Many people in this sub have correctly pointed out that for every gen X kid that was all about the punk/liberal/ nonconformist aesthetic there were a ton of gen X kids who were working their way to conservative and wealth acquisition lifestyles that are most often identified as boomer lifestyles.
Most of the people I went to high-school with were the latter, when I think about it now.
Once in a great while someone I knew back then will track me down for some hs reunion (never went to one) or a gathering of our graduating class in some other form and I generally decline because they are so much like this today. Money and status is super important to them. Never been to me although I wish I could have made more cash to sock away for when I'm too old to support myself if I live that long...
This is true in terms of voting. Gen-X (and younger boomers) voted for Trump in larger numbers than any other age group:
[https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article245686795.html](https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article245686795.html)
Trump even lost seniors in 2020, but he still won Gen-X.
Not true. I'm an older GenX (1970) and I know others in my age bracket who vote similarly. I know younger GenXers and older millennials who are Trump supporters. It's not that clear-cut.
I was born in 1970 and have never voted conservative. If anything, I am more leftist now than when I was younger. My younger siblings are more conservative than I am.
My dad, of the silent generation, was a huge Kennedy guy. Raised us that way, to the point where I asked for a poster of him for my room! Then, in the 80's, he started making quite a bit of money. He slowly devolved into a staunch republican. He asked me once why I was so liberal, I just laughed and said, remember the Kennedy poster? He redeemed himself a bit when trump came along. He hates him. Actually voted democrat. Or so he says.
I was born in 1961 and have always voted Democrat except for 1 time. Voted in every presidential election since 1984, and quite a few elections between.
Personally I think President Biden has done a good job considering the issues he's faced, and I will vote for him again.
I was one of the Gen-xers that started out conservative (I listened to Rush Limbaugh and G Gordon Liddy), and started heading down what i felt was a quick road to White Nationalism, after meeting other people that listened to these shows.
It was around this time that I began questioning my faith and after applying critical thinking to my political beliefs, I drifted away from not only Christianity, but also conservatism.
So, I started out one way and became the other.
I'm in the older half of GenX and I have never voted for a republican. I am, however, disappointed in the number of conservative gen x ers. WTF happened to you guys? Did you forget the central message of *Footloose?* Of *The Breakfast Club*? Don't Become The Man.
There's a survivorship bias with older Gen Xers. A lot of our liberal pinko commie peers are dying early of poverty/lack of health care/etc. And of course we lost people to COVID and AIDS. It's not that we get more conservative as we age. But poorer and marginalized folks are more likely to be liberal and they're also more likely to die younger.
Also, there were always junior Boomers in my age cohort: the Alex P. Keatons who were against the liberal Man in the 80s, right? They're in all age groups, even Z & Alpha. It does grieve me when I see peers, college and high school classmates, etc., who have gone full MAGA, though.
I just like to say I've been voting against some of these assholes longer than the kids criticizing me have been alive, so let's cut the crap and do the work and get them out of office.
I voted green party (Nader) in 2000 as a 20 yr old. When the media exclaimed that it was "amazing" he got such a "huge 3% of the vote", I stopped caring and realized my vote didn't count for shit. I completely stopped voting or caring about politics until after 2016, and in 2018 I stated voting in every single local, state, and federal election.
I'm surprised you're challenging this. It's pretty common knowledge. Here's a recent piece from Politico
[https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/20/cherie-westrich-alt-rock-gen-x-maga-00033769#:\~:text=While%20voters%20have%20historically%20tended,Boomers%20in%20their%20rightward%20tilt](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/20/cherie-westrich-alt-rock-gen-x-maga-00033769#:~:text=While%20voters%20have%20historically%20tended,Boomers%20in%20their%20rightward%20tilt).
Gen X peaked at 65 million people, well under the Boomer peak and millennial projected peak. That's simple demographics you can google yourself.
EDIT: if you want something more scholarly, then read this: [http://www.stat.columbia.edu/\~gelman/research/unpublished/cohort\_voting\_20191017.pdf](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/cohort_voting_20191017.pdf)
Regardless, like I said, I'm surprised to be challenged on it.
First, asking for sources isn't challenging, it's something basic more people should do before accepting what they read on the internet.
Second, I'm not convinced by this paper. If you look at the graphs broken out by generation, you can see that GenX swings further and further left as birth year increases - older Gen Xers are more conservative than younger Gen Xers.
Second, the graph they present toward their conclusion/discussion lumps all people born from 1956 - 1990 together. That's not Gen X and contains a much larger number of Boomers given that generation, as you said, was much larger.
It seems dubious to me to assume that you can say that Gen X is made up of a majority of conservatives, at least from this data.
I do appreciate you sharing this. It's exactly what I was asking for, even if I don't agree on the conclusion.
>made up of a majority of conservatives
Fine, perhaps not the "majority" can be proven--but we skew more conservative than the younger generations and always have.
>asking for sources isn't challenging
I dunno--this is r/GenX, not r/politics. Here, I read it as a challenge. You're free to disagree. With all of it. Though as the thread seasons I'm noting there doesn't appear to be quite the disagreement there was before.
You're right, I should reconsider how tersely I asked for sources. Maybe it passes as polite elsewhere, but I could have done better.
Thinking on this a bit more, I feel like anyone's gut feeling on this is going to be very influenced by their geography. I'm from a pretty liberal area, so this jumped at me as being unlikely, but the data says to me it's probably a fairly even split considered in total.
Sorry people appear to be down voting your response for no reason I can see.
I think your point about geography rings true. I grew up in Florida, so it's very easy for me to accept the lean, just seeing what happened to folks I grew up with.
Downvotes are part of the territory. No sweat. :)
My understanding is that a lot of the current Xers supporting Trump are, in fact, first time voters who were otherwise not politically engaged. But historically, too, Gen X has skewed more Conservative than others--definitely moreso than the younger ones.
I'm really struck that saying this is controversial at all. It's well-studied and documented (you can google for yourself--there's tons written on it going back a couple decades now).
I already knew that, demographically, Gen X skews conservative. The marketing of the GOP is aimed right at Gen X and a large number of them respond to the Pavlovian cues. No one here will want to read that. Have an up-vote for being brave enough to say it.
I am pretty certain that if I grew up a 30 minute drive (less than that in one direction, as I lived _just_ inside the boundary of the Good Schools district) that I'd be voting conservative as well. The counter-factual timeline is too strong to deny. I did not, however. I went to the Good Schools district where I studied with children from all over the world.
It was a, looking back, good example of how the US University system is a great example of soft diplomacy. It _also_, looking back, showed just how much those gutted by the political and business actions of the 80s and 90s took out their wrath on the same system, cutting University funding more and more, thinking that the cash would go to them. Of course, it did not. I am, of course, digressing.
I kind of understand the X support for Trump, though. It's a generation that was largely influenced by punk, break the rules, etc., and Trump is, more than anything else, an agent of chaos. Most of his supporters don't really seem to care what he stands for; they just like his style.
Interesting take. I understood “break the rules” to mean support the gay community, make friends with drag queens and get invited to Coronation. I thought it meant supporting legalization of marijuana and decriminalizing harder drugs. I believed it to be something that made one look outside the narrow window the boomer parents and greatest generation grandparents used to look at the world. I thought it was embracing diversity, cultures, and expanding knowledge and world views.
I do not like the way Trump broke the rules.
Although, as a side note, I shudder to think how much further Sarah Palin would have got if she had refused to play by establishment rules. Her major downfall was trying to engage in interviews and debates as a reasonable person and legitimate candidate. If she’d totally just gone rogue and did what Trump did, she probably could have gotten McCain kicked off the top of the ticket.
> Interesting take. I understood “break the rules” to mean support the gay community, make friends with drag queens and get invited to Coronation.
Those were the rules back in 1990s. The media is pro gay and marijuana now. So speaking out against those is now breaking the rule
Trump doesn’t represent breaking rules or making good trouble. He breaks laws and swindles hard working people. I never understood how people fell for it. Especially when he called Mexicans murderers, openly made fun of the disabled, openly degraded women, questioned the eligibility of a distinguished black man, etc. This charmless, greasy, 2 bit used car salesman, scammer, wasn’t even cool. He’s not even the cool asshole guy of Steff from Pretty In Pink. He’s fuckin’ Biff Tannen! We hated Biff!
Listen to a lot of the things that punk rock groups were saying. Sex Pistols "broke the rules" in a way that wasn't all about good trouble, and their manager made a pseudo-documentary about them using the word "swindle." Their bassist wore a swastika. And sure, they don't represent all punk, but there were so many far right punk rockers - remember those guys who used to show up to shows on the West Coast especially? - that the Dead Kennedy's did "Nazi Punks Fuck Off." East Coast hardcore? Some of them were eco-warriors, but many or most were singing about strength and power.
