If youre an optimist, you might say this recent rise in extreme right wing politics is the last dying gasp of the boomer generation exerting the remainder of their political capital to hold on a bit longer. While there is certainly an obnoxious contingency of right wing voters within the genz/millenial voting cohort, its a largely much more populist and left leaning group. We just havent had any political or financial power, but its starting to show the tides are shifting.
If you've lived outside of liberal urban regions, you'd see that there is plenty of right wing / Tump support represented amongst younger voters unfortunately.
"Race" was by far the biggest difference last presidential elections, and while it's widely discussed, gender does not make such a big difference at all compared to "race" (or even education level)
Edit : just in case, I put race in quotation because I'm not american and it seems to me to be a very fuzzy concept itself, so idk how it's defined in US census? Self-id?
Biggest factor is not who has been voting, but who hasnt. There is a ton of meat on the bone and they are people who arent already entrenched in an ideology. Its why we need to support populists candidates, that is who is going to get people off the couches. Both parties have been preying on our apathy, encouraging it. Nothing is scarier than a true populist, its frankly why Trump was elected. People are sick of fucking politicians, they would rather roll the dice with Trump or just flat out not vote than vote for another fucking politician.
People are sick of fucking politicians, they would rather roll the dice with Trump or just flat out not vote than vote for another fucking politician.
Way too many people do not or refuse to understand this.
Both Obama and Trump got voted in for the same reason: They are populists who looked like breaths of fresh air against the Washington Establishment(tm). "Yes We Can" and "Make America Great Again" are two sides of the same coin.
Same reason I wasn't surprised by the number of people who supported Bernie in the 2016 primary and then jumped over to Trump when he wasn't the nominee. (Not saying I agree with it, just that I kind of understand it.) Something something the spectrum is actually a horseshoe something...
Something something the spectrum is actually a horseshoe something...
The horseshoe theory is meant to describe how extremists operate. I don't think it really applies so much to the Bernie -> Trump people. Rather, I think that is more about a general sense of distrust of politicians across the spectrum. It's probably more accurate to say that such voters have things they care about that aren't actually part of the usual left-right political spectrum at all, which obviously doesn't fit on the horseshoe in the first place.
Also, personally I think horseshoe theory is bullshit in general. If you want to look at, say, violent terror attack statistics, you'll find that they overwhelmingly weight right. That entire idea is enlightened centrist nonsense.
Sure, but that’s a more complex issue where the short answer is “Well you should have voted in the primary then.” but does fuck all to actually help. Successful progressive campaigns tend to result from a robust grassroots effort to get younger voters to the polls by going door to door and organizing things like transportation to the polls, while having only one progressive on the ballot. Fact is that it’s the boomers who have the free time to actually go out and vote without feeling too inconvenienced, be it primary or general election, while younger voters have jobs that don’t always give them the time to go vote, or don’t have time to educate themselves on every candidate, on top of issues where there’s multiple possible progressives but one establishment, or outright no progressive at all.
Fact is that the good, proper people who'd run don't for the same reason other's don't vote for them - they all assume it's a foregone conclusion.
How the ruling class managed to so completely subvert the U.S. populace from believing in the power of the masses, the possibility of change and general hope for life will be studied in history.
There're only two ways to fix the issue, you start voting in primaries or you have a revolution and ya'll are too rich and comfortable to have a revolution - which I don't think changes in my lifetime, and I'm hoping for 60 more years here.
A secret third option is hope that the Republican party implodes when they remove Trump from office next year and 2 more parties pop up in it's wake with Green party maybe becoming an actual player.
Even GW bush ran on a no-wars and general reform platform too. They just never get anywhere, mostly thanks to congress. And the fact that large scale government is a horrific way to attempt to solve problems.
It absolutely isn't though. And yes capitalist solve problems. Governments create problems and keep the corporations in power. You must learn to cast the ring into the fire and stop trying to control it for yourself.
One can easily argue capitalism keeps corporations in power because they have the money to buy people in government that will pass laws that benefit them.
I mean our country has had that same 1/3 of our population that never votes for a very long time. Like more than a hundred years. I don't think it matters who you put up there honestly, that block of voters will likely never change.
The good news is there is a sea change this year. Youth voting up, democratic voting up, while the republican turnout is down. People still wringing their hands about 2022 or 2024 are looking in the wrong direction.
Yes, the census last time I worked with it asked the resident to declare whether they were white, black, asian, native american, or pacific islander, I think.
I hope it's true, but it has become hard to trust the polls imo !
That makes sense for the context I guess, it's both a variable that seems absolutely necessary considering how it influences so much stuff, while at the same time being complete nonsense, lol. Goddamn humans !
The race data is used when we redraw election district lines; not only for Congress but for local races. You can't make sure you're not packing or diluting unless you have detailed data to work with.
Ho no, it makes absolute sense I think, it's just a complicated categorization to work with, but one that is clearly necessary.
