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Boomer hate
There's a trope in politics to blame the Boomers for everything bad in society and to just wait until they die out. What's amazed me is just how widespread this belief actually is, based on conversations I've had and things I've seen online. People have been waiting for old people to die out since the Boomers were kids. There are also countless Boomers in America that are going to retire in poverty. I don't have much to say aside from, this is stupid and we should do better. In short order, society will probably transfer its grievances from Boomers to Gen X then eventually to Millennials.
I don't know what discussion is to be had here.
For all of history, the choices collectively made by the older generation has been seen to be the cause of the ills affecting the younger generation, true or not.
This might be one of the first times in history that waiting for parents to die and claiming an inheritance is the only reasonable route to home ownership for a large percentage of the population, though. I guess that probably makes it louder.
"Home Ownership" as the path to financial independence is a relatively new concept, and a very minor blip, localized almost entirely within the US, and for a very brief period of 40 years or so.
Post WW2 economic dominance is an aberration that's tainted a lot of people's view of what normal is, and how the entire rest of the world lives.
For the vast majority of places on earth, for the vast majority of human history, the idea that it's a norm that people own 1600 sq ft+ homes is absolutely insane. That became the norm in the US for a while because we had more purchasing power than any modern country on earth ever. We maintained that dominance via globalization for the next half century. We're starting to see other places catch up, and that massive head start no longer be so relevant.
I think the next 50 years will require a dramatic reshaping of what the American Dream looks like for most people.
I'd like to push back a little on that "almost entirely within the US" statement and just say that housing prices across multiple continents have been driving people into economic hardship.
I guess the question I'd ask is, why do we think we'd be any better? If an entire generation of people failed in some major way, it's almost by definition a systemic failure. It also seems very selfish to look forward to...your parents dying? Why frame things that way?
You are the one that framed it as "looking forward to" not me.
I only pointed it out as to the current state of the dismal outlook that people have. There is no way up in society without a springboard. The older generation is removing springboards as a collective.
Would I be better in their shoes? Probably not.
Not saying that you're saying that, but I think the framing isn't great.
Preface: yes we should be collectively more careful in our language of blame.
I don't think most people see it as "looking forward to" boomer parents dying, but maybe a short hand of the intersection between "looking forward to finally being no longer housing insecure" and "it's natural and no one's fault that elderly parents will die before the kids do". So not rubbing their hands with glee, but not an unreasonable projection into the near future either.
Similarly, Boomers are a short hand for "those who have power" to be blamed for things (usually rightfully) since time immemorial. In a democracy, that would be the cohort that has enough population to affect positive changes and ensure positive legacy. Like in all references to people groups, you're going to have some who really are to blame, and a bunch that are suffering just as much as the outgroup. Take "white man" as a group, is every single member more privileged than everyone outside of the group, no, people are talking in aggregate, and that makes white men who have no privileges upset because as individuals they dont have any but are blamed along with the group. Short hands are unkind.
“For all of human history” seems like an overreach. I’m doubtful that was true before the 60’s and it is probably limited to WEIRD countries at best.
First of all, most of it is all fake because outrage sells and also keeping regular people mad at each other distracts from the billionaires who are picking everyone's pocket regardless of their age.
But on the other hand, there are several reasons for the specific anger at boomers. They grew up during probably the time of greatest wealth in the United States. They were often able to afford raising a family on a single income. But now they seem kind of indifferent to the struggles of younger people. Also it's a little confusing if you look at the 1960s and see how progressive they were when they were young, and they seemed to forget all that once they had money.
I get the sense from polling that the younger generation (maybe zoomers or whatever they're called now) are at least as conservative as boomers. And that probably has to do with propaganda served through social networks. Boomers got their propaganda from right wing TV and newspapers.
Anyway people are individuals and I know multiple boomers who are very progressive and are full of empathy, and many Gen X or Millennials who are right wing or "karens".
This depends on the specific political issue ofc, but it very much isn't the case in general, at least not according to US polling data. Age and political partisanship are highly correlated, and the difference between generations is markedly greater than it was in 1990. There may be some specific issues where Gen Z tends to be equally conservative as Boomers, but I don't think the poll data as a whole remotely reflects that they are in general.
