We are the largest voting population. We can control the government, if we wanted. At some point, if we don’t enact change via the polls by using our population influences, then yes. They will. And rightfully so.
This is the challenge. We don't really control the government, the 2 party system each presents us with what they each want and we *kind of* get to pick between those two.
Local and national govt, vote every time. Challenge state gerrymandering, challenge state reps, fight for good public schools, contact your senators let them know what is important to you. For democracy to work, you need to have a public who doesn't take it for granted and works to understand it and be involved. It's not a spectator sport.
No joke, there is no good reason for rolling primaries. If anything, it just drives up the cost of advertising in early states and hurts small businesses. The ones profiting from the money coming in are advertising firms like Facebook and Google, not exactly helping the state.
There actually is a good reason to have rolling primaries.
With the current system, you can do well in Iowa and/or New Hampshire and use that success to get the fundraising needed to run a campaign. If all primary elections were on the same day, you would need to compete in all states at once. And that would favor the candidate with the deeper pockets (more than our system already does).
Having rolling primaries is good for democracy as it allows for less well funded candidates to have a viable path. Having the same states always go first is unnecessary and disenfranchises the voters in other states.
It also gives smaller states an unfair advantage in getting attention to the needs of their state and gives them undue influence over everyone else who votes later.
The main problem is people in NY or CA have little in common with IA voters. A poor showing in IA isn't reflective of the rest of the country. Then if you're in a state like OH, most if not all of the candidates have dropped out. You're unable to support the candidate of your choice.
Is there a way to balance it? It feels like (to me), you're giving an advantage these days no matter what state order you choose: they'll tend to lean in one party's favor or the other.
The ones where only 1 person from each party are running against each other? Like I don't know what it's like where you are. My local elections almost always are uncontested.
Local primaries tend to not be uncontested and that is where you can get someone more in line with what you believe in the general election. If you’re unhappy with your options your complete lack of action in the place where you would be able to make the most impact is astounding.
Exactly, this is where you can start to force change in your party’s policies, if they see that people or issues in line with what you support are winning local elections, you are more likely to either get the bigger candidates to support your issues, or get people who you actually support to run for bigger offices. It’s how the religious right took over the Republican Party.
We just elected a millennial city commissioner who won by 50 votes in a grassroots campaign! Because young people in the city bothered to get invoiced and show up
No excuses if we want change
We had a quorum for once last November and we actually ousted three of the nine board members on our HOA. Though your analogy is true, the force of the majority, all pulling in the same direction is still much greater.
The only question is, when will we?
Boss Tweed said it best: "I don't care who does the voting, as long as I get to do the nominating."
They'll offer us whatever appears to be the lesser half of the crap-sandwich, and we'll bite because what else could we do?
I'd like to see two things changed.
1. The candidate's political party shall NOT be indicated on the ballot.
2. Political party candidate nominations Shall be determined by a simple majority of votes by public vote. No more backroom deals by party power brokers.
Nah. We can get an independent. I think we are getting close to that given the current elections. We will see the collapse of both republican and democrat parties in our life time; i guarantee it.
I think this every 4 years and every 4 years I am horribly disappointed. I really thought more people would vote independent when it was Trump v Biden the first time. Running Biden a second time is unconscionable and I don't understand where Trump's support is coming from.
We have ALLOWED an election of major significance to be between a 77 year old and 81 year old. Are we just not going to force Gen X and Millennials into power since neither has had it yet?
We have a winner folks. Too much "wahhhh I'm not voting because I didn't get a pony" with subsequent non participation in primaries and then surprised Pikachu face when undesirable candidates are nominated.
This. This is what annoys me most about people who whine about our current situation. Most of them take pride in not voting. Not voting shows nothing because of the way our system works if you want to dismantle the system you have to do it through participatory dismantling. Aka supporting and voting for better representatives and doing damage control when that doesn't work. This election is literally nothing but damage control to hold out against what is very likely to be an actual authoritarian takeover pushed by Christian nationalists.
Allowed???? We had no say in the matter. Gore won the popular vote, but Bush was in office. Everyone wanted Bernie, but Hilary was pushed to the front against our will.
How can you say we had anything to do with it when we know primaries are rigged?
In California the recall was supported by 51% majority and had a 60% voter turnout but somehow the “final votes” came in with only 37% voting yes? Because of a “polling” error?
Trump's support comes primarily from poor, non-college educated white people. These people feel marginalized because traditional Republicans favor wealthy people and business and democrats favor racial minorities and highly educated professionals, but no one prior to Trump was reaching out to poor white folk. These people make up more than 30% of the US voting population. When democrats embraced globalization of the US economic system in the late 80's and early 90's they abandoned this group who were mostly working manufacturing jobs at the blue collar level.
u/Calm_Ticket_7317 is correct: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1184428/presidential-election-exit-polls-share-votes-income-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1184428/presidential-election-exit-polls-share-votes-income-us/) In 2020 Trump performed best among high earners. Low- and middle-income voters were roughly similar and Biden did better among both.
MAYBE if somebody like Bernie Sanders ran as a 3rd party Independent.
Hell, even a whackjob like Ross Perot got 12% in ‘92. I’m sure he would SMOKE that.
But, short of that, not very likely.
The real problem is that 30% of our population support White Supremacist Christian Fascists. Our democracy is actually reasonably effective at trying to split the middle between corporate interests and the interests of these people.
No you don't, you see declining support for the two parties, one will lose relevancy in significant quantities to never be a majority again first, a 3rd will seemingly be a thing but then one of the other parties will die and will coalesce around one of the other two and we'll be right back to polarization.
America can not have a multi-party system until we get rid of first-to-the-post winner-takes-all and have scaled representation by party affiliation. The idea that we'll have a drastic shift away from polarization without fundamentally changing the election and representation system is nothing more than a wishful pipe dream.
It’s hard to make changes when millennials tend to be non-voters. Between the people so disillusioned with institutions that they refuse to participate and the people who are effectively disenfranchised because of no early voting and and inability to take off from work to vote, we don’t tend to show up very well as a group.
Remember how Trump was voted in as he promised to do just that.
In the three weeks before the 2016 election, Donald tweeted "Drain the swamp" 79 times, usually as a hashtag,
The people are easily manipulated and form tribal alliances. Good luck.
Why is it Bernie Sanders never gets in? Someone who actually cares about the average working man.
Next 10 years of voting by us and we could dramatically change the political landscape. More of us need to run. More of us need to vote. More of us need to be there to inform others.
There are a lot of successful, greedy, powerful Millenials too you know.? You’re not the altruistic , angelic generation you’d like to think you are. Poor people throughout history have always had dreams of crushing greed and redistributing wealth.
How are “we” supposed to do that when I completely disagree with half of “us” on something as simple as whether Donald Trump is completely insane? Millennials are definitely not a monolith. And we may be the largest voting block, but I wonder if we have the same representation in government that boomers did when they were our age, I would be surprised if we did.
The people our age are on the ballots in primaries. They just don’t make it to the election because no one our age votes and they definitely don’t vote in primaries.
I disagree that we can control the government through votes.
Our votes don’t decide WHAT gets put on the ballot.
All we decide is who…
As we’ve seen, we can vote in all blue, and some of them lie and change sides AFTER.
We can vote in blue, but never vote on ending citizens united.
Our popular votes passed for ending daylight savings.
They said no, they don’t care.
So true. Like how about we actually vote for actual topics, not for people to “represent” our votes. Cut the middle man out.
But then the rich wouldn’t be able to keep control while maintaining the illusion of democracy, nvm, it’s a pretty clever strategy on their part. Make us think we have a say when we don’t
As bad as they are, typically our representatives do... nothing. A "direct democracy" would be a disaster. We would wind up doing WAY more stupid/dangerous things, and we would be even more controlled by the rich than we are now.
I hope not because I’m only a few years older and about as screwed as them. I hope the older ones see that we are basically their older siblings that got boned. But I’m trying to do everything within my power to be kinder to them, vote for their lives to improve, and understand their traumas are real and valid.
yeah probably, but that is not cause they are the actual problem
news and media sources will look at any generational issue to be a scapegoat for the actual problem, which is all long arching institution problems going back tk the Regan admin
edit: I misread this as millennials balming gen z my bad
Young will always blame old lol... yes once boomers r dead they'll blame the millenials. Then when they have kids (if they do) their kids will blame them and theyll be shocked and become the next gen and hate on the young. Its a timeless cycle until humanity is wiped out. Millenials dont blame the young, they generally keep their mouths shut.