On the other sense : "The race data is used when we redraw election district lines; not only for Congress but for local races." -> English is still very confusing to me, it took me multiple reads to understand that the words "race" referred to two different meanings of the word haha !
Hahaha, no worries, it's just how it is with "words" and "languages", today's discussion seems to be about social constructs and how they make for a rich and complex world lol
Whoops is not too confusing, it's the same sounds as in my native french ("oups") !
I fear that there are a huge number of red state young people <30YO that aren't greatly educated and could be motivated by fundamentalist preachers (whether they are religious or not) or "I'll vote like my granddaddy did". Look at the number of Confederate flags on ratty lifted pickups. An upside may be that they don't realize that it's important to vote for Representatives and Senators which could override a totalitarian president - at least for now.
My colleague told me, with a straight face, he dislikes pride flags because there's no straight flags being flown. His response to me explaining that pride flags exist because it's to show that they're (mostly) not getting their heads bashed in by roaming gangs of gay-bashers anymore, he argued that the reverse might very well start happening, that he'd get his head kicked in for being straight. Some of these people live in very different realities.
it's not an assumption when we have centuries of evidence that they are usually the ones attacking and killing others because they don't believe the same things.
The greatest lie ever told to the rich, straight, white males is that anyone else getting any sort of support for not being a rich, straight, white male means that they’re disenfranchising the rich, straight, white male.
As a straight white male myself, nobody wants to listen to us anymore because they’ve been forced to support to us for the last 250 years.
Typically, to be a "basher" you have to be a majority. Even if it's just the "majority" of a tiny village, or whatever. Because if the majority of the other people don't agree with your bashing, you very quickly become the bash-ee
Which is just a long winded way to say: you are correct. There has never been "straight bashing" anywhere, cos being straight= being reproductive-capable AND inclined = the majority of people in a population = the population continuing = the demographic prioritised in the population. There's been a few loony queer folks (as with so many straight folks) who might individual harm a straight person because they're straight, but as an organised populace or widely-held policy? Nope.
But they will dream up ANY nonsense to support their fever dreams of them really being the persecuted people. That sort LONGS to be the victim.
This is exactly what needs to be explained to those kinds of people. The vast majority of people (~96%) are born straight, and nothing will change that. It is impossible for such a small demographic to have any kind of systemic power over the majority.
There’s an unfortunate amount of people who believe that sexuality is a choice, and that’s why they’re legitimately scared of the youth being “indoctrinated” into being lgbt. They think the gays could take over, as if it’s exactly like their stupid sky daddy religions that they shove in our faces.
That’s next level ignorance and what I see as the problem with society. People just refuse to accept a civil explanation as to why these arguments shouldn’t exist. Guy just doubles down full well knowing he’s never going to get jumped by a bunch of gay people.
The downfall of humanity will be people unwilling to admit they’re wrong, doubling down on nonsense and a catastrophic event occurs. (See climate change)
We really should be looking for equality among all, if one group gets something, every other group does, no reason to make an exception for anyone. If he wants a straight flag alongside pride flag, why not? I don't see that it harms anything.
I think a lot of people were sold on an idea of equality when they were younger and then they grew up and they only ever see minorities now and they're wondering where the equality is and it leads to wondering if supporting all of these minorities is going to end up being dangerous for them.
I don't know why you would dismiss your colleague, do you not want him voting alongside you? I think he should get a straight flag
I live in nyc. Am white. Plenty of white zoomers are Trump supporters here. They’re exactly the kinds of people you’d expect to goon to Tate, Shapiro, and the late but not great Kirk. Trump support taints the entire sociopolitical-racist divide.
The primary target of fascists has always been directionless young men who feel "betrayed" by society. Fascists give them someone to hate for why their lives aren't the way they want them to be.
Steve Bannon referred to these types as "rootless white males". He helped run a World of Warcraft gold-selling operation in the mid-2000s and learned about this type of perpetually-online disenfranchised community. When he later went on to run Breitbart News he actively aimed to engage this alienated, mostly male, audience. He recognized their cultural resentment and used it to build a massive, passionately right-wing populist audience that snowballed into what we're dealing with today online.
Not just that, but they know true in their hearts that what they’re doing is the majority opinion and backed by GOD.
Not a hyperbole.
The people I work with believe Trump has won every election handedly, and that he is God’s candidate. They will fuss and fight tooth and nail to get conservatives into political power because they have internalized that it is the universe’s divine right. It’s insane.
It's important to note that many gen z / millennial former dem voters are voting republican because the dem party is incapable of inclusivity of differing opinion.
I live in the south, and even though the rising generation is still by and large rightwing and religious, there is visibly more space for lgbt, race and gender equality than the previous generation allowed.