Unless you're comparing Gen Z to Boomers when they were Gen Z's age, which is harder for me to find a direct comparison for.
Just anecdotally, it's a mixed bag, as every generation is. I know a lot of Boomers who are quite conservative and a lot that are pretty liberal. I know a similar handful of younger folks (20's-40's) who are the same gamut.
I think Trump changed a lot of that. We can see Nixon's division of Gen X into two halves based on who was old enough to progress in their career before the 70's recession and who young enough to fall through the cracks. Trump is definitely screwing over the older Gen Z in real time, so it may either cause a split or get an entire generation against him depending on how this plays out.
If nothing else, Trump definitely dispelled the notion of "it can't happen here". His administration very loudly and proudly demonstrated that it's still just as easy to spread propaganda 90 years later. And the unfortunate thing is that it's not like Trump will be the last one. Be it 10, 20, 50 years there will be someone stroking the same fires.
This quote is a great illustration. In two sentences, you've painted a nebulous group with one broad stroke, and then pointed out how unfair that is.
As a millenial, we've been blamed by many media articles and politicians since before avocado toast.
The young are blamed both for not wanting to do any work as well as the plummeting of alcohol sales for not wanting to party / marry / have kids. We're blamed for being too irresponsible for home ownership as well as being ridiculously entitled for wanting homes.
It's all a great big concerted effort to assign blame absolutely everywhere except towards the billionaire class. So, dont take the boomer hate personally, they don't mean you in particular, and also the people spewing garbage are also pointing at us all as well.
Boomers, moreso than any other political cohort, have been able to sway the narrative more than any other generation.
You know how the whole reason we have a Senate is to prevent 'tyranny of the majority'? So that politicians ostensibly must appeal to both rural and populous areas, and not just solely targetting the populous areas?
Boomers being the largest cohort means that it is easier for them to represent their interests by being that largest population. "Not all boomers" and all that, but if we presume every generation is more or less evenly split for social/economic desires, it rounds out. But there are substantial generational splits.
So in their early 20s, when they were young and rebellious adults, we see the civil rights movements of the 60s.
When economic crisis reared it's ugly head in the 70s, they pivoted to the proposed solution by the fuckwits in power: Neoliberalism (and it's bedbuddy the religious right).
When the GenX came of age and wanted social change....the Boomers had a veto.
When Millenials came of age and wanted social change.... the Boomers had a veto.
In the wake of the 60s, we only really saw social changes when a large enough percent of Boomers did not wish to use their veto.
And at least from where I'm sitting, the Boomers were completely overwhelmed by Fox News and the ilk the same way social media overwhelmed Xennials. So the more-religous, largest group is deeply propagandized and has far more money.
So yea. Kinda eagerly waiting for enough of them to die off so their wealth finally trickles down, and maybe we can have some reasonable 40/50 year olds running the country instead of geriatrics.
As Durry put it, "Now we're just big kids living in an old man's world. When's it gonna be our turn?"
In addition to other excellent points some of this comes out of the "ok boomer" trend (which is now dead IMO) which was less blaming anyone and more the youth being annoyed at and annoying older people at the same time.
It sort of fell into people getting upset that they weren't like other boomers which is just the whole "not all ____” thing. And much like "6-7' being annoying is the point.
6-7 has officially tipped to becoming my favorite way to irritate the children that irritated us with it for so long.
Oh yes when you can flip it on them it's so good
I got to do it to a teenager whom I played against in a tournament not too long ago. Our score at the end of the game ended-up being me 6 points, him 7; so I was like, "Oh hey, you know what...?" and dropped it on him. To watch him cringe was absolutely hilarious to me as a 40-something year old man.
Rich people have been fucking things up since the dawn of time and we refuse to really hold them accountable. Blaming immigrants, jews, boomers and millennials is easier because we love celebrities. Even if we pretend we're outraged because one of them said something incredibly vile, I think in some weird way we like them even more for it because it's gossip material. Look at how many headlines Elon Musk and other tech bros get for statements that are even stupider than you can imagine. But we still need to have someone to blame for their shit, so we need scapegoats.
The endless "CEO says a thing" articles these days can rival the "pastor says a thing" blinders in my protestant upbringing days. It's the natural outcome that when society worships wealth, the rich are our prophets.
