Millennials blaming Boomers for everything going wrong

[David Horn]

(07-07-2021, 07:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Paul Solman of PBS is running a series on Millennials vs. Boomers. Mr. Bruce Gibney put out a book wailing against the sociopathic Boomers, blaming them for the policies that left Millennials struggling to get ahead and leaving them with a more dangerous and declining world, and hogging all the wealth. There's some truth in what he's saying, but his generalization about generations is also harmful. Boomers themselves are indeed some of the harshest critics of Boomers, including Strauss and Howe themselves, as Solman's series will say on the 2nd night. But on the first report on July 7th, the problems with Gibney's thesis are glaring to me.

The definitions of generations are a problem, of course. None of these Millennial commentators on his show are Strauss and Howe fans, even though S&H gave them their generation name. WHAT is a Boomer? Most accounts extend the dates to 1965, and they also cut off Millennials after only 15 years. And Gen X is left with only 15 years too. 15 years is not a generation. Gibney neatly finds a way to blame Boomers for everything: extend their dates to 25 years (1940-1965) and reduce their own and Gen X's footprint to only 15. What policies are Bruce Gibney and other millennials on that program criticizing? The question being, don't blue boomers support the SAME policies as he advocates, and have done so all along? The answer is yes, we have. (Unless Gibney supports, as Howe sometimes does, cuts to medicare and entitlement programs, which is just the Reagan line and will hurt all generations).

Those who blame Boomers might cut off blue Boomers from being the allies in power that they need. The Boomers have always been a divided generation. In the Reagan years they voted for Reagan less than other generations, while the oldest Xers supported him. And of course extending the Boomers to 1965 shoves what was the most conservative and Reagan-supporting, neo-liberal-policy-boosting group, the Jones/Boomer-Xer cusp, into our generation, when actually the core of our Boomer generation supported the SAME policies that millennials say that they want now. That's the big irony with Gibney's critique. Admittedly, I'd say the Jones group is not quite as conservative as they were in the late 20th century. But by the same token Gibney, who is not a woman of color, forgets that millennial white males like him are just as supportive now of Trump and the Republican policies that created economic unfairness and regression as any Boomers ever were.

Gibney says Boomers were too young to support the reform policies that the blue boomers argue that they supported in their youth, but in fact Gibney uses averages to ignore those who were the demonstrators against the war, for civil rights and for the environment that helped push the GI/Silent gen policy makers to adopt some reforms. And if Reagan and Bush came along later to stop and reverse those reforms, that was the fault of the Republican Party, not Boomers. This is a political and ideological battle, not a generational battle. And if you insult your allies, I say to Gibney and those who think like him, you won't get as far in the halls of power now, just when you need to do so.

The Boomers have gotten somewhat more conservative in recent years. But we are still a divided generation. We got Bill Clinton elected, but also Newt Gingrich. And Xers as a group on balance have never pushed the blue side forward either, and their leaders were largely Reaganoids. And the blue boomer side largely lost in the luck of the draw, as far as which side won presidential elections. Two right-wing boomers were chosen by the electoral college, not the voters, and likely won through fraud or abuse. Republicans got a great communicator, a reality TV star and two folksy athletic father-and-son dudes to run for their side, while we got an arrogant pushy guy, a somewhat bitchy-sounding and untrustworthy-seeming lady, a wonky, boring guy who thought riding around in a tank was a gutsy campaign move, and an allegedly phony and indecisive war hero. Not as skilled candidates on our side; so we lost. We need to choose candidates who can win (Kamala Harris is not one of them btw; blue boomers beware!). And it's the blue side, not just a generation, above all, that needs to win, so good reform policies can be implemented that are fair to everyone of us who seeks a just society, and so young people of present and future generations can rise.

Link to the first program in Solman's series:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ok-boomer-whats-behind-millennials-growing-resentment-for-their-predecessors

Very little tio disagree with here.  That our generation has done a poor job as mentors and prophets to the next two generations is true enough in aggreagate, but less so when viewed as individuals.  We were never going to lead in one direction, and have done only a so-so job leading in opposite directions.  Yet we have laid the groundwork for others, and provided the tools (mostly digital and connectivity based ones, to be sure).  I have to agree that we have taken more than our share of almost everything, but, as a whole, the takers are few in number if massively greedy in total.  

The Millennials have a legitimate gripe.  So do we.  Ours may be beyond resolutoin.  There's is in their hands.