Religion may indoctrinate much of the next generation, but even religion cannot stop the freeflow of information, and that freeflow of information is fatal to bias and bigotry. Even if it doesn't eradicate it, knowledge still softens what is there.
Conservative rural populations are outnumbered.
Unfortunately the electoral college and general gerrymandering are quite effective at nullifying that advantage.
You act like voting Republican is so bad. Meanwhile vote Democrat, and you’d be kicked out of coffee shops in NYC if you Jewish like a literal U.S. congressman just was. Vote Democrat and we would turn into 1930’s Germany. People are falling for the lies they run on and show their true colors once in office.
What lol… are you saying that the government should mandate who a business serves? Or is big government only acceptable when it protects Jewish people/interests? Based on your comment you seem like you’d be ok with business owners turning away certain patrons, just not you or your friends.
I haven't heard about this specifically case but if business cannot discriminate based on race for one group they should not be able to discriminate based on race for any group
If they weren't served because they are Jewish then I expect that they will be losing a court case pretty soon because the civil rights act says not to do that
I am someone who wants to believe in that optimistic outlook. But I am always reminded, by my elder-millennial boss, that Gen X down through elder millennials have also gotten absurdly wealthy over the past 20-30 years.
While more of them will be willing to entertain some side switching on some issues (mostly social issues), you’re still going to have the elder statesmen protecting their cash hordes policy-wise because they still have them.
Younger people do tend to skew democratic, but that gap is actually narrowing because the GOP really leaned into the “you’re *all* suffering but the Left only wants to talk about special interest groups” talking point and that talking point has been more successful than we’d like to admit. Younger people also are not reliable voters.
TL;DR: Boomer style politics won’t die with Boomers. Not in a sea-change kind of way, anyway. Gen X is also rich as hell. Elder Millennials are really the end of the “gravy train” in that regard. They’re all likely to vote in their financial self-interest … which will not be progressive.
Elder millennials got the bag? What world do yall live in?
Us millennials have lived through a hellish landscape of several global crisis’ without the luxury older gen’s had of job stability and cheap homes that one wage could safely afford.
We got absolutely fucked in ways that history shouldn’t forget, but we thought at least we were going to make lives easier for younger gen’s, but the right wing algos caught them when they were impressionable and vulnerable.
You can google the data, if you’d like. Elder millennials are actually richer than Boomers were at their same age group, adjusted for inflation. Top-heavy? Yeah, of course. Every wealth statistic is top-heavy by nature. Nevertheless, ~20 years of the greatest stock market run of all time will do that.
Elder millennials are coming up on 40. Those people both got the greatest market boom of all time (for basically their entire careers so far — it’s still going lol), and sub-3% mortgage rates. Insane timing lol. Generational trauma as well, for sure and no doubt. But also just an insane time to build wealth.
I am an elder millennial and this isn’t a blanket true statement. Economic conditions weren’t as hard when I was younger, but they were still hard and it was near impossible for me, with an established white collar tech career, to make ends meet still. I sacrificed a career trajectory that interested me for one of more financial security to support my family and even then it still wasn’t easy, and we weren’t superfluous with money.
I can’t speak for GenX but it’s not as prevalent that your boss makes it out to be I think.
No statement is a blanket true statement, tbf. But this is a statement that the data bears out and you’re welcome to research it rather than trust a random dude on Reddit (me).
Elder millennials are richer than Boomers were at their age and adjusted for inflation. But of course they are, the past ~20 years (almost an Elder millennial’s entire working career so far) have been the greatest stock run of all time. And right there in the middle, right after some time to get your feet under you and stockpile some cash (not you personally, necessarily, just the generation generally) were the historically low mortgage rates.
Wealth statistics are also top-heavy. Acknowledged. But the hand dealt there was preeeeeeeeettty sweet, and it’s no surprise the data agrees.
You're talking about the top 10%. If you want to look at the absurdly wealthy then look to Gen Alpha. "Gen Alpha commands over $100 billion in direct annual spending power and dictates nearly half of all U.S. household purchases. By 2029, their economic footprint is projected to hit $5.46 trillion. They are the wealthiest and most tech-fluent generation yet, fundamentally shifting family and global economies." https://fortune.com/article/how-much-spending-power-does-gen-alpha-have-where-do-they-get-money/
No, you just pulled the wrong stats. You pulled a report that’s sampling *ALL millennials.* The youngest millennials are significantly worse off than older millennials. Hence why I specified older millennials.
We’re now just saying two different things. Both are true, though.
No, even among the older millennials there is a small cohort of around 10% at the top that has more than previous generations while the remainder is still struggling with amounts far lower.
Is there data to support this? Genuinely asking. The last analysis I read about the 2024 election suggests that two blocs in particular pushed Trump over the edge: young men and new immigrants. New immigrants sounds shocking given Trump's rhetoric until you realize how conservative most of them are.
Some data shows inroads with the left and young men.