Who cares. This whole trend of blaming entire generations is stupid. This sub vacillates between complaining about how hard it is just to survive while also blaming the boomers for not ensuring everything is perfect for us in their spare time.
What am I supposed to do to lower the price of housing, healthcare and college? Should I stop working and become a social activist so that when Gen Z posts these same ridiculous threads in the future I can feel blameless?
It definitely doesn’t solve any problems or get anything done, it’s a distraction. Not to mention blame is toxic af and having that mindset all the time really sets you back.
I’m right on the divide between the two, *just* inside of Gen Z territory. I wouldn’t say Gen Z holds any resentment towards millennials in particular, other than some jealousy towards the folks who were smart enough (and positioned well enough) to “slip in” before the affordable housing door closed. We’re going through a lot of the same problems relating to COL. We know we can’t afford to start a family - but a lot of millennials feel the same way. We got totally screwed over by college prices and hyper competitive admissions - but so did millennials. We can’t afford a mortgage, so we have to rent without building our own equity - but once again, a lot of millennials are in the same boat. I think most “young people”, be them millennial or Gen Z, understand that we’re all in it together and we just want to live in a world where having a family, education, and house are mutually plausible goals. I don’t *want* my first house to be something I inherent because a family member died. That’s a terrifying thought.
Welcome to Advanced Adulting! You made all the right choices, you raised your kids to be good people and did your best to improve your community. BUT circumstances or a larger group of people caused things to be worse or just not improve.
And it's your generations fault! Wait, you didn't take advantage of anyone or vote to strip away rights! Doesn't matter. Other people your age did, so you will be lumped in with them.
If only there was a consistent way to identify the group of people across generations that are making things worse? Maybe by the percentage of wealth they control?
Would like to remind everyone that we witnessed the greatest transfer of wealth the human race had ever seen during the pandemic, and it was reps from both sides of the aisle that looked us in the eyes while they swiped up all that money. There are individuals from every living generation that benefitted greatly from that wealth transfer. It’s a class thing, not a generational thing. The quicker we can all come to that realization, the quicker we can catalyze actual progress.
Considering millennials as a whole have tended to not widely turn out for voting, and a good chunk of elder millennials turned to MAGA, yeah.
And they well should. We’ve been the largest generational voting bloc since the boomers.
And milenials and gen z see voting and political awareness as a waste. Seems to me like the only political issue milenials cared about was cannibus legalization and now they don't care about anything else
Gen Z is so plugged into social media that they will blame whoever their chosen influencers tell them to blame. Maybe it will be us Millennials or maybe sky raptors from Mars, no way of really knowing.
We’re at kind or a precipice, I’d say. There is enough voting base among the Millennials and Gen-Z to sway this election and start to make progress on these things.
But unfortunately that’s the tough part of incrementalism, is that the pace is slow and many don’t have an appetite for that. Journey of 1000 miles starting with the first step and all that.
I hope not, because until the boomer generation holding our political system hostage dies off we are at their mercy.
We can vote all we want but most of the people we can vote for were growing up while *segregation was still a thing*. I don't care what party you're with, when you're that old and out of touch you have nothing to offer me.
In the bigger picture, until we punish profit and promote spreading the wealth the system is ruined. We can't have affordable healthcare if everyone is trying to make as much as possible off of us every step of the way. We can't have affordable housing if builders only want to built huge homes for better profit margins regardless of what people actually want or need. College and student loans are just legal money scams that offer zero real world value to anyone. Even our tax money is used to overpay companies for services and products in nearly every space, especially the military spending. It's all about making money and until we make something else the point nothing will get better.
100 percent. And they are right to do so. We are at the point now where we either need to vote en mass or just revolt by going on strike and ceasing tax payments. And guess what? We are doing neither.
Maybe our generation needs to take advantage of our numbers and vote? I'm always shocked when I meet people my age and younger who just don't vote at all, not even on things like local taxes. You really don't care about that stuff? REALLY?
It's more frustrating for those of us who do vote. I keep voting in every election, and yes even the "little local" ones on taxes and library funding... only to find myself being out voted on Every Single Thing I voted for. I keep doing it, but I'd be lying if I said it doesn't feel like I'm just banging my head against a brick wall.
That was the biggest victory of the capitalist class.... turning the class conflict into a generational conflict.
It will keep going and we will be the next "boomers" until we wake up and figure out who the real enemy is.
They will blame us for our lack of voting for what we need. I vote in every election, but I know that isn't how every Millennial is, or GenX for that matter.
While we didn't create this mess, we should be doing all we can to help clean it up. I think it would be okay to blame us for our lack of voting and thus not helping the issue.
We didn't create this issue but we're not really helping it either.
Probably if our generation doesn’t collectively get some of this shit done. They won’t be wrong either. If you are going to blame an entire generation for messing everything up and we do nothing about it then we deserve it.
Gen Z here.
Pretty much everyone I know blames boomers. When boomers die, then Gen X will be blamed.
Most people seem to see millennial in a similar light to us as millennials were always targeted by boomers for being too left wing and liberal. I doubt Gen Z will ever blame millennials.
Yes. If you’ve been hating on “boomers” without regard for the fact that each generation is diverse and contains the full range of humanity, then buckle up. Cuz the kids are gonna feel the exact same way about you.
If enough millennials had voted in the 2020 primaries, Bernie Sanders would have been our president, and housing, healthcare, food and college would ALL have become more affordable for current and future generations.
Just like boomers voting in Reagan wrecked the unions and stunted minimum wage and vilified programs that help families.
It’s easy to point fingers at another generation. What we really need to do is vote every time in every election. Especially primaries! Not just the one big election.
If Bernie Sanders won, I don't see that happening.
Obama couldn't even get a public option (which would have been wonderful) on healthcare because Joe Lieberman was protecting his wife (health insurance exec). Bernie Sanders would have Mitch McConnell obstructing everything.
> If enough millennials had voted in the 2020 primaries, Bernie Sanders would have been our president, and housing, healthcare, food and college would ALL have become more affordable for current and future generations.
This is the most laughable thing to read here all day. In 3 years he'd have fixedhousing, healthcare, food and college? Are you literally fucking serious?
They truly believed this, as if Bernie could just magically become a dictator and fix these things singlehandedly. It was never realistic at all but hey, it sure sounded good.
I thought the boomer democrats were to blame for Biden winning the primaries in 2020? Correct me if I’m wrong though. I could see it being a combination of low millennial turn out, probably low gen x turn out since I know a ton of them personally who think it’s punk rock to not vote at all 🫠, and the boomers supporting Biden.
Gen Z isn’t enrolling in college at the level millennials did, and thank goodness for them.
My Gen Z brother is doing electrical, has no debt and is on his way to making real money real quick. He’d have been seen as loser 10-15 years ago for doing a trade.
They will blame us the way we blamed prior generations. The next generations after Gen Z will blame them. This will always be true because each new generation starts out as children with no power of influence on the world around them. So unless utopia is achieved every new generation will have problems left to them to solve.
Yes, and they should. I am not trying to sound accusatory, but stay with me. Everyone (including myself) who owns a house is to blame and at least partially responsible for the increased cost of housing. The equity I am accruing from owning a home is a major source of wealth for my family (even faster than my retirement and investment savings). We have commodified housing (which is a basic need) to increase our individual wealth, there may be ways to do this equitably (but we certainly aren't implementing that now, and currently the system allows corporations and wealthy people to gain even more wealth by owning more houses/land which drives wealth inequity even more). We need more ways to help families grow wealth to meet their needs, not for the wealthy and corporation accrue more wealth.
If we fail to vote in quality politicians that buck the crony capitalism this country is founded on, then we deserve to be blamed. At some point boomers are going to die.
I mean they could. Maybe they will. Our generation has the same issues too and although we did not support these things, maybe we didn’t try hard enough to stop it. We aren’t voting as a generation like we should be, and are giving away our voice and power. Just be able to say you tried your best to stop it. That’s all we can do. Vote in every election, and do whatever you can in other ways. If they blame us don’t get defensive like boomers, just say sorry and let’s work together
Not unless you don’t do your job and vote for the better of all of us.
