'Millennials are not punk kids anymore' — Ocasio-Cortez sees a 'generational tidal wave' driven by anger over economic futures sidelined by boomers | Fortune
9 days ago by Sunflier to c/politics
Baby boomers comprised a larger share of voters in 2024, accounting for 32%, but they are trending lower after hitting a peak of 36% in 2016.
Ocasio-Cortez, a millennial herself, expects the younger generation will soon tip the scales in American politics.
“Millennials are not punk kids anymore. We’re grown adults with mortgages and kids,” she said. “And we—that generation is starting to be decisive at the polls. And there is anger at being ignored, sidelined, having our economic futures mortgaged by the generations that came before us on everything from the economy to climate. And we’re taking the reins.”
From global warming to debt crisis to lack of affordable health insurance (all intentional), Boomers have definitely overstayed their welcome.
Yea I feel this lol. I've never put dye in my hair but fuck am I considering it lol. Fuck the system and YES I am 32 who CARES we're all BURNING
Is that the message being communicated by the colored hair I've been seeing lately? If so, that's awesome. It flew right over my head.
Doesn't seem that way. They just seem to like that hair color without punk tenets.
I just did, same age as you. I'd never changed my hair color, but the clean look and tradwife fashion and whatever need some stronger counterculture (I was already dressed in black all the time).
It's surprisingly easy! You need to be careful with the materials, but other than that, it is doable at home. My hair is dark pink-orangey now. I'm loving it.
Currently trads are the counter culture.
"Counter Culture" people have been the norm since the late 70s. But people LOVE thinking of themselves as the underdog.
Until I can be fired for being trad, you're wrong.
I've heard that and, more importantly, I believe that's the feeling behind many young people now leaning conservative.
I guess it depends on how we define "counterculture". Is it only to be defiant of something currently in existence? Does this defiance need to be against a majority (and how big may be another question)? Or, as the other user implied, counterculture means to go against not the trends but against the ideas and norms of people and institutions not only in power but also with powers?
I'll try to explain myself. If it is going "against", I guess it all can become counterculture depending on the angle. Tradwives are countercultural from a goth perspective (I guess that's mine); goth is countercultural from the tradwife's perspective. But that's not very useful and I'm sure it would be if no use to have this word meaning simply this.
So... Maybe it means to go against something bigger. But what is big? The number of people? The power? (E.g. Elon Musk is only one guy, but he has a lot of influence and therefore power). The acceptable moralities? The traditions? The norms, laws, rules?
And notice how different groups may occupy different aspects I mentioned. Leftists are a majority in some places (Lemmy, California, maybe Berlin). But even in those places, power is with the billionaires and other elite groups (which are often not leftists). The acceptable morality in those places is centrist, leftist (gay rights and things like that). Traditions, though, can be very mixed with rainbow parades and churches existing together. Well, the equivalent here on Lemmy. Norms, laws, rules are also mixed, but as the user said, they lean right in places like work, banks, parks, schools, etc.
So... if I go against the billionaires, their far-right legions, am I going against power and against laws and norms and may I get in trouble? Yes. In other words, I'm going against a culture.
Are conservatives going against a culture when they rebel against some governments and their progressive laws, against an accepted morality, etc.? I guess so.
But we are back at the relative perspective, just with extra steps, with words like "power" and "influence" involved. "Countercultural", if it's not relative, then implies that there is ONE dominant culture. But if, as we saw with California and maybe Berlin and such places, there is always a mixed bag, what is that mysterious dominant culture?
An answer we could give is that the dominant culture is that which would get into power, into everything, if other groups didn't resist against it. Ideologically, this mental experiment leaves us the same. All the ideas are clashing and, without a clash, they would expand. They're ideas! But materially, this changes. If we consider how we get to see billboards with messages, books printed in a book store, work laws, etc. Money is key. We don't live only in a world of ideas (I wish), we live in the real world with money, transactions, etc. If we'd let the world just run... Well, money is held by people that don't want to let go of that money. Money then would be expended in the ideas that favor that state of things (status quo). Money would pay for governments that taxed the rich a little bit less; money would pay for a little bit of segregation if possible, because poor people tend to be undesirable in some contexts; money would pay for the rights and preferences of the people with that money, it's natural. And the thing is that, without resistance, well, poor people's opinions and preferences would be overshadowed. I guess sometimes it is like this. At least in my country, we had periods like this.
So, to me, it seems that the dominant culture is the one that would default to dominance by the material conditions. Ideologically, I guess we'll always feel in many different ways, we'll be diverse. But which books are published and how many hours the workers work is a matter of who has the power to ultimately decide. In this system we are living in, the rich and powerful have this ultimate decision. Intellectuals and workers and other groups need to resist and fight and debate their ways in this system. From climate change to four days of work instead of five (which ironically it doesn't even reduces money for the rich, but they were afraid it did), it all has to be fought. I see here the counterculture; I see there the dominant culture.
Edit: By extension, things that favor the rich-elite I see as dominant culture; things that serve the masses and the dissident groups, I see as counterculture, even if at some periods of time or places they're winning or they're a lot (like California or Berlin again, haha).
The end of my opinion. Sorry you had to read this much. I know I may not change your mind, don't worry, but I think it is important to keep our sense of integration; I mean, that we do not reject our fellow human beings right away because of these differences. You're here talking to me and it's only fair that I share with you my current views and feelings.
Same as some demagogue crying for 10 years he is being canceled. He has 25 million viewers. Shit is mainstreamed and some people didn't hear the shot.
I started dying my hair in my late 20s. It was really uncomfortable then because at least in my area it was very uncommon. Now that I'm turning 40, I’m doing it again, and its a lot more common now so its not nearly as uncomfortable (people stare less these days, cuz they care less)
Hell yeah! I can't decide on the colour yet. Also I need like, 80% of my hair off anyway. Cheaper and I haven't seen a hairdresser in 8 months lol. But my guy is on vacation for another week.