So tired of this horseshit about "generations" that was invented by marketers, for marketers.
The generational boundaries are arbitrary and Anglocentric. Wealth generally accumulates with age and will distort the priorities of those who have, with respect to those who don't. In the context of adversarial capitalist propaganda and targeted marketing, it's easy to incite envy of material success or fear and disgust at the poor, and keep everyone controllable.
Full disclosure: Early Gen-X if you believe in marketing generations. U.S.-based, and all I've seen is industrial decline, mostly high unemployment, unsustainable increases in basic costs of living, stagnant wages, the accelerating destruction of state capacity for anything but warfare, and the capture of people's imaginations by resentment at each other fueled through right-wing propaganda. This affects everyone, regardless of which generational band you've been randomly assigned to.
Blame greedy billionaires and their feudal agenda, not the varied ages of our cohort victims.
Gen X? Gen X is the forgotten generation.
Blame is going straight from the boomers, to the Millennials.
To be fair, Gen X is a relatively small generation and doesn't have as much influence as the two larger generations straddling it.
I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's because of how out of touch they seem as a generation. I'm going to call out two things on the front end though, 1. I'd wager a good amount of Tildes user base is well educated and lives in areas that are relatively wealthy and that 2. they most often interact with older folks who are fine to well off. Those two points will color a lot of the opinions in this thread. I fall solidly into that camp and be speaking anecdotally with those glasses on. I live in coastal California and the vast majority of my neighbors are retirees who bought their houses for peanuts sometime between 1970 and 2010. There are plenty of boomers who are headed into the late game with little to no money. That is a reality, but it's not who many of us see in our day to day, either in our community or in the media we consume. My parents would be among them had they not bought their houses (divorced) in the bay area. Now they will both be retiring comfortably.
My parents grew up poor and have stayed quite progressive, so our conversations are largely pleasant. But even with their best intentions they can often come off as out of touch. When I grumble about home ownership being out of reach, they'll sometimes reply with the standard "well we had a 12% morgage!". Yes, mom, on a house that cost 1.5 your annual salary. In their era, a postman could live on his route and own his own home. Their postman, Charlie, did forever until he retired two years ago. That just isn't the experience for us. Pre election, my mom kept talking about how good the economy was doing because her retirement, gotten from selling her house in the bay area, was tied up in the stock market. She didn't understand why our generation felt like things weren't going well. We talked about the "K" economy. How she was benefitting from what was seeming like a pretty barren landscape for a number of us. How I don't have investments, but my cost of living had doubled in like 2 years. So even with best intent it was a frustrating conversation.
Now take the conversation to those who aren't attempting to be empathetic or are out right aggressive. I'm on the local planning commission and the people - vast majority boomers - who come to speak could not be more tone def, obnoxious, or out of touch if they tried. I am the sole commissioner under 60 and the majority of their comments are spewed out as they make deep eye contact with me or one of the city staffer, all of whom are around my age. They talk about the "trash" moving into town. How "nobody wants to work anymore". How "our generation is ruining their quaint little town". How we don't need affordable housing, "not everyone gets to drive a Mercedes and not everyone gets to live here!" They work tirelessly to ensure the life they got from their average 9-5 life cannot be accessed by anyone in our generation working a similar job with similar hours. And they do so with the "holier than thou" attitude of an evangelical preacher.
So while theoretically and academically I understand that there is nuance to the generational question. That economics and wealth play a larger role in the frustration than age or generation. And that reasonably arbitrarily hating a group makes no sense. Fuck Boomers. Fuck them for the ignorance they spew on a regular basis. Fuck them for the regressive policies they actively push at every level of government. Locally we call them Q-tip for their white hair and white shoes. The better part of me likes a number of them in town and knows that I'm being just as short sighted as them in thinking it, but fuck Q-tips.
Maybe. Thing is that Millenials won't have the kind if wealth the boomers have, and. That "great wealth transfer" will not be captured by the Millenials. We in general shouldn't have a society of billionaires, so boomers dying out will help a little.
But sure, JD Vance is a millennial; it's not like things magically get better. There will simply be an opening for the first time in 50 years where boomers aren't the voting bloc to appeal to. And millennials without the same benefits growing up likely won't make the same decisions boomers make.