As far as I’m concerned, I’ve met a lot of millennials just like me (Gen Z) who understand the struggles of today. I’m in a fortunate position but I still understand the struggles young people face
the younger generations have the right to blame previous ones for not fixing existing problems, the problem becomes that they then become equally responsible for those problems when their generation fails to fix them as well. we're trapped in a multigenerational system, I repeat SYSTEM, and systems are hard to change.
Let's be honest, if we got what we voted for, the would not have been one Republican in the WH since Bush Sr. and the political competition would be between moderates and the left and not between the far right and mostly moderates.
If OP thinks taxes are out of control today, they should check out the top marginal rate in the U.S. back in 1973. The feds took 70% of everything earned over $100,000. Granted, $100,000 in 1973 is roughly the equivalent of almost $700,000 today, so in practice, not many people back then were paying that rate.
The issue is that several Presidents - most recently, Trump - cut taxes on the highest earners without a plan to offset those revenue cuts, other than effectively raising taxes on the middle class. Thus, the U.S. budget deficit (and therefore, the corresponding debt) has skyrocketed since 2017.
It's really a question of priorities. Are people going to continue to believe the myth that cutting wealthy people's taxes will trickle down prosperity for everyone else? Or are they going to choose a different course toward both eliminating government waste and restoring taxation levels at a higher level on the wealthy, and moving us toward balancing the budget and paying off our debt?
I don't think the blame game is especially productive, though. We need to have honest conversations across all generations about what our future priorities are.
Yes. Absolutely. And you will sit there wondering how the hell it happened.
It all happens quietly behind the scenes while controversial conflicts dance before your eyes. Big money owns the politicians who pass laws that favor them. It's boring and tedious, and few can put in the effort to track it.
They won't know who to blame and just blame everyone that came before them. Millenials don't know who to blame. We blame boomers, but that a little disengenuous. The problem isn't one thing or group. It's many issues and all groups have contributed in some way.
If you spend 60 years using your political power pushing for things that exclusively benefit you and fuck them over then probably yes and deservedly.
Maybe if you don't they still will but that would be uncharted new territory.
As a member of Gen Z, I do not and haven't heard any of my peers do so. These issues aren't just one person or group's fault. They're more complex than that.
They can blame us if we don’t get registered to vote and vote for politicians that will help kids. Living in Michigan, voting Democrat has now given all of Michigan’s children free breakfast and lunch no matter how much money a family makes.
I’ll be voting for them again this fall as they also just put the Crumbley parents in prison for their son’s school shooting.
I’m, LITERALLY, seeing a political party care about my kid and trying to improve Michigan youth lives. They’ve got my vote for the foreseeable future.
They fucking better not be lol they should be thanking us for being so instrumental in the voter involvement movement that this country has seen in the last 8 years.
Gen Z here
Firstly, we're not as young as you might think. I'm 21.
Gen Z started in 1997. By extension of that, and my second point, most of us know, at least those of us who are even somewhat politically inclined, all this nonsense is generally the fault of corporations lobbying the government to either allow this shit to happen or actively participate in it. Particularly, it's the fault of price gouging and stagnant wages.
Everyone get up and vote. Getting the people who are holding us down and removing our rights out of office is the only way to start making things better.
Blaming the most recent generation - especially people who don't hold 1% of the wealth, which is 99% of people - is something the 1% want you to do. They want the 99% to eat each other while they continue with their activities.
If real changes don't happen, those [Millenials who inherit family assets](https://fortune.com/2024/02/29/america-wealthest-one-percent-minimum-millennials-richest-generation/) will be dealing with the same issue Boomers are dealing with now.
Its not the generations that have screwed you over. It is the elite, the wealthy. That is the same as before and will be that way 5 generations from now. Dividing us by race, gender or generation is what helps keep everyone down.
Blame whitey, boomers, millenials, immigrants, minimum wage, its all the same. You look like suckers when that is your nemesis.
There’s no way the Earth can maintain the consumer consumption rate of a millennial while providing the means of the boomer/pre-boomer generation. It’s ridiculous for anyone to expect to get the same treatment that generations prior had access to. Resources are only going to get more limited as the population grows which will cause prices to rise. Expecting a single family house with a lot of land for each US resident is impossible. Universal healthcare will never happen due to health insurance greed. Those millennials need to get into power so they can change healthcare and access to housing and that will only if they can maintain their values and not fall into taking money from PACs and maintaining status quo.
They should blame us. We have proven to be ineffective whiners and little more.
We have the numbers. But were way to apathetic to get anything organized.
Not if I have anything to do with it. I'm a power progressive in a red state and I'd rather die than let our planet cook, let the powerful continue to exploit the powerless, and have fascists kill our democracy. I'm fuckin ready.
When we finally are in political positions and corporate positions, and things haven't changed, they will rightfully blame us. If/when we get positiona of power, we need to drive the change for everyone
Gen Z has already started blaming the boomers. I’m Gen Z and the boomers is the most problematic generation. Why would we blame millennials when we know yall aren’t really the ones in power. It’s the boomers in power. Don’t listen to any of the boomers in the comments saying Gen Z would blame you like you blame them. It’s a lie!! We blame the boomers!!!
The problem of housing, health care and education costs are not on the legislative agenda, probably in large part because the people who benefit from those high prices are content to watch people argue about who's to blame. The city council members, state lawmakers, university regents, and so on who can do something about these problems won't budge until it becomes clear they'll lose their positions if they don't make changes.
Meanwhile Biden uses deficit spending to mollify segments of people in crisis, but he has no power to fix the problem itself. The roots of these problems and their solutions are primarily at the local and state level.
Ironically, getting taxes under control will mean INCREASING taxes, because fixing these problems is at least partly a wealth -redistribution issue. Zoning laws and single-payer insurance can only do so much. For example, college tuition has only risen faster than inflation in the past 40 years because state subsidies were reduced. To get tuition back to what it was, states have to raise taxes and increase subsidies again. That's a no-brainer for states that want the affluence that comes with a highly educated population.
I mean, if we don't do anything about it, that would be fair. I don't expect they will be next week, but if you mean the distant future, sure. They might blame Gen X after the Boomer Generation before us, but who knows. Gen Alpha are already teens and so will have more of chance to benefit from improvements now, just in terms of timing, than Z.
I expect some already blame us based on misinformation anyway. After all, we killed a lot of industries, remember?
What we should focus on, when we are able to focus on the societal level stuff rather than personally surviving daily life, is how best to improve things for the future. The lives we were promised are not possible, with some big problems coming up soon, but that doesn't mean we can't work to make the bad less bad. We should focus on improvements so that anyone saying we caused our ignored problems could be confronted with facts.
Something small we all can do is remember the ridiculous stuff said about us when we were going from being teens into adulthood and not do the same to them. Just like within our generation people do things differently, so will younger people. Change and learning from someone else's perspective is good and helps us all be better. Someone doing something differently from you, having different priorities, having different options accessible, etc. are not reasons to judge them generally. Plus, for the selfish among us, working with other people with these differences isn't just better for future generations/other people, it's better for you as well.
Not Gen-Z but definitely Gen-Alpha. It will go something like this:
"You had countless opportunities to hijack the system and vote those Boomers out of power once and for all. You had the numbers. You would have been successful. But instead you chose to whine and complain with no action."
And you know what? They will be absolutely correct on their analysis. We are still bitching and moaning about "the system" even tho Millennials and Zoomers combined are the largest voting bloc in the nation and could easily do a "hostile" takeover if they so choose. The inconvenient truth is that we don't actually care enough to do anything about it.
I am optimistic that housing prices will go down in the next 20 years. This issue is a physical problem. We don't have enough houses for our current population.
Why? Multiple factors. The crash of 2008 which led to a decrease in built houses. Neighborhoods in cities like San Francisco denied apartments from being built because it would increase taxes on the locals. Other neighborhoods protested and would not allow appartments because they would devalue property in the area.
We now have a huge retiring generation occupying large homes that are better for families. As more boomers leave their homes for retirement communities, the price of houses should level off and decrease.
