government and big capitol as they come into power.  

And I hope they do save the world.  The boomers and xers sure didn't.  Somebody has to do it.

(10-12-2018, 11:41 PM)gabrielle Wrote: But I don't think generations are as uniform in their beliefs and outlooks as some of you seem to think.  A lot depends on the prevailing winds of the times, and that involves multiple generations.

Correct.  This is a web site dedicated to just that uniform a theory.  We sometimes get carried away with it.

[pbrower2a]

Millennials find themselves with huge student loan debts, face the highest real rents in American history, and encounter class-based rigid ceilings to advancement in bureaucratic organizations. They pay heavily for living in what looks increasingly like an aristocratic plutocracy, and the current majorities in the House, Senate, and most state legislatures in no way represent Millennial sensibilities or interests. Donald Trump is about as antithetical to Millennial sensibilities as any politician could be short of an out-and-out Nazi, Ku Kluxist, or Marxist-Leninist. Excellent electro0nioc gadgets are poor compensation for being competent but having little chance to get ahead.

[David Horn]

(10-12-2018, 11:41 PM)gabrielle Wrote:

(10-09-2018, 10:55 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-07-2018, 10:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has one of the better articles on how the Millennials might look at things differently politically.

Unfortunately, they seem more than a little distracted.  It's as if they live in a bubble that floats through the world of not-them.  They don't feel any real attachment to that world, or any responsibility for it.  They are angry about their lives; they see themselves as pawns in a game they don't play.  Many are just accepting of their fate.  It's sad, to be frank about it.  If I have to use a single term, it's lethargic.  I'm not sure what breaks that pattern.

That's interesting--young Gen Xers were described in just such a way back in the day, but the word we were summed up with was "apathetic," while here you use a word that implies that Millennials are just being lazy.  

Young people can't and shouldn't be expected to save the world.  They're still struggling to find their own footing in it, and they're also trying to enjoy their youth while they have it.  Millennials certainly have the potential, due to their numbers, to become a powerful force in shaping the future.  

But I don't think generations are as uniform in their beliefs and outlooks as some of you seem to think.  A lot depends on the prevailing winds of the times, and that involves multiple generations.

Why they are not engaged is interesting, and likely correct as you stated it, but the fact that they aren't is still the issue.  There is no other option out there to correct a political system that's circling the bowl.  Eventually, the mess will arrive at their door with zero options, and the cost to correct the mess will be enormous.  Just global warming alone will transform the country.  Xers, Boomers and Silents won't be around to suffer the consequences, but the Homelanders and Neo-prophets certainly will.  Who will they blame?

[David Horn]

(10-13-2018, 01:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-12-2018, 11:41 PM)gabrielle Wrote: But I don't think generations are as uniform in their beliefs and outlooks as some of you seem to think.  A lot depends on the prevailing winds of the times, and that involves multiple generations.

Correct.  This is a web site dedicated to just that uniform a theory.  We sometimes get carried away with it.

I've made the same argument myself.  Any given generation will naturally contain all the archetypes, but the nurture part of the nature/nurture duality will swing the balance in one direction each Turning.  There is always a mixture, but the dominant archetype is more strongly represented.  That's the "history makes generations" part of the equation.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-13-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Millennials find themselves with huge student loan debts, face the highest real rents in American history, and encounter class-based rigid ceilings to advancement in bureaucratic organizations. They pay heavily for living in what looks increasingly like an aristocratic plutocracy, and the current majorities in the House, Senate, and most state legislatures in no way represent Millennial sensibilities or interests. Donald Trump is about as antithetical to Millennial sensibilities as any politician could be short of an out-and-out Nazi, Ku Kluxist, or Marxist-Leninist. Excellent electro0nioc gadgets are poor compensation for being competent but having little chance to get ahead.

I do not doubt that the recent Millennials have been schrod by the ruling elites.  I was just saying that the GIs were schrod worse by their ruling elites.  Revolution today is far less likely given the failure of the old Soviet Union.  The see saw encourages those looking for change away from violence.  The spiral of violence is showing no movement towards a violent solution.

I do agree with your opinions on timing and who will be held responsible.  We can only hope that as the Millennials take their place in power, they can overcome the current stalemates.

[beechnut79]

This discussion seems to suggest that the status quo will largely remain until the time comes when they could be ambitious and ready to get some needed work done. The fact that Millennials may not yet feel a sense or urgency could be as some of you have pointed out, that they as yet haven't been had quite to the extent that GIs were at like age. Is it possible that one day in the not too distant future some unexpected help may arrive from an unexpected source? And if so. what might that source be?