If I don't like it I can always just shave it off lol. Benefits of being masc presenting (though nonbinary)
What colour are you thinking of doing?
Maybe the solution is to not limit to one color!
This time I'm handing the wheel to a friend, since I need someone to bleach for me and that seemed like a good trade, but I’m only brining dyes in the red/pink/blue/purple/turquoise range, I’d be down for a full rainbow, but probably not until its short. Very hard to keep yellow nice during the dye when its waist-length. But I wanna enjoy the long for a bit with color, its fun to braid and looks neat with my hair accessories.
I tend to use conditioner to cut the color down, so I often end up more in the pastel range. Then sometimes ill do dark streaks in the pastels which looks pretty neat.
If you hate the color, clarifying shampoo strips it out decently quickly if you are using vegetable dyes. Then you can try it again.
its a lot more common now so its not nearly as uncomfortable
That was the point of punk though. It wasn't about dying your hair purple, it was making it a colour hair wasn't. It was to be different. Run against the grain of society if you didn't like the way the grain was going. Be who you wanted to be and dress however you wanted. If someone said boo, you gave them the finger. If someone was racist or a homophobe, we'd scream at them and get in their faces.
Now that you can buy any colour hair dye in the grocery store, green hair isn't much of a statement. Same with clothes. The common folk were trying to dress above their class with Izod shirts, a sweater draped over their back, and penny loafers - like they just came from tennis at the country club. Ripped jeans, or worn out 30 year old clothes were considered low class and trashy which is why we loved them. Now you can buy pre-tattered clothes. That isn't a statement.
HOWEVER: If you want blue hair, ripped jeans, and a nipple piercing, do it!
ya remember how punk rockers used to smash guitars? so anyway, there’s this company called flock safety…
Based and tea party pilled
Go on, I'm listening...
well friend, so is flock safety.
look up benn jordan, he has better words than i do.
Your typo reminded me of something.
When I was little, we had a children's TV personality/character called Grynet. Looking at Wikipedia it says that she was supposed to be a parody of a typical teenager, I was a little young at the time, but she strikes me more as this pink princess punk which as an adult I think is wonderfully inclusive.
Her tagline was "ta ingen skit!", roughly "Don't take any shit (from others)!"
In 1960, minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the price of the average US home was $11,000.00
A Boomer could graduate high school and be living in their own place with no roommates with money they'd earned delivering newspapers.
And depending on their area, that house may sell for a million+ now to millenials who have no other option if they want to live the classic american white picket fence dream
I think that the US as a country needs to abandon the idea that every family should have a detached house with four bedrooms, two cars, and a lush green front garden surrounded by a picket fence. It's just not sustainable. That made sense in 1960, but the country's population has doubled since then.
On the other hand, I would like to see it possible for every family to be able to at least afford a basic 2-bedroom condominium with all the amenities that modern life has to offer, including walkable spaces, accessible green areas, and reliable public transportation.
11,000 hours of minimum wage labour in my city would be $185,000. Maybe a bit too low to be entirely realistic, but $200,000 is probably within reach with a bit of elbow grease on the government side.
There are a ton of factors but most problems simply stem from greed. Boomers pulling the ladder up behind oneself and then making fun of millenials for having less assets and saying it's because we're lazy.
I don't agree that the reason single-family detached homes with lawns are necessarily unaffordable primarily because of greed. That might be one factor, but I think the main factor as to why they're unaffordable is simple geometry. Councils don't want to pay for miles of roads, pipes, and electrical cables just to serve less than a hundred families, so these costs get imposed on the developers and homeowners. Some states, including mine, will require new single-family developments to have an HOA, which is responsible for paying for the upkeep of some of these resources. That directly results in higher assessments for ratepayers. Or, where the council absorbs the costs, they still get passed on to owners and renters through higher property taxes.
So while I'm sympathetic to your arguments, I feel that blaming only greed is a shallow understanding of why nobody can afford a house.
I live in one of Italy's richest cities, gross wages for millennials may go from 24k€/y to 60k€/y for the luckiest ones. A normal 80m² apartment goes for about 200-400k€.
It's not just an American problem, and apparently more efficient housing isn't enough of a solution.
I think that is a different situation in your city. I don't know which city it is, and I don't claim to know much about how the Italian economy works, but housing prices seem similar to what I've got in my city (Portland, Oregon, USA), except that wages are drastically lower. So my guess is that it's a problem with people being underpaid as Italy is a developed economy, similar to the US.
€24,000 a year would be about €12 an hour which is below minimum wage in my city. A minimum-wage worker would be paid about $34,000 annually, or €29,500. The mean hourly wage in my city works out to about $76,000 annually (€66,000). I prefer the median as a better estimate of what ordinary people make, but the census bureau only reports the mean as far as I could find.
Older Millennial's had options after the 08 crash
True, but you had to be in a position with money saved up and your career unaffected by the recession so unfortunately that's a relatively low percentage
I mean prices were lower for like 8 years before exploding with low interest rates, time was there to save
They do not give you a loan if you earn nothing because you're unemployed and you don't have any capital in the bank.
There would have been a way for me but not without generational wealth and immediately landing a great job out of college.
TLDR: if things went great in your life yes you're right.
One job loss and I could have been ruined too but luckily that didnt happen
And they could get educated by earning a few shekels at the bursar that they found on a street corner.
This framing gets it wrong. It isn’t boomers vs. millennials. It isn’t immigrants vs. citizens. It’s ordinary people fighting over a shrinking share while an extraordinarily wealthy few accumulate more money, assets and political power than they could ever need. Stop turning class problems into generational wars. Tax extreme wealth.
