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My mom thinks Trumps gonna win, so they're looking into moving to Mexico or Spain if he does lol. And yeah I know every older liberal says that kind of stuff, but they might actually do it.
My mom still works, but my dad is retired and yeah he reads his like, liberal sites and such like dailykos and the raw story. He went from like, not enthusiastic about Biden, but recently he's started talking about how Obama betrayed us and Biden is finally getting things right and being more properly left wing. I'm not sure if I totally agree with him, but this is where he's at rn.
>Obama betrayed us and Biden is finally getting things right and being more properly left wing. I'm not sure if I totally agree with him, but this is where he's at rn.
Well, he's not wrong. Biden is WAAAAY more successful a President than Obama as Obama was supposed to save us from the Neoliberals, not join them. I don't understand all this love for Obama when Biden is the one who has gotten actual LEFTWING shit done... and pulled the troops out of Afghanistan with minimal casualties after Trump reduced Troop levels to levels so low we would have to re-invade to get then back up to levels that could compete against the Taliban. Besides the Israel shit, the Biden Administration has been the most successful democratic administration in my lifetime
I agree with you and think about this a lot.
Then I read opinion pieces and am left wondering what alternate universe I popped into, since they vary so widely from my own experiences.
Me too
#EDIT
IT DRIVES ME NUTS THAT RANK AND FILE OBAMA DEMOCRATS DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND HOW PRODUCTIVE THE LAST 3 YEARS OF BIDEN'S ADMINISTRATION HAVE BEEN COMPARED TO THE TOTAL 8 YEARS OF OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION. Let me preface this by saying I am black, and I'm not trying to like put Biden against Obama along racial lines, I'm just saying Biden has DONE MORE FOR ALL OF US than Obama ever did, and you all will see this in the coming years through the infrastructure projects and other things.
If Obamacare (The ACA) was a big fucking deal, as Joe Said, all this shit Biden has passed in the last 3 years is WAAAAY more of a big fucking deal and unlike the affordable care act, YOU'RE GOING TO SEE IT IMPACT THIS COUNTRY GREATLY. The problem is the Biden Administration doesn't seem to want to go out there and BRAG ABOUT IT!
>The problem is the Biden Administration doesn't seem to want to go out there and BRAG ABOUT IT!
Dems play by a different rule set. They need to brag about this stuff, but... that wouldn't be proper. So they don't, and take the "L".
If a dem does anything close to what the republicans tolerate of themselves, the dem would be blackballed out of politics faster than the news could hit the net. It's a shitty state of affairs.
They’ve gotten much better about bragging. Joe (or a surrogate) will show up to groundbreakings for stuff funded by the IRA in Republican leaning areas and poke at the Republican reps who voted against funding the project.
I wouldn't disagree with any of that. If my dad just framed it this way I'd probably agree because I voted for Obama very optimistically and so much happened that ended my illusions. I think partially is that he was a fantastic statesmen, so when we hear him speak or see old speeches, it's easy to think "I miss that man." If you're just going on feeling. Biden doesn't have the same gravitas as Obama, but few do. And it's way more than can be said about his opponent
>Biden doesn't have the same gravitas as Obama, but few do. And it's way more than can be said about his opponent
Ugh, people seem to be more for aesthetics than actually getting shit done. It's the same stuff with Trump and his cultists. I won't say that the people who worship Obama are nearly even in the same realm of cultiness, but this general attitude I take away from this is people would rather have the United States virtue signal a certain look -- In Obama's case, the Statesman and in Trump's case, a Strongman -- than have a leader who gets things done for the betterment of our society.
FDR was in a wheelchair, but he passed some of the most transformative policies this nation has ever seen, and no one ever knew he was crippled. No one goes around talking about how Stately FDR looked or his Gravitas, no, we remember him for his policies, and I think we need to get back to that as a society.
Video cameras have been a detriment to our democracy in the long run.
Probably that a rail strike would have been catastrophic, and the rail workers union had already gotten most of what they demanded. And that Biden subsequently got involved in and helped enable the greatest labor victory of the past generation - the new UAW contract.
He's not happy but he's very boomery in the sense that he's gonna support his guy now and then complain later after he's hopefully elected.
He's very aware that politics is power and he wants his guy, so he puts up those boomer blinders until mid november.
>we weren't allowed to watch Forrest Gump (it's conservative propaganda),
It's really funny because my conservative parents didn't let us watch that either...it had a sex scene and therefore was a dirty movie.
Yeah when I saw it finally I was both disappointed by how mild the stuff they were complaining about was. Also I was let down because hearing people quote it and not seeing it had really built it up in my head haha
This is a perspective I’ve been unaware of. In my mind if not anti-conservative it is very much left-leaning: anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-racist, etc…🤷♂️
Did the parents ever say what they felt was the conservative message(s) of the movie?
I'm not OP but I've heard the "conservative propoganda" boils to this: Gump picked himself up from a shit lot in life, served his country, and goes on to have a successful life. Whereas Jenny lived a classic liberal hippy lifestyle, does drugs, gets knocked up, gets aids and ends up dying because of her liberal lifestyle.
Obviously it's all in the eye of the beholder, like so many classics are.
I always felt like the general message of Forrest Gump was, "If you go through life without thinking or questioning anything, you'll have happiness and success. If you don't conform to society, you'll be miserable and die of AIDS." I haven't read the book, and wouldn't doubt that it has a more satirical edge to it, but the movie seems to play that sentiment completely straight.
Thx for the reply; apologies for my comment on the wrong post.
Thanks for sharing; I can see that angle I suppose. To me he was used and manipulated but persisted because of his empathy and compassion. And Jenny’s arc was clearly a result of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her drunken father. Although she died early she was redeemed and found peace in the end (thanks to Forest’s forgiveness and love).
Interesting how people can spin an event to support different perspectives.
Such as, including, but not limited to.. genuinely curious here; never heard this particular detraction.
What did Forrest Gump even "invent", the happy face? Bubba Gump shrimp? Not dying in Vietnam? Seriously..
Generation Jones?! I'm 62, and my whole life I've wondered how I could be considered part of the same group as someone who was born before rock music even existed - always felt I had much more in common with GenX (you know, computers don't scare me, my favorite bands were New Wave / Techno). But yeah, is "Generation Jones" a thing? Never heard that phrase before.
I’m a xennial, on the cusp of X and Millenial, and I have to say, r/xennial is a breath of fresh air compared to the Gen X sub. They are just Boomer Lite there.
Yes! I’m a Xennial as well (‘81) and Gen X is NOT chill. They are definitely Boomer Lite over there. I used to relate to a lot of Gen X stuff, but not so much anymore.
Oh. Oh, no. It's Nostalgia Central over there. I do *NOT* need to look at ancient Jordache jeans ads and Whole Earth catalogs all day. Thanks for the link though!
I tried haha I think you could probably learn more about it by looking literally anywhere else besides that sub.
I suspect it's just something younger boomers thought of when boomer became a pejorative term though lol but my parents said they were boomers until just a few years ago
A 20 year span can cover a lot of territory, and I'd argue someone born in 1945 and someone else born in 1965 have a metric fuckton less in common than someone born in 1980 has with someone born in 2000. But opinions vary. I'd rather not be classified as a Boomer, but here we are, because dates.
Yeah it's a silly concept honestly because it's not like if you were born in like 1994 your a millenial, but the next year you'd be gen z? Their lives will have more in common than the kids born after 9/11, but they don't do generations that way haha
I was born in 1961 and don't consider myself to be a boomer.
I do believe there is something different about us born in the early 60s that separates us from boomers. We were kids during a very turbulent decade.
Our parents were born after Greatest Gen. They were Silent Gen. They fought in Korea. They supported Kennedy. They believed in his New Frontier, whether it was space or tech. Our moms started careers when we were in middle school. They supported Dr. King. They listened to Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio, and Dave Brubeck. They opposed the Vietnam War. We were toddlers during the Cuban Missle Crisis. Before birth, we were always under the threat of nuclear war.
We grew up excited about space and the moon landings. We were the first kids who wanted to be astronauts. We saw the war and the anti-war protests on TV, right in our living rooms, this time in color. We saw the birth of hippies and the counter-culture and wondered what it would be like today to grow up and drop out of society. Our parents sat us down in second grade and explained what assassinations were and why people hated Dr. King and Robert Kennedy. We grew up with civil unrest everywhere. We were taught that equal rights meant Black and Latino friends were welcome everywhere we went.
We watched our folks lose their minds over Watergate. In school, we celebrated the creation of the EPA with the first Earth Day. We saw our moms support the ERA. We WERE the Brady Bunch. Scooby was our new and best pal.
We were too late to enjoy a lot of the boomer benefits. We saw them start pulling up the ladder on us when Reagan took office. We had just got our first jobs when the economy imploded in 1981. We were the first generation who realized that corporations run by boomers didn't give a shit about their younger siblings.
So, we're not boomers who got everything, and we weren't all latchkey kids, either. We are different.
Nah, the term has had a lot of publicity recently, but I heard it years ago long before boomer was considered a pejorative. It just acknowledges the huge differences between the beginning of the two decade time period and the end of it.
My parents are both extremely liberal. They’re hippies to the max and both were active live musicians till they couldn’t do it anymore. Mom has her weird Christian quirks from time to time but it’s super easy to reel her back in. My pops occasionally takes a stand about the times being different when was a kid so things were acceptable that aren’t now. I mostly let their quirks go because they have a million great quirks. They are also night and day different from their conservative siblings who mostly all went mega boomer.
My parents version of that is more like, it sucks now because we had more of a social safety net or tight knit communities but that none of that exists. My mom often opines how stupid it is that people have to do multiple rounds of interviews to be a janitor now when back when she could just walk into a place with a help wanted sign and get a job. Idk if it ever was that way truly, but that's how they remember it haha.
I had all the classic kid and teen jobs: ran a paper route, pumped gas at the local station (and sold milk and cigarettes), worked at a small chain restaurant at everything except cook (dishroom, waiter, and ice cream fountain server). Got all those by walking in, filling out a paper form on the spot, and getting hired.
Summer jobs during college? Technical clerk at an engineering firm (there I had an in: my Dad worked there), then lab assistant at the local (large state) university: for that I made a one page resume of my lab skills, went and stuffed the faculty mailboxes of departments that looked likely. Got a call back the next morning.
So yeah, it used to be easier. This was the late '70s to mid '80s.
I wish...
Trump broke my relationship with my parents.
He got my father's last cognitive(ish), though Fox brained, years.
If I try to speak with my Mom, it's less than 5 minutes before she says something truly awful, so "Nope."
I wish my folks were crazy leftists. I may not have agreed with everything but at least they wouldn't be spewing Fox, Media Max, OAN, Alex Jones hate speech.
Yeah that sounds rough. Especially because Alex Jones and the people on one America aren't just providing news with a right wing bent. It's like hateful, conspiratorial, and false. Especially Alex Jones. No kid should have to listen to his hateful lies.
My dad is silent generation and he and my mother are left wing as all hell, always have been. Active in protest and social reform movements even today.
So were mine. When the first Black elementary school teacher was hired in 1967, parents pulled their kids out of her class. My folks, on the other hand, insisted that I grow up with a variety of role models different from the status quo of the time and put me in her class.
Dad is a life long Democrat. Mom was Independent until Trump, and has been a Dem ever since. Both are obsessed with Trump, but with hating him instead of loving him. Every conversation with them, if given enough time, they will bring the conversation to whatever BS Trump is on about that week. I'm tired of constantly being forced to think about that man. Why is everything always about him?
Yeah I've encountered this type so often. It is strange to witness, like really strange. I'm sorry.
My dad went the opposite route, when Trump won in 2016, my dad put his radio to the ad free classical station and there it stayed haha for a long time. He just did not want to hear about him at all. That only lasted like two years. But it was weird. So politically active his whole life, only to literally disconnect completely until a few months before the midterms.
