The ‘wasted generation’ may not bother voting, for good reason
Reuters
One year from now, we’ll elect a new president. It’ll be the first opportunity for what I call the wasted generation to vote—not that many will bother. What do I mean by wasted generation?
I’m talking about the 15.6 million Americans born between 1995 and 1999 — the first generation of the post-World War II era to grow up in a land of diminished economic expectations, corrosive cynicism and institutional distrust.
Think about it. Born during the petty, partisan end of the Clinton era, they were barely out of their diapers when the towers fell on 9/11 and elementary, middle school and high schoolers while their country fought, at the same time, the two longest wars in its history. They came into the world just as their parents’ incomes were probably peaking — median wages, adjusted for inflation, topped out in 1998 and 1999 — and their Moms and Dads have since been squeezed by the two most devastating stock collapses since the Great Depression and a housing collapse of historic proportions. Now they’re heading off to college or already there, and can expect to rack up nearly $29,000 in debt before even graduating.
Older Americans may remember better times. But for this group—and tens of millions born after them—it’s all they’ve known. Cynicism, war, economic stagnation—this is their “normal.” This is what we have bequeathed them. Is it any wonder polls show that young Americans don’t trust government or big corporations? They don’t trust organized religion. They don’t trust us—the media—either, and I don’t blame them.
They don’t trust the financial system, either. When you’re 20 and have a 40-to-50 year investment horizon, you should be plowing cash into stocks—but when the market crashes 50% like it did between March 1999 and October 2002—only to be eclipsed just five later by a 57% bloodbath, it makes it easier to understand their skittishness. No surprise, then, that anti-establishment candidates like Democrat Bernie “the markets are rigged” Sanders and Republican Donald “make America great again” Trump are popular with this young, emerging slice of the electorate.
On Facebook, for example, nearly two million people like Sanders’s page — 600,000 more than Hillary Clinton. As for Trump, one poll showed Republican millennials backing him by a 3-to-1 margin over anyone else.
This may sound like one of those generation gap stories, where older folks complain about the “kids” doing their own thing and the kids not trusting “anyone over 30.” It’s not. From sea to shining sea, distrust and anger ripples across America: Only about a quarter of us think the country is on the right track; it hasn’t topped 50% since December 2003.
But it’s the corrosive effect on the millennials that’s most bothersome. Based on two decades worth of data, the Pew Research Center, a respected Washington think tank, notes that “generations carry with them the imprint of early political experiences.” In other words, it’s going to be awfully hard for millions and millions of young Americans to overcome the wide distrust they have—and again, the only thing they’ve known—of establishment institutions; the economic and political implications in the years ahead could be huge.
Here’s the way millennials see it: Those that can scrape together the means to go to college know there’s now a school shooting once a week in this country. Thanks to that average $29 grand in debt and uncertain job prospects, an increasing number of them will move back in with Mom and Dad when they graduate. Invest in stocks? Even if millennials didn’t think the market was fixed they don’t have the dough. Buy a home? What a joke: the number of first-time home buyers is at its lowest level in three decades. Only a handful of these kids will have steady employment with the same company over the course of their careers; many will have multiple employers — few of which will offer pensions. Millennials don’t expect Social Security to be around in 40 years and unless painful changes are made to shore up the system, it won’t be. The slow-moving and undeniable effects of climate change will affect them far more than the rest of us; and while we bicker about the cost of action, we’re too ignorant to realize that the cost of inaction is likely to be far greater.
Older age groups like to criticize millennials: they’re spoiled, have a sense of entitlement. Actually, the rest of us should look in the mirror. We’re leaving those who will follow one hell of a mess.
I agree with a lot of this, he does correctly identify a lot of it. But he speaks of their lack of faith in government and large corporations as though that’s a bad thing. It isn’t. If they distrust the government, they wil naturally want less of it and not want it having ever greater power over their lives. If they distrust the government they won’t want it taking ever greater amounts of their money so it can take care of them. Anything that makes them distrust the entire institution is a good thing. As for large corporations(and especially banks) they would not exist in their present form nor have such power and influence if it weren’t for this very same government. Large corporations are making shortsighted business decisions that are based soley on short term stock price rather than long term growth. This won’t end well for them or their employees.
