Grownups

I saw a pithy GenX explanation yesterday, basically "You tried to shove a Nanny State down the throats of a generation that didn't have a nanny, that was barely supervised by parents." Apparently a whole swath of the population has some pretty solid libertarian leanings, which is a great relief to me after watching all the infantile tantrums by the "leave me alone but support me from a distance you rich jerks" crowd.

The meltdown brigade would do better to worry about the newest outbreak of pogroms, this time in Amsterdam. Israel, in any case, is alert and on the job. Not much infantalization happening in Israel these days.

4 comments:

Christopher B said...

Tangentially related to your first topic, it's good to remember that over time the 'old' are different people. The CW in the 1980s-1990s was that people became conservative, i.e. Republican, voters as they aged. According to some of the vote distributions I've seen, people 65+ voted more Democrat this time around which makes sense because most of the Democrat friendly Boom Generation is now over 65. Gen X, growing up during the Reagan-GHWB years is more Republican friendly. Millennials are likely more Democrat friendly because their transition to adulthood was during the Clinton administration and into the anti-GOP W years. Zoomers seem to have broken more for Trump though they are still a relatively small portion of the 18-29 age group.

Texan99 said...

I turned 68 yesterday; Greg will be 70 in a few weeks. We weren't raised to include ourselves in the Baby Boom, though convention places us there now. We seem to fit better in GenX.

Grim said...

I would note that this mirrors Aristotle's dicta on the importance of education fitting the kind of society you want to have. Gen X was famously the latchkey kid generation; we were turned loose and unsupervised at a young age. It's a mode that works well for raising people who understand how to be free, self-governing and self-governed.

That it dovetailed with Reagan and the Dukes of Hazzard added additional notes that proved to be good ones.

Grim said...

Apparently this is a common train of thought today.

https://pjmedia.com/megan-fox/2024/11/07/genx-delivered-for-trump-and-theyre-not-afraid-to-tell-you-why-n4934064