Baby boomers comprised a larger share of voters in 2024, accounting for 32%, but they are trending lower after hitting a peak of 36% in 2016.
Ocasio-Cortez, a millennial herself, expects the younger generation will soon tip the scales in American politics.
“Millennials are not punk kids anymore. We’re grown adults with mortgages and kids,” she said. “And we—that generation is starting to be decisive at the polls. And there is anger at being ignored, sidelined, having our economic futures mortgaged by the generations that came before us on everything from the economy to climate. And we’re taking the reins.”
From global warming to debt crisis to lack of affordable health insurance (all intentional), Boomers have definitely overstayed their welcome.
Every single generation in the past 100 years has said the same thing. “My generation will fix it when we’re in charge”.
The God Damn boomers were the hippies from the 60s. What the fuck happened to peace and love?
My generation (Gen X), my goodness, we could see through all the bullshit. We’re the original centrists.
Every single one of my children’s Gen Z friends are all so woke they never sleep.
Turns out every generation is full of selfish shortsighted dumbasses just like the one before it. Just like “The Greatest Generation”. Just like the boomers. Just like Gen X.
Faith in humanity…fading
What you describe goes way back further than 100 years.
The hippies never disappeared, they were marginalized, ostracized, and excised by a fascist system. The War on Drugs was one of many tools the oppressive government used. Some hippies did in fact become yuppies but I don’t blame them, the system was simply stronger than their ideals.
GenX aren’t what I would call centrists. That implies they try to balance or can see the value in both sides of the political spectrum. They are not leftists by any means as multiple fascist purges of the left in US history has ensured they don’t exist in any appreciable numbers. I could agree they are centrists between the right and the far right.
GenZ are not woke, they are malleable. They don’t have strong ideals, values, or a Zeitgeist if you will. I think you confuse woke with just not caring and accepting reality as it is. This is not really conviction though, it is sinply resignation.
You are absolutely correct every generation is selfish. Also, the generation before will always complain about the later generation. This theme has existed throughout all recorded human history.
Most the people I meet are generally good and will make positive decisions given the time, resources, and opportunity. This is regardless of generation.
The problem clearly lies with a minority of wealthy individuals who have disproportionate level of power and representation. This is also nothing new. This same issue existed when the country was founded.
LOL, Hippies were maybe 2% of American society in the 60’s and a lot of those Hippies didn’t fucking make it to adulthood between the drugs, wars & hard living.
Nah its just that nice progressive people are also not ruthless murderous cunts, and thus bad at sezing power which then just ends up in the new generation of ruthless murderous cunts. Most people are pretty great which is sadly not a good trait for enacting change.
Humanity is doing good in many places. Its just Americans who are the absolute worst
Yes agreed, please don’t let Americans ruin the “human” name.
The people who were hippies in the 60s are mostly still hippies today. Well, the ones who subscribed to the peace and love philosophy at least. Despite the media attention the hippies were never large enough to be a politically influential group in that generation. Most of the boomers grew up bullying the hippies.
Both my boomer parents were hippies. My Mom literally lived in a commune for some time in her early 20s. She voted for the T-Dog in 2016 because she wanted to see real change.
I used to chuckle when I was a kid the way my Dad would look at me and roll his eyes when my grandparents would talk about politics and religion. My Dad loves his MAGA hats now. And wonders why his grandchildren don’t want to be around him.
My sample size of 2 says otherwise!
My wife and I are old, and we’ve moved more and more left as life has go on, so now we’re strongly Progressive, and our son is so far left, he thinks we’re fairly conservative. He knows we’d never vote MAGA, though.
Counter anecdote: my parents are still far left. My mom was a local union rep, still attends protests, and is volunteering today.
My folks were hippies and my dad joined the service with long hair and retired 20 years later with less hair, fewer drugs and still farther to the left of his gay son (and I’m pretty much ‘capitalism bad’ at this point).
I’m a little jealous to be honest. I can barely talk to my dad anymore. He swallowed the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Everything he says is word for word from cable news or facebook.
I got lucky. My Dad was a hard-core Republican, and we battled often during the Bush administration, but he drew a solid line at Trump.
We grew up in NY state, and we KNEW who Trump really was from the very beginning, decades ago, long before The Apprentice re-branding, and my Dad refused to support him in even the most casual way. He even quit the neighborhood Republican Club that he’d been in for YEARS, because they all joined the MAGA Cult. He was always a very logical guy, with a Mathematics degree, so he had excellent Critical Thinking Skills, and he wasn’t going to abandon them for the likes of Donald Trump. He could barely stand GW Bush, he really despised Trump.
My mom also despised Trump from the get-go, but when the Pussy Grabber tape came out, she lost her mind. For years, whenever anyone brought up his name, she’d go on a rant, starting with “I don’t understand how ANY woman could vote for that man…” I’ve told her I write about this, and she’s proud of it. He is fully irredeemable in her eyes. Unforgivable.
In my Dad’s last election, in 2018, he voted a straight Democratic Ticket, for the first and only time in his life. He was still a Republican, but never a MAGA.
I got lucky.
Gen X got skipped in politics. The boomers refused to cede power, and it’s like the Xers largely aged out of entering the political space.
Gen X chose to be the “I’m not really into politics” generation. As if electing our leaders was a spectator sport we could just not participate in. And then we all claimed to be too cool for political parties when we started noticing the world was really going to shit. Which is how we got centrists.
I know because that was me.
I’m GenX and have voted since I could. By the time I was in my early 30s I liked by politics like my music - independent. I don’t usually vote by party but by candidate history and ideals.
I’m way the fuck left though. I support left parties like the NDP, but I’m not registered with them. I recently voted for the Liberal dude over NDP because I thought the NDP running was a serious twit.
I don’t think I’d ever voted conservative.
Except my generation hasn’t had a chance yet to prove that they will. My generation is fucked.
I hope I’m wrong but it seems like the ratio of selfish stupid people is constant across generations.
Just like the correlation between disease and war being basically timed out perfectly.
It seems most people like ignorance when it’s convenient to confirming their worldview.