I agree that is class war but boomers are enabling the wealthy.
Boomers would rather punish millennials for our avocado toast than see billionaires taxed.
Again, you are falling for their propaganda. "Boomers" wants no such thing, but fascists do. Fascists comes in all ages, including millenials and gen zs. This is not about age, it is about whether you are in the ruling class or not.
It is not generational war, it is class war.
There’s also a non-negligible amount of Gen X, millennials and Gen Z who are fascist supporters.
Fascist appeal transcends generational lines.
It can be both. I don't know a whole lot of retirees that want better for the next generation and are willing to sacrifice for that.
“Boomers” wants no such thing, but fascists do
I would say "boomers" have largely contributed to the conditions that have brought about fascism in this country, and have normalized looking the other way in service to the almighty dollar.
My boomer mother has no clue what she votes for. She's completely uninformed. Lives in the states. Fox News has made her terrified of brown people crossing the border for a better life. Doesn't think ICE is bad, but the people they kill should have just complied.
She's voted Trump every time. Thinks he's going to fix everything because she watched his reality TV show and thought it was all real. The worst part, she follows the party line her boomer friends follow. I've spoken to a bunch of them. They're all fucking idiots.
She and her boomer friends are definitely contributing to the downfall of the US. They don't see it. They don't care.
I must have missed a memo, since the boomers did do quite a lot to push things forward, too. Not all boomers are Faux watchers FFS.
I think it's no surprise boomers though who struggle to learn new tricks and are more susceptible to snake-oil scams and fear mongering. That's not inherently unique to one generation, for we'll be there one day too.
Though I'll say they and GenX may standout a bit more, having grown up in an era so far removed from the modern tech world.
Baby Boomers have voted more Republican than both the generation that came before them and the generation that came after them.
I'm early GenX. Me and my friend embraced the new tech. We were 10 years old and hammering out Basic on a little computer attached to my TV. Typing in code from a magazine so we can play a game. Saving it to tape and trading with another kid who typed out some other game.
Later, when the internet came out, the guy who could connect at the highest baud rate was the coolest. Winsock and Mosaic baby.
Exactly right. They manufacture enemies out of us and enjoy their yachts while we squabble and miss the point.
I think you and I used to fight. But with this statement I am on your side.
Divide and conquer is the way the right defeats the left in this country.
Put the minor conflicts aside and walk in lock step. A United front is the only way we can resist. 💪
Not all boomers.
It's a little bit boomers vs. millennials, based on the boomers and the millennials I have encountered
... Let's unpack this.
Person points out this is just another case of wealthy and powerful people stirring up trouble between two groups of people. This is easy because people are easy to trick. If the headline is to be believed, even AOC, who isn't stupid, believes boomers are the source of the problem.
You point out that, based on the people you know, there's a conflict between boomers and millennials.
but... that's not proof that the source of the problem actually IS either group. It's still the case that this conflict is caused by a third group of people who have a vested interest in making sure the poors fight each other.
Okay yes let's unpack it, please
What percentage of "the people who have a vested interest in making sure the poor fight each other" do you think are boomers, and what percentage are millennials? And of those millennials, what percentage of them are acting on behalf of, and/or dependent on a mega powerful boomer?
And to be fair I said a little bit.
There are millennials in this US administration. The fuck are you talking about?
It's class. Not age.
Does "on behalf of a powerful boomer" include...ya know...having an inheritance from them and working in the family business?
AOC is a tool like the rest of them. Her messaging is out there to hold millennial women to the Dems.
Young x and elder millennials overlap but I think thats more young millenials resembling genx than the other way around
In my experience, it's a class war, not a generational war.
Sure doesn't look like we're all the problem equally...
And, yet we're all in the same shit. Stop pointing fingers at your class, and focus on the true enemy in our midst. Tear down the walls the billionaires have erected among us.
It always surprised me how many women voted for Trump. Two of the blue boxes are only 4% away from voting for him.
That seems to be a male problem, and doesn't even touch on all the other reasons those who would have voted for Harris (or any other blue) didn't. But sure, let's use a gender chart to make a generation point. Everything is correlated if you squint enough.
@Rhaedas@fedia.io saying nothing with gusto lol
“We’re all the problem” is some “both sides” level victim blaming and erasure of intrinsic context.
If everyone was “the problem” — There would be no problem.
Everyone isn't the problem, just the billionaires.
It's not a both sides but more a larger scale comment on society as a whole. But fit it however you want to fit it. I could have gone into detail on how not everyone can control the damage they do. Some can absolutely make a large difference by their actions. But as for generations, which is what this thread is mostly about, we all have been a problem during the times when we could have done better. The ones with real power want the infighting among us because it's a distraction, and again, it is our fault if we fall for that again and again.
As are millennials and Gen Z
There’s dumb asses in each generation
Gen X voted for Trump at a higher rate than Boomers.
they voted for krasnov the hardest of all the generations
Seems to go that way Greatest was big, silent was small, boomer was big, X is small, millennials big, Z small, not sure where that leaves Alpha and Beta though, given the birth rates...
The smaller generations tend to be transitional between the larger ones around it. They are also a shorter period of time. Gen Alpha will be a sharp decrease due to population decline and will be the most economically split generation. Gen Alpha is still in process and may need to be a longer period of time to accommodate the longer overall transitions occuring economically, socially, and politically.
I don't think they are as badly positioned as the millennials.
True to form, people still framing the class war as a generational war.
Entire generations are not in power, only a few corrupt examples of them. All we've done, all we've ever done, is vote for the "lesser of two evils". That's how we got here. We were all duped, and are still being duped, as the voting record will show.
This is not old versus young, plenty of old heads want what the younger gen wants.
This is class warfare. The Epstein class has been attacking the rest of us for ages with impunity. The first strike came from Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.
