Uptight, Crazy and Reactionary

by digby

In this post about the developing generation gap between Boomers and Millenials (which is child’s play compared to the generation gap between boomers and the greatest generation — now that was real hell) I read that boomers “express greater concern than any other generational grouping with virtually every specific issue examined in the survey” and “have substantially more negative and pessimistic perceptions of the political process than any other generational grouping.” Evidently, boomers are also “uptight, crazy, and reactionary, featuring rightwing views on ‘lifestyle issues and crime’ and, generally speaking, ‘are often characterized by taking strong, relatively extreme positions on issues.'”

Yglesias says this means we should chill. He’s probably right. We’ve always taken strong, relatively extreme positions on issues. I used to think that was a function of being young, but I guess we are just extreme by nature.

However, I might also suggest that the fact that we are all in our mid forties to early 60’s means we are taking care of both the elderly (who are living to amazing old age) and the young (who stay young a lot longer than they used to) while looking at a scary old age that some factions of the government are actively trying to fuck with, and who may very well succeed.

The younger cohort, like me, looks at greatly reduced opportunity in a shrinking job market that is unkind to older workers. Many cling to their pathetic jobs with their brittle fingernails for fear of having to pony up many thousands of dollars in health care premiums if they lose it (and having to take a shit job at Walmart when nobody will hire them at their formerly decent wage.) Health is becoming a big issue for us — the system is quite inconveniently breaking down just as we enter our unhealthy years. This economy feels very unstable and if you are over 50 you know you will not be able to make it all back if it goes.

We are feeling a little bit stressed.

And as for our pessimistic view of politics, whether we are on the right (and refuse to admit it) or on the left (and are all to aware of it) we have all watched our government take us into two useless wars, first killing large numbers of us and now threatening to kill large numbers of our kids and grandkids for no good reason. A number of our big political heroes were literally gunned down. We have lived through a bunch of presidencies now, including Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. One ended with assasination; one ended ignominiously through a total lack of support for his war from his own party; three of them featured major corruption and/or national security scandals, one of whom resigned in disgrace; one was a non-stop soap opera that ended in impeachment; the latest may be the biggest failure of all. All of them were tumultuous and ultimately disillusioning for a generation that grew up in America’s most confident and hopeful era after America’s triumph of World War II.

We’d have to be delusional not to be negative and pessimistic about the political process after all that.

I’d also point out that as much as everyone may want us to chill, we boomers are all entering the period of life in which voters typically begin to turn out to vote with a vengeance. We have huge numbers and we are shortly going to be concentrating almost exclusively on our aches and pains,the early bird special at Dennys — and politics. Hoo boy. Like every other period in our lives, for good and ill, boomers are going to dominate until the day we die. We can’t help it.

Blame the greatest generation. That’s what we always did.

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