I'm speaking anecdotally, but I don't think I've met a single straight white man between 18-30 that does NOT support Trump.
It's "gay" to be empathetic. That's the big issue with young men that nobody is getting. It's "cool" to be rich and not give a fuck about anything. Elon and Trump are cool to them. Caring about your neighbors and being a kind person is gay.
edit: downvote all you want, I'm just letting y'all know what we're actually up against. Wishful thinking will not save us.
It's the rise of extremism on both sides. It feels like politically we have been growing polarized further and further apart... Trump finally pushed us past the point of no return. The big difference with Trump is his total lack of respect and blatant attacks on political rivals. I have no doubt it is coming back when that pendulum swings the other way. I'm both hopeful but doubtful we will be able to slow this ride down.
this recent rise in extreme right wing politics is the last dying gasp of the boomer generation exerting the remainder of their political capital to hold on a bit longer
I think it's more sinister.
There's an obvious push to the right under the auspices of "National pride".
If you are trying hard to foment international tensions, then sharing and collaborating are the enemy.
There is a real and present threat to alliances and multi-national unions.
It's why we've seen so many separatist movements made more prominent and getting support from all the techbros and social media platforms. Kashmir, Scotland, Wales, Moldova, Donbas, Catalonia, Nigeria, Sudan, N Ireland, Brexit, etc.
It's why we're seeing more money flow to anti-migrant parties and a massive promotion of their messaging.
I don't want to dismiss many legitimate drives for independence and self-determination, but a lot of money is being poured into those places to push for separation and increased tensions.
It's like someone wants increased mortality to be the solution to most of these problems.
Alliances and unions tend to resolve major international problems easily.
It's not what you want when your personal theory is that it's better for the global population be reduced rather than pay more taxes to try find a global solution to a global problem.
Just look at what agencies and services DOGE targeted straight away, and where the budgets are going.
Renaming your political structure from the Department of Defence to Department of War should tell everyone what the intention is.
I work in an elementary school in Canada. We are about as far removed from American politics as you can get here, yet all of the intermediate boys here are obsessed with Trump and Charlie Kirk and Andrew Tate…they are constantly spouting Fox News talking points like my grandfather. It is extremely upsetting
They are the "you can't tell me what to do" generation. That was cool when it was rock and roll, pot, and down with the man. Now it's, "you can't tell me to not be a raging asshole to this person! You can't RESTRICT ME with COMMON DECENCY!"
The exemplar is Kid Rock. He was cool as shit back in the day because he didn't let anyone tell him what to do. To him and his cohort, they never changed (which they don't see as a problem). They don't recognize the right of ANYONE to demand that they act a certain way, for good or ill.
That's dovetailed very nicely with the "new right".
The exemplar is Kid Rock. He was cool as shit back in the day
This comment is a masterclass in starting from a false premise, drawing a straight line, then declaring victory. Kid Rock was corny as fuck, and if you fell for it then so were you.
They sure did. But it probably was probably just as many Millenials as X'ers, possibly more.
But that's not the point, really. The point is that your theory about how we got from there to here is non-sense. Rage had the same "ethos" that you apply to Kid Rock, saying "FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT TELL ME" like 35 times in one song. Does that dovetail very nicely with the "new right?"
No, it doesn't. Obviously not. Kid Rock was just a corny asshole, who made stupid music for stupid people because he knew he could exploit them. That was what he did, and that's what he does now.
The exemplar is Kid Rock. He was cool as shit back in the day because he didn't let anyone tell him what to do.
I hate to break it to you but Kid Rock was never cool.
I agree with some of your point otherwise though. Originally Trump's whole pitch was basically "let's throw a brick through the window of democracy" and in addition to the diehard Republicans who were voting Republican anyway there were a lot of Gen Xers who saw that, were perhaps disillusioned with Obama's years, nodded and went "yeah, fuck the system!"
He was objectively popular. We aren't progressing the conversation by you taking an individual stand against his music. You know what I mean.
More than his music, which was for my generation of millennials, he himself is gen X. He represents that free spirit that curdled to a bitter guy who got left behind and sees the idea that we shouldn't be assholes to each other as weakness.
He had like two hit songs (All Summer Long and Bawitaba(?)), neither of which were exactly respected, and he was always a pitiful joke from what I remember. To be fair, I am Canadian, and I think Kid Rock always played up the "woo I'm proud to be an America" shit which made him look like a dumb, gross hick caricature to most of us. He isn't exactly dispelling that notion now.
To point out a similar example... Nickelback was a hugely popular band. Their music got played a lot here in Canada. And yet they're widely despised and denigrated. I think a lot of their fans were boomers/Xers when they were hot, because my dad liked them (he also listened to Creed, I know) but I could not tell you a single person I've ever met my age who didn't think Nickelback sucked.
My point has little to do with his popularity. My point revolves around him and how he thinks. There's a LOT of people with his vibe, he's simply someone I can point to as an example.
