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In some horrendous nihilistic way we seem to get the politicians we deserve. Hopefully Boris and Trump are the end of this mess and after they screw everything

In some horrendous nihilistic way we seem to get the politicians we deserve. Hopefully Boris and Trump are the end of this mess and after they screw everything we get something better, but I fear it’s just the start. It really does feel like we live in the hunger games right now.

te_chris 7y ago
It’s literally a certain portion of boomers and above who are these people’s main constituency. TPUSA et al can try and claim there’s a silent minority of youth for these proto-fascists, stats would disagree though. It’s the boomers mostly, whose elected political representatives have spent their whole lives running down the state, making things easy for themselves, and now they expect to retire and cost a fortune in healthcare and that younger generations are just going to go along with it. And maybe they’re right, life expectancy is helping them to keep winning elections. Not forever though. #NotAllBoomers of course, but they did keep electing the ones who’ve put us in the position we’re in today vis a vis huge upcoming tax liabilities and very low - historically - current levels of tax income. If you want some interesting reading, google generational eu sentiment in the uk, it’s the boomers who are the most anti. The greatest generation are generally positive, given they actually went through the war.
- rjf72 7y ago
  Here [1] are some data on this exact topic. Pew broke down ideology by age. While it's true that older individuals tend to become more conservative, this is a not a new phenomena and has been observed and commented upon for centuries. Of course when young we know there is no chance we could ever 'compromise' our views as the years pass. Nonetheless, life experience changes us in ways we often could never have predicted. Ok, but in spite of this there's no crystal clear correlation. In particular the split among ideology on the 65+ group that most consistently votes one way or the other (representing about 66% of the entire population) is split 50/50. And similarly there is also much more diversity in views among younger individuals than is typically represented by e.g. social media. The one interesting correlation they did observe is one between your cohort's (by age group) voting tendencies and whom the president was when your cohort turned 18. Like you mention the Greatest generation who turned 18 under FDR lean heavily democratic. Though contradicting your hypothesis is the fact that you're presumably referencing WW2. And the Silent generation served extensively in this war. And they lean heavily republican. One interesting thing I've observed (and wrote in a post a little above in a peer to this comment chain) is there tends to be a periodic shifting of ideology, that in general just tends to be against the status quo. And Pew's data provides some really interesting insight there. For instance they broke Boomers down into three 5 year groups. The groups are divided based upon who was president when they turned 18. Those 3 presidents were Kenny/Johnson, Nixon, and Ford/Carter. The Ford/Carter combination is frustrating for data, but regardless the results we get: - Kennedy/Johnson - lean heavily republican - Nixon - lean heavily democrat - Ford/Carter - lean heavily republican Not easy to classify things in a straight forward way, but interesting data nonetheless! [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politics-of-american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politic...
rjf72 7y ago
I find Newton's Third tends to apply, extremely consistently, in politics. For every action there is an equal, but opposite, reaction. In the US you can even see this as a now at least century long trend: - raging 1920s - warring 1940s - civil rights 1960s - corporate 1980s - identity politics 2000s - ?? 2020s This isn't so much about the politicians in office, but rather society itself shifting back and forth. We, probably as an evolutionary imperative, are never satisfied. So we assume the opposite of the present must be better and we push hard in that direction until we begin to forget the past and suddenly decide that the opposite of the present must be better and start to push hard back in the other direction. The entire cycle repeats on about a 20 year period. Probably not coincidentally about the time it takes for a new generation, who has 0 living experience of the 20 years before their birth, to come into existence. And they, like all youth, tend to rebel against the status quo. Perhaps their lack of voting is also why this trend tends to be more about society than its politicians. It creates this amusing and constantly recurring paradox. The people lobbying hard for one side or the other ultimately end up creating the exact opposite. I think the only way this cycle would ever end is if people, in general, became more moderate and resistant to radicals. But then perhaps that, itself, would become the ideology that is rebelled against!
raxxorrax 7y ago
I don't really see that much of a difference to be honest. From a cynical perspective it just seems that Trump and Johnson are more honest (relative metric!!) and therefore feel more obnoxious. I don't know Johnson, but his demeanor seems calculated. After a decade of hyper sensitive terror paranoia, subsequent charades and fake makeup-morality, it can actually feel refreshing. The honest statesman seems nearly deprecated today. This is important since I believe the success of both is a direct consequence of past governance. But overall I don't think that much has really changed for most people. Maybe some offices took a little bit of damage, but I don't see that in a purely negative light. Civil liberties will probably suffer again, but that seems to be en vogue anyway.