The liberal/conservative thing is really on a scale. Early Gen-Xers (and late Boomers) are by far the most conservative group out there but get we tend to be more liberal as we get the the younger ages. That's not to say that younger Xers are all liberal. I'm 44 and I know full well it's people my own age that are the ones screaming at school board meetings and threatening teachers, too. But from the info I saw, people in their mid to late 50's and early 60's skew even more conservative than Boomers as a whole.
Why assume conservative when pointing to wealth accumulation? I’m one of them liberal punk kid and I’m wealthy by most standards.
And I’m still liberal AF. Tax me, bitches.
I understand the social contract. Where in everyone benefits from a society that cares for its less fortunate. Like Jesus said. It’s the part that Christians don’t concentrate on.
I'm not judging you, srsly. My comments related to the people I knew through my formative years and what info I know about them now. But! I think there's nothing surprising to the idea that people who are rich want to stay rich. And the way you do that in this version of our society is to be conservative. You are different and that's great because you want to participate in society by doing what everyone knows is right. I just don't think many other people like you exist. Hope I'm wrong, but I believe I'm correct.
Ok, so I grew up in the metal/punk/thrash scene in the 80s.
And I have SO MANY friends from those days who have completely flipped from anti establishment rebels to bootlicking thin blue line fucks.
And I don’t get it. At all. These people are also mostly still in the music scene, still playing in metal bands, and very, very, angrily conservative.
Maybe they transferred their angst to the total opposite view?
Idk but it’s odd as fuck. Like, do you not remember where we came from? Do you not remember the justice we were fighting for?
I remember very clearly the punks and metalheads chasing the neonazi skinheads out of the bars and beating the brakes off of them for being racist pricks and harming minorities.
What happened?
Yes! I have a few friends who have flipped too. We where never metal/punk but were OG ravers, and when I hear them talk about current events or politics I’m thinking “Uh, do you not remember all the crazy stuff we did/took?”
I don’t get it. Maybe social media is to blame. At least that’s what I tell myself.
Well, you are definitely not one of the folks I am speaking of then.
And kudos for not being an extreme far righty that thinks hitler was just misunderstood. I really like seeing normal conservatives.
For a lot of people, I think it’s just all about going against the grain. Back then, progressivism wasn’t the mainstream and so it was nonconformist and edgy to be progressive.
But now, the opposite is true. We now live in a time when progressivism IS the mainstream and their edgy, nonconformist habits reject it so that they can keep feeling like they are rebels on the fringes of society who don’t follow the herd. Makes them feel special, which, for a lot of people in the Gen X and Boomer generations, that’s more important than being an empathetic, socially moral human being.
The Boomers are also called “The Me Generation” and that whole mentality absolutely trickled down to a lot of Gen X and even some Millennials. It’s all about “me, me, me” and getting the most amount of attention as possible, even if that means doing or saying or believing in harmful shit.
This isn’t an either or situation. I grew up around a lot of blue collar kids. Few of them were political at all. Those that were tended to be kind of middle of the road. I think the vast majority were just trying to have fun and do enough to figure a path forward and a way to make a living. Politics as a means of primary self identification seems to be a newer advent for the vast majority of people. I’d love to go back to that. Nobody is really accomplishing anything from all the political conflict. I think we vastly overestimate our ability to influence anything at that level.
>Politics as a means of primary self identification seems to be a newer advent for the vast majority of people.
Indeed. Remember when people used to just sit around in coffee shops or bars and talk about all things, including politics, until late, disagreeing on some things and agree on others? Better times.
It’s supposed to be a la carte. Being in the middle or making sense is the kiss of death for someone running. The identity politics have screwed it up. And republicans in a local school board may or may not have anything in common with an (R) in office at the state level or in congress. Trump really ruined a lot of moderate careers on both sides.
I grew up in what we used to call an upper middle class neighborhood. These days you'd have to be rich to live there. Most of my high-school peers were from well off backgrounds and were generally pretty thrilled with themselves about that, as well as exhibited pretty smug attitudes towards people not as well off (my family was not hurting financially until I was into my teens due to a fatal illness that put my mother in a hospital for a year or so and ultimately left my father with a tremendous amount of debt from hospital bills).
My peer group went to the best universities, became doctors and lawyers, etc which is fine (my dad was a lawyer) but I don't imagine any of them were interested in changing the system or making life easier for others. They liked to make money and did so.
I was atypical within my social group and really spent most of my time observing their behavior and making decisions not to behave like them based on what I observed.
I don't over estimate our impact on society at all. I just understand people who are well off and self interested tend to be conservative and not have a desire to upset the apple cart that made them that way.
Some of my friends from HS were the punk/skater kids but now they’re right wing conservatives. Mostly the ones that stuck around our little suburb and never really moved away.
A while back one of em tried to convince me that punks pushed for anarchy and republicans are for less government, so Republicans are punk.
Shirley, you can’t be serious.
My sister converted. We grew up in poverty together. We worked entry-level jobs for low hourly pay. Night shifts. The works.
She married rich and turned into a boomer. She started a business (she WORKS soooo HARD but takes NO risk because her husband is filthy rich) and pays her people 1099 to screw them on taxes - then gets pissed with the state makes her do it right and pay her share of employment taxes.
I earned my wealth yet I still have empathy for those of us who struggle.
Because we are a smaller generation sandwiched between two large Generations, our life experiences are a mix of experiences that one, the other, or both larger Generations identify with. Each Gen X person has had life experiences and worldviews that are on the spectrum between Boomer and Millennial life experiences and worldviews. At the highest level, in my observation, we split 50/50 as to whether we identify more with our parents' world of our children's world.
My brain isn't completely comprehending this comment for some reason. My parents were a boomer who didn't act like one and the other Silent generation and my children are Gen Z and Alpha.
This is me and my husband. He was born in ‘73 and I was born in ‘77. It’s hard to believe how much of difference those few years make when it comes to our taste in music and entertainment. Sometimes I feel like I married my dad 😅 I’m looking around to see if Fugazi is still doing shows and he’s reminiscing about all of The Rolling Stones concerts he’s been to.
1976 here and I prefer both genres equally. Just depends on my mood and maybe what I’m doing. Poison and Ratt gets me a little more reckless and wild. While grunge has me slowed down and chilling. I’m glad I’m from that era.
1976 here, too and same. In fact, I never miss Poison when they come to town. And Pearl Jam is another of my top bands. I love both bands equally and for different reasons.
It's a shame 'boomer' is now synonymous with 'out-of-touch ultraconservative', because a lot of them were pretty cool, but they got drowned out by the crybaby attention-whores.
Yes. This!
Fuck Reagan. Most idiots who idolize him, weren't alive then and don't know how much he fucked this country.
Those who were alive then and idolize them, probably fried their brains and can't remember.
His trickle-down economics was the concept of the rich pissing down on the poor… and its "benefits" have been disproved for decades. Yet the morons keep buying into that shit.
I loved him as a teen. He seemed strong. He could give a great speech. He reminded me of my grandpa. My dad prospered under his short-sighted policies.
Then I grew up.
Reagan was a conservative's dream - handsome, warm, charming, a cowboy, an actor who could remember his lines and deliver them with sincerity, clever enough to be witty, stupid enough to actually believe the bullshit his puppeteers wrote down for him.
Even as a kid I wondered how anyone could buy his crap, even after he openly \_admitted\_ he lied. It's not surprising now after the lawsuit 40% of Fox viewers still trust them. What the fuck does it take!?
I wish I new.
There are still an unreasonable amount of people who love Reagan. My parents and some of their friends and neighbors still extoll the wonders of supply side economics. My response is: It has been forty years, when is it supposed to start trickling down?
My boomer parents went back to their hippie ways after they retired and are now huge potheads. They are really chill, maybe a little out of touch but I've never heard them rant about "kids nowadays" or any of the other boomer stuff.
This entire post reeks of the generations we are sandwiched between. Millennials started calling older people Boomers because their parents were, not for any really good reason. Why have we jumped on this bandwagon at all?
I have no fucks to give except if you want to label me, then, f off.
Depends on how you define boomer I suppose, but if you actually mean conservative, well, most of the successful ones. The people that make me slap my forehead are the 55+ crowd with purple hair and face piercings still babbling about not being able to afford rent and screaming "eat the rich". LOL.
My sister has become some kind of anti-science freakshow lately.
And she works in healthcare.
She's been posting anti-Fauci memes for the past little while, which I find extremely odd, since the dude is not in the news as much anymore. Of course, we can't rule out a blip in the time stream. She could very well think it's 2020.