I appreciate what AOC does in most respects, but this is a miss for her. We can’t afford this divisive messaging and she needs to be told this.
Accountability to the people for ALL politicians.
There is no war but the Class War.
Except in a way it is old vs young. The old will need more and more care, and that ends up coming from the youth. The same youth that were promised a future that doesn't exist, and now have little desire to give giving what they cannot afford. Many countries are going to have to have a real reckoning with aging populations, and few have even started the conversation.
Young people would not mind providing that care if they were paid for it.
If we soaked the rich to fund the welfare state there wouldn't be so much simmering anger.
Not doctors and lawyers, the billionaires and decimillionaires. The epstein class.
Tax wealth not work.
If we soaked the rich to fund the welfare state there wouldn’t be so much simmering anger.
Not doctors and lawyers, the billionaires and decimillionaires. The epstein class.
If you taxed 100% of the 0.01% wealthiest, took every drop and redistributed it, each person in the world would get $5k USD.
When you get to that 1%, you are already talking about the doctors and lawyers and people you don't want to target, and compared to many parts of the world, you may already be in the 1 or top 5% of wealth. Should your money be taken as well, so those in Afica with nothing get something more?
Maybe that would certainly change things for some, but wouldn't have the effect you want, and would also collapse the world economy and put all of us back in the stone age. Certainly I think when you hit a billion of net worth you get a nice little trophy and have 99% of it redistributed, but just 'taxing' wealth isn't going to do a damn thing about fixing societal issues that cost far far more than $5k a person.
I live in the US. I'm assuming each nation deals with its superwealthy internally.
Separately, I think the US should dismantle its empire, which would redistribute wealth to the rest of the world.
We’re going to be old one day and need care. Society as a whole takes responsibility for this.
The young need to support the old and in turn, we will be supported when the time comes.
Socialist mentality is about benefit to all, including the elderly. The rich also have it in for the elderly. To them, the death of the boomer generation profits them, because they can come up with more excuses to eliminate social security, thereby screwing us all. They want to saddle us with a privatized retirement system that they control for their own profits.
We also need to fight for ourselves and our own interests.
We can fight for the interests of all, not just our select group.
Society as a whole takes responsibility for this.
No it really doesn't, and never has. Families and communities have taken care of that. Not entire societies. It shouldn't be the youth's burden to work their entire life just to ensure the old have a comfortable 20+ years to live while owning everything and giving little back.
Socialist mentality is about benefit to all, including the elderly.
Really really depends what you mean by socialism. By owning the means of production? Umm, that's all people, instead of you guessed it, mostly the elderly.
We also need to fight for ourselves and our own interests. We can fight for the interests of all, not just our select group.
Those two statements directly contradict each other. So what is it, do you want to have a good life for yourself, the family you raise, or the person down the street who will ask each year that more is taken away so they can live comfortably? In previous 'generations' the family either did well and took care of each other, or the family suffered, rather than everyone in the next town over, the next city, state and county over suffering because everyone wants to live in a home by themselves and have an acre of land.
Thanks for your input, Elon
This is not old versus young, plenty of old heads want what the younger gen wants.
She said millennials are getting more politically active...
And you're attacking her because she's divise?
By any chance do you consider the phrase "Black lives matter" divisive and think "all live matter" is better?
Logically that's what you're saying, I just would prefer not to make that assumption, so just trying to clarify.
Edit:
And in the spirit of clarity, this is her quote that you said is divisive:
“Millennials are not punk kids anymore. We’re grown adults with mortgages and kids,” she said. “And we—that generation is starting to be decisive at the polls. And there is anger at being ignored, sidelined, having our economic futures mortgaged by the generations that came before us on everything from the economy to climate. And we’re taking the reins.”
Just like the death of the Republican party, we've been hearing this too for a decade now.
Millennials will be the next biggest voting block! Gen Y is pissed and going to change everything in the voting landscape!
So far, not a god damn thing. I mean, we're not seeing record turn out outside of one single election and in the last election we even saw that millennials increased their voting share to Republicans.
They may be mad but they're the exact same morons as the rest of America.
The momentum was never there because we were all busy following the boomer path of trying to go to college to make aoemthing of ourselves and ended up in college debt for life and then got shat on, by the very people who raised us to take that path in good faith hoping it would work out the same for us as it did them but it fucking didn't.
It's 50/50 here ya know. Like we all had the chance to not do what they said to do or go against the paths we were raised to follow and do our own thing. They also failed to see the absolute state of the changing world and only focused on what benefits them.
The Student Loan Crisis is quickly becoming an increasongly unsustainable drag on the economy, and will eventually become a true National Security Threat. When everyone is enslaved to their student loans for decades, there will be many opportunities for nefarious types to leverage those desperate loan holders, in an infinite number of ways.
Student Loan Reform is becoming an issue nearly as important as Health Care.
One thing to remember is that, even now, we live in a gerontocracy. The wave of younger candidates winning in primaries is a sign of things to come, but more than the voting population shifting to younger people, we're still waiting for the candidates and politicians themselves to be younger on average. Still so many very old people in the US senate/house.
Plutotheokleptokakistocracy, to be fully accurate.
So far, not a god damn thing.
It's starting just now, like this year. Millenials had the numbers for at least 8 years, but not the turnout. Well, Cheeto man finally made them mad enough to get out there and vote and we're seeing quite a few upsets even within the Dem establishment party itself.
Better late than never.
Boomers control the Democratic primaries which is the only opportunity for real change. COVID upset that stranglehold which is why the Democratic party was happy to let Biden prevent a primary in 2024.
Lol "Nu-uh they lost control in the last major election" isn't the point you think it is.
I'm Xillenial. There is NO part of my life that has not been dominated by boomers. Even now, it's still the boomers running things. There Gen X didn't exist. Millennials only exist because they complained after being denied the dream.