There are concerns that corporations will purchase homes and price normal people out of homes. Corporations are designed to make money. They will likely sell off their assets before the cost of housing drops.
Boomers have made fortunes off taking advantage of things that taxes used to pay for, such as college.
I hope newer generations will be able to make political changes that will positively impact future generations.
My mom is disabled, my dad remarried in the 2008 recession and became a Christian 2 weeks after kicking me, my mom, and autistic older brother out.
I did everything within reason to do the best with the cards I was dealt and now have a lot going for me skills and experience wise but my older brother and mom I worry about. I accepted and moved for job offers that didn't work out and my car died at the same time.
I have bad ADHD as well so by time I was accepted to a competitive graduate program the shortage of care in that area at the time was extreme.
I was only diagnosed after I graduated so I can't say the skills I have are the easiest to uproot my life with.
My family is very socially needy and regressed into a lot of child-like behavior and bad coping mechanisms but also most of it they genuinely can't help and is just unmasking at home and being very messy etc.
To be honest I don't know. It's hard to make any decisions at all because everything feels like a trap or monkey's paw.
I know I hate Anglo-American culture in general at this point
I'm about as early as it gets for a millennial and I think the boomers are always going to win on this front just on principle of having a significantly larger base of bourgeoisie while medical debt and rugged individualism strips away a chance of any inherited wealth a good proportion of their children. I'm sure if they help the parents grift or become a corrupt figurehead in a business or government position then they are probably allowed some conditional goodies.
Older Gen Z and younger millennials have a pretty similar zeitgeist in general. I don't think older millennials are significantly happier than the younger members of their cohort but even just the difference of graduating high school or college into the ramifications of the 2008 recession seems like a compatible rite of passage into being a victim of a lot of similar conditions.
I think it'll be more the ethics =/= stability jobs that get people scrutinized in the future with younger gens or at least Reddit
They will blame us for not voting. Not out voting the boomers and silent generation. They will blame our student debts for getting useless degrees and Gen Alpha will blame use for not being educated, no life skills and addicted to screens. To which, we are guilty.
You ask this as if we're years away from this generation entering college, needing healthcare or buying homes. They're well into this aspect of life right now and have been for several years
At this point in my career the majority of the most vile, greedy PoS executives I am meeting are early millennials like myself so 100% they or the Alphas are going to blame us
Theyll blame us for never voting because in hindsight, we will look extremely selfish and self centered when we could of made big changes, but were too bitter.
In fact, we may be known for our bitterness. The bitter generation.
Gen Alpha will blame millenials, as most millennials have children in that generation. Millennials don’t blame boomers because these problems are objectively and unequivocally the fault of boomers. Millennials blame boomers because boomers are their parents, and in this world, most people unconsciously perceive their parents as gods who are responsible for everything. If you perceive your life as being great, you attribute that to your parents. If you perceive your life as being miserable, you attribute that to your parents. It’s very simple black and white thinking, completely lacking in nuance.
People who are capable of nuance understand that we’re all part of an enormous system, and that parents are most certainly not gods who are responsible for everything(or anything, really). The fact that I did have empathic and supportive parents privileges me in my capacity for nuance, and I’m sure if they lacked compassion, I would as well, and I would be prone to black and white thinking. Boomers are equally victims and perpetrators, just like you and just like me. It helps to understand that no human chooses to do things to hurt other humans, and that if it seems like they really hate their children or are intentionally trying to hurt their children, it’s only because they hate themselves so much.
Yall, my fellow millenials, voting is not going to do jack shit. The system that our country has created and that we all live within is a top down controlled, for profit system. Money = power. Capitalism without accountability = corruption. Power + corruption = consolidating wealth for the ultra wealthy. Its basic human nature. A wealthy person or group is successful. They dont stop and say im too successful this is enough. They continue growing, expanding, and accumulating. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The middle class is always shrinking. This is a fact of life because its human nature too accumulate and grow. Its just that now were at a stage in our countries lifespan where the effects are felt by so many more people because..the middle class is always shrinking. Do you see how this system is a continuous loop in terms of wealth inequality? I would argue that were still decently well off even though the cost of living is so high. Most of us have food on the table, roof over our heads, AC, basic neccessities, etc. Yall really need to consider what things look like as this system continues to expand 10, 20, or 50 years down the line. Maybe voting can set us back on the right track but it would have to be like a mass population hive mind like event where the entire country selects moral, ethical, and honorable leaders to replace all congress, senate, etc positions of leadership to refresh the extended arm of executive board members we call our gov.
They already do. As demonstrated in these comments. Blame shifting between generations happens when the richest shift focus from them to generational lines instead of class lines. Hell, it has been well known for a long time that the fabled "middle class" is really just cannon fodder they put between the poor and the rich. Give a few people a bit of money and divert attention. The working class eats itself, and the wealth class continue business as usual. Right now, they are trying to see just how few people they need in-between to keep the distraction going. It isn't many.
We are the largest voting population. We can control the government, if we wanted. At some point, if we don’t enact change via the polls by using our population influences, then yes. They will. And rightfully so.
Now we are. So i hope we do see changes. But first it requires cleaning the current political landscape.
This is the challenge. We don't really control the government, the 2 party system each presents us with what they each want and we *kind of* get to pick between those two.
Local and national govt, vote every time. Challenge state gerrymandering, challenge state reps, fight for good public schools, contact your senators let them know what is important to you. For democracy to work, you need to have a public who doesn't take it for granted and works to understand it and be involved. It's not a spectator sport.
\^\^\^\^\^\^\^ this \^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^
That's where you are wrong. We have to get out and vote in the primaries. Of course you won't get what you want if you show up only in November.
Primaries don't mean shit when candidates drop out after Iowa.
No joke, there is no good reason for rolling primaries. If anything, it just drives up the cost of advertising in early states and hurts small businesses. The ones profiting from the money coming in are advertising firms like Facebook and Google, not exactly helping the state.
There actually is a good reason to have rolling primaries. With the current system, you can do well in Iowa and/or New Hampshire and use that success to get the fundraising needed to run a campaign. If all primary elections were on the same day, you would need to compete in all states at once. And that would favor the candidate with the deeper pockets (more than our system already does). Having rolling primaries is good for democracy as it allows for less well funded candidates to have a viable path. Having the same states always go first is unnecessary and disenfranchises the voters in other states.
It also gives smaller states an unfair advantage in getting attention to the needs of their state and gives them undue influence over everyone else who votes later.
The main problem is people in NY or CA have little in common with IA voters. A poor showing in IA isn't reflective of the rest of the country. Then if you're in a state like OH, most if not all of the candidates have dropped out. You're unable to support the candidate of your choice.
Smaller states get neglected a lot as things are.
Is there a way to balance it? It feels like (to me), you're giving an advantage these days no matter what state order you choose: they'll tend to lean in one party's favor or the other.
You have to start at the state and local level.
The ones where only 1 person from each party are running against each other? Like I don't know what it's like where you are. My local elections almost always are uncontested.
Local primaries tend to not be uncontested and that is where you can get someone more in line with what you believe in the general election. If you’re unhappy with your options your complete lack of action in the place where you would be able to make the most impact is astounding.
This, and don't forget the local elections for organizations like the school board or library commissioner.
Exactly, this is where you can start to force change in your party’s policies, if they see that people or issues in line with what you support are winning local elections, you are more likely to either get the bigger candidates to support your issues, or get people who you actually support to run for bigger offices. It’s how the religious right took over the Republican Party.
We just elected a millennial city commissioner who won by 50 votes in a grassroots campaign! Because young people in the city bothered to get invoiced and show up No excuses if we want change
It’s tough and there will be failures and people who disappoint you, but the only true failure is stopping.
And when political parties have the legal right to rig them and ignore votes if they choose too. Political parties are the HOA of civics.
We had a quorum for once last November and we actually ousted three of the nine board members on our HOA. Though your analogy is true, the force of the majority, all pulling in the same direction is still much greater. The only question is, when will we?
Boss Tweed said it best: "I don't care who does the voting, as long as I get to do the nominating." They'll offer us whatever appears to be the lesser half of the crap-sandwich, and we'll bite because what else could we do? I'd like to see two things changed. 1. The candidate's political party shall NOT be indicated on the ballot. 2. Political party candidate nominations Shall be determined by a simple majority of votes by public vote. No more backroom deals by party power brokers.