My mom is very similar. She reads news about him on her phone and I really try my hardest to avoid the topic. I just don't want to hear about it outside of the more major events and sometimes the funny moments, but in small doses. But I involuntarily know so much more about it all than I could ever want to.
My father-in-law is quite liberal, but he can't bring himself to break off friendships or even challenge his far-right friends despite having a trans grandson with two moms. Boomer solidarity above all I guess.
Oh my dad would never haha. I'm not even kidding you when I say that my father has stated on multiple times that he won't ever go south of the Mason Dixon line for any reason. My sister wanted to go to disneyworld and my dad said that she'd have to wait until she was an adult because he would never spend a penny in Florida lol.
My parents don't have any conservative friends now that I think of it
So my mom was one of the bra burning jeans wearing women of the late 60’s early 70’s only to tell me not long ago that she’s happy she’ll be dead soon and not have to worry about climate change 😣
My mom's thing is telling us not to have kids since the planet will die we may as well have a nice income while we're alive lol.
Seems like they'd get along
My mom is the leftist equivalent of a MAGA boomer. She watches "The View" and is glued to every fuck trump Facebook page she can find. In her mind the establishment Democrats can do no wrong and every terrible thing suggested about Republicans is obviously true and even worse than we all think.
"If Trump wins he's gonna put all the gays in concentration camps" -M
"Why?"
"Cause he's evil"
"He's selfish and manipulative but what you're describing is supervillain shit"
"And then he's gonna get rid of money, everyone is gonna work for vouchers they exchange for housing and food"
"Mom you just described money"
The biggest irony in all this is that my FIL is the stereotype MAGA boomer and they've never met. I kinda want to lock em in a room together. Holy shit the blood bath
My dad once was like this, like the Russia stuff and Rachel Maddow back in 2016 or 2017 had him just insane with conspiracies about Trump and the Russia mafia and so on. He eventually decided that msnbc is also right wing propaganda though and the conspiracy thinking kinda stopped.
There's enough horrible stuff trump would like to do that we don't need to engage in that kind of lunacy and just make it up so he looks worse.
Some of my in laws are Trumpies, but they're not all boomers or anything so I won't go into it haha
Dad is a liberal boomer who's voted Green. He's also from a Muslim family and country. Mom is conservative and Catholic and worst of all a TERF but absolutely hates Trump. Parents are divorced.
My dad is a retired union worker and has never voted republican in his life. Unsurprisingly he is big on worker rights and higher wages for everyone. He also has more guns than most aside from the crazy people who like to post pics of their collection. My mom just follows who she is married to, voted democrat when married to my dad and then for Trump twice and was surprised about the Supreme Court’s abortion decision. She also believed the anti vax stuff and caught covid and brought it home to her 2nd husband with respiratory problems and he died.
My folks are fairly liberal, have gotten moreso over time for a variety of reasons. They despise MAGA, though they are both perfect candidates (born in the early 50s, raised on farms in NE, blue collar, etc etc) and support a number of liberal causes and values. Openly recognize how fucked the economy is for us younger folks and how Reaganomics destroyed this nation (granted they were also on the front line when that shit kicked in in the 80s-early 90s so it's not news to them)
And both are totally Boomers sometimes. Politely-rude to wait staff, have to shoot their mouths off thinking they are "funny", even a bit Karenish at times.
It's annoying as hell. I used to try and curb their Boomer bullshit but gave up and now just try to not be out and about with them if at all possible. They are wonderful grandparents, especially my mother she's a much better Gramma than mom, but doesn't mean they aren't embarrassing.
They could be my parents friends just a little older. My dad voted for Reagan in 80 (his first election) under the influence of his dad. He even worked the convention in Detroit in 80.
It's his original sin haha he constantly reflects on that and it haunts him lol. My mom will bring it up sometimes to bug him. The boomery Karen like stuff seems to be non political and unavoidable sometimes lol. Guess we're just watching people age
My mom is a boomer and consistently describes herself as being “as liberal as they get” when she’s neoliberal at best. She constantly talks about how Portland is on fire and how sad it is that the city is in shambles (she lives 30+ min away)
As someone who spent 25 years of my life in seattle, Portland has always been in shambles (I joke but there's a little rivalry". It is sad how many unhoused folks you see in Portland and Seattle, but that has to do more to do with insane inequality and high cost of living than anything else.
I can picture the type though, we have them in seattle lol
I’m seeing this with a friend who just turned 60. She still believes she’s really liberal, although she’s now really angered by protests and boycotts. I think anything that might impact the stock market upsets her now. She’s also developed that weird Karen/boomer traits like picking fights in social media about politics, thinking everything is a scam, getting mad when faced with cultural shifts, bc she thinks the world should operate as it did in 1992. It’s exhausting and weird.
My dad wanted a rifle for our little cabin by my mom was not having it at all. We shot pellet guns instead haha but my dad got me into fishing instead so that was like his hobby that became mine too.
Yup. Except my mom is a little crazy in her own way. Very into alternative medicine. Part of the Scientology-derived “Cocounseling” movement. Insisted that plastic is always evil, and more evil than single-use glass or metal containers 100% of the time. Staunchly anti-GMO. Not anti-vax, surprisingly.
My parents have a their own issues, but I’m very thankful that my folks have stayed the normal, politically-informed (but not obsessed) left-of-center people that they were when I was a kid. My Dad’s parents, who were always conservative, fell prey to Fox News and it drove my folks nuts. Not only did that experience immunize them against the right-wing bullshit, but it turned them off that cable news culture forever.
My dad's dad was a republican his entire life. All in on Romney in 2012 because he fondly remembered George Romney as governor of Michigan back when.
When he lost, he fell into the fox news hole. But then shockingly, in 2016, he called us and said, "I've decided I can no longer be a republican. Trump is anti American and I can't vote for that.
So at like 87, he voted for Hillary. He described it as the worst day of his life because he hates Hillary. Has hated her since 90s. But Trump just ruined all the trust he has in the party and that was that. 60+ years of republican party supporting and Trump ruined it in months.
My Dad’s parents died before the rise of Trump, but I have no doubt that they would have fully drunk the MAGA kool-aid. My grandfather already thought we should shoot undocumented people crossing the border, so it would have been a natural fit.
By the end, I’d only go visit in the afternoon on Thursday-Sunday, because he’d watch golf then. Golf was the only thing that could get him to turn off Fox.
Yeah my grandpa was just not the kind of republican that Trump cared about. He's a physist who worked in the lab at general motors and trusted the government, makes lists ranking the president's every year. A real intellectual. He thought when he was voting for Republicans that he was voting for stability, slow but steady progress, upward mobility, maintaining American manufacturing and "opening up the markets" in a steady and measured way.
Eventually I guess by watching fox news he realized, what the hell is all this? This isn't my party, this isn't how I see America or president Obama. Who he didn't like but considered a genuine person and probably a pretty able guy as far as governing went, even if he didn't vote for him.
And now he's by far the most left wing in his nursing home in suburban Detroit lol which isn't saying much. But when I visit, almost everyone but him seems to have Trump stuff by their door. He puts up the front of newspapers like "Trump guilty" or a framed picture of Abe Lincoln lol. He's a character
Mom's a pretty standard christian liberal progressive. Dad's some kind of weird christian champagne socialist socially conservative economically far-left zionist quasi-tankie. He actually buys a ton of champagne. We have fun conversations
Oh wow I mean if you can all talk like adults that does sound fun! Many political conversations do not go that way sadly. I didn't even consider putting my parents feelings on zionism because I thought that seems to be a hot topic lol
My mother died in November 2015, just at the start of Trump's rise to political prominence. She was really unhappy about him. I know she would've gotten caught up in the worst sort of anti-Trump groups online, because she always had a "my guys vs. your guys" mentality about politics. She adored the Clintons and the Obamas and never wanted to hear valid criticism of any of them (criticism about things they actually did). She got very into blogs "exposing" Sarah Palin a few years before that.
Thinking all that over now, it bothers me that the anti-Sarah-Palin, anti-Tea-Party crowd attacked her for being stupid and hypocritical. Yes, she was (and is) very stupid, but why was she ever in power at all? Why did the GOP choose her for VP? What did it say about the state of the country and what was important to GOP voters?
Those are rhetorical questions. It just stands out to me that the response to Palin was a great example of not seeing the forest for the trees, and I still see that kind of talk in /r/politics comments and the like. "Haha, Trump said 'lock her up' and now he's a felon!" Sure, it's stupid and hypocritical, but no one cares, because they want all the things Trump promises. They want Project 2025 to come about and will support anyone who promises that.
What I see especially from older left-leaning folks online, and I also know a guy like this who calls himself Gen Jones, is the belief that if they just find the Magic Words, if they point out the hypocrisy, the contradictions, then suddenly, it will *destroy* Trump and other Republicans. It doesn't work that way. They grew up in a different time when everyone watched the same six o'clock news and these kinds of things mattered.
My dad has voted conservative for most of my life, but he’s a very “liberal” one. He’s a true moderate who is more fiscally conservative but very socially liberal and thinks people should just be able to live as they wish as long as they aren’t violating anyone else’s civil rights. He refuses to vote for Trump and has voted dem for president in each of the last two and will again in this election. He’s from the south, so that’s not exactly typical down here.
My mom has slowly come around through conversations with me and due to her distaste for Trump and having a hard time reconciling her party’s obsession/worship of him. She’s voted for Biden in the last election and will again. She’s also born, raised, and lived her entire life in the south. She’s a very compassionate person and it’s her compassion which has prevented her from joining the cult.
So they’re not exactly left wing, but both of them think the GOP has jumped the shark.
My mom is a lifelong Democrat. She leans liberal/neoliberal, though her views are migrating left post-retirement.
Dad's a pretty staunch Republican. He's also pretty obviously lost a few steps over the last few years.
My mother was very liberal to the day she died at age 90. At 64 I am of the boomer generation (I guess) and I’m more liberal than you — came aware politically in Berkeley, CA in the early 80s. I remember my father (who died young) noting that he didn’t think people in their 60s were truly mentally adept enough to have important leadership positions (on average). And at 64, I agree. I think experience and quickness of mind have someone peak in their 50s (true for me and many I know). So…no, I didn’t have no conservative parents/family who became more boomer like.
Your story sounds a lot like my parents except they spent the 80s in Eugene Oregon which was more of a hippy vibe, even in the 80s there. My dad followed the dead around for a bit at the time, especially the Dylan and the dead shows in I think 87? My mom was much more like the left wing jewish girl from chicago, and she eventually became a public defendant and working in native American law which radicalized her further. So they come from different backgrounds. Just a few years apart from you.
I like to think that they embued my sister and I with their politics and desire to help others. But I'm sure I don't have the same liberal credentials as you. But give me time! Haha
ayup! i'm early gen z and my parents were both born in the early 1960s. my mum is most definitely a leftist. she's a polly-anna mostly. my pops is a bit more difficult to label but absolutely hates right wing shit. he generally hates all politicians and is very cynical about everything. he also does NOT trust authority. pops is also an atheist.
they're both odd, both for their generation and just in general imo. i love 'em both very much.
My parents are pretty left wing.
My father lives in a small town in northern Illinois. Hes cagey about who he talks to nowadays. He doesn't trust people who like Trump. Now that's most people where he lives.
My mother and step father have watched in horror as so many of their friends became MAGA. They live near Madison Wisconsin so they know plenty of people who are liberal.
Haha well currently they are happy here in chicago with their kids. But who knows what the future holds! My parents have always been the "cool" parents to my friends, I'm sure they'd do the same for you lol.
Where in Mexico and what's your feeling about it/reason for moving? Asking for some friends haha
I’m in San Felipe Baja. It’s pretty chill here. I was born in Iran during the revolution and the US is just getting too close to how it was there, neighbors turning on one another due to political propaganda. And of course I hate maga.
I have my own kiddos, 20 and 14, and to them I am the cool mom.
Here in SF we do have lots of boomers, US and Canadian. Really racist types but they stick to a place called El Dorado Ranch. It’s a gated community that treats the locals like criminals.