As for the global warming part, the biggest harm that’s going to cause for them is the measures this untrustworthy government takes to fight this nonexistent problem. How to soupy combat this alleged global warming? By a tax on all carbon emissions, which would mean literally a tax on ALL economic activity. Who will administer this tax? Why, the government they distrust, of course. With entities like Goldman sacs getting their cut by trading these ‘carbon credits’ as well. It won’t actually accomplish anything, other than making their employment prospects worse, and making things like electricity much more expensive. It will also grow their dostrusy, which they will pass along to their children. Although it is alarming that even people who profess a distrust of government and don’t believe hardly anything it tells them, they still buy into this global warming nonsense. Again, the more they distrust the entire institution, the less likely they are to buy into that narrative.
In conclusion, anything that nurtures this distrust is a good thing. While this blog is no doubt read by older people more than young ones(even though I am only 30) alternative publications like TBP are growing in both number and popularity and provide an important alternative to the narrative provided by the MSM. As for trump vs sanders, I myself will not ever vote for either of them, although if you believe that this house of cards we have in this country isn’t likely to stay standing for more than a couple more years, a case could be made for having sanders in office when it crashes, but that’s a topic for another post.
Cry me fucking river.
Butt hurt group #1.
Butt hurt group #2.
Butt hurt group #3.
Butt hurt group #4.
Butt hurt group #5.
Butt hurt group #6.
Butt hurt group #7.
Butt hurt group #8.
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Butt hurt group #68.
Millennial Butt Hurt group
Butt hurt group #70.
blah blah blah whaaawhaaawhaaa blah blah me so butthurt blah blah blah
THE AUTHOR DRAGS YOU IN WITH ALL THE ECONOMIC WOES WITH GOV’T AT THE TOP OF DISTRUST….clap, clap, clap.
You are hooked – you agree with the author; then Mr. Brandus (shit-for-brains) sneaks in the Global Warming as undeniable (the satellite data tens of millions of weather balloons say otherwise).
It didn’t fool Gator, nor me, but I see it as a planned and devious writing style.
Greetings,
I do not think the millennials will have time to worry about politics because it is about to be their turn in the firing line in our upcoming world war with Russia and China. Watching the missile fly around this weekend confirmed it so far as I’m concerned.
@kokoda, ya I mostly liked it until he kinda snuck that in there. He also seemed to imply that people starting to not trust government was a bad thing, it’s not, it’s great news.
But he did come across like a lot of lefties in that regard – the government can’t be trusted when it comes to it’s wars, it’s collusion with Wall Street and large corporations, or the economic data it releases. But global warming, of course that’s true. They may lie about everything else, but I’ll trust them here on this one. That seems to be the mentality.
And nickelthrower- I wonder if they will get away with that. They couldn’t even manage to drum up enough support to attack Syria, a small country with no ability to fight back in a meaningful way. I don’t think they are going to be able to convince that many people that actually attacking Russia or china is wise or necessary. That would be a hard sell. People, even republicans, are getting tired of all the war. And war with either of those counties, even if won, would cause too many thousands to come home in a body bag. Economically speaking, it would turn out to be a pyrric victory as well.
Gator….you are correct on the Gov’t issue. I spotted it initially, but by the time I finished the article, I saw what he had done on a subjective basis with his writing style and I just leaped on the last item.
I was thinking this was a good article and that I’d send the link to some other people to read, until the global warming crap came in.
Even NASA isn’t willing to lie any more to prop up Al Gore’s globull warming fiction:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses
@Gator,
Greetings,
That is why we are doing silly things like sending warships into Chinese territorial waters or air to air fighter jets to Turkey. It also why Israeli intelligence just brought down that Russian airliner. These guys are gonna stir up a war in the same manner that Roosevelt did. Remember, Americans were overwhelmingly opposed to joining in the fight until Pearl Harbor. Look for a new Pearl Harbor and I’m guessing you wont have long to wait. Perhaps China will get sick of having its shipping centers blown up.
Finally, a full 1/3rd of the American public is now functionally illiterate. They’ll believe anything anyone tells them as long as it comes with a side of gravy and they get to continue watching millionaires chase a ball around a field.