We're also mad about the corruption, industrial scale pedophilia, and the land theft and genocide. Thats not going away. There needs to be paybacks. The guillotines arent for show. We have criminals to round up.
Capitalism isn't the problem, it's wealth inequality. Do you think things were better back under the Manorialism system? No capitalism there, but the rich owned vast manors and the poor who worked their lands were born there and had to work that land for their entire lives.
All capitalism did was to give a shred of social mobility where none existed before.
The answer is guillotines. Make the rich scared enough about losing their lives and they'll voluntarily surrender some of their power. The trick is to scare the rich without the rest of the death and chaos that were part of the French Revolution.
You mean Nuremberg style trials and hangings? Pretty much every American above the level of mayor going back about 80 years should be put up on trial for crimes against humanity.
Probably a whole lot of companies, and executives that directly supported this as well.
Here here
She didn't say "boomers", fucking Fortune added that. And they reported this specifically to stir the bogus generational conflict.
AOC should not have mentioned generations at all, she's supposed to be uniting us against the billionaire class, and here she is quoted in a billionaire rag about this. I hope she does better, and soon.
That's some big "all lives generations matter" energy you got there...
Generational warfare is counterproductive. I have much more in common with a working class boomer, than I do with a rich person who is my same age.
Ok...
So complain about Fortune magazine...
Or at least click the link to see which part of the headline AOC actually said before blaming her for the entire headline.
Like, it's just such a weird line to care enough to read the headline and write a comment...
But not take the two seconds to see what her actual quote says.
“Millennials are not punk kids anymore. We’re grown adults with mortgages and kids,” she said. “And we—that generation is starting to be decisive at the polls. And there is anger at being ignored, sidelined, having our economic futures mortgaged by the generations that came before us on everything from the economy to climate. And we’re taking the reins.”
What about that is "generational warfare" that upset you so much?
Do you disagree with the reality of what she's saying?
Or do you acknowledge it's true, and are just upset someone said it? Because saying it is what wins elections.
I have much more in common with a working class boomer, than I do with a rich person who is my same age.
Probably. But what did that working class Boomer (who at best, is a few years from retirement) voting for? Probably closer in line to what the young rich person says.
We have more in common, but they still vote against their (and by extension, my) best interests. Unless it's housing of course. Their best interests conflict with mine and align with the rich young guy.
100% this. So sick of this shit.
Sure you are, dad, sure you are.
I think the big difference between boomers and gen X/Millennial isn't so much "aging gracefully" it's "aging realistically".
Like, there wasn't as much pressure to "grow up" most of us saw all this shit coming and just knew we didn't have the numbers, but still kept trying.
So we avoided midlife crisis (mostly) and just maintained the same personality and interests the whole time.
So now, were still relatively the same mentally, so acknowledging that our bodies are obviously not the same as 20 years ago isn't something to freak out about and but a Corvette.
Like, getting old sucks, but it's better than the alternative...
Just because I've had to go from getting hammered and committing petty crimes to having about 2 beers and being in bed before too late…
I'd say I miss watching the sunrise, but I wake up in time to see it. It was always more beautiful when you're still up for it…
For real - tell me you lack self awareness without saying you lack self awareness.
I'm 48. I play in punk bands and just hosted an anti-profit folkpunk festival in the woods where 20 bands played. Am I also not punk because of some arbitrary line you have drawn?
When did I stop being punk? I'm dying to know.
Getting old sucks, but dont let folks rile you up so much that punk starts being a label rather than a movement. Punk is as punk does. Nobody needs credentials.
Seems like some comments got deleted somewhere. But AOC didn't mean Punk Kids as a movement, genre, or theme. It was simply the derogative punk. She could have said whiny, or drooling, quiet.
And your festival sounds cool. I stumbled across Defiance OH in Columbus a couple of years go. Been a fan ever since.
Every single generation in the past 100 years has said the same thing. "My generation will fix it when we're in charge".
The God Damn boomers were the hippies from the 60s. What the fuck happened to peace and love?
My generation (Gen X), my goodness, we could see through all the bullshit. We're the original centrists.
Every single one of my children's Gen Z friends are all so woke they never sleep.
Turns out every generation is full of selfish shortsighted dumbasses just like the one before it. Just like "The Greatest Generation". Just like the boomers. Just like Gen X.
Faith in humanity...fading
The people who were hippies in the 60s are mostly still hippies today. Well, the ones who subscribed to the peace and love philosophy at least. Despite the media attention the hippies were never large enough to be a politically influential group in that generation. Most of the boomers grew up bullying the hippies.
Both my boomer parents were hippies. My Mom literally lived in a commune for some time in her early 20s. She voted for the T-Dog in 2016 because she wanted to see real change.
I used to chuckle when I was a kid the way my Dad would look at me and roll his eyes when my grandparents would talk about politics and religion. My Dad loves his MAGA hats now. And wonders why his grandchildren don't want to be around him.
My sample size of 2 says otherwise!
Counter anecdote: my parents are still far left. My mom was a local union rep, still attends protests, and is volunteering today.
My wife and I are old, and we've moved more and more left as life has go on, so now we're strongly Progressive,, and our son is so far left, he thinks we're fairly conservative. He knows we'd never vote MAGA, though.
My folks were hippies and my dad joined the service with long hair and retired 20 years later with less hair, fewer drugs and still farther to the left of his gay son (and I'm pretty much 'capitalism bad' at this point).
I'm a little jealous to be honest. I can barely talk to my dad anymore. He swallowed the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Everything he says is word for word from cable news or facebook.
Nah its just that nice progressive people are also not ruthless murderous cunts, and thus bad at sezing power which then just ends up in the new generation of ruthless murderous cunts. Most people are pretty great which is sadly not a good trait for enacting change.