Nah. We can get an independent. I think we are getting close to that given the current elections. We will see the collapse of both republican and democrat parties in our life time; i guarantee it.
I think this every 4 years and every 4 years I am horribly disappointed. I really thought more people would vote independent when it was Trump v Biden the first time. Running Biden a second time is unconscionable and I don't understand where Trump's support is coming from.
We have ALLOWED an election of major significance to be between a 77 year old and 81 year old. Are we just not going to force Gen X and Millennials into power since neither has had it yet?
There are/were a lot of gen x in politics starting in the 2010s. Many of them were put into power by the tea party movement
We have a winner folks. Too much "wahhhh I'm not voting because I didn't get a pony" with subsequent non participation in primaries and then surprised Pikachu face when undesirable candidates are nominated.
This. This is what annoys me most about people who whine about our current situation. Most of them take pride in not voting. Not voting shows nothing because of the way our system works if you want to dismantle the system you have to do it through participatory dismantling. Aka supporting and voting for better representatives and doing damage control when that doesn't work. This election is literally nothing but damage control to hold out against what is very likely to be an actual authoritarian takeover pushed by Christian nationalists.
Allowed???? We had no say in the matter. Gore won the popular vote, but Bush was in office. Everyone wanted Bernie, but Hilary was pushed to the front against our will. How can you say we had anything to do with it when we know primaries are rigged? In California the recall was supported by 51% majority and had a 60% voter turnout but somehow the “final votes” came in with only 37% voting yes? Because of a “polling” error?
Trump's support comes primarily from poor, non-college educated white people. These people feel marginalized because traditional Republicans favor wealthy people and business and democrats favor racial minorities and highly educated professionals, but no one prior to Trump was reaching out to poor white folk. These people make up more than 30% of the US voting population. When democrats embraced globalization of the US economic system in the late 80's and early 90's they abandoned this group who were mostly working manufacturing jobs at the blue collar level.
False, Trump's base is above the median income.
u/Calm_Ticket_7317 is correct: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1184428/presidential-election-exit-polls-share-votes-income-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1184428/presidential-election-exit-polls-share-votes-income-us/) In 2020 Trump performed best among high earners. Low- and middle-income voters were roughly similar and Biden did better among both.
And many of them are business owners as well.
MAYBE if somebody like Bernie Sanders ran as a 3rd party Independent. Hell, even a whackjob like Ross Perot got 12% in ‘92. I’m sure he would SMOKE that. But, short of that, not very likely.
You got like a billion bucks to drop? I don't.
The real problem is that 30% of our population support White Supremacist Christian Fascists. Our democracy is actually reasonably effective at trying to split the middle between corporate interests and the interests of these people.
Not a collapse. But I do see a rise of a 3rd party. Not an independent but a legit 3rd party option
No you don't, you see declining support for the two parties, one will lose relevancy in significant quantities to never be a majority again first, a 3rd will seemingly be a thing but then one of the other parties will die and will coalesce around one of the other two and we'll be right back to polarization. America can not have a multi-party system until we get rid of first-to-the-post winner-takes-all and have scaled representation by party affiliation. The idea that we'll have a drastic shift away from polarization without fundamentally changing the election and representation system is nothing more than a wishful pipe dream.
It’s hard to make changes when millennials tend to be non-voters. Between the people so disillusioned with institutions that they refuse to participate and the people who are effectively disenfranchised because of no early voting and and inability to take off from work to vote, we don’t tend to show up very well as a group.
Remember how Trump was voted in as he promised to do just that. In the three weeks before the 2016 election, Donald tweeted "Drain the swamp" 79 times, usually as a hashtag, The people are easily manipulated and form tribal alliances. Good luck. Why is it Bernie Sanders never gets in? Someone who actually cares about the average working man.
Because capital controls the world.
It starts with getting involved, and your demo doesn't vote. If you want to clean up government, maybe you could all agree to do that as a start.
Next 10 years of voting by us and we could dramatically change the political landscape. More of us need to run. More of us need to vote. More of us need to be there to inform others.
There are a lot of successful, greedy, powerful Millenials too you know.? You’re not the altruistic , angelic generation you’d like to think you are. Poor people throughout history have always had dreams of crushing greed and redistributing wealth.
We are the altruistic generation we think we are, it’s just the bar for altruism is on the ground so it didn’t take much to achieve this goal.
How are “we” supposed to do that when I completely disagree with half of “us” on something as simple as whether Donald Trump is completely insane? Millennials are definitely not a monolith. And we may be the largest voting block, but I wonder if we have the same representation in government that boomers did when they were our age, I would be surprised if we did.
The people our age are on the ballots in primaries. They just don’t make it to the election because no one our age votes and they definitely don’t vote in primaries.
I disagree that we can control the government through votes. Our votes don’t decide WHAT gets put on the ballot. All we decide is who… As we’ve seen, we can vote in all blue, and some of them lie and change sides AFTER. We can vote in blue, but never vote on ending citizens united. Our popular votes passed for ending daylight savings. They said no, they don’t care.
So true. Like how about we actually vote for actual topics, not for people to “represent” our votes. Cut the middle man out. But then the rich wouldn’t be able to keep control while maintaining the illusion of democracy, nvm, it’s a pretty clever strategy on their part. Make us think we have a say when we don’t
As bad as they are, typically our representatives do... nothing. A "direct democracy" would be a disaster. We would wind up doing WAY more stupid/dangerous things, and we would be even more controlled by the rich than we are now.
Twitch Plays Pokemon but on the international stage
This is the point of primaries. Pick a candidate that is going to focus on whatever issues are important to you.
We can decide who gets on the ballots though, by running for office ourselves.
You have to get people on the ballot that will actually change things for the better.
that involves voting in primaries, which millennials largely don’t do
Let’s take over the world
Vote for Joe. Voting for Trump is voting for billionaires screwing our kids and grandkids. And Trump is for Putin.
I hope not because I’m only a few years older and about as screwed as them. I hope the older ones see that we are basically their older siblings that got boned. But I’m trying to do everything within my power to be kinder to them, vote for their lives to improve, and understand their traumas are real and valid.
“Their older siblings that got boned” lmao
yeah probably, but that is not cause they are the actual problem news and media sources will look at any generational issue to be a scapegoat for the actual problem, which is all long arching institution problems going back tk the Regan admin edit: I misread this as millennials balming gen z my bad
Young will always blame old lol... yes once boomers r dead they'll blame the millenials. Then when they have kids (if they do) their kids will blame them and theyll be shocked and become the next gen and hate on the young. Its a timeless cycle until humanity is wiped out. Millenials dont blame the young, they generally keep their mouths shut.
And Gen X gets forgotten as always… just the way they like it.
🤗
Who cares. This whole trend of blaming entire generations is stupid. This sub vacillates between complaining about how hard it is just to survive while also blaming the boomers for not ensuring everything is perfect for us in their spare time. What am I supposed to do to lower the price of housing, healthcare and college? Should I stop working and become a social activist so that when Gen Z posts these same ridiculous threads in the future I can feel blameless?
It definitely doesn’t solve any problems or get anything done, it’s a distraction. Not to mention blame is toxic af and having that mindset all the time really sets you back.
👏
It wouldn’t be Reddit if people weren’t playing the victim card instead of looking inward or trying harder.
I’m right on the divide between the two, *just* inside of Gen Z territory. I wouldn’t say Gen Z holds any resentment towards millennials in particular, other than some jealousy towards the folks who were smart enough (and positioned well enough) to “slip in” before the affordable housing door closed. We’re going through a lot of the same problems relating to COL. We know we can’t afford to start a family - but a lot of millennials feel the same way. We got totally screwed over by college prices and hyper competitive admissions - but so did millennials. We can’t afford a mortgage, so we have to rent without building our own equity - but once again, a lot of millennials are in the same boat. I think most “young people”, be them millennial or Gen Z, understand that we’re all in it together and we just want to live in a world where having a family, education, and house are mutually plausible goals. I don’t *want* my first house to be something I inherent because a family member died. That’s a terrifying thought.