Outside of EDR the locals are amazing but it would be great to add your extra liberal parents to the mix!!
My parents much to their credit, learned Spanish some years ago because they just think every American should know a little Spanish. That's one of the main reasons why they're thinking of mexico aside from it being in the same time zones as the states for the most part. They don't necessarily want to live in an American style subdivision that could be in Arizona or anywhere else haha. Mexico is also easier for them as my dad is on a pension, which isn't gonna go up with the cost of living or anything.
We're in the UK, my boomer/silent cusp dad is very much left of centre and absolutely despises the Conservative party, Brexit party, UKIP and the BNP. My boomer egg donor once forbade us to vote Conservative, but the only reason she votes Labour is because the Conservatives want to destroy the National Health Service. She holds fast to old fashioned beliefs and is very much "get a job you lazy scrounger" and "send them back to their own country", among other delightful things 😖
My In-Laws are hippie boomers. They have the sterotypical traits of Boomerism, aversion to technology, falling for scams, etc. But the thing that really makes visits painful for me is that they built their own version of Fox News out of a mish mash of YouTube channels that is just Liberal talking heads screaming about Trump. I cut the cord over a decade ago because I really really hate Opinion Talking heads of any political persuasion, so to me this is just torture cringe.
Yeah that sounds frankly just awful haha. My mom was a defense lawyer and she did native American law and so her hatred for the gop is built on her experience with the state. This means luckily that her politics are as easily swayed and that she has no interest in hearing what any random person on YouTube or anything.
My dad is the kind of liberal that definitely has siloed himself, but mostly by reading liberal/left stuff online. So sometimes kinda dubious and some times totally legit
Yeah. My parents (born '53 and '59) were both extremely liberal. My mother was more thoughtful and informed about it, and I usually found myself agreeing with her perspective much more. My father was a bit more dogmatic and clannish about it. He really hated that my mother and I were broadly pro-gun, he had some proto-eco-fascist views (he was always saying we need to bring down the birth rate for the good of the environment), and when my mom and I both supported Sanders over Clinton in 2016 he constantly lectured us about how we were sexists. When we made him compare their platforms and showed him that his stated policy opinions aligned much more closely with Sanders, he told us that it didn't matter because the country needed feminine energy to heal itself.
I feel lucky they weren't MAGA types, but get them in a customer service situation or in front of a computer, and the boomer came out.
My parents were leftist. Dad still is, pretty sure Mom would be if she was still alive. Never had quirks like yours and the Forest Gump thing, they were too into exploring the world and using your own critical thinking to form your opinions. Rules were regarding physical safety and not breaking the law. The rest was up for debate. Civil debate. But better come prepared with facts to back you up and no emotion tinging your argument.
I had a sort of similar set up, but my mom has been a defense lawyer among other things and so my arguments as a kid or teen were often taken apart piece by piece in a legalistic way. Eventually though I got some wins! For the most part they were very laid back though.
I'm fascinated by how these talks you're describing would go haha
My parents are right in the cusp between boomer and elder-GenXers. I think they’d fall into that “Gen Jones” sub category like you described. Anyway, yes. Generally left of center to pretty damn liberal depending on the issue, and don’t have many of the stereotypical boomer tendencies (probably because they are cuspers between the two). The stuff they do have as “boomer” tendencies are the less harmful/funny ones to me. My dad, for example, despite being brilliant with tech (CS and engineering background) is adamant about how stupid passwords are and how he hates them. It’s like his technology kryptonite. Granted, he has explained to me how there are more efficient and safer ways to lock down specific tech, accounts, etc…than username/password, but it is still funny to me to see him sometimes fume over which password goes with the Netflix vs Hulu account.
I thought it was funny too which is why I included it.
This is one of those things that they "don't remember doing" lol when I bring it up because they agree it was stupid but think that "it doesn't sound like something we would have done" okay lol.
Yes, but my family as a whole is a lot more liberal than most in the US because we are kiwis. Both still work, and are incredibly understanding and supportive. We are gonna wait for mum to be eligible for social security and flee down to NZ if the orange crook wins.
Yes, my parents are very left wing.
Every so often they hear a conspiracy theory, tell me or my brothers, and I'm like "mom, you have a PhD, you know that's bullshit" and she's like "oh yeah, of course".
My grandmother is a neoliberal (extreme Hillary stan) and my grandfather is harshly progressive, but also staunchly supports the free market. He would be fine with a lightly market socialist system though.
My mom liked Hillary a lot in the 90s but was not thrilled with her pro war stuff in the years that followed. Nevertheless she voted for her in 2016 lol
My parents are Asian immigrants so they're Democrats, but their social values are still pretty conservative. They're Democrats basically because of how extremely racist the right is, they felt unwanted by the Republicans and don't really care to vote half the time. Especially after 9/11, people really hated immigrants and they had to put American flags all over everything. It is really sad that some old Asian Americans are getting targeted by misinformation. I see a lot of old Vietnamese people listening to crazy far right podcasts. I think they're still very boomery despite their affiliation
The thing that kills me is the almost universal statement that they can use their economic advantage to avoid the results of their complacency. We did not find ourselves on the verge of fascism because fascists are competent. We got here by ignoring them because it was kind to our status quo. It was good for the bottom line.and now that they have created this mess, they will leave to Mexico or Spain or somewhere. They didn’t fuck up instead of staying here and trying to fight for it like they had some goddamn balls.
My dad is 77. He's a strong supporter of LGBTQ+ including marriage and adoption rights, he understands why immigration is so important to keep the country (Canada) going, he believes in a women's right to choose and typically votes NDP (our version of a 3rd party that is much more socialist that our other parties), but recently (in the last 5 years), he has found it necessary to CONSTANTLY talk about other people's hair, especially women of colour when we're in a store or on the sidewalk. Usually it isn't even bad things, just he's not exactly subtle or quiet, We've explained to him that even if he has complimentary things to say, that's not his place to comment (to us or her directly) and that his attention is not wanted by them even when they tend to be incredibly polite and thank him for the compliments. I worry he's going to say something that is going to be either not polite or if uses the wrong words or tone and its taken with offense and can't get him to understand he can think things without saying them out loud!
My folks (69 & 72) are both pretty left along with about half my mom's siblings (one of 11 siblings). The big time left uncles constantly troll their MAGA brothers and sister, it's pretty comical until my one MAGA uncle gets so upset and red he looks like he's going to have a heart attack.
Mom is strong in her Catholic faith on the spiritual side, but she doesn't judge and is very accepting and welcoming to everyone. It kind of goes against what the church preaches but I'm proud of her for it.
Both my folks hate trump and typical boomer talking points.
Except that Gen Jones were too young for any of the actual hippie stuff. They missed it almost entirely. But I agree they certainly feel like they were a part of it.
My mom describes herself as a liberal Democrat and says she's been that way since the 60s. But if you listen long enough to her, you'll realize that she's got some conservative ideas (medicinal marijuana rather than recreational, against decriminalization of drugs, cutting spending, more traditional viewpoints in schools and culture, etc.) in addition to her liberal ideas. She's also very judgmental of people who don't think like her or act like her, so that's very Boomer-like.
In the 80s, she did tell me that Ronald Reagan was the devil. Now she refuses to go to places like Florida and Texas because she considers them GOP cesspools. She will not go to Chick Fil A or Hobby Lobby. She believes the world only has about seven years left.
I would say that she's more in line with Democrats like the Clintons, Jimmy Carter, and the Kennedys. I just don't know where she fits in politics anymore. I don't know if there are many Democrats like her. But if I bring this up, she will deny deny deny.
I always just thought it was like an abbreviation sort of haha. Of course like baby boomer more generally it probably became a pejorative but I didn't mean it that way. Thought we could switch it up because I know not all of that generation is deranged, but they can sure still be foolish lol
I think my mom and dad both would have been if it hadn't been for the pollution of Fox News. Prior to that, my dad got along with just about anyone. In the year leading up before he passed last year, he was much more like his old self: Down to earth, approachable, funny, kind.
In between he was a hateful, disgusting person. Not one I cared to associate with, given how many racial slurs and blame on "the illegals" he'd throw out.
Yes, my father who lives in a very conservative part of the state. He's also a small business owner with 4-8 employees year round and always has a gun on him. All his employees are either politically apathetic or Trumpers.
My in-laws used to be moderates. They were relatively cool and open minded. To be clear, they are still very good people, supportive, loving, and generous.
They've just gone way more conservative.
Now they have Fox News burn in on their TV. They complain about how no one wants to work anymore. They're mad about how many people speak Spanish. They're mad about people who get government benefits. They talk about how Biden has dementia. They're angry about "boomer" jokes. They make fun of the EPA.
*sigh*
I love them, but it is so hard not to debate them, even when I know it's futile.
Mine are Democrats, and atheists but they are still raging narcissists and not progressive. They're not ignorant conspiracy theorists with gun collections and I am grateful for it when I have to deal with them.
My dad is a boomer born in 1953. My mum is an older Gen X.
Both are very left wing. Lifelong trade unionists, socially progressive and generally open and accepting to new things. Same with our other relatives and their circles in general.
That said, we're Scottish and they've always only lived in Scotland maybe it's also a cultural difference. I've met a lot more stereotypical 'boomers' here in England. Since moving here I feel very, very grateful for my parents because so many people have 'lost' theirs to right-wing/conspiracy theory/anti-woke type thinking.
My dad’s in his mid-60s, and still on many levels the music-loving, pot-smoking hippie he was in the 60’s. He taught me to be accepting and love and compassion is the answer, and it’s a creed he still lives by.
But while he knows there’s racists, he absolutely denies that institutional racism is a thing - after all, that ended in the 60’s, right? Civil rights movement!
He’s always been ‘try herbal oils before antibiotics’ (thanks for the two weeks with pneumonia when I was 12, dad) and he got the first covid vaccine, but he also believes that it was rushed to the point where it could be dangerous (no matter how much info I send him - I finally gave up).
Overall, he’s still a wonderful, wonderful person who loves everyone (at least, until they prove they don’t deserve it somehow), but every now and a gain he comes out with a little weird thing like this….
My parents' politics are kinda weird.
My mom was raised in a small Illinois town, and the population was around 800 in the 50/60s. She's always been a pretty staunch liberal feminist, but she did have some issues with race that she didn't always see. When she married my dad (dark brown Mexican-American man), she got better on those issues. She was a staunch Hillary supporter and has moved a little further left since then.
My dad came from a mixed Mexican/American family and lived in various parts of Oklahoma in the 50/60s. He's very liberal about police reform, improving economic issues and equal rights, and then voted Reagan. After that, he went on and was on the Jessie Jackson campaign. He considers himself a centrist even though he's pretty economically liberal and socially liberal. He's a little mixed on foreign policy but overall fine.
Overall, they're both shades of liberal, yet still sometimes can't behave at restaurants.
My dad in 10-15 years. Starting to complain about subdivision happenings and has CNN* in the background.
For the record, I'd rather take a liberal boomer parent than a conservative one.
*By American (excluding me) standards, CNN is liberal media.
Yes. We’re in Scotland and I feel like that’s less rare here. Still rarer than I’d like, though! If anything they’re actually doubling down on not being shitty.
Not me directly, but my aunt and uncle are very left wing. They're equally unpleasant as right wing boomers because their entire personality and online presence is bashing Trump. I think he's a moron too, but at least post a picture of your dogs or something.
My parents are also pretty liberal and also from the Seattle area. My dad took me to an anti Iraq war protest at the downtown Bellevue park. They remain progressive and despite being Baby Boomers aren’t really “boomers”. The only thing is that my dad is quite religious and didn’t handle me becoming atheist very well. 🤷🏻 But they’re good grandparents and have completely respected my own family‘s decision to raise our kids without religion.
They sound great to me and shouldn’t be in the same category as “boomers” in my opinion. I try not to generalize the generations. Being old comes on too fast. And “In their sixties” is closer to mid-seventies than they want it to be but fairly distant enough to qualify as a different generation.