Gen X got skipped in politics. The boomers refused to cede power, and it's like the Xers largely aged out of entering the political space.
Gen X chose to be the "I'm not really into politics" generation. As if electing our leaders was a spectator sport we could just not participate in. And then we all claimed to be too cool for political parties when we started noticing the world was really going to shit. Which is how we got centrists.
I know because that was me.
I'm GenX and have voted since I could. By the time I was in my early 30s I liked by politics like my music - independent. I don't usually vote by party but by candidate history and ideals.
I'm way the fuck left though. I support left parties like the NDP, but I'm not registered with them. I recently voted for the Liberal dude over NDP because I thought the NDP running was a serious twit.
I don't think I'd ever voted conservative.
What you describe goes way back further than 100 years.
The hippies never disappeared, they were marginalized, ostracized, and excised by a fascist system. The War on Drugs was one of many tools the oppressive government used. Some hippies did in fact become yuppies but I don't blame them, the system was simply stronger than their ideals.
GenX aren't what I would call centrists. That implies they try to balance or can see the value in both sides of the political spectrum. They are not leftists by any means as multiple fascist purges of the left in US history has ensured they don't exist in any appreciable numbers. I could agree they are centrists between the right and the far right.
GenZ are not woke, they are malleable. They don't have strong ideals, values, or a Zeitgeist if you will. I think you confuse woke with just not caring and accepting reality as it is. This is not really conviction though, it is sinply resignation.
You are absolutely correct every generation is selfish. Also, the generation before will always complain about the later generation. This theme has existed throughout all recorded human history.
Most the people I meet are generally good and will make positive decisions given the time, resources, and opportunity. This is regardless of generation.
The problem clearly lies with a minority of wealthy individuals who have disproportionate level of power and representation. This is also nothing new. This same issue existed when the country was founded.
"My generation will fix it when we’re in charge”.
Except my generation hasn't had a chance yet to prove that they will. My generation is fucked.
Just like the correlation between disease and war being basically timed out perfectly.
It seems most people like ignorance when it's convenient to confirming their worldview.
The God Damn boomers were the hippies from the 60s. What the fuck happened to peace and love?
LOL, Hippies were maybe 2% of American society in the 60's and a lot of those Hippies didn't fucking make it to adulthood between the drugs, wars & hard living.
I'm 43 and have been married for nearly 20 years. We are the old people now
AOC says millennials aren't punk kids anymore? No shit. I haven't been a punk kid for 20 years. Even Gen Z aren't kids anymore. There are a few of them that are already managers at my workplace. Insane how US mainstream culture has held space for boomers for so long. So frustrating how unserious we're considered to be when we've been the ones on the ground making shit happen for the last decade or more. Shout out to Gen X for never having been taken seriously.
As a long time Gen X hater, I can confirm that they're essentially responsible for boomers being seen as the only adults in the country for the past 50-whatever years.
I mean, the US is still dealing with the silent generation running the country. It's going to be a long time before the 'youngest' baby boomers are gone, like 20+ years still.
Still dealing with? Former President Biden was the first and only silent generation president.
I mean, you'd probably include Trump, Bush Senior and Clinton in there as well.
Shout out to Gen X for never having been taken seriously.
Mostly because we didn't really have the numbers, I think. Also, by the time we hit adolescence we had a lot to be jaded about and boomers, silent generation and greatest generation still held the bullhorn, for the most part.
By the time we were in the workforce, advertisers and the moneyed interests in general were already eyeing up and targeting Gen Y to cater to...
INSIDE EACH OF US IS A PUNK KID. WHY DO WE KEEP EATING THEM
Young people have always had an abysmal voter turnout. Y’all need to vote, and not just the big ticket presidential elections. The state legislature elections are every bit as important, if not more important.
True, but it's also worth noting that Pew shows the blue lean among voters born after 1990 is way less pronounced than it was 10 years ago. In 2016 they swung 37 points blue, in 2020 26 points, and in 2024 only 13 points.
Young people need to get engaged, but they also need to break out of these icky propaganda bubbles they're caught in. Hopefully life in Trump's America has woken some of them up, but at the same time the left really needs to build something worth switching sides for.
Yeah we're middle aged punks now!
There is a vested interest in making you think you are still young.
We're grown adults with mortgages and kids
If we're lucky
lucky
mortgages
eh, depends how lucky but yeah.
kids
i consider myself lucky not to have them, but i get everyone has different preferences.
Seems to me that quite a few under 40s voted for Trump last time around. Blaming Boomers when you are making the same mistakes yourself, isn't helping anyone.
Thank you - it is almost as if the Dems are offer the worst possible candidates to push people away for the party to establish it's own version of extremism.
It also gave us 12 years of Trump instead of 8
I heard Gen X were the worst offenders.
Between the gray ceiling and the amount of Boomers still in office I'd say we're long overdue for a change
So, she didn't say "boomer". But she did frame it as a generational issue.
It really has nothing to do with age. In fact that's backwards. It's about people who have been in power too long, and are coincidentally old. They aren't corrupt because they're old, they're corrupt because they're in power, and they're old because they've been in power a long time. Too long. Bernie is rare because he's avoided becoming corrupt, his age is coincidental.
We need term limits for Congress. That won't stop the corruption but it will mitigate the damage they can do, and help prevent them from becoming entrenched and forming damaging long-term alliances with other corrupt politicians and billionaires.
You might say, "voting is the term limit", but voters are notoriously terrible at spotting corruption, and of course, the politicians do everything they can to hide it.
It's a generational issue...
For the entirety of America's recent decline, Boomers have been the largest voting demographic.
They were the ones active in primaries dragging both parties parties right and fucking up almost every aspect of American society.
No one is saying the problem is every single person in that demographic.
But it is 100% that demographics fault. Because they're the ones that spent a literal lifetime voting for it.
