As usual, I don't disagree with much of anything you say. But I think it's important to point out that A) the media has been slinging mud at my generation for a full decade now while doing their best to deflect away from the economic realities that we face B) this whole thing was triggered by a babbling Boomer's rant on how dumb younger generations are and C) there is very legitimate anger from people under 40 or so (38 is the cutoff for millenials) over a plethora of issues (Biden leading in the polls, climate change, Trump, economic inequality) and this is our way of venting.
I do agree, however, that coalition building is vital to change and that this is not productive to that. Same time, Boomers seem intent on repeating the mistakes of the past while talking down to everyone else. So frankly, we have been at a point of generational warfare for awhile now. Sanders/Warren vs. Biden/Pete (neither of whom poll above 10% with people under 38) is living, breathing proof of that.
It's also worth noting that it is generation Z and not millennials who are responsible for OK Boomer. And considering they are the same generation that has finally figured out how to mobilize over climate change, I'm not gonna hold it against them.
Ok, Karen
I mean yes, but isn't this just history repeating itself. I'm somewhere on that gen-x gen-y cusp and the economic reality for me, coming from modest means, with some racially-based privilege, seemed just as dire when Gen-Zers were just being born. I'm sure it's worse in some ways today, student debt for instance was bad for me but my interest rates were not as bad as those that started after me, but the "good jobs" have been next to non-existent for decades and the impacts of climate change (while becoming more obvious) were well underway by the late 90's.
Again Yes - there's some shit to be angry about specific to today, but these problems are not new and many of us have been promoting the ideas that Gen-Z or whomever have co-opted for longer than I've been alive. Old people always think young people are stupid and vice versa. It's part of baseline human idiocy, but the idea that Boomers are worse than the people before them and whatever aged younger people are somehow smarter about this shit than the people that came before them is absolute folly - and everyone is doing themselves and "the movement" a dis-service by thinking they've figured something out that no-one has before. Know thy history blah blah blah.
The whole thing may have been triggered by an idiot "boomer" but there are plenty of idiot z's, y's or whatever now using it in a way that's about that separatism / I'm smarter than you thing.
and the media thing is exactly what I'm talking about... allowing these narratives to be set by the people that seek to divide to keep us weak . Who gives af who said what? or if young people are perceiving bullying or some shit by older people or the media. It isn't an excuse to lose sight of the goal if there is one.
I've seen this over and over again. Young people are pissed, old people are trying to protect themselves, and everybody loses. It sucks and it's why (in part) nothing ever changes. Generational warfare is a long-standing tradition in this country. Sometimes I wonder what the ex-hippy yuppies of the future will look like. Will they wear turtle-necks and drive electric SUVs and listen to indie-rock?
If you make it to middle-age and then old-age in this life you spend decades hearing and seeing the same shit. People being taken advantage of, the desperate becoming more desperate, the boom and bust of global capitalism - all of the harm. You see old people get blamed, poor people get blamed, young people get blamed, Republicans, Democrats, heathens, labels, stereotypes, more blah.... what you don't see is those people actually identifying their shared interest, which is to not get fucked over all of the time, and to have what you're promised by the country, an equal opportunity to succeed.
I just don't know why we waste our time on it.
