“Reverb Press” reports that new data shows two very
unsurprising facts about Baby Boomers — they’re mostly conservative and they’re
mostly miserable:“Two new polls published by Gallup offer an interesting look at the Baby Boomer Generation, those Americans born between 1946 and 1964. Researchers at Gallup found Boomers are more than likely to be of a conservative ideology when it comes to their politics, and also show a significant rate of depression. Perhaps it’s not surprising that we often consider conservatives as old people who seem to be angry about everything. While Boomers may not think of themselves as old, most will admit to being pissed off about something most of time.”
Now, the first part is obvious. Most Baby Boomers are quite
happy with the status quo (sort of, we’ll get to that in a minute). They got
handed free, or almost free, college educations, cheap housing loans and a
relatively stable job market. Many are collecting or are about to start on
Medicare and Social Security. You think they want to make a single sacrifice
after a lifetime of gain? Helllllll no! And that’s why Baby Boomers tend to be
conservative. They got theirs and screw you.
All this gay marriage and brown people and
casual sex is horrible! My friend, The Fat Smug Bastard, loves to point out
that the generation of “free sex” is the same one that is horrified by the idea
of teens having… free sex.
The future is socially liberal and that simply enrages
conservative Baby Boomers.
The second thing is that they’re seeing their ideology collapse
under the weight of reality. There’s a reason Baby Boomers are called the “Me Generation;” Baby Boomers were the
generation that put their own needs ahead of the needs of society.
They
viciously dismantled unions so they could pay workers less. They fought tooth
and nail against raising the minimum wage. They turned corporate culture into a
money making machine for the shareholders at the expense of everything: the environment, the economy and the
long-term viability of the corporation, itself, was sacrificed for short-term
gain.
They eventually reached the point where even the lives of their customers
and workers weren’t a primary concern. Hell, in many instances they weren’t
even a tertiary concern!
And after 30+ years of running the country under the motto of
“Greed is good,” Baby Boomers are faced with the results and they are ugly: a
collapsed economy, an out of control Wall Street and a growing oligarchy. The
Baby Boomers almost literally sold the country to the rich, and it’s a
disaster.
They would LIKE to blame liberals and Millennials, but it’s
impossible to look at our economy and not see the fingerprints of Baby Boomer
greed all over it. At the same time, conservative Baby Boomers won’t lift
a finger to fix their mess because that would mean sacrifice, and as I said
earlier, that ain’t gonna happen. They got theirs and screw you.
The future is economically conservative and that mess weighs
heavily on Baby Boomers.
So here the Baby Boomers sit. Their influence is waning and
there’s nothing they can do to stop it.
They are growing increasingly aware
that their legacy will be one of widespread economic and environmental
destruction, and rampant greed. The history books will not be kind to them and
their grandchildren will look at them in barely concealed disgust when they’re
old enough to understand who left them a broken planet.
Of course Baby
Boomers are depressed, and I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.