Nickelthrower, you are right about the Roosevelt thing. I wouldn’t put a big false flag past them. But there was A LOT more trust in government back then. No one really questioned the lead up to Pearl Harbor. They were told “those god damn sneaky japs just attacked us out of no where” and believed it and never really questioned why that was so, nor did they question if maybe FDR wanted them to do exactly that as a back door way to get into WWII. The questioning all came later on, after the war was over., at least in a mainstream way. People, even those who hated FDR still trusted the government itself, as an institution, which isn’t really the case today. The advent of the Internet has changed that. Maybe not a majority, but a significant and growing minority will speak out , loudly, against anything like that. You very well may he right, but I hope not. Maybe I’m feeling strangely optimistic tonight, which is unusual for me.
And you are right about the functionally illiterate part too. A sizeable portion of this country is fucked in the long run no matter how all this comes unravelled. Another shitty thing about most of the free shit army – most of those dindu nuffins can’t serve due to rap sheets or not enough skoolin’ or various other reasons, and another large chunk of the FSA is too fat and has the associated health problems, which will leave much of that 1/3 of the population unharmed unless actual nuclear weapons are used while the fit, and potentially productive will get shipped off as cannon fodder if it unfolds how you think it will. Shitty….
Wow. It never even occurred to me that maybe Israel blew up the Russian plane. I’m actually embarrassed to admit that. From what I can tell, Israel has one main goal: get the US to attack Iran. For whatever reason, they don’t seem to worry about Arabs – only Persians. I’m not convinced that Israel was behind the bombing. Still more likely to have been ISIS, but I’ll have to cogitate on it to see whether/how they could use the bombing of a Russian plan to work toward America attacking Iran…
As far as the article itself, the generation he’s talking about does seem to have zero faith in any institution. They only have faith in technology and social media. That’s going to bite them in the ass. Regarding global warming 1) it’s probably bullshit and 2) even if it happens, it would probably help more than it hurts.
Ove more thing on Trump and Sanders: what’s going on in the world right now is the struggle between globalism and the last gasp of the nation-state. As Europe is being overrun by Auslanders, the US is, too. Sanders, to his credit, wants to protect American workers from the effects of globalism. So does Trump. Trump also wants to seal the border and end illegal immigration. Hillary and the GOP establishment want open borders, TPP, globalism and neocon interventionism. The 2016 election is globalism versus nationalism. The Uniparty wants globalism, one world government. Whether they get it with Jeb, Rubio or Hillary doesn’t matter. Jeb, Rubio and Carson all want statehood for Puerto Rico – a crazy idea that would make the US officially bilingual.
Three reasons to support Donald Trump.
1. The OTHER CANDIDATES, whose campaigns are financed mostly by big money donors, are BOUGHT BY BIG MONEY DONORS.
At the first Republican debate Trump, a big money donor to the Clinton Foundtion, said, “Hillary Clinton… I said be at my wedding, and she came to my wedding.”
Trump told how the system works. “When they [poiticians] call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me.”
Trump added, “when you give, they [politicians] do whatever the hell you want them to do.’”
Only Trump, of the 2016 presidential candidates, is not taking contributions from lobbyists and special interests.
2. All the presidential candidates, except Trump and Bernie Sanders, seem to want to support the NeoCon more-WAR position in the Middle East. Which candidates make you feel more secure?
Do you want more war and confrontations with Russia and China or do you want a president who seems to eschew aggression in favor of diplomacy. Trump: “I get along very well with (Vladimir Putin)” and ” I think we probably will work together much more so than right now.”
3. TRUMP’S A DEAL MAKER. In my experience deal makers make things happen and negotiate win-win situations for the parties to their deals. Would you rather have a deal maker president or a dictator who, on behalf of his cronies, tells you how it’s going to be on foreign wars, bank bailouts, torturing prisoners, lying to congress, the Patriot Act, TPP, special privileges for the elites, etc?
I think that is the most coherent post Stuck has made this year.
@jackson trump said, several times, that we should go in there and take all their oil. He has said the same thing about Iran. How exactly is it that a person who advocates literally invading another country and then stealing their most valuable resource from the people who live there ‘anti-war’? Same with sanders. Look at his stance with Russia. A conflict with them, which sanders’ stated policies would lead us towards, would make the Iraq disaster look pleasant by comparison. And as far as the rest of the nonsense you posted, he is no better than the rest of them on the other things, like executing snowden, spying, the patriot act, a lot of it. I could go on but it’s probably pointless with you.