The problem isn't just the boomer politicians, it's all the boomer voters who see voting for anyone younger than themselves as a personal insult.
They're openly age discriminating against anyone younger than them, but anytime you get generations attempt to discuss it, boomers crawl out of the fucking woodwork saying "this" is why they can't do the thing we were just saying you can't do
Unfortunately decades of far right am talk radio pipeline adapted very well to gel with online platforms. Then they were able to cleverly take advantage of algorithms to "red pill " people. Younger generations are generally more liberal than their parents but far Right strategies have made a big dent in that.
Plenty of boomers who actually marched for civil rights out there, and plenty of young people stanning turning point usa and mourning charlie Kirk
Younger generations are generally more liberal than their parents
That's because the American education didn't even really exist till the 1970s...
That's when school buses to every student became a thing, and we stopped having one room school houses and started sending everyone to real schools.
From then till GW's "no child left behind" we taught every American critical thinking and empathy.
Republicans recognized that was a bad thing for them, and changed our education system to rote memorization and the lowest denominator...
The numbers in a year don't automatically make people more progressive, it's not an innate thing that happens naturally.
It was happening for a couple decades because we put the work in as a society. We stopped doing that decades ago.
And it would be shocking to find out the people who can't see that, got a public education within that brief window where critical thinking was actually taught.
Like, the reason Gen Z is the first generation to have lower IQs than their parents isn't that Gen Z is stupid, they're just the first full generation to all get "no child'd" some parts of older generations got it, but for Gen Z they all got it, so theres no one to bring the average up.
It's important to talk about this stuff, because we're still failing the kids in school today, and if people don't understand what's happening, we'll never get it fixed.
Term limits will not do what you want.
It will just shift the corruption to an unelected support structure of beaurocrats and party suits that have no elections to even theoretically hold them accountable.
Look at the term limit we have: the 23 amendment was a mistake. The country and the world would be objectively better off if it had not been passed.
I think the bigger problem with corruption in government starts with the public service to private industry lobbyist pipeline. There needs to be a full 25 year prohibition on anyone leaving the government and becoming a lobbyist for any industry they had a hand in regulating while they were publicly employed. There are wayyy too many people in agencies that soft-ball the application of the rules they oversee with the aim of getting hired by those firms when they retire. Got that one straight from an inspector who came to the ATFE from the IRS and saw tons of that behavior from their co-workers. Called it out on several occasions and found millions in unpaid corporate taxes. Those laws need to be enforced with teeth.
“And we—that generation is starting to be decisive at the polls. And there is anger at being ignored, sidelined, having our economic futures mortgaged by the generations that came before us on everything from the economy to climate. And we’re taking the reins.”
Hi, Millennials! Welcome to the party! Now you know why we’re constantly viewed as having a chip on our shoulder, being angsty and feeling like everyone ignores us.
Of course, you’re also going to ignore us and take the reins from the Boomers. We have no illusions there.
- Gen X.
Somewhere around 35% of the people who voted in 2024 were GenX. GenX are taking over corporate leadership, where mandatory retirement is forcing Boomers out. Millenials may still be too young to vote in large enough numbers to dominate 2028. If you insist on seeing reality as generational warfare, Gen X is definitely ascendant, and definitely the culpable in Trump's re-elected.
She’s not wrong…
And there is anger at being ignored
Hey now, being ignored is the Gen X identity, millennials don't get to steal that!
But seriously, although the whole "generation names" stuff is BS, people are influenced by what things are like when they were growing up. People who had access to the Internet when they were kids are naturally going to see the world differently than those who didn't.
It has also been a consistent fact that older voters vote more. So, as "Millennials" get older, they'll probably vote more, like every group does.
The real question is whether those votes will matter. I'm not going to claim that there's no difference between democrats and republicans. But, in the past the democrats and republicans that won their primaries were both heavily constrained in what they were allowed to do after taking office by powerful special interest groups. So, a democrat might be more likely to vote for something like more federal funding for the arts, and a republican might be more likely to vote for something like more tax cuts (without lowering spending of course), neither one would likely vote for an increase in the minimum wage because the people who fund their campaigns don't want that to be considered.
This time, it could actually be different. There's enough anger out there that people who aren't owned by the wealthy are surviving the primary process. Some "traditional" democrats are either finding their courage, or are getting scared of what might happen to them if they don't stand for the things their constituents care about.
Because everything benefits them so they gotta vote. Nothing benefits Gen X to the current generation, so voting seems useless.
Dawg I'm gen Z and almost 30, some of us aren't punk kids for much longer lol.
Hey, I may walk with a cane and keep fairly quiet in life, but I’m still a punk kid! I photograph graffiti and go to shows!
And I also worry about my 401k…
Ocasio-Cortez, a millennial herself, expects the younger generation will soon tip the scales in American politics.
Yes, that is how time and death works.
People have this idea that the old conservative generations will die off and make room for younger generations with new ideas. Yes, old people eventually die. But, we are in a society where the average age is rising over time, because the old live a long time and not as many have been being born as before for an extended period of time. So the political power of the elderly is growing over time, not diminishing. Additionally if you look at how they vote, Gen X is even more conservative as a whole than the Boomers. Unlikely to be getting magically better in the near term.
At this point, capitalism and the Epstein class are becoming so blatantly exploitative and corrupt, that less people are shifting rightward as they get older. With the wealth gap getting worse, human rights slowly moving in reverse and our safety nets getting stripped away, the fiction of an “American Dream” becomes increasingly fantastical for most.
The fascist project 2025 is in full swing with the goal of a new version of the Gilded Age, AKA “paleo-conservatism.”
While the 65+ got somewhat less Trumpy over time it looks like some other age groups have tilted more right from this (particularly the Gen X sort of range that will be replacing the boomers)
Run for president. Goddamn.