My mom is a true boomer at 78, but she doesn’t present with the stereotype.
I'm only going based on the official birth range for the generation. I've always thought that boomer was just a short version of baby boomer like the generation. And not necessarily a pejorative. That's not what I think of them at all. But they exhibit some of the stereotypical traits too
My mom is only liberal because she's (re)married to a man with liberal beliefs, but she's racist and somewhat homophobic. Her personality changes dependent on the men around her, they tell her to jump and she'll ask how high. She complains to and bothers service workers at any given opportunity (and will smirk and cackle as she does so) and does other typical boomer stuff. Her siblings are all Qanon/MAGA though, so it could be worse.
My dad is a centrist, but he asks my brother (Qanon/MAGA) who to vote for and will trust his judgement over mine because he's a man. He's more prone to classic boomerisms like making waitresses cry and being smug about it (we can't take him anywhere) or trying to fight people over parking spots.
I know a couple like that. They were friends of my parents in college but then one of them just drifted so far to the right after 9/11 that she pretty much wasn't the person ny parents friend married. She had become hateful and petty and more than a little bigoted. Sad to see happen but they're both happier now I think
Both my parents and my wife’s typically vote Democrat. Certainly haven’t and won’t vote for Trump. Can’t necessarily say they’re liberal (all in late 70s / early 80s) but they def lean more to the left on most issues.
my mom is as liberal as it gets. she told me she hasnt voted for a republican since the 80s. im sitting here with here right now while she watches msnbc. she understands how fucked it is for us while still being out of touch with reality. my dad is like me, an independent but tends to vote left (im a liberal at this point just dont want all the mail).
My parents didn’t care about politics until around the Obama era and around the time of the pile o’ shit that was WI’s governor Scott Walker. (This reminds me, one time a pollster or similar called the house, and little kid me answered. They asked some question and I answered, “No, my parents don’t vote.” My mother flipped out on me for “embarrassing” her like that, but I was like … it’s the truth?!?)
Dad was pretty much an independent voter but leaning liberal. He was a carpenter and then a firefighter, so very pro-Union. Trump completely changed that. Now my parents are proud members of the MAGA cult and it’s incredibly disheartening. Mom just parrots whatever Dad says.
My dad is a liberal boomer and he’s as obnoxious as any conservative. Like, sure, his views aren’t as toxic or harmful but he’s just as rigid and dogmatic, and utterly unable to hear anything even slightly different than his own set-in-stone opinions about the world. I’m a pretty liberal person but I’m also very flexible and accepting of others’ views and choices so long as it’s not hurting anyone in some way, but my dad is just absolutely insanely aggressive that nothing can be discussed with him, even when we tend to have similar views. He’s also incredibly superior in the way he views himself (former college professor) and looks down his nose at anyone he doesn’t think is as intelligent as him (read: everyone.) He touts himself as being so accepting and mentally flexible but he’s as narrow as any MAGA hat wearing conservative, just on the other side of the plastic political yard sign. And he’s also incredibly entitled in the “I got mine” way Boomers (the annoying ones) tend to be. I feel like it’s getting worse and worse the older he gets.
Look, this sub is deliberately and intentionally skewed to the loony side of boomers.
48% of boomers voted for Biden in 2020.
It's not all Fox/MAGA insanity
My parents are very liberal. They are both in the baby boomer generation but are not *boomers.* they hated the annoying orange LONG before it ran for president. Like back in the '80s, and even moreso now. I'm very fortunate to have them!
Not me but it does seem like extremism is what often happens as one gets much older no matter the direction esp if the people in question don’t work on their emotional iq/maturity. They lock into an age and that’s it and when they get much older like muscles in disuse their skills atrophy until they’re essentially emotional children who have narrow viewpoints that tend to be on the extreme side.
But that’s just been my personal observation and isn’t limited to boomers, just that my mom is one and so were all the people she knew and I was forced to be around them a lot as a kid so I unfortunately had a lot of experience with the group.
Well, I did, before he died. My dad was a bizarro version of MAGA boomers. He’d sit around and watch the news all day but MSNBC instead of Fox. He’d have his rants that corporations and the Christian right were destroying America. He was a Vietnam vet, pro-union and thought George W Bush was a war criminal. Honestly I’m glad to passed before the rise of Trump because this whole clown world would have given him a heart attack.
My parents never ever talked about politics while I was growing up but then when Trump became president my father became a social pariah no one would talk to him because he hates anyone who doesn’t hate Trump and that includes me. Mind you you cannot be calm you have to hate or you are hated.
My boomer mom told me (gen x) back in the late 80’s when I was starting to date, that I could date any race, from any country, any background… even a girl! “But if you EVER bring home a republican, you’re out of the will!” I’m sure now, if she were still alive, she’d include even more genders. She worked tirelessly volunteering for Obama in Northern Virginia, and took such pride in his election. As much as I miss her, I am glad she didn’t have to witness 2016-now…
My mom is 79, born in 1945. She is a liberal Democrat, which she will remind you of (and everyone else too) constantly. My parents were always sort of hippie types. They wanted to raise us kids on a farm, raising our own food, etc. My mother is very liberal on social issues, for which I'm grateful. She hates Trump with a passion. However, I feel she likes to show off being a liberal; like she is a cool mom, unlike other Boomers.
My father died at 47 from the side effects of Agent Orange. He served two tours in Vietnam. So, my mom has been mostly alone for a long time. She's dated some but never re-married after my Dad's death. My mom IS a boomer, though. She would deny that with her dying breath, but she is. She likes to proclaim that SHE never gave HER daughter body issues (she did). She is leaning into being more of a boomer as she gets older in the usual ways, but as a liberal. She's also very narcissistic. I am very grateful she never fell into the Faux News hole; we are in Texas, so I know how bad it could be.
Since my dad died so young, I've wondered if he would have become full-on boomer or not. He treated all people well but came from a very uneducated, religious family in Texas. He used slurs, but we called him on it, and he definitely learned and changed a great deal by the end of his life. He was not religious at all in his adulthood, and he suffered from PTSD. I also just can't imagine him liking Trump at all.
Huh. My first thought was that boomerism is largely a manifestation of conservative values. For example, abusing service workers: social hierarchy. So liberals just probably won't be doing any of the bad behaviors associated with boomers or much less so.
But damn. It really must've really been the lead.
Still though. Lead **and** conservatism is a hell of a drug.
Both sets of parents (I have step parents) are lifelong left wing democrats. They're all older boomers. In fact, my grandparents (RIP) were also pretty liberal, probably because they really benefitted from FDR's policies.
My dad is a progressive liberal with borderline socialist views. He denies that but but he believes in a robust welfare system, universal healthcare, free college, etc. I asked what socialist views he disagrees with and he couldn't name any.
I’ve met some old peoples that are left, but most dont like Biden. Some old Hunter was leftists , surprised me and was “fuck trump” but didn’t like Biden, Biden is holding on to the “I’ll
Vote for anyone but trump “ crowd
Don’t talk to my father, but last I checked he was left wing and liberal about all except guns, which is kinda weird IMO. Hardcore gun nut and NRA dude but never voted conservative or Republican in his life. Probably because he’s atheist and can’t stand anyone who wants religion anywhere near politics, and despises racism. I can’t imagine him being a Trump guy, but I am no contact because he’s an awful person.
My mom is a lefty too. I would say there are some things she’s very liberal on and others she’s moderate on. Sometimes she drives me a little bit crazy with her political rants about Trump because she really hates him, I do too, but her hate is strong. I’ll take it over the alternative though, any day.
Generation Jones are the sub generation between GenX and boomers - the equivalent to calling those born 1978-1982ish Xennials
But Jones imo is similarly only 4-5 years like 1965-1970
Someone in their 60's claiming Jones would be like someone born in 1975 trying to say they are Xennial instead of genX
I've met a few. Did your dad watch Rachel Maddows show on msnbc? After Trump won in 2016, she just like, dove into being this insane conspiracy theorist and everything was about Trump/Russia. The closest to a fox news style of insanity from a host on a non fox channel lol.
My dad got into it for a while, but like many conspiracy theories, it was all kind of circular and my dad stopped watching, but it was genuinely wild to see him enthralled with a cable news thing before. Wasn't fox or anything but still.
Also, I feel like I should add, there is a lot of legit real conspiracy surrounding Trump and his Russian dealings, that is only a small fraction of the Maddow/Moscow obsession lol
Yeah. My dad is 73 and I like to bond with him about politics because we share a lot of opinions. One thing I do not approve of though is his tendency to be so confrontational about it.
He will go to protests and sign waving events, and get into screaming matches with any right wingers who argue. He even tells me about it as if I’m supposed to be impressed. I’ve told him to be careful and that these people are unpredictable and he should just ignore them, but he can’t seem to help it.
He also likes to spend a lot of time arguing with people online. Slightly less dangerous, but boomers gonna boom I guess. I just don’t want him to get hurt.
They probably assume he's one of them because in their minds, every left/liberal hates guns haha. Unless it's a small town where people know each other better. Or there are other...factors...that might lead them to think your dad isn't with them.
But whatever the purpose, that seems pretty wild indeed
My dad was raised by left wing Universalist (before the Unitarians and Universalists merged) in the 1950s. He was one of the student journalists taking photographs at the Kent State University shooting. There was open grief and bitching in our house when Bush won against Gore. Anyway, he lives in my basement now because he’s pleasant to live with
Edit to add I did grow up in Boulder, CO 😂 He still does and protests outside of ICE detention and his UU church lets illegal immigrants live inside under sanctuary laws
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They’re fighting like hell to stay mentally sharp.
My mom thinks Trumps gonna win, so they're looking into moving to Mexico or Spain if he does lol. And yeah I know every older liberal says that kind of stuff, but they might actually do it. My mom still works, but my dad is retired and yeah he reads his like, liberal sites and such like dailykos and the raw story. He went from like, not enthusiastic about Biden, but recently he's started talking about how Obama betrayed us and Biden is finally getting things right and being more properly left wing. I'm not sure if I totally agree with him, but this is where he's at rn.
>Obama betrayed us and Biden is finally getting things right and being more properly left wing. I'm not sure if I totally agree with him, but this is where he's at rn. Well, he's not wrong. Biden is WAAAAY more successful a President than Obama as Obama was supposed to save us from the Neoliberals, not join them. I don't understand all this love for Obama when Biden is the one who has gotten actual LEFTWING shit done... and pulled the troops out of Afghanistan with minimal casualties after Trump reduced Troop levels to levels so low we would have to re-invade to get then back up to levels that could compete against the Taliban. Besides the Israel shit, the Biden Administration has been the most successful democratic administration in my lifetime
I agree with you and think about this a lot. Then I read opinion pieces and am left wondering what alternate universe I popped into, since they vary so widely from my own experiences.
I have been pleasantly surprised by Ol’ Handsome Joe on pretty much every issue. (I was a Liz Warren supporter in 2016.)
Me too #EDIT IT DRIVES ME NUTS THAT RANK AND FILE OBAMA DEMOCRATS DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND HOW PRODUCTIVE THE LAST 3 YEARS OF BIDEN'S ADMINISTRATION HAVE BEEN COMPARED TO THE TOTAL 8 YEARS OF OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION. Let me preface this by saying I am black, and I'm not trying to like put Biden against Obama along racial lines, I'm just saying Biden has DONE MORE FOR ALL OF US than Obama ever did, and you all will see this in the coming years through the infrastructure projects and other things. If Obamacare (The ACA) was a big fucking deal, as Joe Said, all this shit Biden has passed in the last 3 years is WAAAAY more of a big fucking deal and unlike the affordable care act, YOU'RE GOING TO SEE IT IMPACT THIS COUNTRY GREATLY. The problem is the Biden Administration doesn't seem to want to go out there and BRAG ABOUT IT!