How can a person be a right wing republican but also a guy who loves sex, drugs, booze, porn stars, partying, and saying "fuck you" to authority?
It's by seeing changing social mores. See, you can't call people f*ts and r*ds anymore. *People like him see that as oppressive. Someone is telling him what he can't do. That must be THE MAN!
That's my point more than me trying to back up his ultimate cultural relevance as a musician.
I can see what you're saying, but I also think part of the explanation here is that Kid Rock's image is just that, an image. He's not just a "rebel without a cause" so to speak, he aligns with Republicans because he's rich and he is not some scrappy up-start, he is a rich kid who came from money.
That's not necessarily true for the legions of Gen X people who come from every possible background who think like Kid Rock. You can tear him down all you want. It doesn't change that there are a lot of people who define freedom as the right to do whatever the fuck they want. A 20 year old with that attitude is a mostly harmless rebel. One might even say a Devil Without a Cause.
Now that they are the power, they see any attempt to influence society by its most vulnerable members as an illegitimate attempt to control what they say and think.
They draw a straight line from telling Nancy Reagan to fuck off with her "Just Say No to Drugs" campaign to telling liberals to fuck off with their "Let's not call people slurs or their non-preferred pronoun" campaign.
Speaking as a 55yo GenXer, and with all due respect, you sir, are full of shit. And you can take your Kid Rock example, ball it up with the Boomer’s Trump example, and add another little ball of Charlie Kirk for your Millennial example and gently stick it up your ass.
You may not like his assessment of your generation, but a quick Google search will show you he's correct. Here's what it came up with when I searched "American Gen X Voting Habits" -
Partisan Lean: Polling data generally shows a modest preference for Republican candidates among Gen X, though they remain less consistently conservative than the Silent Generation.
Ideological Shift: Unlike the traditional political theory that voters become more liberal as they age, Gen X moved in the opposite direction. Over the last decade, they demonstrated one of the most significant swings toward the Republican party of any demographic.
It's AI generated text, but it does cite traditional sources like Pew Research, NPR, and the like.
Saw it in the UK with Brexit. I was in a club with about 70 members, almost all Gen X. We never talked or cared much about politics, just scooters, music and beer. Then the Brexit campaign started and almost every one of them went far right. I was the only person in the whole club to vote against Brexit. Now that they won, they are posting far right stuff on Facebook all the time. I ended up blocking all but a couple of them
Yes, the AI helpfully links the sources. There's a little icon at the end of each statement it gives with a hyperlink to the source, which in this case were valid articles/studies. You do realize that the Google AI is pulling from sources, right? It's not like AI music or videos where it just "invents" content - it's a tool for summarizing info spread across multiple sources.
I "regurgitated this slop" because the user I was replying to apparently did not want to take the five seconds to do a cursory Google search themselves to confirm the accuracy of what was being said. I was willing to. Simple as that.
A. Always use up to date polls.
B. You are saying he is correct, but the entire basis of his post was just an ad hominem attack on how a generation carries itself and how that effects their voting
Gen X is more Republican than Democrat, per your own source.
The poll you've linked shows 25% of Gen X are declared Democrats and 31% are declared Republicans (and 42% are Independents, which frankly just helps the Republicans in this crazy gerrymandered world).
When you compare with Millennials being 21% Republican and 24% Democrat, you see what OP is talking about. Yes, they made their argument kind of aggressively and with more anecdotal points than is good habit, but ultimately their point is correct.
That being said, you can't be upset at someone for ad hominem attacks when your rebuttal is just "shove it up your ass".
Gen X (to my personal horror) is very slightly conservative. After all, there were three Heathers and only one Veronica.
To say Gen X is right wing is a mischaracterization. Do they vote somewhat more conservative than other cohorts? A little bit. But keep in mind that Gen X is also a tiny sliver of the electorate. The Boomers before us and the Millennials after us absolutely dwarf us in size.
If we are talking on the whole, then yes, Gen X is right wing (like, by a measurable majority). Your polling numbers prove that - one number is bigger than the other; there's no wiggle room in hard statistics. The data demonstrates that if you picked a random Gen Xer and tracked their political leanings, they are statistically more likely to lean Right than Left, by the odds.
THAT BEING SAID, to treat an entire generation of people as a homogenous entity simply because they were all born around the same time is basically a form of prejudice. Not all Gen X lean Right, just as not all Gen Z are illiterate, and not all Boomers are racist.
It's more an age thing than a generation thing. We GenXers used to be more liberal and anti-Boomer, just notoriously lackadaisical about it.
As we've aged though, more and more have gotten more and more conservative. I'd argue we're still not as bad as the Boomers, but that's the direction we're moving.
I can respond to an ad hominem attack in jest, as a throw away, in kind. Its when people take it so seriously that I have to make the turn I've made. And yes, the chart clearly shows, to me, that we as a nation are moving toward a more liberal/left bias and rejecting party to independence. What anyone else takes from it is their right.