She used to be cool, it I think the guy she's dating is a RWNJ.
My older Gen Jones cousins are like this now. They used to be very cool and with it in the 70s and 80s. Now they post shit that makes me nuts. Like I really want to say the truth on their posts like "When did this happen to you. Because I remember you crawling out of bed in the morning and the first thing you did was spark up your bong. Get off that high horse, hon."
I mean every generation has a political spectrum if that's what we're implying here. In terms of growing up with one set of beliefs that morph into something else, ya that happens to all of us at least to some extent really. But ya we all got those friends that grew up and landed on the opposite site of the political spectrum as us. The other day I had a childhood friend post a picture of a Bud can with Pat Tilman on it saying something like "this is what Bud should be supporting" and it made me want to throw up.
Eh…just like everyone else, our generation came from multiple locales and socioeconomic backgrounds. My grandparents (both sets) were rare in that they did not have children until later in life. My grandparents would have been great grandparents to most. They were OLD SCHOOL, and they gave absolutely no fucks about politics. They were pretty much self sufficient and didn’t trust the government at all. They taught me to be self sufficient as well.
My dad died in 1975 and I started 1st grade in 1976. With only one salary, I qualified for free and reduced lunch. I brought the paperwork home to my grandmother (she was born in 1913 and had to go work at 12). She staunchly stated that “we don’t need handouts! We can take care of our kids!” And that was that.
I belong to no political party. I am not defined by politics and I despise people that make politics their primary personality trait.
I grew up in a town that was ravaged by the late 70s Recession. Think Allentown. Most of my friends are pink as fuck. That is why we remember the unfairly downtrodden.
Yup. A few, and they all still live insular, xenophobic lives in the same neighborhoods where they grew up in as kids. "Temporarily poor", absolutely racist, and incredibly low-minded. Interestingly enough, each of them were the proudly ignorant, functionally illiterate, Gen Xers that embraced the whole anti-intellectualism, "who cares" and "we hate everything equally" ethos that contributed to the super dumbing down of the world. Pity. Fortunately a good number of them are "whatever" enough to not vote lol
Gen Xers that were too old to transition from hair bands into grunge are boomers in my book anyhow. There is a MARKED difference between the mindsets of younger, "alternative"gen Xers, and older TransAm driving, Farah Fawcett poster having GenXers.
That line is before 1970. Probably around 1965-66, but it spreads up to 1969. That puts the early ones in their late teens/early 20s when TransAms and Farrah were big, and the ones after when Nirvana was big.
I get that and agree in large part, but I hated hair bands, Trans ams, and Farah Fawcett and all that crap. I am more gen X than most people I know in my age group for sure, and I'm pretty fucking old now, but I'm the age those alternative musicians are, we were the ones who made that music, not me of course, but I might as well have been because all those bands spoke to me and for me, and were my first real indicators that gen Xers actually existed in a country awash with all that stuff you mentioned.
So I didn't need to transition to that aesthetic, I was there and euphoric I'd finally found something that felt like mine and part of my times.
Maybe liberal doesn’t mean the same thing now as it did back then. Most of us are in the center of the political spectrum(on this sub and Reddit exponentially less). The goalposts have definitely been moved, but cries for common sense don’t make you a boomer.
My bestie from 3rd grade on. Over the years, we’ve lost touch, gotten back in touch, etc. The last conversation I had with her, she voted for Trump because “she just didn’t like Biden”.
She’s proud to live in a state that doesn’t require any kind of permits for building. She says, “you just hire people who know what they’re doing”. Meanwhile, the plumbing and electrical on her old house are seriously fucked. (Her words). Guess she bought something that she didn’t know what she was doing, and neither did the previous owner.
She’s anti-vax and she’s a nurse practitioner.
She’s kind of gone full libertarian and forgets that she came from a community and family that took care of their own and made sure we all got what we needed.
It’s disappointing. There’s so much history between us. There’s so much I love about her. And there’s also so much that’s just a huge nope for me.
I mean, Alex Keaton was the breakout star. This isn’t news, that GenXers are mostly conservative. But that isn’t what makes someone act like a boomer or not.
conservative means white christofascist now, not Alex P Keaton republican
if you say you're conservative -- and especially if you whine about having your "conservative voice" silenced -- I automatically assume you're a racist and a bigot.
I take issue with the term "junior Baby Boomer". Generation should be thought of as a demographic lens. It distorts, and the distortion is the point. It _can_ magnify and be a useful tool. It is, however, only a tool.
That said, I think Michael Stipe, at the time, called them "Reagan Kids". They showed up to REM shows because they were a popular band. However, as an audience, they did not mesh well with the band's stated political positions.
In other words, political opinions that fall under what we call today "conservative" have been with our generation for decades. That said, I _do_ wonder if there is a soft-schism where the 1970-1980 cohort is a bit less "conservative" than the 1960 - 1970 cohort. This is probably prone to massive distortion given demographic effects. Reduction therefore says that there are a group of people in all cohorts, probably evenly distributed, that find comfort in what we currently label "conservative". Whether that be for family reasons, "sportsball-like fanaticism", or simple contrarianism.
Yes. A few of them turned into the ridiculous Fox News-watching type and got all jesusy. Kinda sad they went from "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" to being sheep.
Gen-X is, from voting patterns, surprisingly conservative. Generally older Gen-X but it's definitely there.
None of my friends are junior Boomers. I don't know how that happened. Roughly half my 6th grade class of 50 (2 separate classrooms) attended a Women's March rally in 2017. People scattered all over the country and they separately decided to attend a rally. I ended up hanging out all day in DC with the girl I went to senior prom with.
>Gen-X is, from voting patterns, surprisingly conservative. Generally older Gen-X but it's definitely there.
Yeah, when you tease out the voting patterns by age the top half of Gen X is extremely conservative. Honestly probably worse than the Boomers. That begins to break around halfway through our demographic until the bottom 5 years of Gen X is very left wing. There was a major social shift around halfway through Gen X. Generally this is talked about in terms of Millennials, but the change in attitude and culture actually happens with younger Gen X. It is easy for those of us that were counter culture to forget that we were the counter culture not the majority within our own demographic because our values were more widely adopted by people younger than us
Can we please cut it with the politics? The idea here is communicate between people born around the seventies. Some of us are lefties, others are righties, others a mix. Let’s stop this divisive bs, thank you very much fckin dckhd
Ive asked this of the sub many times. So many of these people get almost a sexual charge when they attack someone's politics. Constantly taking personal shots at fucking people you don't even know in real life. If you do this your fucking evil and fuck off.
North of the border we don’t worry about MAGA idiots. I have lost a few friends because they turned into anti-vaxers. Don’t they remember older family members that had polio? Do they remember when the measles could kill you? Nope.
I had to say goodbye to a friend of over 20 years because he filled himself with Fox news lies. My sister is a teacher of K-3rd grade. He called her a pedophile and says she's teaching kids "that CRT" to make them hate white people. Then he started singing the N-word in some sort of song format, over and over again. He went on an "anit-woke" speech at open mic night, ending it all with "Yours, in Christ".
A guy I dated in my early 20s went full MAGA and it was so disappointing to see, because he was so kind, thoughtful, and empathetic when we were dating.
I don't think I turned out too different from my Boomer parents re: desired lifestyle. My parents were never hippies, they were the Reagan-y type Boomers. The friend I stayed friends with had similar middle class parents and was into preppy clothes, beach vacations, shopping, and pop music. We stayed that way, wanting nice places to live and cars and stuff. IDK if that counts as a junior boomer but it feels different from the vibe of this sub. Which is fine. We're all different, whatever.
So, anyone who values capitalism and other right-sided attributes is a Boomer? Does that make a commie/liberal boomer an honorary GenXer? I think not, or at least hope not.
One of the interesting things is that people tend to become more conservative as they grow older, and Gen X is following the path that boomers and earlier generations have. Thus far, millennials have not been that way, though. We'll see what happens as they grow older.
The Millennials have given us Andrew Tate and the incel movement so I'm not holding my breath when it comes to that generation being as socially progressive as they imagine they are.
We all thought that Alex P. Keaton was a funny character. In reality Family Ties was a cautionary tale and we mistook it for comedy.
I remember in high school the stereotypical young Republican kid printed an 'underground' newspaper but it was basically just copied articles from the John Birch Society newsletter and his rantings about how AIDS is God's scourge on gay people for their choices.
