One of my biggest problems with OK Boomer and OK Millennial is that it sets us up for divisive bickering among the 99%. It's bad enough that we are divided along racial, ethnic and economic lines, do we really need to add ageism to the list?
Full disclosure - I was born right on the line of GenX. So I have one foot in the boomer and another in the GenX generation.
Generalizing about boomers and millennials has become a petty game of gotcha...
Here are a couple of simple truths that we would all do well to recognize.
First, painting entire generations that span a period of 15-20 years is painting people with a ridiculously broad brush. Does anyone seriously think that the last boomer born in 1964 had that much in common with the first boomer born in 1944? The life experiences alone of people born 20 years apart are bound to be very different. The youngest boomers were 5 years old when the quintessential boomer event at Woodstock took place. They were 9 years old when the Vietnam war, which disrupted lives and killed or maimed many a boomer, ended. The millennial generation spanned a somewhat shorter period of 15 years (from 1981-1996). But still, there are many significant differences between millennials born in 1981 vs. those born in 1996.
Second, every generation makes mistakes. Every.Single.One. No exceptions. Most make at least a few calamitous ones. No generation fully escapes the judgment of history. Since the jury is still out on the millennial generation it's unbelievably presumptuous to assume that they are as pure as driven snow and will somehow be immune to major lapses of judgment or kicking a can or two down the road.
Third, there are also vast differences between individuals. Just because the boomer generation is rightly condemned for causing catastrophic harm to the environment, doesn't mean there weren't many who actually pushed back against the trend for more carbon use. Blowing someone off with a meme like "OK boomer" ASSumes just that. It presumes everyone born at a certain time is the same. It's insulting ageist and otherwise arrogant as hell.
Playing the "gotcha game" - the 2016 election cycle
We can all play the "GOTCHA!" game. Just look at the 2016 election cycle. There are enough mistakes on the Democratic side alone to fill a tome as large the entire Harry Potter collection. There is plenty of blame to go around. No single generation cornered the market on stupidity or greed here. Had these mistakes not been made, we might not be where we are now.So, the Silents, Boomers, and GenX, all have something to answer for. And Millennials are not exempt either. Even today, none of us fully understand the consequences of what happened in 2016. The full story has yet to play itself out. There is a distinct possibility that this will lead down a path to authoritarianism and dictatorship. If so, boomers will be held accountable for yet another disastrous decision. However, millennials may find themselves with a lot to account for as well when their children come of age. If we are living in an authoritarian plutocracy, they will probably be too angry for the dismissive eye-roll meted out to boomers. They too made some very bad decisions in 2016.
So let's play the gotcha! game and paint with the broadest possible brush and look at how Democrats from each of these generations managed to lose the most winnable election imaginable in 2016. Maybe we will even learn something from the exercise.
How Boomers messed up the Democratic party in 2016...
OK Boomer - maybe it would be easier to discuss what you didn't do wrong because this was a mess of monumental proportions.
First, let's just put it right out there. The Clinton nomination and campaign was the brainchild of the boomer generation with some major support from voters in the silent generation. But this game of "gotcha" refers mostly to the Democratic leadership that ran the show for the Hillary Clinton campaign. There was a token GenXer and one significant member of the silent generation. Aside from that, the leadership that was in the driver's seat for 2016 was pretty much an all- boomer affair. If you don't believe me, I have the list of the top players below.
As for what they did wrong? Where do I even begin????
The Primaries:
The suspicion that the Democrats were rigging the primaries was confirmed through leaked DNC emails by WikiLeaks. Whatever you may think of Julain Assange, these leaks revealed the large thumb on the scale that helped secure the nomination for Clinton. To this date, we have more solid proof of the Democrats rigging the primary process than Russians rigging the general election.
No one in charge was the least bit interested in letting the primary process play out. They wanted Sanders out of the way and to hell with how the voters actually voted - if they were even allowed to cast a vote.
Bottom line here: The United States is supposed to be a democracy. It is not for the candidate to manipulate the outcome. The idea here is to let the people vote and decide. If you need to trash the very system you are campaigning to lead in order to win, you should consider only two choices: be willing to lose gracefully or quit and get out of the way.
The "We won so F#$! YOU!" mentality:
The convention was a mess designed to humiliate the Sanders supporters and make sure they knew their place in the scheme of things. A great deal of damage control could have been accomplished through compromise and inviting a lively democratic discussion. But noooooo. The Clinton campaign had to rub everyone's noses in their victory with a warped sense of entitlement. Choosing Tim Kaine as the VP nominee only made matters worse.
Here is a video from The Young Turks that epitomizes the dismissive attitude.
The blame game:
As if it wasn't enough to call the voters of the opposition "a basket of deplorables" the Clinton campaign waged war on anyone who didn't consider her the ideal candidate or would consider voting for anyone else.