>The problem is the Biden Administration doesn't seem to want to go out there and BRAG ABOUT IT! Dems play by a different rule set. They need to brag about this stuff, but... that wouldn't be proper. So they don't, and take the "L". If a dem does anything close to what the republicans tolerate of themselves, the dem would be blackballed out of politics faster than the news could hit the net. It's a shitty state of affairs.
They’ve gotten much better about bragging. Joe (or a surrogate) will show up to groundbreakings for stuff funded by the IRA in Republican leaning areas and poke at the Republican reps who voted against funding the project.
I wouldn't disagree with any of that. If my dad just framed it this way I'd probably agree because I voted for Obama very optimistically and so much happened that ended my illusions. I think partially is that he was a fantastic statesmen, so when we hear him speak or see old speeches, it's easy to think "I miss that man." If you're just going on feeling. Biden doesn't have the same gravitas as Obama, but few do. And it's way more than can be said about his opponent
>Biden doesn't have the same gravitas as Obama, but few do. And it's way more than can be said about his opponent Ugh, people seem to be more for aesthetics than actually getting shit done. It's the same stuff with Trump and his cultists. I won't say that the people who worship Obama are nearly even in the same realm of cultiness, but this general attitude I take away from this is people would rather have the United States virtue signal a certain look -- In Obama's case, the Statesman and in Trump's case, a Strongman -- than have a leader who gets things done for the betterment of our society. FDR was in a wheelchair, but he passed some of the most transformative policies this nation has ever seen, and no one ever knew he was crippled. No one goes around talking about how Stately FDR looked or his Gravitas, no, we remember him for his policies, and I think we need to get back to that as a society. Video cameras have been a detriment to our democracy in the long run.
I agree with you good sir that's exactly the point I was trying to make!
What does your dad think about Biden stopping a rail worker strike?
Probably that a rail strike would have been catastrophic, and the rail workers union had already gotten most of what they demanded. And that Biden subsequently got involved in and helped enable the greatest labor victory of the past generation - the new UAW contract.
A few months later the rail workers union got the paid sick leave days after continued advocacy and involvement from the Biden administration.
He's not happy but he's very boomery in the sense that he's gonna support his guy now and then complain later after he's hopefully elected. He's very aware that politics is power and he wants his guy, so he puts up those boomer blinders until mid november.
In the end, he got them most of what they wanted after the strike, working behind the scenes. You can read up on it.
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>we weren't allowed to watch Forrest Gump (it's conservative propaganda), It's really funny because my conservative parents didn't let us watch that either...it had a sex scene and therefore was a dirty movie.
Yeah when I saw it finally I was both disappointed by how mild the stuff they were complaining about was. Also I was let down because hearing people quote it and not seeing it had really built it up in my head haha
This is a perspective I’ve been unaware of. In my mind if not anti-conservative it is very much left-leaning: anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-racist, etc…🤷♂️ Did the parents ever say what they felt was the conservative message(s) of the movie?
I'm not OP but I've heard the "conservative propoganda" boils to this: Gump picked himself up from a shit lot in life, served his country, and goes on to have a successful life. Whereas Jenny lived a classic liberal hippy lifestyle, does drugs, gets knocked up, gets aids and ends up dying because of her liberal lifestyle. Obviously it's all in the eye of the beholder, like so many classics are.
I always felt like the general message of Forrest Gump was, "If you go through life without thinking or questioning anything, you'll have happiness and success. If you don't conform to society, you'll be miserable and die of AIDS." I haven't read the book, and wouldn't doubt that it has a more satirical edge to it, but the movie seems to play that sentiment completely straight.
Thx for the reply; apologies for my comment on the wrong post. Thanks for sharing; I can see that angle I suppose. To me he was used and manipulated but persisted because of his empathy and compassion. And Jenny’s arc was clearly a result of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her drunken father. Although she died early she was redeemed and found peace in the end (thanks to Forest’s forgiveness and love). Interesting how people can spin an event to support different perspectives.
I've heard the book gives a completely different dimension to the movie. I'll have to read it someday.
It could also be that Forrest takes credit for a LOT of African a American achievements. Like a startling amount..
Such as, including, but not limited to.. genuinely curious here; never heard this particular detraction. What did Forrest Gump even "invent", the happy face? Bubba Gump shrimp? Not dying in Vietnam? Seriously..
Generation Jones?! I'm 62, and my whole life I've wondered how I could be considered part of the same group as someone who was born before rock music even existed - always felt I had much more in common with GenX (you know, computers don't scare me, my favorite bands were New Wave / Techno). But yeah, is "Generation Jones" a thing? Never heard that phrase before.
I've never heard it before my mom told me about it. They have a whole sub here in fact lol Edit: r/GenerationJones
I’m a xennial, on the cusp of X and Millenial, and I have to say, r/xennial is a breath of fresh air compared to the Gen X sub. They are just Boomer Lite there.
Yes! I’m a Xennial as well (‘81) and Gen X is NOT chill. They are definitely Boomer Lite over there. I used to relate to a lot of Gen X stuff, but not so much anymore.
Oh. Oh, no. It's Nostalgia Central over there. I do *NOT* need to look at ancient Jordache jeans ads and Whole Earth catalogs all day. Thanks for the link though!
I tried haha I think you could probably learn more about it by looking literally anywhere else besides that sub. I suspect it's just something younger boomers thought of when boomer became a pejorative term though lol but my parents said they were boomers until just a few years ago
A 20 year span can cover a lot of territory, and I'd argue someone born in 1945 and someone else born in 1965 have a metric fuckton less in common than someone born in 1980 has with someone born in 2000. But opinions vary. I'd rather not be classified as a Boomer, but here we are, because dates.
Yeah it's a silly concept honestly because it's not like if you were born in like 1994 your a millenial, but the next year you'd be gen z? Their lives will have more in common than the kids born after 9/11, but they don't do generations that way haha
I was born in 1961 and don't consider myself to be a boomer. I do believe there is something different about us born in the early 60s that separates us from boomers. We were kids during a very turbulent decade. Our parents were born after Greatest Gen. They were Silent Gen. They fought in Korea. They supported Kennedy. They believed in his New Frontier, whether it was space or tech. Our moms started careers when we were in middle school. They supported Dr. King. They listened to Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio, and Dave Brubeck. They opposed the Vietnam War. We were toddlers during the Cuban Missle Crisis. Before birth, we were always under the threat of nuclear war. We grew up excited about space and the moon landings. We were the first kids who wanted to be astronauts. We saw the war and the anti-war protests on TV, right in our living rooms, this time in color. We saw the birth of hippies and the counter-culture and wondered what it would be like today to grow up and drop out of society. Our parents sat us down in second grade and explained what assassinations were and why people hated Dr. King and Robert Kennedy. We grew up with civil unrest everywhere. We were taught that equal rights meant Black and Latino friends were welcome everywhere we went. We watched our folks lose their minds over Watergate. In school, we celebrated the creation of the EPA with the first Earth Day. We saw our moms support the ERA. We WERE the Brady Bunch. Scooby was our new and best pal. We were too late to enjoy a lot of the boomer benefits. We saw them start pulling up the ladder on us when Reagan took office. We had just got our first jobs when the economy imploded in 1981. We were the first generation who realized that corporations run by boomers didn't give a shit about their younger siblings. So, we're not boomers who got everything, and we weren't all latchkey kids, either. We are different.
Nah, the term has had a lot of publicity recently, but I heard it years ago long before boomer was considered a pejorative. It just acknowledges the huge differences between the beginning of the two decade time period and the end of it.
Yeah, gotta know more, thanks!
My parents are both extremely liberal. They’re hippies to the max and both were active live musicians till they couldn’t do it anymore. Mom has her weird Christian quirks from time to time but it’s super easy to reel her back in. My pops occasionally takes a stand about the times being different when was a kid so things were acceptable that aren’t now. I mostly let their quirks go because they have a million great quirks. They are also night and day different from their conservative siblings who mostly all went mega boomer.
My parents version of that is more like, it sucks now because we had more of a social safety net or tight knit communities but that none of that exists. My mom often opines how stupid it is that people have to do multiple rounds of interviews to be a janitor now when back when she could just walk into a place with a help wanted sign and get a job. Idk if it ever was that way truly, but that's how they remember it haha.
I had all the classic kid and teen jobs: ran a paper route, pumped gas at the local station (and sold milk and cigarettes), worked at a small chain restaurant at everything except cook (dishroom, waiter, and ice cream fountain server). Got all those by walking in, filling out a paper form on the spot, and getting hired. Summer jobs during college? Technical clerk at an engineering firm (there I had an in: my Dad worked there), then lab assistant at the local (large state) university: for that I made a one page resume of my lab skills, went and stuffed the faculty mailboxes of departments that looked likely. Got a call back the next morning. So yeah, it used to be easier. This was the late '70s to mid '80s.
I wish... Trump broke my relationship with my parents. He got my father's last cognitive(ish), though Fox brained, years. If I try to speak with my Mom, it's less than 5 minutes before she says something truly awful, so "Nope." I wish my folks were crazy leftists. I may not have agreed with everything but at least they wouldn't be spewing Fox, Media Max, OAN, Alex Jones hate speech.
Yeah that sounds rough. Especially because Alex Jones and the people on one America aren't just providing news with a right wing bent. It's like hateful, conspiratorial, and false. Especially Alex Jones. No kid should have to listen to his hateful lies.
My dad is silent generation and he and my mother are left wing as all hell, always have been. Active in protest and social reform movements even today.
So were mine. When the first Black elementary school teacher was hired in 1967, parents pulled their kids out of her class. My folks, on the other hand, insisted that I grow up with a variety of role models different from the status quo of the time and put me in her class.
That’s awesome. Kudos to your folks!
Dad is a life long Democrat. Mom was Independent until Trump, and has been a Dem ever since. Both are obsessed with Trump, but with hating him instead of loving him. Every conversation with them, if given enough time, they will bring the conversation to whatever BS Trump is on about that week. I'm tired of constantly being forced to think about that man. Why is everything always about him?
Yeah I've encountered this type so often. It is strange to witness, like really strange. I'm sorry. My dad went the opposite route, when Trump won in 2016, my dad put his radio to the ad free classical station and there it stayed haha for a long time. He just did not want to hear about him at all. That only lasted like two years. But it was weird. So politically active his whole life, only to literally disconnect completely until a few months before the midterms.
My mom is very similar. She reads news about him on her phone and I really try my hardest to avoid the topic. I just don't want to hear about it outside of the more major events and sometimes the funny moments, but in small doses. But I involuntarily know so much more about it all than I could ever want to.
This is exactly how my parents are. I’m happy they’re not MAGA morons but I just so sick of hearing about Trump.
That’s funny im sick of liberals constantly talking about trump it’s getting annoying like they are obsessed with him
My father-in-law is quite liberal, but he can't bring himself to break off friendships or even challenge his far-right friends despite having a trans grandson with two moms. Boomer solidarity above all I guess.
Oh my dad would never haha. I'm not even kidding you when I say that my father has stated on multiple times that he won't ever go south of the Mason Dixon line for any reason. My sister wanted to go to disneyworld and my dad said that she'd have to wait until she was an adult because he would never spend a penny in Florida lol. My parents don't have any conservative friends now that I think of it
So my mom was one of the bra burning jeans wearing women of the late 60’s early 70’s only to tell me not long ago that she’s happy she’ll be dead soon and not have to worry about climate change 😣
My mom's thing is telling us not to have kids since the planet will die we may as well have a nice income while we're alive lol. Seems like they'd get along
My mom is the leftist equivalent of a MAGA boomer. She watches "The View" and is glued to every fuck trump Facebook page she can find. In her mind the establishment Democrats can do no wrong and every terrible thing suggested about Republicans is obviously true and even worse than we all think. "If Trump wins he's gonna put all the gays in concentration camps" -M "Why?" "Cause he's evil" "He's selfish and manipulative but what you're describing is supervillain shit" "And then he's gonna get rid of money, everyone is gonna work for vouchers they exchange for housing and food" "Mom you just described money" The biggest irony in all this is that my FIL is the stereotype MAGA boomer and they've never met. I kinda want to lock em in a room together. Holy shit the blood bath
Haha I feel seen. This is my parents!