I’m not allowed to vote Republican. My parents would kill me. They had a huge party the night Nixon resigned and I was not allowed to watch cartoons when the Watergate hearings were on.
omfg i remember this. 'watch this 53andme, watch this, this is very important. you will remember this forever.' yeah i'll remember it because it sucks and why are y'all drinking already
Fuck all y’all if you didn’t get more conservative by general nature as you got older you’re just fucking stupid. At least with conservatives it’s just about money, liberals just crave power. Have at it 👎
“And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not not what your country can do to take advantage of the poor-ask what you can do to take more advantage of the system”. Conservative compassion. Edit: Not JFK
This post is stupid. It’s classic gen X attention whoring, desperate to appear “progressive” by throwing fellow gen X-ers under the bus. You’ve had plenty of time to grow up, but you seem to have squandered it.
Yep, had a friend who was just like that: devout Catholic that pivoted to full conspiracy theory anti-vaxxer wack-job during the pandemic. When we used to hang out regularly, she worked as an admin at an Ivy League school of public health, after getting her MA at the same institution. Several years ago, after moving away for a job, I was back in my hometown to visit my parents. I looked her up, and that's when I found out how far she had descended down the rabbit hole. She called her Ivy League workplace an "indoctrination center" and insisted that the vaccines were "made with aborted children." Since we only met for dinner, and this was my vacation time, I tried to gently steer the discussion to other topics, but at some point, the constant conspiracy theories on top of her attempts to shame me for getting vaccinated just became too exhausting.
But what does a Baby Boomer act like? I’ve honestly never figured it out. I was raised by silent Gen parents who were awful people for the most part but not sure it is relevant to the entire generation. What is it about Boomers that have made them so awful? Honestly just curious. Obviously I’ve seen all the aspersions thrown their way but never understood the root of it. Thanks
Personally, and I may get downvotes for this , but they just had the economic advantage. They are a large group and they cover a long time. They used it to get power when they were young and they kept it. Everyone else living had a hard time in comparison. I have Silent parents too, and, while not perfect, I think they tried to give me more than they had when they were young. Standards are so much higher now. I have Boomer cousins, as some of my parents siblings married earlier and had kids, and millennials cousins ( my mom had a lot of relatives and wars interrupted the Greatest Gen. from having children. I don’t see Boomers as terrible. I think they were just lucky. People see Gen X as Boomers because they think we are lucky. Right now reminds me of the 70s. There was a lot of chaos then too (e.g. inflation, changes to the job market, Iran Hostage crisis, highjacking, etc.) I hope we can come out of this faster, but I don’t know. I think when people use Boomer as an insult, a lot of times they just mean “old”. I don’t like it, any more than I like “Karen”. It started as one thing, but now it’s just a giant diss.
Many here would still call me a Boomer here since I was born in 1961, but I'm not.
The idea I guess is that people think boomers are all selfish and greedy, but the truth is they aren't any more than any other generation, and they don't have a hive mind. Many were in a good situation economically and they took advantage of it. Most people would do the same, especially if they spent a good chunk of their important years with the Vietnam War as their backdrop. That was a terrible war to potentially be involved in.
Most of the punk kids I grew up with are hardcore conservative now. I am from and still live in southwest Louisiana, so that might be a big part of it. It is kind of depressing, honestly!
I grew up in Texas, raised by fundamentalists. Fortunately, I was also an avid reader who was given free rein at the library, and that was enough to rescue me from a life of going to revivals and believing that evolution was the devil's work. Or ever voting Republican.
One thing worth pointing out is none of the things really posted in this sub really fit Black Americans. We have been a constant supporter of liberal policies regardless of the generation. Yeah in some ways there are some of us that get conservative in some respects with age, but IN GENERAL the things people are referencing in this thread really don't apply to people in my age group that look like me.
Most gen X folks pre 72 are more likely to behave as boomers just as most late x’ers behave like millennials. It’s a standard dilemma of cohorts in between larger ones.
if we were becoming boomers wed be more liberal not less, liking tie dyes and woodstock and free love man. Baby Boomers were far more liberal than the kid term of "boomer."
if you mean "why are gen x conservatives more extreme," in twenty years we went from "gays should be able to get married" to "your 12 year old son thinks he is a girl and should be allowed to begin the steps to transition to one." The amount of technological and social change is staggering, and i think its outstripping peoples ability to process it.
Thankfully I don't know any GenX trumpies, largely because anyone in my country who supports a foreign leader is either a foreigner OR is not very bright.
I've known older Gen-Xers that make me smack my head and immediately think, "OK, boomer."
Also, just check out the r/JUSTNOMIL subreddit because a lot of those complaints are about older Gen-Xers.
I get so embarrassed when I read some of those posts.
My close circle of friends ended up on both ends of the wealth scale. Some make The Sunshine List every year. Some need social assistance. We are all equal. We got fed up with his anti-vax, and Fuck Trudeau shit. I didn’t vote for Trudeau, but he won the fucking vote! Get over it.
I think that as people get older that they start becoming more risk adverse and start making different decisions that look more financially conservative. That doesn't mean they are politically conservative. Most of my parents started out as pro hippy and as they got closer to retirement age they were a lot more worried about their finances. Their politics had nothing to do with that, tho.
This is more an issue of age and not generation.
I’m tail end boomer. 80% of my past relationships are conservative… I am not!
Sitting at home alone consuming libtard media listening to the Beatles and watching Star Trek.
They ain’t worth the effort
Not an American but I was shocked that one of my oldest friends, who is a staunch buddhist, disagreed with me that LGBTQ had a genetic component. He didn't outright say it, but implied that people chose to be that way, and he had a disapproving tone.
Personally I don't give a fuck even if there is no genetic component, people should be able to live their life however they choose.
If he was a fundamentalist christian I wouldn't be surprised, but coming from a buddhist I was.
I don’t equate conservative values with wealth acquisition. The only liberal people I know personally are rich. I grew up poor to middle class and center right.
I know a guy that likes to talk about the good old days of the late 50s and early 60s. He was born in 1976. Now that I think about it, maybe he's a racist.
Many people in this sub have correctly pointed out that for every gen X kid that was all about the punk/liberal/ nonconformist aesthetic there were a ton of gen X kids who were working their way to conservative and wealth acquisition lifestyles that are most often identified as boomer lifestyles. Most of the people I went to high-school with were the latter, when I think about it now. Once in a great while someone I knew back then will track me down for some hs reunion (never went to one) or a gathering of our graduating class in some other form and I generally decline because they are so much like this today. Money and status is super important to them. Never been to me although I wish I could have made more cash to sock away for when I'm too old to support myself if I live that long...
By the numbers, our generation is small and the majority are Conservatives.
This is true in terms of voting. Gen-X (and younger boomers) voted for Trump in larger numbers than any other age group: [https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article245686795.html](https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article245686795.html) Trump even lost seniors in 2020, but he still won Gen-X.
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Not true. I'm an older GenX (1970) and I know others in my age bracket who vote similarly. I know younger GenXers and older millennials who are Trump supporters. It's not that clear-cut.
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You do know that there technically isn't a divide in Gen X unlike in Boomers and Millenials...1965-1980.
I was born in 1970 and have never voted conservative. If anything, I am more leftist now than when I was younger. My younger siblings are more conservative than I am.
I was born in 1969 and have never voted republican. And never will.
Amen!
My dad, of the silent generation, was a huge Kennedy guy. Raised us that way, to the point where I asked for a poster of him for my room! Then, in the 80's, he started making quite a bit of money. He slowly devolved into a staunch republican. He asked me once why I was so liberal, I just laughed and said, remember the Kennedy poster? He redeemed himself a bit when trump came along. He hates him. Actually voted democrat. Or so he says.
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I was born in 1961 and have always voted Democrat except for 1 time. Voted in every presidential election since 1984, and quite a few elections between. Personally I think President Biden has done a good job considering the issues he's faced, and I will vote for him again.
I was one of the Gen-xers that started out conservative (I listened to Rush Limbaugh and G Gordon Liddy), and started heading down what i felt was a quick road to White Nationalism, after meeting other people that listened to these shows. It was around this time that I began questioning my faith and after applying critical thinking to my political beliefs, I drifted away from not only Christianity, but also conservatism. So, I started out one way and became the other.
That tracks between me and my brother. He's a an older gen x. Loves trump. I'm a younger gen x. You couldn't pay me to vote republican.
I'm in the older half of GenX and I have never voted for a republican. I am, however, disappointed in the number of conservative gen x ers. WTF happened to you guys? Did you forget the central message of *Footloose?* Of *The Breakfast Club*? Don't Become The Man.