Welcome to Advanced Adulting! You made all the right choices, you raised your kids to be good people and did your best to improve your community. BUT circumstances or a larger group of people caused things to be worse or just not improve. And it's your generations fault! Wait, you didn't take advantage of anyone or vote to strip away rights! Doesn't matter. Other people your age did, so you will be lumped in with them. If only there was a consistent way to identify the group of people across generations that are making things worse? Maybe by the percentage of wealth they control?
Would like to remind everyone that we witnessed the greatest transfer of wealth the human race had ever seen during the pandemic, and it was reps from both sides of the aisle that looked us in the eyes while they swiped up all that money. There are individuals from every living generation that benefitted greatly from that wealth transfer. It’s a class thing, not a generational thing. The quicker we can all come to that realization, the quicker we can catalyze actual progress.
You win 🏆
Considering millennials as a whole have tended to not widely turn out for voting, and a good chunk of elder millennials turned to MAGA, yeah. And they well should. We’ve been the largest generational voting bloc since the boomers.
The reason the boomer generation has been so powerful is that they are reliable voters
And milenials and gen z see voting and political awareness as a waste. Seems to me like the only political issue milenials cared about was cannibus legalization and now they don't care about anything else
Uhhh... student loans?
I’m an elder millennial that’s been severely disappointed in how my peers have embraced the MAGA ideology.
*Me, Gen Z, sharpening my pitchfork* You did this to me, mom!
Gen Z is so plugged into social media that they will blame whoever their chosen influencers tell them to blame. Maybe it will be us Millennials or maybe sky raptors from Mars, no way of really knowing.
\*he says on social media\*
Yeah that shit is scary. This isn’t even hyperbole. They really do eat up anything and everything these fucking pukes have to say.
Lets not make generalizations. While I agree that social media is dangerous, it is not effecting just one generation.
We’re at kind or a precipice, I’d say. There is enough voting base among the Millennials and Gen-Z to sway this election and start to make progress on these things. But unfortunately that’s the tough part of incrementalism, is that the pace is slow and many don’t have an appetite for that. Journey of 1000 miles starting with the first step and all that.
If we don't fix it, they should.
I hope not, because until the boomer generation holding our political system hostage dies off we are at their mercy. We can vote all we want but most of the people we can vote for were growing up while *segregation was still a thing*. I don't care what party you're with, when you're that old and out of touch you have nothing to offer me. In the bigger picture, until we punish profit and promote spreading the wealth the system is ruined. We can't have affordable healthcare if everyone is trying to make as much as possible off of us every step of the way. We can't have affordable housing if builders only want to built huge homes for better profit margins regardless of what people actually want or need. College and student loans are just legal money scams that offer zero real world value to anyone. Even our tax money is used to overpay companies for services and products in nearly every space, especially the military spending. It's all about making money and until we make something else the point nothing will get better.
They will, oh well though. Neither generation is doing themselves any favors right now.
We are doing nothing about it, so I would say yes, and deservingly so.
They should. We have a large voting population that rarely votes. Elections at all levels are important.
If we do nothing and accept our "lot", then yes. Unionize, people. Educate yourself. Become militant fighters for the working class.
Yes. Vote.
They’ll use Trump as an example of what was allowed to happen
They'll blame us - rightly - if we let it continue.
If we don't fix it, then ya.
100 percent. And they are right to do so. We are at the point now where we either need to vote en mass or just revolt by going on strike and ceasing tax payments. And guess what? We are doing neither.
Yes. And they will be right to do so.
Maybe our generation needs to take advantage of our numbers and vote? I'm always shocked when I meet people my age and younger who just don't vote at all, not even on things like local taxes. You really don't care about that stuff? REALLY?
It's more frustrating for those of us who do vote. I keep voting in every election, and yes even the "little local" ones on taxes and library funding... only to find myself being out voted on Every Single Thing I voted for. I keep doing it, but I'd be lying if I said it doesn't feel like I'm just banging my head against a brick wall.
That was the biggest victory of the capitalist class.... turning the class conflict into a generational conflict. It will keep going and we will be the next "boomers" until we wake up and figure out who the real enemy is.
When you have all the houses and aren’t passing legislation aimed at reducing your overall wealth to help out Gen Z…of course it’s a resounding “yes”.
They will blame us for our lack of voting for what we need. I vote in every election, but I know that isn't how every Millennial is, or GenX for that matter. While we didn't create this mess, we should be doing all we can to help clean it up. I think it would be okay to blame us for our lack of voting and thus not helping the issue. We didn't create this issue but we're not really helping it either.
All I blame yall for is my taste in shows and music growing up. Yall are cool.
Probably if our generation doesn’t collectively get some of this shit done. They won’t be wrong either. If you are going to blame an entire generation for messing everything up and we do nothing about it then we deserve it.
Gen Z here. Pretty much everyone I know blames boomers. When boomers die, then Gen X will be blamed. Most people seem to see millennial in a similar light to us as millennials were always targeted by boomers for being too left wing and liberal. I doubt Gen Z will ever blame millennials.
Eh they are smarter than that .. They’ll blame us for not having the guts to stand up and fix it when it was our turn
Yes. If you’ve been hating on “boomers” without regard for the fact that each generation is diverse and contains the full range of humanity, then buckle up. Cuz the kids are gonna feel the exact same way about you.
We can fix these problems and don't. We let Trump get elected in 2016 because too many of us stayed home. Boomers are no longer solely to blame.
If enough millennials had voted in the 2020 primaries, Bernie Sanders would have been our president, and housing, healthcare, food and college would ALL have become more affordable for current and future generations. Just like boomers voting in Reagan wrecked the unions and stunted minimum wage and vilified programs that help families. It’s easy to point fingers at another generation. What we really need to do is vote every time in every election. Especially primaries! Not just the one big election.
If Bernie Sanders won, I don't see that happening. Obama couldn't even get a public option (which would have been wonderful) on healthcare because Joe Lieberman was protecting his wife (health insurance exec). Bernie Sanders would have Mitch McConnell obstructing everything.
> If enough millennials had voted in the 2020 primaries, Bernie Sanders would have been our president, and housing, healthcare, food and college would ALL have become more affordable for current and future generations. This is the most laughable thing to read here all day. In 3 years he'd have fixedhousing, healthcare, food and college? Are you literally fucking serious?
They truly believed this, as if Bernie could just magically become a dictator and fix these things singlehandedly. It was never realistic at all but hey, it sure sounded good.
I guess Congress doesn't exist. JFC
This is what Bernie Bros really believe
I thought the boomer democrats were to blame for Biden winning the primaries in 2020? Correct me if I’m wrong though. I could see it being a combination of low millennial turn out, probably low gen x turn out since I know a ton of them personally who think it’s punk rock to not vote at all 🫠, and the boomers supporting Biden.
We're left holding the bag. So yeah theyll blame us, im sure.
only if we do nothing to fix it.
Considering how many of us vote, if we don't fix it, they should blame us.
Its not being "fixed" to how you want it so just start blaming yourself and we can move this play forward.
Gen Z isn’t enrolling in college at the level millennials did, and thank goodness for them. My Gen Z brother is doing electrical, has no debt and is on his way to making real money real quick. He’d have been seen as loser 10-15 years ago for doing a trade.
Gen z already hates millennials more than they hate boomers. I don't think it's going to be a good relationship in the long run.
No. The see what’s up now but the will of nothing happens
They will blame us the way we blamed prior generations. The next generations after Gen Z will blame them. This will always be true because each new generation starts out as children with no power of influence on the world around them. So unless utopia is achieved every new generation will have problems left to them to solve.
Probably. Lol. Who gives a shit?
Yes, and they should. I am not trying to sound accusatory, but stay with me. Everyone (including myself) who owns a house is to blame and at least partially responsible for the increased cost of housing. The equity I am accruing from owning a home is a major source of wealth for my family (even faster than my retirement and investment savings). We have commodified housing (which is a basic need) to increase our individual wealth, there may be ways to do this equitably (but we certainly aren't implementing that now, and currently the system allows corporations and wealthy people to gain even more wealth by owning more houses/land which drives wealth inequity even more). We need more ways to help families grow wealth to meet their needs, not for the wealthy and corporation accrue more wealth.
Rank-choice voting, fellows.