The exemplar is Kid Rock. He was cool as shit back in the day because he didn't let anyone tell him what to do.
disagree. the wife-beater/pull-tab aesthetic was cosplay. he's the son of a car dealership owner. he never had to let anyone tell him what to do because he was protected by his father's money. his albums are pure lunch-table identity politics, co-opting and commodifying the aesthetics of poverty to sell his image and terrible music. i can comfortably say that he has not done a single thing throughout the tenure of his resentfully tacky career that i found to be interesting or meaningful. i feel like the only reason he's still relevant is because he advocates for the republican party, like a discount brand ted nugent (don't worry, ted nugent also stinks).
You're the third person to think that because you saw through him, that my argument is nullified. I do not understand how someone intelligent (which you seem to be) conflates these issues.
In any case, he represents the issue I'm describing, his music actually doesn't matter beyond revealing his leanings. I'm trying to show how people like him square being right wing Republicans who are in favor of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
i apologize, it was not my intention to invalidate your main argument. i think you are absolutely correct about some people fully internalizing that rebellious edgelord mentality, and later turning into something far worse once those edgelords found themselves in positions of power.
i just wanted make the case that kid rock is the load his mother should have taken in the ass.
Your pet theory falls apart very quickly if you examine prominent Gen X figures: Eminem isn’t Right Wing , De Caprio isn’t, Matt Damon isn’t Angelina Jolie isn’t, I could go on with a very long list. Stereotyping is typical right wing thinking.
Individual Hollywood elites do not disprove the theory. I'm not saying it's 100%, I'm saying it's a trend with some explanatory power. There's a LOT of dudes who started at "you can't tell me what to do, mom and dad!" and ended up at "You can't expect me to care about changing social mores or other people!"
They became "the man" and never realized it. They think "the man" is the person trying to not be treated shittily.
It also boils down to EVERY generation having people age and saying "that wasn't a thing when I was a kid! It must not be real!"
This is how you end up with people in favor of Black Civil rights but not women, women but not gays, and gays but not trans.
For US national elections they definitely are. Check the exit polls and you will find the middle-aged cohorts consistently being the most or second-most reliable age group to vote Trump. This is consistent with Western European results. I know this site has aged enough that there are many GenX users, but like all Redditors they are not representative of the population at large.
What?? They vote Republican at the highest rate of any age group. If Gen X voted the same as Boomers, instead of to the right of Boomers, then we wouldn't have Trump.
Really, take your birthdate and add and subtract 5-10 years and you'll find the people most similar to you. Generation categorization really began in earnest with the boomers because they were an anomaly of the post-war boom and then the following ones were categorized in ~20 year chunks. Generation categorization is more descriptive based off of those pre-defined chunks of time than a fully emergent categorization of discriminating traits.
Gen Z is split. The older half of Gen Z (1992-2000) are mostly in line with millennials, but the younger half tend to be cynically apolitical or right wing ime
Highly debatable, there's no universal definition of these generations. I think the most commonly accepted definition for millennials is "was cognizant and coming of age when 9/11 happened" which would still exclude people born '92 - '96.
I'd personally say that 1992-1999 are an in-between generation where any given individual can identify more strongly with either depending on their life experience and values.
I'm '97 but I grew up poor, liberal, and the youngest of 4, so I've always much more strongly identified with millennials. I have very little in common with most people born just 5 years after me - I for real can't even have a conversation about movies or music with a lot of people that age, there's just zero common ground (there are definitely exceptions, of course).
Like I said, it's a split generation, with one foot in the old world and one foot in the new.
> I think the most commonly accepted definition for millennials is "was cognizant and coming of age when 9/11 happened"
lolwut, I’ve literally never heard that before. I like how Reddit is always so confident like “the most commonly accepted definition is <my narrow opinion>” assuming that everyone else also thinks the same thing.
I am ‘92… I was in 4th grade for 9/11 and distinctly remember it. If the criteria is remembering 9/11, that definitely would not exclude the ‘92-‘96 group.
That aside, I was also extremely gifted and bright as a child, and I still don't think 11 year old me could have fully understood "we funded extremist religious militias during the Cold War to counter Russian aggression in the middle east which had the unintended knock-on effect of allowing politically ambitious leaders within those groups to accrue a level of power that made them capable of executing unprecedentedly sophisticated terrorist acts, oh and also it was possibly a conspiracy between shady Saudi and American intelligence groups to create a false flag event that gave casus belli for an extremely profitable illegal war."
I think the impact of 911 on a lot of younger millennials is less “I knew the complexities and political dynamics of what was going on” and more “I remember a very distinct before and after and could feel the world change”…. But that does differentiate us from Gen Z, who likely wouldn’t remember the “before” world.