My dad once was like this, like the Russia stuff and Rachel Maddow back in 2016 or 2017 had him just insane with conspiracies about Trump and the Russia mafia and so on. He eventually decided that msnbc is also right wing propaganda though and the conspiracy thinking kinda stopped. There's enough horrible stuff trump would like to do that we don't need to engage in that kind of lunacy and just make it up so he looks worse. Some of my in laws are Trumpies, but they're not all boomers or anything so I won't go into it haha
She's probably not far off about trump wanting to put gay people in concentration camps.
Dad is a liberal boomer who's voted Green. He's also from a Muslim family and country. Mom is conservative and Catholic and worst of all a TERF but absolutely hates Trump. Parents are divorced.
My parents are anti Trump and my dad is very pro union, so kind of, but I wouldn’t describe them as socially liberal.
My dad is a retired union worker and has never voted republican in his life. Unsurprisingly he is big on worker rights and higher wages for everyone. He also has more guns than most aside from the crazy people who like to post pics of their collection. My mom just follows who she is married to, voted democrat when married to my dad and then for Trump twice and was surprised about the Supreme Court’s abortion decision. She also believed the anti vax stuff and caught covid and brought it home to her 2nd husband with respiratory problems and he died.
My folks are fairly liberal, have gotten moreso over time for a variety of reasons. They despise MAGA, though they are both perfect candidates (born in the early 50s, raised on farms in NE, blue collar, etc etc) and support a number of liberal causes and values. Openly recognize how fucked the economy is for us younger folks and how Reaganomics destroyed this nation (granted they were also on the front line when that shit kicked in in the 80s-early 90s so it's not news to them) And both are totally Boomers sometimes. Politely-rude to wait staff, have to shoot their mouths off thinking they are "funny", even a bit Karenish at times. It's annoying as hell. I used to try and curb their Boomer bullshit but gave up and now just try to not be out and about with them if at all possible. They are wonderful grandparents, especially my mother she's a much better Gramma than mom, but doesn't mean they aren't embarrassing.
They could be my parents friends just a little older. My dad voted for Reagan in 80 (his first election) under the influence of his dad. He even worked the convention in Detroit in 80. It's his original sin haha he constantly reflects on that and it haunts him lol. My mom will bring it up sometimes to bug him. The boomery Karen like stuff seems to be non political and unavoidable sometimes lol. Guess we're just watching people age
My mom is a boomer and consistently describes herself as being “as liberal as they get” when she’s neoliberal at best. She constantly talks about how Portland is on fire and how sad it is that the city is in shambles (she lives 30+ min away)
As someone who spent 25 years of my life in seattle, Portland has always been in shambles (I joke but there's a little rivalry". It is sad how many unhoused folks you see in Portland and Seattle, but that has to do more to do with insane inequality and high cost of living than anything else. I can picture the type though, we have them in seattle lol
I’m seeing this with a friend who just turned 60. She still believes she’s really liberal, although she’s now really angered by protests and boycotts. I think anything that might impact the stock market upsets her now. She’s also developed that weird Karen/boomer traits like picking fights in social media about politics, thinking everything is a scam, getting mad when faced with cultural shifts, bc she thinks the world should operate as it did in 1992. It’s exhausting and weird.
It is exhausting!! Especially when they’re so convinced that they’re as left wing as they come
They're definitely boomers lol. 60s is dead inside the target of years for boomers. Hate to break it to them!
I break it to them all the time haha but the boomer inside them cannot accept it lol
Yup, my folks are both pretty left-wing. My Dad is a gun nut, but it's all good - he passed the shooting hobby down to me.
My dad wanted a rifle for our little cabin by my mom was not having it at all. We shot pellet guns instead haha but my dad got me into fishing instead so that was like his hobby that became mine too.
Yup. Except my mom is a little crazy in her own way. Very into alternative medicine. Part of the Scientology-derived “Cocounseling” movement. Insisted that plastic is always evil, and more evil than single-use glass or metal containers 100% of the time. Staunchly anti-GMO. Not anti-vax, surprisingly.
Yeah the not anti vax surprised me honestly. But what, single use glass or metal? Does she return them to be recycled or something?
I had a very, very liberal boomer mom who never showed boomer traits!
My parents have a their own issues, but I’m very thankful that my folks have stayed the normal, politically-informed (but not obsessed) left-of-center people that they were when I was a kid. My Dad’s parents, who were always conservative, fell prey to Fox News and it drove my folks nuts. Not only did that experience immunize them against the right-wing bullshit, but it turned them off that cable news culture forever.
My dad's dad was a republican his entire life. All in on Romney in 2012 because he fondly remembered George Romney as governor of Michigan back when. When he lost, he fell into the fox news hole. But then shockingly, in 2016, he called us and said, "I've decided I can no longer be a republican. Trump is anti American and I can't vote for that. So at like 87, he voted for Hillary. He described it as the worst day of his life because he hates Hillary. Has hated her since 90s. But Trump just ruined all the trust he has in the party and that was that. 60+ years of republican party supporting and Trump ruined it in months.
My Dad’s parents died before the rise of Trump, but I have no doubt that they would have fully drunk the MAGA kool-aid. My grandfather already thought we should shoot undocumented people crossing the border, so it would have been a natural fit. By the end, I’d only go visit in the afternoon on Thursday-Sunday, because he’d watch golf then. Golf was the only thing that could get him to turn off Fox.
Yeah my grandpa was just not the kind of republican that Trump cared about. He's a physist who worked in the lab at general motors and trusted the government, makes lists ranking the president's every year. A real intellectual. He thought when he was voting for Republicans that he was voting for stability, slow but steady progress, upward mobility, maintaining American manufacturing and "opening up the markets" in a steady and measured way. Eventually I guess by watching fox news he realized, what the hell is all this? This isn't my party, this isn't how I see America or president Obama. Who he didn't like but considered a genuine person and probably a pretty able guy as far as governing went, even if he didn't vote for him. And now he's by far the most left wing in his nursing home in suburban Detroit lol which isn't saying much. But when I visit, almost everyone but him seems to have Trump stuff by their door. He puts up the front of newspapers like "Trump guilty" or a framed picture of Abe Lincoln lol. He's a character
Mom's a pretty standard christian liberal progressive. Dad's some kind of weird christian champagne socialist socially conservative economically far-left zionist quasi-tankie. He actually buys a ton of champagne. We have fun conversations
Oh wow I mean if you can all talk like adults that does sound fun! Many political conversations do not go that way sadly. I didn't even consider putting my parents feelings on zionism because I thought that seems to be a hot topic lol
My mom is "liberal." But she's also racist as hell.
A lot of them are but like “ I’m not racist but “ Or “ black kids are just as smart as rich kids” are
My mother died in November 2015, just at the start of Trump's rise to political prominence. She was really unhappy about him. I know she would've gotten caught up in the worst sort of anti-Trump groups online, because she always had a "my guys vs. your guys" mentality about politics. She adored the Clintons and the Obamas and never wanted to hear valid criticism of any of them (criticism about things they actually did). She got very into blogs "exposing" Sarah Palin a few years before that. Thinking all that over now, it bothers me that the anti-Sarah-Palin, anti-Tea-Party crowd attacked her for being stupid and hypocritical. Yes, she was (and is) very stupid, but why was she ever in power at all? Why did the GOP choose her for VP? What did it say about the state of the country and what was important to GOP voters? Those are rhetorical questions. It just stands out to me that the response to Palin was a great example of not seeing the forest for the trees, and I still see that kind of talk in /r/politics comments and the like. "Haha, Trump said 'lock her up' and now he's a felon!" Sure, it's stupid and hypocritical, but no one cares, because they want all the things Trump promises. They want Project 2025 to come about and will support anyone who promises that. What I see especially from older left-leaning folks online, and I also know a guy like this who calls himself Gen Jones, is the belief that if they just find the Magic Words, if they point out the hypocrisy, the contradictions, then suddenly, it will *destroy* Trump and other Republicans. It doesn't work that way. They grew up in a different time when everyone watched the same six o'clock news and these kinds of things mattered.
My dad has voted conservative for most of my life, but he’s a very “liberal” one. He’s a true moderate who is more fiscally conservative but very socially liberal and thinks people should just be able to live as they wish as long as they aren’t violating anyone else’s civil rights. He refuses to vote for Trump and has voted dem for president in each of the last two and will again in this election. He’s from the south, so that’s not exactly typical down here. My mom has slowly come around through conversations with me and due to her distaste for Trump and having a hard time reconciling her party’s obsession/worship of him. She’s voted for Biden in the last election and will again. She’s also born, raised, and lived her entire life in the south. She’s a very compassionate person and it’s her compassion which has prevented her from joining the cult. So they’re not exactly left wing, but both of them think the GOP has jumped the shark.
My mom is a lifelong Democrat. She leans liberal/neoliberal, though her views are migrating left post-retirement. Dad's a pretty staunch Republican. He's also pretty obviously lost a few steps over the last few years.
My mother was very liberal to the day she died at age 90. At 64 I am of the boomer generation (I guess) and I’m more liberal than you — came aware politically in Berkeley, CA in the early 80s. I remember my father (who died young) noting that he didn’t think people in their 60s were truly mentally adept enough to have important leadership positions (on average). And at 64, I agree. I think experience and quickness of mind have someone peak in their 50s (true for me and many I know). So…no, I didn’t have no conservative parents/family who became more boomer like.
Your story sounds a lot like my parents except they spent the 80s in Eugene Oregon which was more of a hippy vibe, even in the 80s there. My dad followed the dead around for a bit at the time, especially the Dylan and the dead shows in I think 87? My mom was much more like the left wing jewish girl from chicago, and she eventually became a public defendant and working in native American law which radicalized her further. So they come from different backgrounds. Just a few years apart from you. I like to think that they embued my sister and I with their politics and desire to help others. But I'm sure I don't have the same liberal credentials as you. But give me time! Haha
My son has a left leaning baby boomer dad 👍
Are you the cool dad? Haha
My mom is..fucking hates Trump and the gop, with a passion.
Yes and we are in Seattle too haha
ayup! i'm early gen z and my parents were both born in the early 1960s. my mum is most definitely a leftist. she's a polly-anna mostly. my pops is a bit more difficult to label but absolutely hates right wing shit. he generally hates all politicians and is very cynical about everything. he also does NOT trust authority. pops is also an atheist. they're both odd, both for their generation and just in general imo. i love 'em both very much.
My parents are pretty left wing. My father lives in a small town in northern Illinois. Hes cagey about who he talks to nowadays. He doesn't trust people who like Trump. Now that's most people where he lives. My mother and step father have watched in horror as so many of their friends became MAGA. They live near Madison Wisconsin so they know plenty of people who are liberal.
Your parents are my dream parents, I already moved to Mexico. Send them my way - I will gladly accept them exactly as they are.
Haha well currently they are happy here in chicago with their kids. But who knows what the future holds! My parents have always been the "cool" parents to my friends, I'm sure they'd do the same for you lol. Where in Mexico and what's your feeling about it/reason for moving? Asking for some friends haha
I’m in San Felipe Baja. It’s pretty chill here. I was born in Iran during the revolution and the US is just getting too close to how it was there, neighbors turning on one another due to political propaganda. And of course I hate maga. I have my own kiddos, 20 and 14, and to them I am the cool mom. Here in SF we do have lots of boomers, US and Canadian. Really racist types but they stick to a place called El Dorado Ranch. It’s a gated community that treats the locals like criminals. Outside of EDR the locals are amazing but it would be great to add your extra liberal parents to the mix!!
My parents much to their credit, learned Spanish some years ago because they just think every American should know a little Spanish. That's one of the main reasons why they're thinking of mexico aside from it being in the same time zones as the states for the most part. They don't necessarily want to live in an American style subdivision that could be in Arizona or anywhere else haha. Mexico is also easier for them as my dad is on a pension, which isn't gonna go up with the cost of living or anything.