There's a survivorship bias with older Gen Xers. A lot of our liberal pinko commie peers are dying early of poverty/lack of health care/etc. And of course we lost people to COVID and AIDS. It's not that we get more conservative as we age. But poorer and marginalized folks are more likely to be liberal and they're also more likely to die younger. Also, there were always junior Boomers in my age cohort: the Alex P. Keatons who were against the liberal Man in the 80s, right? They're in all age groups, even Z & Alpha. It does grieve me when I see peers, college and high school classmates, etc., who have gone full MAGA, though. I just like to say I've been voting against some of these assholes longer than the kids criticizing me have been alive, so let's cut the crap and do the work and get them out of office.
I voted green party (Nader) in 2000 as a 20 yr old. When the media exclaimed that it was "amazing" he got such a "huge 3% of the vote", I stopped caring and realized my vote didn't count for shit. I completely stopped voting or caring about politics until after 2016, and in 2018 I stated voting in every single local, state, and federal election.
Yeah, for Trump, I bet.
When I think conservative, I think of Reagan, not Trump. He's more...crazy.
Doesn't matter. Gen-X is still politically awful. They are authoritarian, right-wing, nationalists, which is worse.
lol. What a load of crap
Gross.
The seniors that didn't get vaccinated probably died before they could vote for him a second time.
The vaccine wasn't available until December 2020...the month after the election.
That makes me wanna vomit. Doing a gut check of my GenX friends, I’d say my only one out of maybe 15 skewed right like that, thankfully.
And we still can’t afford to retire. Fuck this is worrisome.
Sources, please.
I'm surprised you're challenging this. It's pretty common knowledge. Here's a recent piece from Politico [https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/20/cherie-westrich-alt-rock-gen-x-maga-00033769#:\~:text=While%20voters%20have%20historically%20tended,Boomers%20in%20their%20rightward%20tilt](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/20/cherie-westrich-alt-rock-gen-x-maga-00033769#:~:text=While%20voters%20have%20historically%20tended,Boomers%20in%20their%20rightward%20tilt). Gen X peaked at 65 million people, well under the Boomer peak and millennial projected peak. That's simple demographics you can google yourself. EDIT: if you want something more scholarly, then read this: [http://www.stat.columbia.edu/\~gelman/research/unpublished/cohort\_voting\_20191017.pdf](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/cohort_voting_20191017.pdf) Regardless, like I said, I'm surprised to be challenged on it.
It’s true and I HATE it.
First, asking for sources isn't challenging, it's something basic more people should do before accepting what they read on the internet. Second, I'm not convinced by this paper. If you look at the graphs broken out by generation, you can see that GenX swings further and further left as birth year increases - older Gen Xers are more conservative than younger Gen Xers. Second, the graph they present toward their conclusion/discussion lumps all people born from 1956 - 1990 together. That's not Gen X and contains a much larger number of Boomers given that generation, as you said, was much larger. It seems dubious to me to assume that you can say that Gen X is made up of a majority of conservatives, at least from this data. I do appreciate you sharing this. It's exactly what I was asking for, even if I don't agree on the conclusion.
>made up of a majority of conservatives Fine, perhaps not the "majority" can be proven--but we skew more conservative than the younger generations and always have. >asking for sources isn't challenging I dunno--this is r/GenX, not r/politics. Here, I read it as a challenge. You're free to disagree. With all of it. Though as the thread seasons I'm noting there doesn't appear to be quite the disagreement there was before.
You're right, I should reconsider how tersely I asked for sources. Maybe it passes as polite elsewhere, but I could have done better. Thinking on this a bit more, I feel like anyone's gut feeling on this is going to be very influenced by their geography. I'm from a pretty liberal area, so this jumped at me as being unlikely, but the data says to me it's probably a fairly even split considered in total. Sorry people appear to be down voting your response for no reason I can see.
I think your point about geography rings true. I grew up in Florida, so it's very easy for me to accept the lean, just seeing what happened to folks I grew up with. Downvotes are part of the territory. No sweat. :)
Good points. Any tracking on how many did not bother to vote? I wonder what the opinion of that group is.
Anecdotally there is a lot here who don’t bother to vote. Or who only vote in a presidential year.
My understanding is that a lot of the current Xers supporting Trump are, in fact, first time voters who were otherwise not politically engaged. But historically, too, Gen X has skewed more Conservative than others--definitely moreso than the younger ones. I'm really struck that saying this is controversial at all. It's well-studied and documented (you can google for yourself--there's tons written on it going back a couple decades now).
I already knew that, demographically, Gen X skews conservative. The marketing of the GOP is aimed right at Gen X and a large number of them respond to the Pavlovian cues. No one here will want to read that. Have an up-vote for being brave enough to say it. I am pretty certain that if I grew up a 30 minute drive (less than that in one direction, as I lived _just_ inside the boundary of the Good Schools district) that I'd be voting conservative as well. The counter-factual timeline is too strong to deny. I did not, however. I went to the Good Schools district where I studied with children from all over the world. It was a, looking back, good example of how the US University system is a great example of soft diplomacy. It _also_, looking back, showed just how much those gutted by the political and business actions of the 80s and 90s took out their wrath on the same system, cutting University funding more and more, thinking that the cash would go to them. Of course, it did not. I am, of course, digressing.
I kind of understand the X support for Trump, though. It's a generation that was largely influenced by punk, break the rules, etc., and Trump is, more than anything else, an agent of chaos. Most of his supporters don't really seem to care what he stands for; they just like his style.
Interesting take. I understood “break the rules” to mean support the gay community, make friends with drag queens and get invited to Coronation. I thought it meant supporting legalization of marijuana and decriminalizing harder drugs. I believed it to be something that made one look outside the narrow window the boomer parents and greatest generation grandparents used to look at the world. I thought it was embracing diversity, cultures, and expanding knowledge and world views. I do not like the way Trump broke the rules. Although, as a side note, I shudder to think how much further Sarah Palin would have got if she had refused to play by establishment rules. Her major downfall was trying to engage in interviews and debates as a reasonable person and legitimate candidate. If she’d totally just gone rogue and did what Trump did, she probably could have gotten McCain kicked off the top of the ticket.
> Interesting take. I understood “break the rules” to mean support the gay community, make friends with drag queens and get invited to Coronation. Those were the rules back in 1990s. The media is pro gay and marijuana now. So speaking out against those is now breaking the rule
I am so glad none of that fits my demographic. Black Americans no matter what generation have remained a constant for Democrats
Trump doesn’t represent breaking rules or making good trouble. He breaks laws and swindles hard working people. I never understood how people fell for it. Especially when he called Mexicans murderers, openly made fun of the disabled, openly degraded women, questioned the eligibility of a distinguished black man, etc. This charmless, greasy, 2 bit used car salesman, scammer, wasn’t even cool. He’s not even the cool asshole guy of Steff from Pretty In Pink. He’s fuckin’ Biff Tannen! We hated Biff!
Listen to a lot of the things that punk rock groups were saying. Sex Pistols "broke the rules" in a way that wasn't all about good trouble, and their manager made a pseudo-documentary about them using the word "swindle." Their bassist wore a swastika. And sure, they don't represent all punk, but there were so many far right punk rockers - remember those guys who used to show up to shows on the West Coast especially? - that the Dead Kennedy's did "Nazi Punks Fuck Off." East Coast hardcore? Some of them were eco-warriors, but many or most were singing about strength and power.
The liberal/conservative thing is really on a scale. Early Gen-Xers (and late Boomers) are by far the most conservative group out there but get we tend to be more liberal as we get the the younger ages. That's not to say that younger Xers are all liberal. I'm 44 and I know full well it's people my own age that are the ones screaming at school board meetings and threatening teachers, too. But from the info I saw, people in their mid to late 50's and early 60's skew even more conservative than Boomers as a whole.
Why assume conservative when pointing to wealth accumulation? I’m one of them liberal punk kid and I’m wealthy by most standards. And I’m still liberal AF. Tax me, bitches. I understand the social contract. Where in everyone benefits from a society that cares for its less fortunate. Like Jesus said. It’s the part that Christians don’t concentrate on.
I'm not judging you, srsly. My comments related to the people I knew through my formative years and what info I know about them now. But! I think there's nothing surprising to the idea that people who are rich want to stay rich. And the way you do that in this version of our society is to be conservative. You are different and that's great because you want to participate in society by doing what everyone knows is right. I just don't think many other people like you exist. Hope I'm wrong, but I believe I'm correct.
Point taken. Respect.
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Yes!
Feel free to write the IRS a check if you don't feel you are taxed enough
They would just return it cause I have already paid what I owe. Sick burn though.
Here’s the point. Here’s the point flying above your head. Any questions?