[pbrower2a]

(10-14-2018, 10:23 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-13-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Millennials find themselves with huge student loan debts, face the highest real rents in American history, and encounter class-based rigid ceilings to advancement in bureaucratic organizations. They pay heavily for living in what looks increasingly like an aristocratic plutocracy, and the current majorities in the House, Senate, and most state legislatures in no way represent Millennial sensibilities or interests. Donald Trump is about as antithetical to Millennial sensibilities as any politician could be short of an out-and-out Nazi, Ku Kluxist, or Marxist-Leninist. Excellent electronic gadgets are poor compensation for being competent but having little chance to get ahead.

I do not doubt that the recent Millennials have been schrod by the ruling elites.  I was just saying that the GIs were schrod worse by their ruling elites.  Revolution today is far less likely given the failure of the old Soviet Union.  The see saw encourages those looking for change away from violence.  The spiral of violence is showing no movement towards a violent solution.

I do agree with your opinions on timing and who will be held responsible.  We can only hope that as the Millennials take their place in power, they can overcome the current stalemates.

Like all sane people, I do not want war or revolution. I'm not saying that we will avoid war. Most warmongers have proclaimed that their people want peace -- but war happens when the warmongers have the effective veto. The stratification of society creates political instability as well as economic distress, but I can see the elites deciding that dishing out a dole is wiser than creating an angry populace that has a revolution like that of France in 1789, let alone that of Russia in 1917, happen.

The French Revolution followed an ecological calamity without human agency -- the eruption of the volcano Laki in Iceland which put highly-toxic fluorine and sulfur dioxide (a gas that undoes the grenhouse effect)into the atmosphere. This caused famine and poverty in France that may have destroyed the credibility of Louis XVI. The February Revolution in Russia could have never happened had it not been for Nicholas II waging a bungled war against the Axis Powers that caused the complete breakdown of the shaky social order.

I am not as rosy in my prediction of how Millennial adults will behave. They prefer reason to morals, and as shown in the French Revolution, they can be merciless in disposing of those who get in their way. Obedient soldiers, they were the rank-and-file of Nazi paramilitary groups (especially the SS) and some lethal administrators (Kaltenbrunner, Eichmann, Mengele, and Ohlendorf) as well as numerous brutal guards in the concentration and extermination camps of Nazi Germany. Civic generations are weak at providing moral leadership on their own as a group, and tend to operate on moral autopilot. They will be wise to keep some Boomers around to keep them from their worst tendencies. 

....The Millennial generation will have no stake in Boomer culture wars except to find sympathetic ears to Millennial desires. Most likely it will appeal to Boomer interests that have so far lost in the Culture Wars against right-wing interests that so far have proved inimical to Millennial values. X values? Millennials might find X pragmatism welcome, but not cynicism and penny-pinching. What enterprises X start on a small scale, the Millennial generation will do on a bigger scale. Laboratory, meet factory.

[Eric the Green]

(10-12-2018, 11:41 PM)gabrielle Wrote:

(10-09-2018, 10:55 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-07-2018, 10:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has one of the better articles on how the Millennials might look at things differently politically.

Unfortunately, they seem more than a little distracted.  It's as if they live in a bubble that floats through the world of not-them.  They don't feel any real attachment to that world, or any responsibility for it.  They are angry about their lives; they see themselves as pawns in a game they don't play.  Many are just accepting of their fate.  It's sad, to be frank about it.  If I have to use a single term, it's lethargic.  I'm not sure what breaks that pattern.

That's interesting--young Gen Xers were described in just such a way back in the day, but the word we were summed up with was "apathetic," while here you use a word that implies that Millennials are just being lazy.  

Young people can't and shouldn't be expected to save the world.  They're still struggling to find their own footing in it, and they're also trying to enjoy their youth while they have it.  Millennials certainly have the potential, due to their numbers, to become a powerful force in shaping the future.  

But I don't think generations are as uniform in their beliefs and outlooks as some of you seem to think.  A lot depends on the prevailing winds of the times, and that involves multiple generations.

I see things a bit differently. They already take enough time to have liberal views. I cannot see why young people can't vote, and I think just taking a little time to read a ballot and going to a polling place, or sending a ballot in, would not detract at all from enjoying their youth. On the contrary, if they voted, and voted correctly over several elections, they could have had a state, and a social zeitgeist, that enabled greater economic advancement than the continued legacy of Reaganomics has given them. That would have given them a lot more economic opportunity to enjoy life instead of toiling more and more for less and less, or just getting by on the largesse of their parents. Millennials simply do not have the option of enjoying life in youth that Boomers had, for example, because of the differing economic regimes in place. 