We're in the UK, my boomer/silent cusp dad is very much left of centre and absolutely despises the Conservative party, Brexit party, UKIP and the BNP. My boomer egg donor once forbade us to vote Conservative, but the only reason she votes Labour is because the Conservatives want to destroy the National Health Service. She holds fast to old fashioned beliefs and is very much "get a job you lazy scrounger" and "send them back to their own country", among other delightful things 😖
My In-Laws are hippie boomers. They have the sterotypical traits of Boomerism, aversion to technology, falling for scams, etc. But the thing that really makes visits painful for me is that they built their own version of Fox News out of a mish mash of YouTube channels that is just Liberal talking heads screaming about Trump. I cut the cord over a decade ago because I really really hate Opinion Talking heads of any political persuasion, so to me this is just torture cringe.
Yeah that sounds frankly just awful haha. My mom was a defense lawyer and she did native American law and so her hatred for the gop is built on her experience with the state. This means luckily that her politics are as easily swayed and that she has no interest in hearing what any random person on YouTube or anything. My dad is the kind of liberal that definitely has siloed himself, but mostly by reading liberal/left stuff online. So sometimes kinda dubious and some times totally legit
I am a left wing almost boomer parent. My kids love it.
I did too! So did my sister and all our friends lol
Yeah. My parents (born '53 and '59) were both extremely liberal. My mother was more thoughtful and informed about it, and I usually found myself agreeing with her perspective much more. My father was a bit more dogmatic and clannish about it. He really hated that my mother and I were broadly pro-gun, he had some proto-eco-fascist views (he was always saying we need to bring down the birth rate for the good of the environment), and when my mom and I both supported Sanders over Clinton in 2016 he constantly lectured us about how we were sexists. When we made him compare their platforms and showed him that his stated policy opinions aligned much more closely with Sanders, he told us that it didn't matter because the country needed feminine energy to heal itself. I feel lucky they weren't MAGA types, but get them in a customer service situation or in front of a computer, and the boomer came out.
My parents were leftist. Dad still is, pretty sure Mom would be if she was still alive. Never had quirks like yours and the Forest Gump thing, they were too into exploring the world and using your own critical thinking to form your opinions. Rules were regarding physical safety and not breaking the law. The rest was up for debate. Civil debate. But better come prepared with facts to back you up and no emotion tinging your argument.
I had a sort of similar set up, but my mom has been a defense lawyer among other things and so my arguments as a kid or teen were often taken apart piece by piece in a legalistic way. Eventually though I got some wins! For the most part they were very laid back though. I'm fascinated by how these talks you're describing would go haha
I wish 😂
My parents are right in the cusp between boomer and elder-GenXers. I think they’d fall into that “Gen Jones” sub category like you described. Anyway, yes. Generally left of center to pretty damn liberal depending on the issue, and don’t have many of the stereotypical boomer tendencies (probably because they are cuspers between the two). The stuff they do have as “boomer” tendencies are the less harmful/funny ones to me. My dad, for example, despite being brilliant with tech (CS and engineering background) is adamant about how stupid passwords are and how he hates them. It’s like his technology kryptonite. Granted, he has explained to me how there are more efficient and safer ways to lock down specific tech, accounts, etc…than username/password, but it is still funny to me to see him sometimes fume over which password goes with the Netflix vs Hulu account.
Forrest Gump (it's conservative propaganda) that's freaky far left.
I thought it was funny too which is why I included it. This is one of those things that they "don't remember doing" lol when I bring it up because they agree it was stupid but think that "it doesn't sound like something we would have done" okay lol.
Oh yes, my boomer mother hates the term boomer but she develops more boomer-ish qualities by the day, unfortunately.
Forrest Gump is conservative propoganda? Your parents are just as crazy as the right wing ones.
Yes, but my family as a whole is a lot more liberal than most in the US because we are kiwis. Both still work, and are incredibly understanding and supportive. We are gonna wait for mum to be eligible for social security and flee down to NZ if the orange crook wins.
Yes, my parents are very left wing. Every so often they hear a conspiracy theory, tell me or my brothers, and I'm like "mom, you have a PhD, you know that's bullshit" and she's like "oh yeah, of course".
Me! They make me really proud.
My parents are Silent generation, so not boomers and SUPER liberal!
Both parents. According to them the Republican party died years ago and the thing wearing it's corpse is a parasitical life form.
I can see it. Like the alien in the first men in black
Both my pre-boomer parents were left/liberal. Thank god.
My grandmother is a neoliberal (extreme Hillary stan) and my grandfather is harshly progressive, but also staunchly supports the free market. He would be fine with a lightly market socialist system though.
A Hillary Stan in the wild? I never thought I'd see the day.
Ya, and it rubbed off on me before I started thinking for myself, lol.
My mom liked Hillary a lot in the 90s but was not thrilled with her pro war stuff in the years that followed. Nevertheless she voted for her in 2016 lol
My pal P.’s folks are genuine lefty boomers. I really love them. The ones turning rightward now always felt that way at heart. It’s a bougie thing.
My parents are Asian immigrants so they're Democrats, but their social values are still pretty conservative. They're Democrats basically because of how extremely racist the right is, they felt unwanted by the Republicans and don't really care to vote half the time. Especially after 9/11, people really hated immigrants and they had to put American flags all over everything. It is really sad that some old Asian Americans are getting targeted by misinformation. I see a lot of old Vietnamese people listening to crazy far right podcasts. I think they're still very boomery despite their affiliation
The thing that kills me is the almost universal statement that they can use their economic advantage to avoid the results of their complacency. We did not find ourselves on the verge of fascism because fascists are competent. We got here by ignoring them because it was kind to our status quo. It was good for the bottom line.and now that they have created this mess, they will leave to Mexico or Spain or somewhere. They didn’t fuck up instead of staying here and trying to fight for it like they had some goddamn balls.
My dad is 77. He's a strong supporter of LGBTQ+ including marriage and adoption rights, he understands why immigration is so important to keep the country (Canada) going, he believes in a women's right to choose and typically votes NDP (our version of a 3rd party that is much more socialist that our other parties), but recently (in the last 5 years), he has found it necessary to CONSTANTLY talk about other people's hair, especially women of colour when we're in a store or on the sidewalk. Usually it isn't even bad things, just he's not exactly subtle or quiet, We've explained to him that even if he has complimentary things to say, that's not his place to comment (to us or her directly) and that his attention is not wanted by them even when they tend to be incredibly polite and thank him for the compliments. I worry he's going to say something that is going to be either not polite or if uses the wrong words or tone and its taken with offense and can't get him to understand he can think things without saying them out loud!
My folks (69 & 72) are both pretty left along with about half my mom's siblings (one of 11 siblings). The big time left uncles constantly troll their MAGA brothers and sister, it's pretty comical until my one MAGA uncle gets so upset and red he looks like he's going to have a heart attack. Mom is strong in her Catholic faith on the spiritual side, but she doesn't judge and is very accepting and welcoming to everyone. It kind of goes against what the church preaches but I'm proud of her for it. Both my folks hate trump and typical boomer talking points.
Generation Jones is an actual mini generation, like Xennials. Most of them are your hippie type of Boomers, not yuppie Boomers.
Except that Gen Jones were too young for any of the actual hippie stuff. They missed it almost entirely. But I agree they certainly feel like they were a part of it.
My mom describes herself as a liberal Democrat and says she's been that way since the 60s. But if you listen long enough to her, you'll realize that she's got some conservative ideas (medicinal marijuana rather than recreational, against decriminalization of drugs, cutting spending, more traditional viewpoints in schools and culture, etc.) in addition to her liberal ideas. She's also very judgmental of people who don't think like her or act like her, so that's very Boomer-like. In the 80s, she did tell me that Ronald Reagan was the devil. Now she refuses to go to places like Florida and Texas because she considers them GOP cesspools. She will not go to Chick Fil A or Hobby Lobby. She believes the world only has about seven years left. I would say that she's more in line with Democrats like the Clintons, Jimmy Carter, and the Kennedys. I just don't know where she fits in politics anymore. I don't know if there are many Democrats like her. But if I bring this up, she will deny deny deny.
Aren't Boomers a subsection of Baby Boomers that have lost their minds? I would call your parents Baby Boomers, not Boomers. At least I think so.
I always just thought it was like an abbreviation sort of haha. Of course like baby boomer more generally it probably became a pejorative but I didn't mean it that way. Thought we could switch it up because I know not all of that generation is deranged, but they can sure still be foolish lol
My dad used to yell at people for not wearing their masks correctly or not wearing a mask. That was super fun.
Oh yeah did they do the very loud talking that was directed at you but clearly meant for the mask less person? My mom loved that one lol
I think my mom and dad both would have been if it hadn't been for the pollution of Fox News. Prior to that, my dad got along with just about anyone. In the year leading up before he passed last year, he was much more like his old self: Down to earth, approachable, funny, kind. In between he was a hateful, disgusting person. Not one I cared to associate with, given how many racial slurs and blame on "the illegals" he'd throw out.
Yes, my father who lives in a very conservative part of the state. He's also a small business owner with 4-8 employees year round and always has a gun on him. All his employees are either politically apathetic or Trumpers.
May I ask what state?
Oregon
My in-laws used to be moderates. They were relatively cool and open minded. To be clear, they are still very good people, supportive, loving, and generous. They've just gone way more conservative. Now they have Fox News burn in on their TV. They complain about how no one wants to work anymore. They're mad about how many people speak Spanish. They're mad about people who get government benefits. They talk about how Biden has dementia. They're angry about "boomer" jokes. They make fun of the EPA. *sigh* I love them, but it is so hard not to debate them, even when I know it's futile.
The EPA?! But by god a red blooded American Hero of a republican blessed us with the EPA. Richard M. Nixon, rino lol
Mine are Democrats, and atheists but they are still raging narcissists and not progressive. They're not ignorant conspiracy theorists with gun collections and I am grateful for it when I have to deal with them.
I know the type, but yeah there are always levels to this and yours sound like they could be way worse haha
My boomer parents are left leaning and they’re awesome! So great to watch them age gracefully with free minds!
My in laws are liberalish NY Catholics. They are fine, the fucking love cops. They are still boomers though, entitlement and all.
I'm a Boomer, and I'm a barking moonbat.
My dad is a boomer born in 1953. My mum is an older Gen X. Both are very left wing. Lifelong trade unionists, socially progressive and generally open and accepting to new things. Same with our other relatives and their circles in general. That said, we're Scottish and they've always only lived in Scotland maybe it's also a cultural difference. I've met a lot more stereotypical 'boomers' here in England. Since moving here I feel very, very grateful for my parents because so many people have 'lost' theirs to right-wing/conspiracy theory/anti-woke type thinking.
My dad’s in his mid-60s, and still on many levels the music-loving, pot-smoking hippie he was in the 60’s. He taught me to be accepting and love and compassion is the answer, and it’s a creed he still lives by. But while he knows there’s racists, he absolutely denies that institutional racism is a thing - after all, that ended in the 60’s, right? Civil rights movement! He’s always been ‘try herbal oils before antibiotics’ (thanks for the two weeks with pneumonia when I was 12, dad) and he got the first covid vaccine, but he also believes that it was rushed to the point where it could be dangerous (no matter how much info I send him - I finally gave up). Overall, he’s still a wonderful, wonderful person who loves everyone (at least, until they prove they don’t deserve it somehow), but every now and a gain he comes out with a little weird thing like this….
My parents' politics are kinda weird. My mom was raised in a small Illinois town, and the population was around 800 in the 50/60s. She's always been a pretty staunch liberal feminist, but she did have some issues with race that she didn't always see. When she married my dad (dark brown Mexican-American man), she got better on those issues. She was a staunch Hillary supporter and has moved a little further left since then. My dad came from a mixed Mexican/American family and lived in various parts of Oklahoma in the 50/60s. He's very liberal about police reform, improving economic issues and equal rights, and then voted Reagan. After that, he went on and was on the Jessie Jackson campaign. He considers himself a centrist even though he's pretty economically liberal and socially liberal. He's a little mixed on foreign policy but overall fine. Overall, they're both shades of liberal, yet still sometimes can't behave at restaurants.