Why? So the US can have an even worse Republican sweeping to victory? Someone like AOC would be more productive and probably get more done by say being in the Senate, having a Dem majority there, and taking over the Speaker position.
She is like Bernie. Mouth the extreme points and have them vote for the approved Dem candidate who might as well be a Republican.
So basically any silent gen through older Xers fear losing their power, so in a final attempt to take what they can and fuck everybody else, this is why the world is shitty! Got it.
As a Millennial, I'd like to get ahead of this shitstorm and run for president. I will only take money from citizens, no PACs or businesses that aren't proper non-profits with actual good intentions... No shell corps or bribery.
I hope so.
its definitely not. our nation is composed of many many different minds and bodies. no single description covers everyone. and there is no shame in not joining a fight you dont believe in, nor is there for being a "cheerleader" . everyone plays a part in change even if you think youre keeping your hands to yourself
Nope, still whiny little bitches now with mortgages and kids. They shouldn't be ignored but still whiny little bitches…
And yes the boomers fucked us all.
After reading so many of the comments:
My god, people! It's the fucking billionaires, stupid!
AOC fucked up by mentioning a generational conflict. I thought she knew better. Bernie needs to take her back to school.
Jesus Christ! AOC mentioned millennials are becoming a dominant part of the voter base in this one comment! Even though this is true, she's an idiot for bringing it up! The million and one times she's chastised billionaires mean nothing now!
It's a bit of both. Who do you think is voting in the interest of the billionaires. Their generational attitude of government bad, taxes bad, corporations good, unions bad combined with their outsized voting power is what brought the last 40 years of Reaganism, which is how we got the complete perversion (figuratively and literally) of the American dream that is Trumpism.
Ironically, I see that Gen Y (and Gen Z) is going to benefit from the largest wealth transfer in history.
There is no way you can convince me that being born within a certain age demographic will somehow mean This Time It Is Different For Our Generation (TM) [1] will hold for Gen Y or Z, any more than it did for other age demographics, especially when you add in the wealth being poured into that demo (unevenly, of course).
https://www.bordencastle.com/...
[1] Due to the fact that boomers had so much written about them, recorded about them, all throughout their lives from birth until their death, one can easily go back and find so many instances of them making the exact same kinds of claims about how their generation would overturn all the mistakes of the past. In other words, the exact same kinds of statements that are en vogue now.
Boomers vote. The class most disadvantaged right now simply does not vote. There is a huge problem, but the solution is not whining on reddit/Lemmy and smoking dope on election days.
This is why the average age of Congress is fucking 65.
Regardless of who you vote for, put some effort into thinking about your choices. If you vote for a DSA candidate be aware that their platform includes open borders and public control of large corporations. Read about what happened in the past when those ideas were implemented. I think we're already pretty aware of what happens when the opposite end of the spectrum is manifest.
It’s so funny to see Americans be like “boomers need to go because of insurance and capitalism”
Because boomers fight to keep those things in place and vote for the people who will ensure those things stay in place. You can't deal with the issue if the people voting are voting for those that will protect the status quo instead of change it.
Old people should die for capitalism
Amerikkka
this article should read "Millennials are wastes of life who wallow in self pity because they'd rather fuck off on election days and then turn around and cry about it". We're literally the largest generation to walk the face of the USA and we can't even show up to the polls to out vote boomers.
didnt she vote in favour to contune sending weapons to israel twice?
i dont care about anything she says anymore
Citation 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLt77ROcNAI&t=333s&pp=ygUbYmFkZW1wYW5hZGEgYmxvY2sgdGhlIGJvbWJz0gcJCckLAYcqIYzv
Purity Testing Is Mandatory
Citation 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jTIb_Cqqhzo&pp=ygUXYmFkZW1wYW5hZGEgYmUgcnV0aGxlc3M%3D
Did She? And if she did what was her reason for voting for it?
Has she changed her mind since those votes?
These generalizations type accusations with the purity test statements are tiring.
Did She? And if she did what was her reason for voting for it?
Has she changed her mind since those votes?
Citation 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLt77ROcNAI&t=333s&pp=ygUbYmFkZW1wYW5hZGEgYmxvY2sgdGhlIGJvbWJz0gcJCckLAYcqIYzv
These generalizations type accusations with the purity test statements are tiring.
Citation 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jTIb_Cqqhzo&pp=ygUXYmFkZW1wYW5hZGEgYmUgcnV0aGxlc3M%3D
oh this could be the reason why she doesn't want to spend 2 minutes to create a mastodon account and would rather keep using the platform owned by a nazi instead, she doesn't like the punk kids on the fediverse.
Don't get surprised when this person starts advocating for shit, the warnings are all here.
You win the dumbest comment of the day.
go ahead and explain why this person is refusing to spend 2 minutes to create a free account on one of the biggest and most popular alternative to the platform owned by a nazi
As a millennial, that sounds delusional and naive.
Cracks me up -- the people who scream the loudest about overgeneralization (ie: Ageism) are the ones practicing it the most. The Nazis did it with the Jews, and now AOC wants to do it with an entire generation. The modern liberal movement was actually started by Boomers. Hippies? Boomers. Sanders? Boomer. Funny how people can label an entire generation over the acts of a few.
Of all the takes you could have, that sure is one!
Back in the 70s the American worker captured 25% of global wealth. Right now, we capture about 7%. It's not because a single generation is "withholding" the wealth. It's because the large corporations (the ones backing AOC) have gotten too powerful. So long as she keeps pointing her finger at a single generation instead of the corporations that are actually responsible, she keeps her masters happy and gets more campaign dollars.
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@lemmy.world
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This day and age with a growing positive sentiment toward authoritarianism, anti intellectualism, and fascism, I think some punk would be good. A lot of punk, even.
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