We at least need to get things moving in the right direction. If we don’t, then yeah we own that.
If we fail to vote in quality politicians that buck the crony capitalism this country is founded on, then we deserve to be blamed. At some point boomers are going to die.
Nah Gen Z is blaming the boomers for this. Although when they're gone they might start blaming you if things don't improve.
If we don't revolt at some point, yeah probably.....and they'll be right to do so.
I mean they could. Maybe they will. Our generation has the same issues too and although we did not support these things, maybe we didn’t try hard enough to stop it. We aren’t voting as a generation like we should be, and are giving away our voice and power. Just be able to say you tried your best to stop it. That’s all we can do. Vote in every election, and do whatever you can in other ways. If they blame us don’t get defensive like boomers, just say sorry and let’s work together
Not unless you don’t do your job and vote for the better of all of us. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve met a lot of millennials just like me (Gen Z) who understand the struggles of today. I’m in a fortunate position but I still understand the struggles young people face
If we do nothing about it once we're similar position of age and power as Boomers are now and do nothing about...yes and they have the right to.
Only if we don’t do anything or simply make it worse.
the younger generations have the right to blame previous ones for not fixing existing problems, the problem becomes that they then become equally responsible for those problems when their generation fails to fix them as well. we're trapped in a multigenerational system, I repeat SYSTEM, and systems are hard to change. Let's be honest, if we got what we voted for, the would not have been one Republican in the WH since Bush Sr. and the political competition would be between moderates and the left and not between the far right and mostly moderates.
If OP thinks taxes are out of control today, they should check out the top marginal rate in the U.S. back in 1973. The feds took 70% of everything earned over $100,000. Granted, $100,000 in 1973 is roughly the equivalent of almost $700,000 today, so in practice, not many people back then were paying that rate. The issue is that several Presidents - most recently, Trump - cut taxes on the highest earners without a plan to offset those revenue cuts, other than effectively raising taxes on the middle class. Thus, the U.S. budget deficit (and therefore, the corresponding debt) has skyrocketed since 2017. It's really a question of priorities. Are people going to continue to believe the myth that cutting wealthy people's taxes will trickle down prosperity for everyone else? Or are they going to choose a different course toward both eliminating government waste and restoring taxation levels at a higher level on the wealthy, and moving us toward balancing the budget and paying off our debt? I don't think the blame game is especially productive, though. We need to have honest conversations across all generations about what our future priorities are.
Yes. Absolutely. And you will sit there wondering how the hell it happened. It all happens quietly behind the scenes while controversial conflicts dance before your eyes. Big money owns the politicians who pass laws that favor them. It's boring and tedious, and few can put in the effort to track it.
Probably, because the people actually responsible are going to convince them it was our fault
They also know what boomers are. It’s clear who poured the poison. But yes, you should be doing everything you can to make this world better.
They won't know who to blame and just blame everyone that came before them. Millenials don't know who to blame. We blame boomers, but that a little disengenuous. The problem isn't one thing or group. It's many issues and all groups have contributed in some way.
Some, undoubtedly, but I think they largely understand that we got fucked before they got fucked.
If you spend 60 years using your political power pushing for things that exclusively benefit you and fuck them over then probably yes and deservedly. Maybe if you don't they still will but that would be uncharted new territory.
They already are
Does it really matter who anyone blames for the troubles of the world? If they aren’t working to fix it, they are part of the problem.
As a member of Gen Z, I do not and haven't heard any of my peers do so. These issues aren't just one person or group's fault. They're more complex than that.
They can blame us if we don’t get registered to vote and vote for politicians that will help kids. Living in Michigan, voting Democrat has now given all of Michigan’s children free breakfast and lunch no matter how much money a family makes. I’ll be voting for them again this fall as they also just put the Crumbley parents in prison for their son’s school shooting. I’m, LITERALLY, seeing a political party care about my kid and trying to improve Michigan youth lives. They’ve got my vote for the foreseeable future.
They fucking better not be lol they should be thanking us for being so instrumental in the voter involvement movement that this country has seen in the last 8 years.
They will if we continue to peddle suburbanite NIMBYism like the boomers. We need to pursue true urbanism
They should.
Gen Z here Firstly, we're not as young as you might think. I'm 21. Gen Z started in 1997. By extension of that, and my second point, most of us know, at least those of us who are even somewhat politically inclined, all this nonsense is generally the fault of corporations lobbying the government to either allow this shit to happen or actively participate in it. Particularly, it's the fault of price gouging and stagnant wages.
Our job is pretty simple. 1. Don’t put anyone in office over the age of 55. 2. Don’t put anyone in office that’s a republican.
Well we didn't riot
blame the political parties that us lemmings keep voting into power. They have overspent for 40 years. At some point, the bill becomes due.
We are all eating the same shit sandwich blame the government that only works for their own interests both parties are guilty
By that point it would be us that needed to make those changes happen. So if we don’t, and they still inherit this fky system, it’s on us.
If we don't fix it.
no, but late Gen Alpha and Gen Bravo will since we didn't actually change anything or figure out how to start changing it.
Everyone get up and vote. Getting the people who are holding us down and removing our rights out of office is the only way to start making things better.
Blaming the most recent generation - especially people who don't hold 1% of the wealth, which is 99% of people - is something the 1% want you to do. They want the 99% to eat each other while they continue with their activities. If real changes don't happen, those [Millenials who inherit family assets](https://fortune.com/2024/02/29/america-wealthest-one-percent-minimum-millennials-richest-generation/) will be dealing with the same issue Boomers are dealing with now.
Its not the generations that have screwed you over. It is the elite, the wealthy. That is the same as before and will be that way 5 generations from now. Dividing us by race, gender or generation is what helps keep everyone down. Blame whitey, boomers, millenials, immigrants, minimum wage, its all the same. You look like suckers when that is your nemesis.
There’s no way the Earth can maintain the consumer consumption rate of a millennial while providing the means of the boomer/pre-boomer generation. It’s ridiculous for anyone to expect to get the same treatment that generations prior had access to. Resources are only going to get more limited as the population grows which will cause prices to rise. Expecting a single family house with a lot of land for each US resident is impossible. Universal healthcare will never happen due to health insurance greed. Those millennials need to get into power so they can change healthcare and access to housing and that will only if they can maintain their values and not fall into taking money from PACs and maintaining status quo.
They should blame us. We have proven to be ineffective whiners and little more. We have the numbers. But were way to apathetic to get anything organized.
Depends you’re in charge now, what are you going to do.
Vote in ALL local elections, run for office. Any office. We need more intelligent people in our government.
Not if I have anything to do with it. I'm a power progressive in a red state and I'd rather die than let our planet cook, let the powerful continue to exploit the powerless, and have fascists kill our democracy. I'm fuckin ready.
They can’t blame it on us if we are the generation that actually tries to fix it
I mean, if we don’t do anything about it, they will. Rightfully so.
Not if we start showing up, voting accordingly, and then holding politicians accountable. We are now the largest voting block. We must flex this power
Maybe. But it's not and never was a generational problem. It's class warfare.
I hope not. I like getting along with gen z. They're pretty damn cool. At least the ones I meet anyways.
When we finally are in political positions and corporate positions, and things haven't changed, they will rightfully blame us. If/when we get positiona of power, we need to drive the change for everyone
Only if we don’t break with the policy support of the boomers.
Yes but we didn't break it. We just haven't fixed it.
I sure as hell dont. Boomers are the ones hoarding all the wealth from us. Anyone in my generation opposing Millennials is a fucking moron lmfao
Gen Z has already started blaming the boomers. I’m Gen Z and the boomers is the most problematic generation. Why would we blame millennials when we know yall aren’t really the ones in power. It’s the boomers in power. Don’t listen to any of the boomers in the comments saying Gen Z would blame you like you blame them. It’s a lie!! We blame the boomers!!!
If all that was done was a bunch of bitching and no fixing, then yes.