Gator… Re Donald Trump… yours and others’ views are not positively pointless with me.
I see a lot I don’t like in Donald Trump. I know two men who know Trump, have worked with him, and who have many friends who’ve worked with Trump or know him. None of them have much good to say about The Donald. It’s primarily because Trump’s an egoist.
As I mentioned above, Trump’s appeal to me is that he’s not a bought politician as the Bushes, the Clintons, Obama and most all – but not Ron Paul – Senators and Congessmen are and have been. In other words, Trump seems to be much more independent than other 2016 presidential candidates. I want a president who’s not a puppet.
The other thing I especially like about Trump is that he’s a deal maker. I realize that people have low opinions of wheelers and dealers. However, my 40 years experience with guys like that is that they make things happen to the satisfaction of all. People don’t make deals unless they think the deal is to their benefit. Deal makers don’t dictate, they negotiate so all win.
I want a president who’s a realist, a diplomat, a negotiator and isn’t an idealogue, close-minded, and a tyrant.
With Ron Paul no longer a prospect for president, who’s the best left. For the reasons above and as stated in my earlier post, I think 2016’s best candidate is Donald Trump.
Stuckey is correct. This blaming of “we” of another generation is just an excuse for the lazy, selfie-taking losers to not take any responsibility for their often self-inflicted lot in life. Raise your hand if your life was all rainbows and unicorns…
And this article…they mistrust government, so they’re going to vote for Bigger Government Bernie Sanders. Brilliant.
But, Jackson, aren’t congressmen deal makers? And in making deals don’t they tend to leave out the public’s interest while they negotiate deals that tend to make them rich? Oh sure, they have set their business affairs aside in a trust of some sort but that trust grows and grows like an unintended consequence.
@Gator,
Greetings,
I think you’ve got it wrong about the FSA and the obese land whales coming out all squeaky clean after a confrontation with a SuperPower or two. A fight to the death with a superpower leaves anybody that was in any way a burden to the state immediately on their own. Both the Fascists and the Communists starved to death anyone that was unnecessary. Let me make myself very clear, you do not want to find yourself without some measure of value to offer up to the state should some Total War happen to occur regardless of the reason why that war is happening.
The very same FSA that demands a guaranteed standard of living without regard for the source of their sustenance, doesn’t realize that it forces us to act in a manner that makes enemies around the world. Why they cant see this is beyond me.
The current systems of government are like a hindsight-endowed ride on the Titanic; doesn’t matter who you back, the Captain, the coal hand or the richest passenger, it’s headed for the bottom. Build your own lifeboat, those in charge are building theirs and there won’t be room for you.
I don’t expect to retire rich; if we get another DemoPublican administration I may not be able to retire at all. But the real pain is, there’s no “opt out of taxes to save money for yourself” option available. At the start of the country, you didn’t have to pay taxes you disagreed with; that changed around the Whiskey Rebellion time. We have gone downhill ever since, and until we get a way to chop Washington D.C.’s share of the national productivity, it ain’t gonna get better. Fortunately, their understanding of fiat currency is so dim, they will give us the opportunity – if we can hold out long enough.
“It’s going to be awfully hard for millions and millions of young Americans to overcome the wide distrust they have—and again, the only thing they’ve known—of establishment institutions.”
Why SHOULD they overcome this distrust? I’m with Gator on this one. If those establishment institutions are untrustworthy, they SHOULD be distrusted.
gentlemen…gentlemen, calm down.
There are no elections. That game is theater. Our ship has sailed.
3/4 USA population either can’t read or won’t read. People actually
want to sit down and consume television.
Sure, there will be war. There is war now!! People are trying to guess
about who will be involved in a bigger war to come. Step back and
look at the bigger picture. Who cares what Trump and Sanders are
saying? It is all truly just mindless pap.
Millennials?
Facebook and tweets.
The only thing any of us can do is to prepare mentally for the coming
“collapses.” Some people are also buying extra commodities for the
eventuality that we will lose our supermarkets and pharmacies.
Good luck.