Millies have the potential to shape the future, but there was no reason they could not have used it until now, or this year. It seems to be a fact that earlier young generations voted more often, especially at midterms when it counts the most and appears to count the least to those who don't understand basic American civics.

Much is expected from millennials rather than Xers, at least by liberals, because they seem to be better informed, and less gullible to the Reagan spell that led Xers to support the Reaganite Republican rule much more often than millennials these last few decades, along with the older generations. It's true no generation is monolithic, but voting patterns are certainly clear enough according to exit polls and other polls. Aside from a liberal bump among core Boomers, the only group substantially more liberal than others are the millennials, and the latest Xers shade that way as well. Today millennials are far more liberal in their views than others, and yet they have little faith or interest in elections when they can make their views count for something. Maybe some expect perfection, and so desert allegedly-liberal presidents and officeholders when they don't perform up to their standard, while others are just too lost in their cell phones or socializing and just forget. For whatever reason, they have not lived up to their civic archetype. Meanwhile of course, Boomers have fallen far short of their leadership potential in these times as well.

[pbrower2a]

(10-14-2018, 11:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(10-12-2018, 11:41 PM)gabrielle Wrote:

(10-09-2018, 10:55 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-07-2018, 10:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has one of the better articles on how the Millennials might look at things differently politically.

Unfortunately, they seem more than a little distracted.  It's as if they live in a bubble that floats through the world of not-them.  They don't feel any real attachment to that world, or any responsibility for it.  They are angry about their lives; they see themselves as pawns in a game they don't play.  Many are just accepting of their fate.  It's sad, to be frank about it.  If I have to use a single term, it's lethargic.  I'm not sure what breaks that pattern.

That's interesting--young Gen Xers were described in just such a way back in the day, but the word we were summed up with was "apathetic," while here you use a word that implies that Millennials are just being lazy.  

Young people can't and shouldn't be expected to save the world.  They're still struggling to find their own footing in it, and they're also trying to enjoy their youth while they have it.  Millennials certainly have the potential, due to their numbers, to become a powerful force in shaping the future.  

But I don't think generations are as uniform in their beliefs and outlooks as some of you seem to think.  A lot depends on the prevailing winds of the times, and that involves multiple generations.

I see things a bit differently. They already take enough time to have liberal views. I cannot see why young people can't vote, and I think just taking a little time to read a ballot and going to a polling place, or sending a ballot in, would not detract at all from enjoying their youth. On the contrary, if they voted, and voted correctly over several elections, they could have had a state, and a social zeitgeist, that enabled greater economic advancement than the continued legacy of Reaganomics has given them. That would have given them a lot more economic opportunity to enjoy life instead of toiling more and more for less and less, or just getting by on the largesse of their parents. Millennials simply do not have the option of enjoying life in youth that Boomers had, for example, because of the differing economic regimes in place.

They are liberal because they have seen the economic elites become the Establishment and treat most of them badly. The antithesis to the plutocratic aristocracy (or is it an aristocratic plutocracy) is its antithesis, liberalism. People who loudly proclaim that the rest of Humanity has the duty to suffer for their greed and indulgence  should consider themselves fortunate to have not been taken before a wall and shot.

When I was a teenager and young adult, college was inexpensive -- about the cost of a hobby. If you were in college, you did not need a hobby because you lacked the time for it. If you did not go to college you probably had some time-consuming hobby that you could do because nobody expected to work more than 40 hours a week just to survive. Today people work harder and longer for less and pay much more for property rent and taxes. Is life better? I think not. Around 1980 the elites decided that it was best that college became expensive enough that one needed to work to pay one's way, ideally in a low-paying job that brings one physical exhaustion due to the frenetic pace, as in fast food. One would then have a focus solely on economic survival and not ask the questions that one might ask if one got a liberal education. A liberal education? No matter how good, it was disparaged because 'it might get you a job in retail', then (and still) the worst-paying sector of the economy except perhaps labor in food-service. Life has since been little more for most people, even with degrees, than suffering to make people already filthy rich even more filthy-rich. It may be hyperbole to say that those in the economic elites see their fine china or expensive cars more precious than the lives of workers, but it is almost so. Unaccountable power and unlimited indulgence can distort normal human behavior into such perversity.

Quote:Millies have the potential to shape the future, but there was no reason they could not have used it until now, or this year. It seems to be a fact that earlier young generations voted more often, especially at midterms when it counts the most and appears to count the least to those who don't understand basic American civics.