Progressives from working families who haven't seen a pay increase in 40 years, but face skyrocketing fixed costs in things like housing, heating, electricity, healthcare, and food, were chastised for wanting "free stuff" and "ponies". The boomers in charge either didn't realize or care that the world had changed. People weren't asking for "ponies" they were begging for necessities.
It was also implied, in not so subtle terms, that if millennials (or anyone else) didn't have the "lifestyle" they wanted that it was all their own fault. Incidentally, anyone making that claim was usually born on third base and has no idea what it is like to live their lives hanging off a cliff by their fingernails. Never mind that it was your bad neoliberal economic policies that created this situation. Never mind that the monied boomers had been busily pulling up all the ladders they were able to climb for almost 40 years. When your back is against a wall, blaming the victims deflects blame from its true source.
And if all else failed, the Democrats played their "Trump" card...Yes, you know what I mean. The "We aren't Trump"argument. If you are trying to win an election based on being "less bad" than your opponent, you have a bad candidate. Please note: telling people they have the opportunity of choosing between arsenic or cyanide is not really offering them a choice.
The progressive base was systematically chastised, bullied and gas-lighted in an attempt to win votes for the Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. Trouble is deflection, triangulation, and finger-pointing can create as much rancor as capitulation.
Blame Game Redux: Post -Election Finger-pointing...
The above barely scratches the surface of the big mistakes, lies, misdeeds, and entitlement that lost the election for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. Books have been written on the subject. With more to come, I am sure. But the Democratic leadership wasn't done yet. Instead of doing an honest postmortem of their defeat or taking a moment for self-reflection, they blamed everyone and everything imaginable for their stunning defeat - except themselves. The list of bad guys is as long as the eye can see...but here are just a few:- James Comey
- The Russians
- Vladamir Putin
- Bernie Sanders
- Bernie Brothers
- Barack Obama
- The Green Party
- Jill Stein (more recently it suggested she was a Russian operative)
- Julian Assange
- Wikileaks
- Fake News
- Social media bots
- Millennials
- Mark Zuckerberg
- Sexism and misogyny
I'm surprised she didn't include the phases of the moon, sunspots, and the cast and dragons on Game of Thrones.
Bottom Line: If you run for office, and you are in a good position to win, the only person you can blame for losing is yourself.
The problem today is that the Democratic party didn't LEARN from 2016 and seem incapable of ever doing so. We still have the same faces in high places. The primary change in the leadership has been with the chair of the DNC. Tom Perez replaced Donna Brazile. We also had a change in the chairs of the DSCC and DCCC. But these people were cut of the same mold as the predecessors. There are still quite a few from the silent generation that are hanging onto their power base for dear life. That wouldn't matter so much if they had learned something from their loss. But self-reflection is not their thing. Or - it might be said that it is not a boomer thing...
The Democratic leadership for the 2016 presidential election: Yes - this debacle was a boomer affair...
- Hillary Clinton - Presidential Nominee - born 1947 - early boomer
- Tim Kaine - Vice Presidential Nominee - born 1958 - late boomer
- Barack Obama - POTUS - born 1961 - late boomer
- John Podesta - Chairman of the Hillary Clinton Campaign - born 1949 - early boomer
- Debbie Wasserman Schultz - Chair of the DNC - born 1966 - early GenX
- Donna Brazile - Chair of the DNC - born 1959 - late boomer
- Nancy Pelosi - House Minority Leader - born 1940 - silent generation
- Chuck Schumer - Senate Minority Leader - born 1950 - early boomer
OK Boomer - you blew this - big time.
How millennials messed up the election fo 2016...
Millennials didn't go into the massive system failure that the boomer leadership of the Democratic party indulged in. But they still made one very major and serious mistake in 2016.
They failed to vote. According to the Census Bureau, the age group that comprised the most of the millennial vote had very low voter turnout in 2016. It's a bit confusing because these age groups don't correspond to the generational ranges, but this shows the trend well enough.
Voter turnout in 2016:
- Bulk of millennial voters (ages 18-29) Turnout was 46%
- Bulk of GenX voters (ages 30-44) Turnout was 59%
- Bulk of boomer voters (ages 45- 64) Turnout was 67%
- Bulk of the silent generation (ages 65+) Turnout was 71%
Look, snowflakes, You can fill stadium after stadium for rallies, you can march on the streets until your feet explode with blisters, and you can shut down your college campus to your hearts content. It will accomplish NOTHING if you don't vote!
What happens when you don't vote? You don't COUNT. You never weighed in or registered and opinion. Therefore either don't exist or are irrelevant. In one action (or inaction) you confirmed the boomers in charge that you don't matter. The fact is that the only real power any of us have is with that vote, and many millennials simply threw their power away because they didn't like their choices.
