10-14-2018, 11:39 PM
(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.