It’s a critical issue at a critical time and as usual, they’re being ignored. “Youth”, (anyone born after about 1500AD in the GOP), really doesn’t like it. At all. They question whether leaders in their 70s get, or can ever get, anything about them.
Nor do they like what they see in terms of politics. Millennials in particular are extremely skeptical and with good reason. They’re on the wrong end of every stick right now. The Mills are now rattling uncertainly to their early 30s, and politics worldwide have done precisely nothing for them. They basically loathe it.
(Gen Z is still, of course, at the back of the queue. That’s another symptom of a system that simply doesn’t turn over people and ideas at the speed of history, and it’s creating societal log jams stretching back to the 1990s.)
They’re quite right to loathe it, and they can prove it. Consider the sickening hyperpolarization and saturation-level cluttering of their digital lives with propaganda and disinformation. The political world is traditionally pretty hostile to young people in general when it can be bothered being anything but insane.
They routinely see ancient idiocies acting against their interests. Consider Senator Joe Manchin’s single-handed sinking of Democrat climate policies. Climate is a huge, ultra-important issue for this generation. One guy has just proven to them that their votes and issues count for nothing in Old People’s Land.
What are they supposed to think? “Some old guy just re-trashed America again, because he comes from a state that produces fossil fuels? Never mind the rest of the world, or us, for a few bucks and a pat on the head from an industry?”
It’s not a great look. It’s the image of US politics condensed into a few rather sour words. “Youth” around the world has never liked it, and they don’t like being considered kids when they’re nearly hitting 30 or so.
Some political stats for the dear little parasites
In case you’ve forgotten – Neither did we. If you’d stop babbling “OK Boomer” like parrots, you’d know something about something for a change. We were the first entire generation to take on politics at the social level since the Suffragettes. …And it worked.
One of the reasons the 60s and later got so heated was the Old vs the New. The Right is still fighting that war, trying to turn back the clock. Hence SCOTUS, MAGA, QAnon, ALEC, Gamergate, and the other retarded, regressive, obscenities. It’s nothing but vested interests, not a hint of democracy in sight. It’s social senility, really, but with publicists.
They have a surprise coming. Millennials are taking over as the new big voting bloc from Boomers. The Old vs the New is still the issue, thanks to religious nutcases and corporate vermin, but you really can’t win against this wave. Boomers will support the Millennials because they’re right about current politics. So that’s two very large voting blocs against the wave of stagnation and regression.
We still despise you, ridiculous ancient idiots, by the way. We grew up with you morons. You’re as dumb as you were in grade school, just much more repulsive and gutless. You’ve never stood up for a damn thing in your useless, pointless lives, including yourselves. We’re going to be around for a while yet, too, so mind your manners.
…But? Maybe.
Many people think politics actually exists as a working thing like a method of government.
These are the problems with that view some of which you may or may not know:
- Politics is a synonym for “sleaze”. Check it out. How could it be anything else?
- Politics generates a lot of money, so every parasite in the world is in politics. Gosh, you don’t say?
- These people have no interest in fairness, democracy, faith, or anything else. This is the good old suburban job according to them
- There is no such thing as a political “belief”. It’s a great way to network with other sleazebags and make money.
- In politics, people are paid to get things wrong. Idiots like Koch and others assume that all this political maneuvering is based on serving them, so they fund it. Basically, politics is just a sales job.
- In practice, it’s just a moneymaking exercise. “Who will pay how much for what” is the only real political issue.
- Organized crime has been involved in US politics since at least the Tammany Hall days, and isn’t going anywhere soon. It’s doing quite nicely with all the prohibitions, rorts, bill riders, Super PACs, etc. and making lots of money in political racketeering.
- People don’t matter, ever. That’s the one thing you can truly be sure of.
- Multi-generational social disasters are perfectly normal. You’d never guess, would you?
Politics is politics. Nothing is too nuts to be a political issue. Government is social administration. They have almost nothing at all in common. Politics is irrational by definition and highly divisive. (Being divisive is the one and only party trick politics has.)
The problem with this idyllic situation is that it means that irrational people are running the administration, which needs to be rational to work at all. A society divided by irrationality doesn’t work at all. (Guess how, when, and where that theory got proven.)
A question you really do need to answer
The question, therefore, is whether “Youth” is cynical and tricky enough to manage this slopfest and cut it down to its proper size.
Think about it. It’s not that easy a question. Representatives should at least represent something, or someone, for example, not just whoever’s paying them. Lobbyists and similar vermin should be abolished. Insane regressive cliques shouldn’t be running America through the Supreme Court Skankathon, either.
I’ll give you a few clues:
- It takes the regressives about 20 years to even understand any current issue on any subject. Most politicians only understand the previous generation’s issues, not the current generation’s.
- They never innovate. All the playbooks come from no later than 1950. That includes the McCarthyist trolls, fake data, disinformation, and ancient “issues” which were solved decades ago, etc. You can predict every single move they make.
- They’re organized but stupid, and invariably wrong on any topic. That can be used effectively as an easy-to-prove management exercise.
- The middlemen are true nobodies. They have no say in anything, and they know it. Ignore them and outmaneuver their owners.
- Trust nobody. It’s a lot easier than pulling knives out of your back for 40 years in a political career.
Good luck, hope it works out.
Just make sure you don’t need luck.
Get it right and you won’t need luck.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.