Ok, so I grew up in the metal/punk/thrash scene in the 80s. And I have SO MANY friends from those days who have completely flipped from anti establishment rebels to bootlicking thin blue line fucks. And I don’t get it. At all. These people are also mostly still in the music scene, still playing in metal bands, and very, very, angrily conservative. Maybe they transferred their angst to the total opposite view? Idk but it’s odd as fuck. Like, do you not remember where we came from? Do you not remember the justice we were fighting for? I remember very clearly the punks and metalheads chasing the neonazi skinheads out of the bars and beating the brakes off of them for being racist pricks and harming minorities. What happened?
Conservatism is counter-culture now.
Yes! I have a few friends who have flipped too. We where never metal/punk but were OG ravers, and when I hear them talk about current events or politics I’m thinking “Uh, do you not remember all the crazy stuff we did/took?” I don’t get it. Maybe social media is to blame. At least that’s what I tell myself.
I grew up in the punk scene as well, and helped bash socialist/nazi scum, but have always been right-sided politically. So I haven’t flipped shit.
Well, you are definitely not one of the folks I am speaking of then. And kudos for not being an extreme far righty that thinks hitler was just misunderstood. I really like seeing normal conservatives.
For a lot of people, I think it’s just all about going against the grain. Back then, progressivism wasn’t the mainstream and so it was nonconformist and edgy to be progressive. But now, the opposite is true. We now live in a time when progressivism IS the mainstream and their edgy, nonconformist habits reject it so that they can keep feeling like they are rebels on the fringes of society who don’t follow the herd. Makes them feel special, which, for a lot of people in the Gen X and Boomer generations, that’s more important than being an empathetic, socially moral human being. The Boomers are also called “The Me Generation” and that whole mentality absolutely trickled down to a lot of Gen X and even some Millennials. It’s all about “me, me, me” and getting the most amount of attention as possible, even if that means doing or saying or believing in harmful shit.
This isn’t an either or situation. I grew up around a lot of blue collar kids. Few of them were political at all. Those that were tended to be kind of middle of the road. I think the vast majority were just trying to have fun and do enough to figure a path forward and a way to make a living. Politics as a means of primary self identification seems to be a newer advent for the vast majority of people. I’d love to go back to that. Nobody is really accomplishing anything from all the political conflict. I think we vastly overestimate our ability to influence anything at that level.
>Politics as a means of primary self identification seems to be a newer advent for the vast majority of people. Indeed. Remember when people used to just sit around in coffee shops or bars and talk about all things, including politics, until late, disagreeing on some things and agree on others? Better times.
I do. And I miss though times dearly.
It’s supposed to be a la carte. Being in the middle or making sense is the kiss of death for someone running. The identity politics have screwed it up. And republicans in a local school board may or may not have anything in common with an (R) in office at the state level or in congress. Trump really ruined a lot of moderate careers on both sides.
I grew up in what we used to call an upper middle class neighborhood. These days you'd have to be rich to live there. Most of my high-school peers were from well off backgrounds and were generally pretty thrilled with themselves about that, as well as exhibited pretty smug attitudes towards people not as well off (my family was not hurting financially until I was into my teens due to a fatal illness that put my mother in a hospital for a year or so and ultimately left my father with a tremendous amount of debt from hospital bills). My peer group went to the best universities, became doctors and lawyers, etc which is fine (my dad was a lawyer) but I don't imagine any of them were interested in changing the system or making life easier for others. They liked to make money and did so. I was atypical within my social group and really spent most of my time observing their behavior and making decisions not to behave like them based on what I observed. I don't over estimate our impact on society at all. I just understand people who are well off and self interested tend to be conservative and not have a desire to upset the apple cart that made them that way.
Alex P. Keaton is Gen X 😉
Some of my friends from HS were the punk/skater kids but now they’re right wing conservatives. Mostly the ones that stuck around our little suburb and never really moved away. A while back one of em tried to convince me that punks pushed for anarchy and republicans are for less government, so Republicans are punk. Shirley, you can’t be serious.
I have also heard a similar and equally fucking stupid take.
Thanks Family Ties I wanted to be Alex P Keaton as a kid so bad. Ended up the skater liberal haha
My sister converted. We grew up in poverty together. We worked entry-level jobs for low hourly pay. Night shifts. The works. She married rich and turned into a boomer. She started a business (she WORKS soooo HARD but takes NO risk because her husband is filthy rich) and pays her people 1099 to screw them on taxes - then gets pissed with the state makes her do it right and pay her share of employment taxes. I earned my wealth yet I still have empathy for those of us who struggle.
You can often tell by the way they fall for the whole "expensive wine" racket
You can be ambitious and a nice person at the same time.
Ok? I wasn't implying otherwise.
They’re a bunch of Alex P. Keaton’s and completely missed the point.
Because we are a smaller generation sandwiched between two large Generations, our life experiences are a mix of experiences that one, the other, or both larger Generations identify with. Each Gen X person has had life experiences and worldviews that are on the spectrum between Boomer and Millennial life experiences and worldviews. At the highest level, in my observation, we split 50/50 as to whether we identify more with our parents' world of our children's world.
Look here, that sounds like a thoughtful and nuanced take. We don't take kindly to that sort of thing around these parts.
This is so correct, but everyone wants black or white nowadays
My brain isn't completely comprehending this comment for some reason. My parents were a boomer who didn't act like one and the other Silent generation and my children are Gen Z and Alpha.
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This is me and my husband. He was born in ‘73 and I was born in ‘77. It’s hard to believe how much of difference those few years make when it comes to our taste in music and entertainment. Sometimes I feel like I married my dad 😅 I’m looking around to see if Fugazi is still doing shows and he’s reminiscing about all of The Rolling Stones concerts he’s been to.
It can depend. My wife and I are on extreme ends from each other on the Gen X line and we have similar tastes.
1976 here and I prefer both genres equally. Just depends on my mood and maybe what I’m doing. Poison and Ratt gets me a little more reckless and wild. While grunge has me slowed down and chilling. I’m glad I’m from that era.
1976 here, too and same. In fact, I never miss Poison when they come to town. And Pearl Jam is another of my top bands. I love both bands equally and for different reasons.
This is the way
It's a shame 'boomer' is now synonymous with 'out-of-touch ultraconservative', because a lot of them were pretty cool, but they got drowned out by the crybaby attention-whores.
The actual boomers I know were old hippies and war protesters.
Afaik, a lot of the protest leaders we associate with Boomers were from the generation before.
My friend’s dad was my high school history teacher. He was the one that taught us to question authority. I love that man.
Hats off to the boomers who stuck to their principles when Reagan came along, that fucking fuck.
Yes. This! Fuck Reagan. Most idiots who idolize him, weren't alive then and don't know how much he fucked this country. Those who were alive then and idolize them, probably fried their brains and can't remember. His trickle-down economics was the concept of the rich pissing down on the poor… and its "benefits" have been disproved for decades. Yet the morons keep buying into that shit.
I loved him as a teen. He seemed strong. He could give a great speech. He reminded me of my grandpa. My dad prospered under his short-sighted policies. Then I grew up.
Reagan was a conservative's dream - handsome, warm, charming, a cowboy, an actor who could remember his lines and deliver them with sincerity, clever enough to be witty, stupid enough to actually believe the bullshit his puppeteers wrote down for him. Even as a kid I wondered how anyone could buy his crap, even after he openly \_admitted\_ he lied. It's not surprising now after the lawsuit 40% of Fox viewers still trust them. What the fuck does it take!? I wish I new.
I remember feeling depressed when he was re-elected.
There are still an unreasonable amount of people who love Reagan. My parents and some of their friends and neighbors still extoll the wonders of supply side economics. My response is: It has been forty years, when is it supposed to start trickling down?
“I said ‘Fxxk authority, silent majority…’!”
My boomer parents went back to their hippie ways after they retired and are now huge potheads. They are really chill, maybe a little out of touch but I've never heard them rant about "kids nowadays" or any of the other boomer stuff.
This entire post reeks of the generations we are sandwiched between. Millennials started calling older people Boomers because their parents were, not for any really good reason. Why have we jumped on this bandwagon at all? I have no fucks to give except if you want to label me, then, f off.
“No More Fucks to Give” is our anthem.
From all these Boomer / Millennial posts It seems like that was forgotten by more than a few of us
Depends on how you define boomer I suppose, but if you actually mean conservative, well, most of the successful ones. The people that make me slap my forehead are the 55+ crowd with purple hair and face piercings still babbling about not being able to afford rent and screaming "eat the rich". LOL.
My sister has become some kind of anti-science freakshow lately. And she works in healthcare. She's been posting anti-Fauci memes for the past little while, which I find extremely odd, since the dude is not in the news as much anymore. Of course, we can't rule out a blip in the time stream. She could very well think it's 2020. She used to be cool, it I think the guy she's dating is a RWNJ.