te_chris 7y ago

It’s literally a certain portion of boomers and above who are these people’s main constituency. TPUSA et al can try and claim there’s a silent minority of youth for these proto-fascists, stats would disagree though. It’s the boomers mostly, whose elected political representatives have spent their whole lives running down the state, making things easy for themselves, and now they expect to retire and cost a fortune in healthcare and that younger generations are just going to go along with it. And maybe they’re right, life expectancy is helping them to keep winning elections. Not forever though. #NotAllBoomers of course, but they did keep electing the ones who’ve put us in the position we’re in today vis a vis huge upcoming tax liabilities and very low - historically - current levels of tax income. If you want some interesting reading, google generational eu sentiment in the uk, it’s the boomers who are the most anti. The greatest generation are generally positive, given they actually went through the war.

rjf72 7y ago
Here [1] are some data on this exact topic. Pew broke down ideology by age. While it's true that older individuals tend to become more conservative, this is a not a new phenomena and has been observed and commented upon for centuries. Of course when young we know there is no chance we could ever 'compromise' our views as the years pass. Nonetheless, life experience changes us in ways we often could never have predicted. Ok, but in spite of this there's no crystal clear correlation. In particular the split among ideology on the 65+ group that most consistently votes one way or the other (representing about 66% of the entire population) is split 50/50. And similarly there is also much more diversity in views among younger individuals than is typically represented by e.g. social media. The one interesting correlation they did observe is one between your cohort's (by age group) voting tendencies and whom the president was when your cohort turned 18. Like you mention the Greatest generation who turned 18 under FDR lean heavily democratic. Though contradicting your hypothesis is the fact that you're presumably referencing WW2. And the Silent generation served extensively in this war. And they lean heavily republican. One interesting thing I've observed (and wrote in a post a little above in a peer to this comment chain) is there tends to be a periodic shifting of ideology, that in general just tends to be against the status quo. And Pew's data provides some really interesting insight there. For instance they broke Boomers down into three 5 year groups. The groups are divided based upon who was president when they turned 18. Those 3 presidents were Kenny/Johnson, Nixon, and Ford/Carter. The Ford/Carter combination is frustrating for data, but regardless the results we get: - Kennedy/Johnson - lean heavily republican - Nixon - lean heavily democrat - Ford/Carter - lean heavily republican Not easy to classify things in a straight forward way, but interesting data nonetheless! [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politics-of-american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politic...

rjf72 7y ago

I find Newton's Third tends to apply, extremely consistently, in politics. For every action there is an equal, but opposite, reaction. In the US you can even see this as a now at least century long trend: - raging 1920s - warring 1940s - civil rights 1960s - corporate 1980s - identity politics 2000s - ?? 2020s This isn't so much about the politicians in office, but rather society itself shifting back and forth. We, probably as an evolutionary imperative, are never satisfied. So we assume the opposite of the present must be better and we push hard in that direction until we begin to forget the past and suddenly decide that the opposite of the present must be better and start to push hard back in the other direction. The entire cycle repeats on about a 20 year period. Probably not coincidentally about the time it takes for a new generation, who has 0 living experience of the 20 years before their birth, to come into existence. And they, like all youth, tend to rebel against the status quo. Perhaps their lack of voting is also why this trend tends to be more about society than its politicians. It creates this amusing and constantly recurring paradox. The people lobbying hard for one side or the other ultimately end up creating the exact opposite. I think the only way this cycle would ever end is if people, in general, became more moderate and resistant to radicals. But then perhaps that, itself, would become the ideology that is rebelled against!

raxxorrax 7y ago

I don't really see that much of a difference to be honest. From a cynical perspective it just seems that Trump and Johnson are more honest (relative metric!!) and therefore feel more obnoxious. I don't know Johnson, but his demeanor seems calculated. After a decade of hyper sensitive terror paranoia, subsequent charades and fake makeup-morality, it can actually feel refreshing. The honest statesman seems nearly deprecated today. This is important since I believe the success of both is a direct consequence of past governance. But overall I don't think that much has really changed for most people. Maybe some offices took a little bit of damage, but I don't see that in a purely negative light. Civil liberties will probably suffer again, but that seems to be en vogue anyway.