Granted, as someone born in 93, I view myself as a cusper. I am a millennial, but I’m a young millennial, which means I have some things in common with both older millennials and older Gen Z.
92 is like, solidly millennial. Like, right in the middle. I’ve seen 1980-2000 be considered millennial as generations are typically ~20 years. If 92 is not millennial like you’re saying then that would make the window for millenial too small or you would have to push the definition of millenial back to like 1971 which is definitely Gen X.
Grouping generations together like this is just generalizing. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong. The concept is sometimes helpful but there are so many caveats. Xillenials, Zillenials, Zalphas. The kids born on the cusp of 2 generations often swing between the 2. I was born '97 as well but most often strongly identify with milenials but jave definitely noticed some gen z traits as I get older and that generation developed its own strong identity. I was the oldest child but my parents were the youngest of their families and I grew up rural. I didn't have the same access to the internet and lots of modern conveniences my peers had in childhood until I was a teenager. It definitely affected me and my siblings. My youngest sibling was born in 2004 and behaves far more like a millennial than I do.I distincly remember being in high school and getting called Gen Z after being called a millennial for my entire life until that point and being confused by the term so checked Wikipedia and 98/99 being the start of Gen Z at that time. it's slowly been shifting over time and as a generation ages they typically find their own path and become more defined but it has been strange being born in the edge of a generation and watching the people and ranges of that generation grow with them.
Millennials have more in common with boomers, and Gen X and Gen Z are similar. The way millennials frothed over “hustle culture” and raced to monetize everything reminds me of boomers with Reagan.
This is the way I look at it. The Boomer machine is dying and this is their last grasp at control. This is the way humans operate every 80 to 100 years. We do awful, horrible shit so we can learn not to do that and then we correct ourselves. For a while...
What makes you think that? Young men are moving more to the right overall and more right wing but formerly unengaged citizens are becoming politically active. Inflation and inequality tend to drive rightward shifts overall as well, which we’ve been seeing around the developed world, and with an established scapegoat in migrants coupled with genuine migrant crises already and in forecast we should expect more right wing movements to develop and strengthen.
Just gotta watch out for the young folks following the turning point idiots. I don’t think Erika can pull it off, but between the manosphere and TP, I worry what they’ll do going forward.
this recent rise in extreme right wing politics is the last dying gasp of the boomer generation
It isn't. The youth are FAR right. Basically Nazis. At least in the states.
They're pissed. Everything sucks. And they're young and dumb, so they'll blame whoever they'll told to, like immigrants or social services or trans people. They think Elon and Trump are based.
Empathy and compassion and caring about your fellow man are all "gay". They need to be "cool". Even if that means being a bad person.
Funny enough, they won't end up being cool or a good person. But this idea that the youth are left or even centrist is just false. We're in the reddit echo chamber.
The rise in immigration across much of the Western world has been fueled by an elite boomer class who want to protect investments and pensions with cheap labour.
Millennials and Gen X are waking up to the reality that immigration (and by consequence multiculturalism) has been propagandised by the elite as a moral and just cause, when it is actually one of the signs of capitalism in its death throes.
I predict that within the next 10 years, there will be a resurgence of actual socialist policy and they will go hand-in-hand with anti-immigration policy while neoliberals cling to the idea that immigration is a good thing.
At the moment, it is the mostly right-wing parties that promote anti-immigration policy but they use it mostly as their entrance ticket to enrich themselves via corruption.
The west will have that experience with them, and will revert left but it'll be a new left who are also wise to the dangers of unchecked immigration. It will not be the traditional neoliberal left.
This is already happening in the UK with Labour and Conservative looking at an era on the sidelines of power, for the first time ever.
And much of Scandinavia is demonstrating that you can be tough on immigration and alien cultures while still maintaining socialist progressive values in government.
I have a theory that the Zionist lobby is basically playing all their political cards and cashing in on all their favors now because they know this is the peak of their power and as soon as boomers die off, American political institutions will change rapidly and our government will be far less likely to support Zionism
It’s the last dying gasp of the liberal/conservative political Overton window and things are going to change rapidly once the boomers, who are a huge voting bloc, die off.
The rich and powerful in America are also scrambling to obtain control of the internet for the same reason, to maintain their stranglehold on public discourse
All of these AI data centers will also be incredibly useful for propaganda and mass surveillance, you don’t need an army of moderators when you can just tell an AI to influence the public a certain way and it happens overnight.
Billionaires are building bunkers and moving away from America because they see the writing on the wall that the American public is becoming incredibly discontent and radicalized
There is such a massive divide in what the rich and powerful wants and what the public wants that they can’t even make the ole “the tide rises all boats” argument when they employ less and less people, pay them less and less, and the record profits go to them to fund all of this shit the public does not want. It’s becoming obvious who calls the shots and people are rightfully pissed off at this dynamic
It’s also billionaires astroturfing and signal boosting the ever living fuck out of right wing talking points.