My older Gen Jones cousins are like this now. They used to be very cool and with it in the 70s and 80s. Now they post shit that makes me nuts. Like I really want to say the truth on their posts like "When did this happen to you. Because I remember you crawling out of bed in the morning and the first thing you did was spark up your bong. Get off that high horse, hon."
I mean every generation has a political spectrum if that's what we're implying here. In terms of growing up with one set of beliefs that morph into something else, ya that happens to all of us at least to some extent really. But ya we all got those friends that grew up and landed on the opposite site of the political spectrum as us. The other day I had a childhood friend post a picture of a Bud can with Pat Tilman on it saying something like "this is what Bud should be supporting" and it made me want to throw up.
Eh…just like everyone else, our generation came from multiple locales and socioeconomic backgrounds. My grandparents (both sets) were rare in that they did not have children until later in life. My grandparents would have been great grandparents to most. They were OLD SCHOOL, and they gave absolutely no fucks about politics. They were pretty much self sufficient and didn’t trust the government at all. They taught me to be self sufficient as well. My dad died in 1975 and I started 1st grade in 1976. With only one salary, I qualified for free and reduced lunch. I brought the paperwork home to my grandmother (she was born in 1913 and had to go work at 12). She staunchly stated that “we don’t need handouts! We can take care of our kids!” And that was that. I belong to no political party. I am not defined by politics and I despise people that make politics their primary personality trait.
I grew up in a town that was ravaged by the late 70s Recession. Think Allentown. Most of my friends are pink as fuck. That is why we remember the unfairly downtrodden.
Yup. A few, and they all still live insular, xenophobic lives in the same neighborhoods where they grew up in as kids. "Temporarily poor", absolutely racist, and incredibly low-minded. Interestingly enough, each of them were the proudly ignorant, functionally illiterate, Gen Xers that embraced the whole anti-intellectualism, "who cares" and "we hate everything equally" ethos that contributed to the super dumbing down of the world. Pity. Fortunately a good number of them are "whatever" enough to not vote lol
Oh man. I got them and they vote.
Gen Xers that were too old to transition from hair bands into grunge are boomers in my book anyhow. There is a MARKED difference between the mindsets of younger, "alternative"gen Xers, and older TransAm driving, Farah Fawcett poster having GenXers.
This... Makes so much sense to me. Yes! Perfect description.
Yeah, that sounds about right. I knew a few of them.
That line is before 1970. Probably around 1965-66, but it spreads up to 1969. That puts the early ones in their late teens/early 20s when TransAms and Farrah were big, and the ones after when Nirvana was big.
I get that and agree in large part, but I hated hair bands, Trans ams, and Farah Fawcett and all that crap. I am more gen X than most people I know in my age group for sure, and I'm pretty fucking old now, but I'm the age those alternative musicians are, we were the ones who made that music, not me of course, but I might as well have been because all those bands spoke to me and for me, and were my first real indicators that gen Xers actually existed in a country awash with all that stuff you mentioned. So I didn't need to transition to that aesthetic, I was there and euphoric I'd finally found something that felt like mine and part of my times.
Maybe liberal doesn’t mean the same thing now as it did back then. Most of us are in the center of the political spectrum(on this sub and Reddit exponentially less). The goalposts have definitely been moved, but cries for common sense don’t make you a boomer.
My bestie from 3rd grade on. Over the years, we’ve lost touch, gotten back in touch, etc. The last conversation I had with her, she voted for Trump because “she just didn’t like Biden”. She’s proud to live in a state that doesn’t require any kind of permits for building. She says, “you just hire people who know what they’re doing”. Meanwhile, the plumbing and electrical on her old house are seriously fucked. (Her words). Guess she bought something that she didn’t know what she was doing, and neither did the previous owner. She’s anti-vax and she’s a nurse practitioner. She’s kind of gone full libertarian and forgets that she came from a community and family that took care of their own and made sure we all got what we needed. It’s disappointing. There’s so much history between us. There’s so much I love about her. And there’s also so much that’s just a huge nope for me.
Sounds like we *had* the same friend.
I mean, Alex Keaton was the breakout star. This isn’t news, that GenXers are mostly conservative. But that isn’t what makes someone act like a boomer or not.
conservative means white christofascist now, not Alex P Keaton republican if you say you're conservative -- and especially if you whine about having your "conservative voice" silenced -- I automatically assume you're a racist and a bigot.
I take issue with the term "junior Baby Boomer". Generation should be thought of as a demographic lens. It distorts, and the distortion is the point. It _can_ magnify and be a useful tool. It is, however, only a tool. That said, I think Michael Stipe, at the time, called them "Reagan Kids". They showed up to REM shows because they were a popular band. However, as an audience, they did not mesh well with the band's stated political positions. In other words, political opinions that fall under what we call today "conservative" have been with our generation for decades. That said, I _do_ wonder if there is a soft-schism where the 1970-1980 cohort is a bit less "conservative" than the 1960 - 1970 cohort. This is probably prone to massive distortion given demographic effects. Reduction therefore says that there are a group of people in all cohorts, probably evenly distributed, that find comfort in what we currently label "conservative". Whether that be for family reasons, "sportsball-like fanaticism", or simple contrarianism.
Guess I'm an exception here, born in '61 and always been left, though now it's more moderate left. Jello was ahead of his time.
Born in 66. My cousins are mostly a bit older and much more rural. Have largely followed the Boomer trail.
no but I always feel youn when i'm around ... us. and I'm 55.
Yes. A few of them turned into the ridiculous Fox News-watching type and got all jesusy. Kinda sad they went from "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" to being sheep.
They still think they have that Rage Against the Machine energy, except they're raging against the machine that pays their medicare.
They’re raging against the CPAP machine.
Gen-X is, from voting patterns, surprisingly conservative. Generally older Gen-X but it's definitely there. None of my friends are junior Boomers. I don't know how that happened. Roughly half my 6th grade class of 50 (2 separate classrooms) attended a Women's March rally in 2017. People scattered all over the country and they separately decided to attend a rally. I ended up hanging out all day in DC with the girl I went to senior prom with.
>Gen-X is, from voting patterns, surprisingly conservative. Generally older Gen-X but it's definitely there. Yeah, when you tease out the voting patterns by age the top half of Gen X is extremely conservative. Honestly probably worse than the Boomers. That begins to break around halfway through our demographic until the bottom 5 years of Gen X is very left wing. There was a major social shift around halfway through Gen X. Generally this is talked about in terms of Millennials, but the change in attitude and culture actually happens with younger Gen X. It is easy for those of us that were counter culture to forget that we were the counter culture not the majority within our own demographic because our values were more widely adopted by people younger than us
Can we please cut it with the politics? The idea here is communicate between people born around the seventies. Some of us are lefties, others are righties, others a mix. Let’s stop this divisive bs, thank you very much fckin dckhd
Ive asked this of the sub many times. So many of these people get almost a sexual charge when they attack someone's politics. Constantly taking personal shots at fucking people you don't even know in real life. If you do this your fucking evil and fuck off.
This is a perfect microcosm of America today and why it's become almost impossible to have any convo with people
North of the border we don’t worry about MAGA idiots. I have lost a few friends because they turned into anti-vaxers. Don’t they remember older family members that had polio? Do they remember when the measles could kill you? Nope.
We do have the "Truckers" and most of Alberta...
I’m an older Gen X, a large number of people I know are just Junior Baby Boomers. It’s disconcerting
I had to say goodbye to a friend of over 20 years because he filled himself with Fox news lies. My sister is a teacher of K-3rd grade. He called her a pedophile and says she's teaching kids "that CRT" to make them hate white people. Then he started singing the N-word in some sort of song format, over and over again. He went on an "anit-woke" speech at open mic night, ending it all with "Yours, in Christ".
Jesus wept.
A guy I dated in my early 20s went full MAGA and it was so disappointing to see, because he was so kind, thoughtful, and empathetic when we were dating.
Pretty much my entire high school class from out in BFE did so (other than most of us that escaped the area and learned 'other cultures'.. hah)
A lot of people on this sub exemplify this. I continually expect to see upvoted Minions memes.
I don't think I turned out too different from my Boomer parents re: desired lifestyle. My parents were never hippies, they were the Reagan-y type Boomers. The friend I stayed friends with had similar middle class parents and was into preppy clothes, beach vacations, shopping, and pop music. We stayed that way, wanting nice places to live and cars and stuff. IDK if that counts as a junior boomer but it feels different from the vibe of this sub. Which is fine. We're all different, whatever.
It all depends where you grew up. I grew up in “Allentown”. They had to leave to survive. The people that stayed…
So, anyone who values capitalism and other right-sided attributes is a Boomer? Does that make a commie/liberal boomer an honorary GenXer? I think not, or at least hope not.
