Politics-What's on your mind?

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by Martina

I'm a late boomer, born 1958. I certainly saw a generation die.

My friends who had kids conformed to another stereotype, suddenly becoming serious householders, super concerned with their kids and being good parents. Of the friends I've known for thirty plus years, none of those who married got divorced. One, a gay male without kids, really needs to. I think my experience is a little different.

My partner was born in 1961. She does not seem like a boomer to me at all.

Ya'll are in Generation Jones

Generation Jones is the social cohort of the latter half of the Baby boomers to the first years of Generation X. The term was first coined by the cultural commentator Jonathan Pontell, who identified the cohort as those born from 1954 to 1965 in the U.S. who came of age during the oil crisis, stagflation, and the Carter presidency, rather than during the 1960s, but slightly before Gen X. Other sources place the starting point at 1956 or 1957. Unlike older baby boomers, most of Generation Jones did not grow up with World War II veterans as fathers, and for them there was no compulsory military service and no defining political cause, as opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War had been for the older boomers.

The name "Generation Jones" has several connotations, including a large anonymous generation, a "keeping up with the Joneses" competitiveness and the slang word "jones" or "jonesing", meaning a yearning or craving. It is believed that Jonesers were given huge expectations as children in the 1960s, and then confronted with a different reality as they came of age during a long period of mass unemployment and when de-industrialization arrived full force in the mid-late 1970s and 1980s, leaving them with a certain unrequited "jonesing" quality for the more prosperous days of the past.

The generation is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of their older brothers and sisters in the earlier portion of the baby boomer population had come immediately preceding them; thus, many complain that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to older boomers. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness and "jonesing" for the level of freedom and affluence granted to older boomers but denied to them

My parents are Silent Generation (born '39 and '43, married late and did not have me until 1970, when dad was 31 and back from 2 deployments)

I recently found a book about the Silents called The Lucky Few: Between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom.

Born during the Great Depression and World War Two (1929 – 1945) - between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom - an entire generation has slipped between the cracks of history. Yet behind the scenes, these Lucky Few became the first American generation smaller than the one before them, and the luckiest generation of Americans ever.

As children they experienced the most stable intact parental families in the nation’s history. Lucky Few women married earlier than any other generation of the century and helped give birth to the Baby Boom, yet also gained in education compared to earlier generations. Lucky Few men made the greatest gains of the century in schooling, earned veterans benefits like the Greatest Generation but served mostly in peacetime with only a fraction of the casualties, came closest to full employment, and spearheaded the trend toward earlier retirement.

More than any other generation, Lucky Few men advanced into professional and white-collar jobs while Lucky Few women concentrated in the clerical "pink-collar ghetto." Even in retirement and old age the Lucky Few remain in the right place at the right time. Here is their story, and the story of how they have affected other recent generations of Americans before and since.

These folks are ages 70-90 now. They are ALLLLLLLL Republicans at this point, it seems. These are the people Republicans were going for with the Southern Strategy. Lucky Few and Greatest Generation people who were Democrats peeled off when the Dems blew off the unions.

Anyway, this particular digression was about generational fractures among anti-Trump voters.

I say "anti-Trump" because today it does not feel useful to talk about Democrats. The candidate who runs against Trump will need to understand that we are building a coalition of Republican defectors (optimism), moderates, centrists, liberals, progressives, socialists, and leftists.

Only about half of those find "beat Trump" to be sufficient motivation. The other half want a revolution. The moderates, centrists, and liberals keep yelling at everybody else about how to beat Trump and not understanding why they don't seem terrified by the possibility of another 4 years.

I think that is our generational issue-- older moderates/centrists/liberals (plus most minorities of all ages) are terrified of a Trump win and prioritize beating him above all else.

Progressives, Socialists, and Leftists aren't motivated by the fear of another 4 years. They want a candidate who beats Trump on the way to changing the world.

To me, that's Bernie. The media has successfully ghettoized him as appealing only to white Millennials, though. His path to the nomination has to get him out of that ghetto.