Traditionally, younger people don't vote as much as older people. It has always been this way. However, in a time when young people were mobilized and filling stadiums for Sanders rallies while Clinton could barely fill a room, it creates a real problem of representation.
If the young don't vote, guess who controls who determines the direction of the country?
4 Ways things could have been different if enough millennials had shown up at the polls...
1. The Democratic primary results might have been different if more millennials had voted during the primary season...
Had most of these young people who attended rallies and marched in the streets taken the time to register to vote and for their party of choice, before the primary cycle had started, more would have been eligible to vote in the Democratic primaries.
Sanders was nipping at Clinton's heels. The results of the Iowa caucuses were based on 6 coin tosses that apparently Clinton won. (Yes she magically won all 6 separate coin tosses) Since the bulk of the Sanders support was in the under-30 age group, this could have made a difference in several key primaries. Given the winner-take-all mechanism involved, tipping a couple of significant states could have made a big difference. In other words, a Sanders nomination was very possible if the people that filled stadiums turned up at the polls.
2. Sanders might have been able to defeat Trump even though Clinton failed to...
Had Sanders been the Democratic nominee, it is possible that Trump would have lost the general election. Sanders had a strong and loyal following at his base. Clinton had the elite donor base in her pocket, but that's a far cry from winning actual voter support.
One reason Clinton lost was that the Democrats were blind to that deep need for change. Clinton was status-quo. Sanders and Trump, for good or ill, represented change.
One reason Clinton lost was that the Democrats were blind to that deep need for change. Clinton was status-quo. Sanders and Trump, for good or ill, represented change.
Certainly, Sanders is a far better politician and one who actually knows how to use the bully pulpit. Had he been the nominee, he had a distinct opportunity to win several of those "blue wall" states, that Clinton lost. After all, Sanders won the Michigan and Wisconsin primaries. These were 2 of the 3 states Clinton needed to win in the electoral college. In fact, Clinton lost the election in 3 blue wall states - Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The margin of victory in the electoral college was less than 80,000 votes in all 3 states combined.
A Sanders presidency starting in 2017 was not the delusional hallucination of desperate progressives. It was a distinct possibility. Could millennials have tipped the balance had they shown up a the polls? With those types of margins, absolutely.
3. Clinton might have prevailed if more millennials voted in the general election...
A Sanders presidency starting in 2017 was not the delusional hallucination of desperate progressives. It was a distinct possibility. Could millennials have tipped the balance had they shown up a the polls? With those types of margins, absolutely.
3. Clinton might have prevailed if more millennials voted in the general election...
Even if Sanders hadn't won the nomination, more millennial participation could have made all the difference in the world in several swing states. I don't think there are that many progressives who would say a Clinton presidency wouldn't have been far better than a Trump presidency. The 18-29 that had the bulk of millennials favored Clinton over Trump by a whopping 18%. This was far greater than any other age group. More participation from younger voters could have spared the nation a Trump presidency.
4. More recorded millennial votes for 3rd parties in the general election might have brought badly needed reform at the DNC...
This is the most important point with respect to the 2020 election. Millennials who didn't vote made themselves irrelevant in the planning for 2020. By not voting, your preferences weren't counted. So what? This made millennials nonexistent to the leaders of the major parties, or at the very least, irrelevant. Why worry about the views and needs of a group of people who don't bother to vote?
Had more millennials came out to vote, if even for a third-party candidate, their discontent would have been seen and registered. It would have created a visual record of electoral anger against the Democratic party. This would have given the progressive base of the party the ammunition it desperately needed to force reforms and transfer of power from the neoliberal corporatists to the progressive base.
So, millennials have a lot to answer for here. We are all paying the price for that lost battle now. It may not have been a battle of youThe corporatists are in control and trying to shove one moderate neoliberal after another down the electorate's throats.
So, millennials have a lot to answer for here. We are all paying the price for that lost battle now. It may not have been a battle of youThe corporatists are in control and trying to shove one moderate neoliberal after another down the electorate's throats.
OK Millennial - do you see now how you blew it?
Take-home lesson for the OK Boomer or the OK Millennial crowd...
We all make mistakes. Each generation will always have much to account for to future generations. That includes the silent generation, boomers, GenX, millennials, and GenZ. Democrats or progressives from each of these generations had something to account for during the 2016 debacle.
Let's learn to not fight each other. We need to focus our energy on a corrupt government that is happy to watch different factions or age groups squabble among themselves. It conveniently deflects from pin-pointing where the real problems are.
Besides, people who live in glass houses shouldn't cast stones...
© 2019 - RGHicks - All rights reserved.
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