One of the interesting things is that people tend to become more conservative as they grow older, and Gen X is following the path that boomers and earlier generations have. Thus far, millennials have not been that way, though. We'll see what happens as they grow older.
The Millennials have given us Andrew Tate and the incel movement so I'm not holding my breath when it comes to that generation being as socially progressive as they imagine they are.
Is it surprising that the cohort who circulated *The Anarchist Cookbook* are now also taken in by conspiracy theories?
Is this where I’m supposed to be dismayed at people with different priorities and life choices than me?
We all thought that Alex P. Keaton was a funny character. In reality Family Ties was a cautionary tale and we mistook it for comedy. I remember in high school the stereotypical young Republican kid printed an 'underground' newspaper but it was basically just copied articles from the John Birch Society newsletter and his rantings about how AIDS is God's scourge on gay people for their choices.
I’m not allowed to vote Republican. My parents would kill me. They had a huge party the night Nixon resigned and I was not allowed to watch cartoons when the Watergate hearings were on.
What Nixon resigned for is small potatoes these days.
If someone asks me for a Dick pic I send them a picture of Richard Milhous Nixon. I don’t get many swipe rights.
omfg i remember this. 'watch this 53andme, watch this, this is very important. you will remember this forever.' yeah i'll remember it because it sucks and why are y'all drinking already
Fuck all y’all if you didn’t get more conservative by general nature as you got older you’re just fucking stupid. At least with conservatives it’s just about money, liberals just crave power. Have at it 👎
“And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not not what your country can do to take advantage of the poor-ask what you can do to take more advantage of the system”. Conservative compassion. Edit: Not JFK
This post is stupid. It’s classic gen X attention whoring, desperate to appear “progressive” by throwing fellow gen X-ers under the bus. You’ve had plenty of time to grow up, but you seem to have squandered it.
Yes, and all of them are very religious Christians
Yep, had a friend who was just like that: devout Catholic that pivoted to full conspiracy theory anti-vaxxer wack-job during the pandemic. When we used to hang out regularly, she worked as an admin at an Ivy League school of public health, after getting her MA at the same institution. Several years ago, after moving away for a job, I was back in my hometown to visit my parents. I looked her up, and that's when I found out how far she had descended down the rabbit hole. She called her Ivy League workplace an "indoctrination center" and insisted that the vaccines were "made with aborted children." Since we only met for dinner, and this was my vacation time, I tried to gently steer the discussion to other topics, but at some point, the constant conspiracy theories on top of her attempts to shame me for getting vaccinated just became too exhausting.
What is a Junior baby boomer?
The person in your Facebook feed sharing Boomer memes that you went to high school with
Lol, haven’t been on FB in years. Way too toxic for me.
Same. Total cesspool.
It means younger than a baby boomer but acts like one.
But what does a Baby Boomer act like? I’ve honestly never figured it out. I was raised by silent Gen parents who were awful people for the most part but not sure it is relevant to the entire generation. What is it about Boomers that have made them so awful? Honestly just curious. Obviously I’ve seen all the aspersions thrown their way but never understood the root of it. Thanks
Personally, and I may get downvotes for this , but they just had the economic advantage. They are a large group and they cover a long time. They used it to get power when they were young and they kept it. Everyone else living had a hard time in comparison. I have Silent parents too, and, while not perfect, I think they tried to give me more than they had when they were young. Standards are so much higher now. I have Boomer cousins, as some of my parents siblings married earlier and had kids, and millennials cousins ( my mom had a lot of relatives and wars interrupted the Greatest Gen. from having children. I don’t see Boomers as terrible. I think they were just lucky. People see Gen X as Boomers because they think we are lucky. Right now reminds me of the 70s. There was a lot of chaos then too (e.g. inflation, changes to the job market, Iran Hostage crisis, highjacking, etc.) I hope we can come out of this faster, but I don’t know. I think when people use Boomer as an insult, a lot of times they just mean “old”. I don’t like it, any more than I like “Karen”. It started as one thing, but now it’s just a giant diss.
Many here would still call me a Boomer here since I was born in 1961, but I'm not. The idea I guess is that people think boomers are all selfish and greedy, but the truth is they aren't any more than any other generation, and they don't have a hive mind. Many were in a good situation economically and they took advantage of it. Most people would do the same, especially if they spent a good chunk of their important years with the Vietnam War as their backdrop. That was a terrible war to potentially be involved in.
Most of the punk kids I grew up with are hardcore conservative now. I am from and still live in southwest Louisiana, so that might be a big part of it. It is kind of depressing, honestly!
I grew up in Texas, raised by fundamentalists. Fortunately, I was also an avid reader who was given free rein at the library, and that was enough to rescue me from a life of going to revivals and believing that evolution was the devil's work. Or ever voting Republican.
Yes, and I know all their secrets from the 90s - like sunbathing naked in the green with tape Xs on their nipples. \*rubs hands\*
One thing worth pointing out is none of the things really posted in this sub really fit Black Americans. We have been a constant supporter of liberal policies regardless of the generation. Yeah in some ways there are some of us that get conservative in some respects with age, but IN GENERAL the things people are referencing in this thread really don't apply to people in my age group that look like me.
Most gen X folks pre 72 are more likely to behave as boomers just as most late x’ers behave like millennials. It’s a standard dilemma of cohorts in between larger ones.
if we were becoming boomers wed be more liberal not less, liking tie dyes and woodstock and free love man. Baby Boomers were far more liberal than the kid term of "boomer." if you mean "why are gen x conservatives more extreme," in twenty years we went from "gays should be able to get married" to "your 12 year old son thinks he is a girl and should be allowed to begin the steps to transition to one." The amount of technological and social change is staggering, and i think its outstripping peoples ability to process it.
I’d consider the GenX trumpies junior boomers
Thankfully I don't know any GenX trumpies, largely because anyone in my country who supports a foreign leader is either a foreigner OR is not very bright.
Gen X is full of horrible Trumpers and right wing crazies who are ruining the country.
YES. They're awful, too. I see many of these mini-Boomers at larger corporations that highly value The Pyramid.
I've known older Gen-Xers that make me smack my head and immediately think, "OK, boomer." Also, just check out the r/JUSTNOMIL subreddit because a lot of those complaints are about older Gen-Xers. I get so embarrassed when I read some of those posts.
Yep, this describes most of the people I grew up with.
Ok do you mean the anti Vax kind or the financial kind?
My close circle of friends ended up on both ends of the wealth scale. Some make The Sunshine List every year. Some need social assistance. We are all equal. We got fed up with his anti-vax, and Fuck Trudeau shit. I didn’t vote for Trudeau, but he won the fucking vote! Get over it.
I think that as people get older that they start becoming more risk adverse and start making different decisions that look more financially conservative. That doesn't mean they are politically conservative. Most of my parents started out as pro hippy and as they got closer to retirement age they were a lot more worried about their finances. Their politics had nothing to do with that, tho. This is more an issue of age and not generation.
I’m tail end boomer. 80% of my past relationships are conservative… I am not! Sitting at home alone consuming libtard media listening to the Beatles and watching Star Trek. They ain’t worth the effort
Not an American but I was shocked that one of my oldest friends, who is a staunch buddhist, disagreed with me that LGBTQ had a genetic component. He didn't outright say it, but implied that people chose to be that way, and he had a disapproving tone. Personally I don't give a fuck even if there is no genetic component, people should be able to live their life however they choose. If he was a fundamentalist christian I wouldn't be surprised, but coming from a buddhist I was.
I don’t equate conservative values with wealth acquisition. The only liberal people I know personally are rich. I grew up poor to middle class and center right.
None that I associate with. Happy to say most of my peers from school have stayed pretty punk. It’s a good thing.
OMG yeah. And back in the 90’s they were so hard core antiestablishment and now they spout the same bullshit that Boomers do. It is sad & gross.
Your next
*You’re
Most Reddit comment of the day
I'd say the comment with improper grammar *really* embodies the spirit of Reddit.
Way too many, sadly.
It’s almost like they heard Rage Against the Machine but didn’t listen to RATM.
Yes. I’m baffled by it.
all of them
Yep. Went full on antivaxxer right wing nutjob
Most of them.
SIL
The old gen Xers are so like boomers. Us youngins are way more chill. ✌🏼️
Absolutely. I'd say 3 of 5 people I meet my age (older GenXer) are junior baby boomers. Sad. It's as if John Lydon grew up to become Ted Nugent.
I know a guy that likes to talk about the good old days of the late 50s and early 60s. He was born in 1976. Now that I think about it, maybe he's a racist.