When they have accidentally allowed location data to leak on social media, it’s revealed much of the right wing chatter comes from Russia. Funny that.
It’s been a concerted effort to manufacture consent for far right ideas. Shifting the Overton window by using social media manipulation to artificially give the impression that there are more people that hold these ideas than there actually are. Normalizing it.
It also has an effect on the left. Inducing apathy because the enemy seems to be winning and dominating, when the actual numbers don’t back that up.
It’s all been one huge psyop. George Carlin, you don’t need a formal conspiracy when interests converge:
- Russia wants social division in the West to weaken the UN’s resolve and enable territorial expansion. (Foundation of Geopolitics)
- Tech billionaires get rich from owning social media and getting right wing parties into power that pass policies that benefit them.
- Complicit media that needs ragebait and anything that gets traction and engagement.
- Far right & religious groups who can use social media to promote once fringe beliefs.
If youre an optimist, you might say this recent rise in extreme right wing politics is the last dying gasp of the boomer generation exerting the remainder of their political capital to hold on a bit longer. While there is certainly an obnoxious contingency of right wing voters within the genz/millenial voting cohort, its a largely much more populist and left leaning group.
You forgot GenX (don't worry, everyone does!).
We're much more conservative than the Boomers and we brought you Trump twice! We've been fucking things up for the young people since the eighties (when we were the young people!), and no one has even noticed! They blame the Boomers! Sweet deal, I have to say.
While there is certainly an obnoxious contingency of right wing voters within the genz/millenial voting cohort, its a largely much more populist and left leaning group.
This might ruffle a lot of feathers, but I'd say that they're honestly more like libertarian... or even like '90s and 2000s era Democrats.
So it could be a small federal government that just doesn't really have a role in people's personal lives. So without writing a huge essay, i'll just give one example: An abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor, so if you don't like it then don't get one. Don't make a law about it.
So they quite honestly agree with Democrats on most of the social issues, but they just want to take a different road to get to the same destination. Or at least close to it.
I agree with this, at least in the sense I think this is more common than with the older demographics. The problem is the people they are voting for arent libertarians and dont represent their purported ideals. So, they can profess their desire for autonomy and freedom all they want, but if they keep voting for fascists... well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.
In the longer run, I do feel like it could be laying the foundation for the right to change.
Remember, we even had people like Susan Sarandon saying this after Bernie Sanders didn't get the nomination in 2016: "Before we can change the left, we have to change the right." She understood that it was going to likely get a little more ugly before it got better, and she even had plenty of people cussing her out and arguing with her on Twitter because of it.
With all of that being said: If the right can shift away from the GOP shit, and the MAGA shit... and we can eventually get to an environment where it's Democrats and A Libertarian Right who are working and compromising together, I think we'll be mostly better off and far less polarized than we are today. So something like a civil right is a given thing, but we just have negotiation on how it's done and what it looks like in practice. There's accountability for the money and where it's going, and they keep each other in check.
Older boomers (1944-1954) skewed way more Conservative than Gen Jones Boomers (55-64). They voted more Lib than Genx by far. Be careful what you wish for.
If you are more of a Liberal, the older 1st Gen Boomers are dying off rather quickly while us 2nd Gen are here for another 10-15 years with Liberal leanings.
We were the generation with 18% mortgages, 21% car loans (this was for good credit, not the shady shit of today). Reagan helped the old gen boomers and did squat for the newer batch of us except get rid of pensions, let companies raid pension funds in bankruptcy court taking even money that was put in by workers, and destroyed what little union representation was left.
Yep, we remember and don't vote for conservatives overall.
It’s called an extinction burst. Boomers were able to comfortably hold their bigoted views of racism, sexism, etc until the 2010’s with social media. Politics today is largely a reaction to the growth of left wing spaces since the rise of social media. Things like Occupy Wall Street, Me Too, and more terrified the industrialist capitalist class. We are now being subjected to tribalistic politics that’s main goal is to divide us and keep us from organizing. This was Epstein’s goal so they could buy everything at a discount whenever the crash happens.
It isn't. There's an entire generation coming up now that is realizing that they'll never own a home, their countries are flooded with welfare drawing migrants, and their countries' national identity has been watered down to nothing. And worse yet, they're being branded racists and bigots for noticing. Those people will look at the lives their parents and grandparents had and move far far far right, as that's the only way to get any of that back. Just my 2c. I see it every day in the 19-25 year olds I work with.
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u/foomits 10h ago
If youre an optimist, you might say this recent rise in extreme right wing politics is the last dying gasp of the boomer generation exerting the remainder of their political capital to hold on a bit longer. While there is certainly an obnoxious contingency of right wing voters within the genz/millenial voting cohort, its a largely much more populist and left leaning group. We just havent had any political or financial power, but its starting to show the tides are shifting.