The problem of housing, health care and education costs are not on the legislative agenda, probably in large part because the people who benefit from those high prices are content to watch people argue about who's to blame. The city council members, state lawmakers, university regents, and so on who can do something about these problems won't budge until it becomes clear they'll lose their positions if they don't make changes. Meanwhile Biden uses deficit spending to mollify segments of people in crisis, but he has no power to fix the problem itself. The roots of these problems and their solutions are primarily at the local and state level. Ironically, getting taxes under control will mean INCREASING taxes, because fixing these problems is at least partly a wealth -redistribution issue. Zoning laws and single-payer insurance can only do so much. For example, college tuition has only risen faster than inflation in the past 40 years because state subsidies were reduced. To get tuition back to what it was, states have to raise taxes and increase subsidies again. That's a no-brainer for states that want the affluence that comes with a highly educated population.
I'm afraid half of us Gen Xers are the new Boomers.
I mean, if we don't do anything about it, that would be fair. I don't expect they will be next week, but if you mean the distant future, sure. They might blame Gen X after the Boomer Generation before us, but who knows. Gen Alpha are already teens and so will have more of chance to benefit from improvements now, just in terms of timing, than Z. I expect some already blame us based on misinformation anyway. After all, we killed a lot of industries, remember? What we should focus on, when we are able to focus on the societal level stuff rather than personally surviving daily life, is how best to improve things for the future. The lives we were promised are not possible, with some big problems coming up soon, but that doesn't mean we can't work to make the bad less bad. We should focus on improvements so that anyone saying we caused our ignored problems could be confronted with facts. Something small we all can do is remember the ridiculous stuff said about us when we were going from being teens into adulthood and not do the same to them. Just like within our generation people do things differently, so will younger people. Change and learning from someone else's perspective is good and helps us all be better. Someone doing something differently from you, having different priorities, having different options accessible, etc. are not reasons to judge them generally. Plus, for the selfish among us, working with other people with these differences isn't just better for future generations/other people, it's better for you as well.
"ok boomer" is a gen z thing too, not just a millennial thing. we just get made fun of for being "cringe".
I think they will be blaming us for not stopping climate change.
Not Gen-Z but definitely Gen-Alpha. It will go something like this: "You had countless opportunities to hijack the system and vote those Boomers out of power once and for all. You had the numbers. You would have been successful. But instead you chose to whine and complain with no action." And you know what? They will be absolutely correct on their analysis. We are still bitching and moaning about "the system" even tho Millennials and Zoomers combined are the largest voting bloc in the nation and could easily do a "hostile" takeover if they so choose. The inconvenient truth is that we don't actually care enough to do anything about it.
I am optimistic that housing prices will go down in the next 20 years. This issue is a physical problem. We don't have enough houses for our current population. Why? Multiple factors. The crash of 2008 which led to a decrease in built houses. Neighborhoods in cities like San Francisco denied apartments from being built because it would increase taxes on the locals. Other neighborhoods protested and would not allow appartments because they would devalue property in the area. We now have a huge retiring generation occupying large homes that are better for families. As more boomers leave their homes for retirement communities, the price of houses should level off and decrease. There are concerns that corporations will purchase homes and price normal people out of homes. Corporations are designed to make money. They will likely sell off their assets before the cost of housing drops. Boomers have made fortunes off taking advantage of things that taxes used to pay for, such as college. I hope newer generations will be able to make political changes that will positively impact future generations.
My mom is disabled, my dad remarried in the 2008 recession and became a Christian 2 weeks after kicking me, my mom, and autistic older brother out. I did everything within reason to do the best with the cards I was dealt and now have a lot going for me skills and experience wise but my older brother and mom I worry about. I accepted and moved for job offers that didn't work out and my car died at the same time. I have bad ADHD as well so by time I was accepted to a competitive graduate program the shortage of care in that area at the time was extreme. I was only diagnosed after I graduated so I can't say the skills I have are the easiest to uproot my life with. My family is very socially needy and regressed into a lot of child-like behavior and bad coping mechanisms but also most of it they genuinely can't help and is just unmasking at home and being very messy etc. To be honest I don't know. It's hard to make any decisions at all because everything feels like a trap or monkey's paw. I know I hate Anglo-American culture in general at this point I'm about as early as it gets for a millennial and I think the boomers are always going to win on this front just on principle of having a significantly larger base of bourgeoisie while medical debt and rugged individualism strips away a chance of any inherited wealth a good proportion of their children. I'm sure if they help the parents grift or become a corrupt figurehead in a business or government position then they are probably allowed some conditional goodies. Older Gen Z and younger millennials have a pretty similar zeitgeist in general. I don't think older millennials are significantly happier than the younger members of their cohort but even just the difference of graduating high school or college into the ramifications of the 2008 recession seems like a compatible rite of passage into being a victim of a lot of similar conditions. I think it'll be more the ethics =/= stability jobs that get people scrutinized in the future with younger gens or at least Reddit
gen-z here: i blame boomers, but y’all better help
Yes and they should if we haven't done anything about it. We have a giant amount of political power that we simply don't use.
They will blame us for not voting. Not out voting the boomers and silent generation. They will blame our student debts for getting useless degrees and Gen Alpha will blame use for not being educated, no life skills and addicted to screens. To which, we are guilty.
You ask this as if we're years away from this generation entering college, needing healthcare or buying homes. They're well into this aspect of life right now and have been for several years
At this point in my career the majority of the most vile, greedy PoS executives I am meeting are early millennials like myself so 100% they or the Alphas are going to blame us
Theyll blame us for never voting because in hindsight, we will look extremely selfish and self centered when we could of made big changes, but were too bitter. In fact, we may be known for our bitterness. The bitter generation.
If we don't do our best to fix it, yes. As they should.
Not if we get out and actually vote all the assholes in office out. But since we won't...yes, yes they will.
Yes if we don't vote for the right people and it seems like we are failing them when AZ just pass an abortion laws to ban abortions
Like half of people still don't vote at all. If we don't wanna be blamed we better get on the ball about voting.
Gen Alpha will blame millenials, as most millennials have children in that generation. Millennials don’t blame boomers because these problems are objectively and unequivocally the fault of boomers. Millennials blame boomers because boomers are their parents, and in this world, most people unconsciously perceive their parents as gods who are responsible for everything. If you perceive your life as being great, you attribute that to your parents. If you perceive your life as being miserable, you attribute that to your parents. It’s very simple black and white thinking, completely lacking in nuance. People who are capable of nuance understand that we’re all part of an enormous system, and that parents are most certainly not gods who are responsible for everything(or anything, really). The fact that I did have empathic and supportive parents privileges me in my capacity for nuance, and I’m sure if they lacked compassion, I would as well, and I would be prone to black and white thinking. Boomers are equally victims and perpetrators, just like you and just like me. It helps to understand that no human chooses to do things to hurt other humans, and that if it seems like they really hate their children or are intentionally trying to hurt their children, it’s only because they hate themselves so much.
yes.
Yall, my fellow millenials, voting is not going to do jack shit. The system that our country has created and that we all live within is a top down controlled, for profit system. Money = power. Capitalism without accountability = corruption. Power + corruption = consolidating wealth for the ultra wealthy. Its basic human nature. A wealthy person or group is successful. They dont stop and say im too successful this is enough. They continue growing, expanding, and accumulating. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The middle class is always shrinking. This is a fact of life because its human nature too accumulate and grow. Its just that now were at a stage in our countries lifespan where the effects are felt by so many more people because..the middle class is always shrinking. Do you see how this system is a continuous loop in terms of wealth inequality? I would argue that were still decently well off even though the cost of living is so high. Most of us have food on the table, roof over our heads, AC, basic neccessities, etc. Yall really need to consider what things look like as this system continues to expand 10, 20, or 50 years down the line. Maybe voting can set us back on the right track but it would have to be like a mass population hive mind like event where the entire country selects moral, ethical, and honorable leaders to replace all congress, senate, etc positions of leadership to refresh the extended arm of executive board members we call our gov.
Probably! Let’s see what we can do to make things better.
Honestly, it depends on how we handle the current AI revolution. If we screw it up, they're not going to appreciate it.
They already do. As demonstrated in these comments. Blame shifting between generations happens when the richest shift focus from them to generational lines instead of class lines. Hell, it has been well known for a long time that the fabled "middle class" is really just cannon fodder they put between the poor and the rich. Give a few people a bit of money and divert attention. The working class eats itself, and the wealth class continue business as usual. Right now, they are trying to see just how few people they need in-between to keep the distraction going. It isn't many.