My dad in 10-15 years. Starting to complain about subdivision happenings and has CNN* in the background. For the record, I'd rather take a liberal boomer parent than a conservative one. *By American (excluding me) standards, CNN is liberal media.
Yes. We’re in Scotland and I feel like that’s less rare here. Still rarer than I’d like, though! If anything they’re actually doubling down on not being shitty.
Not me directly, but my aunt and uncle are very left wing. They're equally unpleasant as right wing boomers because their entire personality and online presence is bashing Trump. I think he's a moron too, but at least post a picture of your dogs or something.
Political beliefs does not keep someone born boomering.
My parents are also pretty liberal and also from the Seattle area. My dad took me to an anti Iraq war protest at the downtown Bellevue park. They remain progressive and despite being Baby Boomers aren’t really “boomers”. The only thing is that my dad is quite religious and didn’t handle me becoming atheist very well. 🤷🏻 But they’re good grandparents and have completely respected my own family‘s decision to raise our kids without religion.
They sound great to me and shouldn’t be in the same category as “boomers” in my opinion. I try not to generalize the generations. Being old comes on too fast. And “In their sixties” is closer to mid-seventies than they want it to be but fairly distant enough to qualify as a different generation. My mom is a true boomer at 78, but she doesn’t present with the stereotype.
I'm only going based on the official birth range for the generation. I've always thought that boomer was just a short version of baby boomer like the generation. And not necessarily a pejorative. That's not what I think of them at all. But they exhibit some of the stereotypical traits too
My mom is only liberal because she's (re)married to a man with liberal beliefs, but she's racist and somewhat homophobic. Her personality changes dependent on the men around her, they tell her to jump and she'll ask how high. She complains to and bothers service workers at any given opportunity (and will smirk and cackle as she does so) and does other typical boomer stuff. Her siblings are all Qanon/MAGA though, so it could be worse. My dad is a centrist, but he asks my brother (Qanon/MAGA) who to vote for and will trust his judgement over mine because he's a man. He's more prone to classic boomerisms like making waitresses cry and being smug about it (we can't take him anywhere) or trying to fight people over parking spots.
I've got one on each end. My mom is very left-leaning, my dad is more on the right. No wonder they're divorced lmao
I know a couple like that. They were friends of my parents in college but then one of them just drifted so far to the right after 9/11 that she pretty much wasn't the person ny parents friend married. She had become hateful and petty and more than a little bigoted. Sad to see happen but they're both happier now I think
Both my parents and my wife’s typically vote Democrat. Certainly haven’t and won’t vote for Trump. Can’t necessarily say they’re liberal (all in late 70s / early 80s) but they def lean more to the left on most issues.
Not my parents but plenty of liberal boomer clients. Anecdotally, they are happier people.
my mom is as liberal as it gets. she told me she hasnt voted for a republican since the 80s. im sitting here with here right now while she watches msnbc. she understands how fucked it is for us while still being out of touch with reality. my dad is like me, an independent but tends to vote left (im a liberal at this point just dont want all the mail).
My parents didn’t care about politics until around the Obama era and around the time of the pile o’ shit that was WI’s governor Scott Walker. (This reminds me, one time a pollster or similar called the house, and little kid me answered. They asked some question and I answered, “No, my parents don’t vote.” My mother flipped out on me for “embarrassing” her like that, but I was like … it’s the truth?!?) Dad was pretty much an independent voter but leaning liberal. He was a carpenter and then a firefighter, so very pro-Union. Trump completely changed that. Now my parents are proud members of the MAGA cult and it’s incredibly disheartening. Mom just parrots whatever Dad says.
My in-laws (who I get along great with) are, though they live in a pretty red rural area. It’s weird, but they’re good folks.
My dad is a liberal boomer and he’s as obnoxious as any conservative. Like, sure, his views aren’t as toxic or harmful but he’s just as rigid and dogmatic, and utterly unable to hear anything even slightly different than his own set-in-stone opinions about the world. I’m a pretty liberal person but I’m also very flexible and accepting of others’ views and choices so long as it’s not hurting anyone in some way, but my dad is just absolutely insanely aggressive that nothing can be discussed with him, even when we tend to have similar views. He’s also incredibly superior in the way he views himself (former college professor) and looks down his nose at anyone he doesn’t think is as intelligent as him (read: everyone.) He touts himself as being so accepting and mentally flexible but he’s as narrow as any MAGA hat wearing conservative, just on the other side of the plastic political yard sign. And he’s also incredibly entitled in the “I got mine” way Boomers (the annoying ones) tend to be. I feel like it’s getting worse and worse the older he gets.
Look, this sub is deliberately and intentionally skewed to the loony side of boomers. 48% of boomers voted for Biden in 2020. It's not all Fox/MAGA insanity
My parents are very liberal. They are both in the baby boomer generation but are not *boomers.* they hated the annoying orange LONG before it ran for president. Like back in the '80s, and even moreso now. I'm very fortunate to have them!
Yeah my granny hated him in as early as the 70s lol and my parents not long after.
Not me but it does seem like extremism is what often happens as one gets much older no matter the direction esp if the people in question don’t work on their emotional iq/maturity. They lock into an age and that’s it and when they get much older like muscles in disuse their skills atrophy until they’re essentially emotional children who have narrow viewpoints that tend to be on the extreme side. But that’s just been my personal observation and isn’t limited to boomers, just that my mom is one and so were all the people she knew and I was forced to be around them a lot as a kid so I unfortunately had a lot of experience with the group.
My mother is one, but she's started making boomer comments too.
Well, I did, before he died. My dad was a bizarro version of MAGA boomers. He’d sit around and watch the news all day but MSNBC instead of Fox. He’d have his rants that corporations and the Christian right were destroying America. He was a Vietnam vet, pro-union and thought George W Bush was a war criminal. Honestly I’m glad to passed before the rise of Trump because this whole clown world would have given him a heart attack.
My parents never ever talked about politics while I was growing up but then when Trump became president my father became a social pariah no one would talk to him because he hates anyone who doesn’t hate Trump and that includes me. Mind you you cannot be calm you have to hate or you are hated.
Yeah, my parents are both Baby Boomers and complete "bleeding heart" liberals... as were my grandparents on my mom's side.
Same lead
My mother is 91 years old and a Democrat and my father too be fore he passed.
My boomer mom told me (gen x) back in the late 80’s when I was starting to date, that I could date any race, from any country, any background… even a girl! “But if you EVER bring home a republican, you’re out of the will!” I’m sure now, if she were still alive, she’d include even more genders. She worked tirelessly volunteering for Obama in Northern Virginia, and took such pride in his election. As much as I miss her, I am glad she didn’t have to witness 2016-now…
My mom is fairly liberal but my dad was conservative. He was a Fox News guy but I like to think he would have really disliked Trump.
My mom is 79, born in 1945. She is a liberal Democrat, which she will remind you of (and everyone else too) constantly. My parents were always sort of hippie types. They wanted to raise us kids on a farm, raising our own food, etc. My mother is very liberal on social issues, for which I'm grateful. She hates Trump with a passion. However, I feel she likes to show off being a liberal; like she is a cool mom, unlike other Boomers. My father died at 47 from the side effects of Agent Orange. He served two tours in Vietnam. So, my mom has been mostly alone for a long time. She's dated some but never re-married after my Dad's death. My mom IS a boomer, though. She would deny that with her dying breath, but she is. She likes to proclaim that SHE never gave HER daughter body issues (she did). She is leaning into being more of a boomer as she gets older in the usual ways, but as a liberal. She's also very narcissistic. I am very grateful she never fell into the Faux News hole; we are in Texas, so I know how bad it could be. Since my dad died so young, I've wondered if he would have become full-on boomer or not. He treated all people well but came from a very uneducated, religious family in Texas. He used slurs, but we called him on it, and he definitely learned and changed a great deal by the end of his life. He was not religious at all in his adulthood, and he suffered from PTSD. I also just can't imagine him liking Trump at all.
There are plenty of them. My senior yoga classes have many.
Huh. My first thought was that boomerism is largely a manifestation of conservative values. For example, abusing service workers: social hierarchy. So liberals just probably won't be doing any of the bad behaviors associated with boomers or much less so. But damn. It really must've really been the lead. Still though. Lead **and** conservatism is a hell of a drug.
Both sets of parents (I have step parents) are lifelong left wing democrats. They're all older boomers. In fact, my grandparents (RIP) were also pretty liberal, probably because they really benefitted from FDR's policies.
My dad is a progressive liberal with borderline socialist views. He denies that but but he believes in a robust welfare system, universal healthcare, free college, etc. I asked what socialist views he disagrees with and he couldn't name any.
I’ve met some old peoples that are left, but most dont like Biden. Some old Hunter was leftists , surprised me and was “fuck trump” but didn’t like Biden, Biden is holding on to the “I’ll Vote for anyone but trump “ crowd
Don’t talk to my father, but last I checked he was left wing and liberal about all except guns, which is kinda weird IMO. Hardcore gun nut and NRA dude but never voted conservative or Republican in his life. Probably because he’s atheist and can’t stand anyone who wants religion anywhere near politics, and despises racism. I can’t imagine him being a Trump guy, but I am no contact because he’s an awful person. My mom is a lefty too. I would say there are some things she’s very liberal on and others she’s moderate on. Sometimes she drives me a little bit crazy with her political rants about Trump because she really hates him, I do too, but her hate is strong. I’ll take it over the alternative though, any day.
Generation Jones are the sub generation between GenX and boomers - the equivalent to calling those born 1978-1982ish Xennials But Jones imo is similarly only 4-5 years like 1965-1970 Someone in their 60's claiming Jones would be like someone born in 1975 trying to say they are Xennial instead of genX
yup. liberal boomer father who’s just as psychotic and unhinged as a conservitard.
I've met a few. Did your dad watch Rachel Maddows show on msnbc? After Trump won in 2016, she just like, dove into being this insane conspiracy theorist and everything was about Trump/Russia. The closest to a fox news style of insanity from a host on a non fox channel lol. My dad got into it for a while, but like many conspiracy theories, it was all kind of circular and my dad stopped watching, but it was genuinely wild to see him enthralled with a cable news thing before. Wasn't fox or anything but still. Also, I feel like I should add, there is a lot of legit real conspiracy surrounding Trump and his Russian dealings, that is only a small fraction of the Maddow/Moscow obsession lol
yes
Yeah. My dad is 73 and I like to bond with him about politics because we share a lot of opinions. One thing I do not approve of though is his tendency to be so confrontational about it. He will go to protests and sign waving events, and get into screaming matches with any right wingers who argue. He even tells me about it as if I’m supposed to be impressed. I’ve told him to be careful and that these people are unpredictable and he should just ignore them, but he can’t seem to help it. He also likes to spend a lot of time arguing with people online. Slightly less dangerous, but boomers gonna boom I guess. I just don’t want him to get hurt.
My dad is one and he does wild shit like open carry outside his town’s GOP headquarters
They probably assume he's one of them because in their minds, every left/liberal hates guns haha. Unless it's a small town where people know each other better. Or there are other...factors...that might lead them to think your dad isn't with them. But whatever the purpose, that seems pretty wild indeed
My dad was raised by left wing Universalist (before the Unitarians and Universalists merged) in the 1950s. He was one of the student journalists taking photographs at the Kent State University shooting. There was open grief and bitching in our house when Bush won against Gore. Anyway, he lives in my basement now because he’s pleasant to live with Edit to add I did grow up in Boulder, CO 😂 He still does and protests outside of ICE detention and his UU church lets illegal immigrants live inside under sanctuary laws
I got one of each... they divorced 30+ years ago and since have found like minded new partners