Achieving high political office is something that generations do not do until they are well into their thirties. The GI Generation may have
started winning Congressional seats and Governorships when they were in their early thirties as the most fervent generation of new Dealers. But note also that political leaders were rarely living into their eighties and even seventies as they do now... and staying in public office. That people are considering Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders as prospects to be the 46th President tells something about the longevity of political relevance.

The rise of a young generation into high political roles depends heavily upon the disappearance of older generations and the failure of the middle-aged generation as leaders.  So it was in the 1930s, and so it is today. The GI Generation itself set a pattern of remaining active and fit as long as possible, and not giving up on roles that defined them as persons, and the Silent have followed. Boomers are doing much the same thing as they become a generation of geezers. Will X? I don't know if they will get away with it.

The current politicians that we have are on the whole the worst that America has had (excluding the agrarian racists of the South) since the Gilded Age. Boomer executives have little of the legitimacy of wielding the power that they have as they do (being paid lavishly for treating people badly); GI executives often did not reach executive status until they were 50 or so and then got about ten times what someone earned as an assembly line worker -- too late for buying mansions, horses, and sports cars. Unlike Boomer executives, they probably did work on an assembly line before taking a sales route in an unpromising part of the country or taking engineering, accounting, or finance courses in night school. Today if one ever did work on an assembly line, one is shut out of any executive role because one might have some loyalty to or empathy for people other than the elites.

Quote:Much is expected from millennials rather than Xers, at least by liberals, because they seem to be better informed, and less gullible to the Reagan spell that led Xers to support the Reaganite Republican rule much more often than millennials these last few decades, along with the older generations. It's true no generation is monolithic, but voting patterns are certainly clear enough according to exit polls and other polls. Aside from a liberal bump among core Boomers, the only group substantially more liberal than others are the millennials, and the latest Xers shade that way as well. Today millennials are far more liberal in their views than others, and yet they have little faith or interest in elections when they can make their views count for something. Maybe some expect perfection, and so desert allegedly-liberal presidents and officeholders when they don't perform up to their standard, while others are just too lost in their cell phones or socializing and just forget. For whatever reason, they have not lived up to their civic archetype. Meanwhile of course, Boomers have fallen far short of their leadership potential in these times as well.

Older generations did too much harm to X. X is unusually pliant in politics because most have learned the lesson that "He who has the gold makes the rules, and nobody can do a damned thing about it but to keep playing the crooked game". Reactionary X politicians like Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Pat Toomey, Scott Walker, and Rick Scott have fully sold out to people who act as if they are some caste exempt from responsibility to any but themselves. But today it is Boomer Donald Trump who exemplifies everything wrong in American politics.

I am satisfied that the Millennial Generation will be as excited about politics as any generation in the past (Silent and Boomers have been divided, and X isn't excited about its own, even if it is Obama, a very good President) once it is their politicians up for high office. The largely-X pols who got swept in with the Tea Party craze will themselves get swept away in the early 2020s. Watch the Latinos and Asians whom right-wingers terribly underestimate.

[Eric the Green]

I do hear that from some stubborn millennials and late Xers, that they only want to vote for their own generation. How ridiculous, really. You throw away your ability to change things that you have now, because you have to vote for someone older than you? That is not civic awareness; it is prejudice.

[beechnut79]

(10-15-2018, 01:20 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I do hear that from some stubborn millennials and late Xers, that they only want to vote for their own generation. How ridiculous, really. You throw away your ability to change things that you have now, because you have to vote for someone older than you? That is not civic awareness; it is prejudice.

Maybe it's because there is a precedent there when Boomers overwhelmingly voted for Reagan. That didn't exactly work out well for those outside of, say, the top 15 percent. This was the beginning of the widening inequality we see today.

[Eric the Green]

(10-15-2018, 02:38 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(10-15-2018, 01:20 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I do hear that from some stubborn millennials and late Xers, that they only want to vote for their own generation. How ridiculous, really. You throw away your ability to change things that you have now, because you have to vote for someone older than you? That is not civic awareness; it is prejudice.

Maybe it's because there is a precedent there when Boomers overwhelmingly voted for Reagan. That didn't exactly work out well for those outside of, say, the top 15 percent. This was the beginning of the widening inequality we see today.

No, because 
1) core boomers voted for Reagan at lower levels than any other group, and
2) If millennials don't want to vote for Boomers or even Xers or Silents, then they probably won't care who they voted for before they were born, and very likely don't even know who voted for whom.