- cross-posted to:
- australianpolitics@aussie.zone
- cross-posted to:
- australianpolitics@aussie.zone
Millennials are bucking trends, becoming an increasingly progressive voting bloc and rewriting the long-held rules of politics, writes Isabella Higgins.
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Are millennials also the first generation to have lower standards of living than their parents? I think housing costs is the biggest part of that.
Costs in general. I just stand there in the grocers thinking “shit, they should nationalize the food chain”
Political leanings are always influenced by wealth
If you are wealthy and have a chance of becoming even more wealthy … being a conservative is great because it ensures you keep your wealth and probably gain more
If you are not wealthy … you have to support socialism because it’s your only chance of having a life or even gaining any bit of wealth or control of your life.
That’s why people traditionally moved right as they aged. However, millennials are bucking the trend is the point.
It is also posited that as you age, you’re more likely to have family and think about their immediate needs rather than society at large.
However, it can be just greed. The problem for conservatives is that they have tipped the balance so much that the divide is much greater and inequality greater, so they need to convince people to vote against their interests. The bottom 90% are far better off under more social measures.
I’m pretty sure their point is that millennials are unable to accrue enough wealth to become conservative.
I mean I don’t have a lower standard of living than my parents sorta but they had seven kids and I have none and still they owned a massive house on a massive lot and I own a condo. They also paid theirs off and point a little plot that I think they hoped to make a weekend getaway thing but never got to the point of being able to do that. I mean I won computers and such but honestly thats not so much standard of living as the march of technology…
i think it’s reasonable to include those things in standard of living. their standard afforded them the choice to do those things, so if you don’t feel like you are afforded those same choices while living at a similar level of comfort then imo the standard has decreased.
well I talked about big things. I can buy better food which is not just a matter of it being available. Like pasture raised eggs and there are a few other day to days were we don’t have to go with the absolute cheapest or generic. although in the last year much of that I have had to drop.
I’m curious about the generation that came of age during the Depression, but I don’t think we have polling data that far back.
From what I’ve seen, research and habits wisez those that grew up in the depression tended to be thrifty for life, always planning meals and avoiding waste. It was a hard habit to break after being hungry I’m sure. I haven’t seen anything about their political leaning. I think community and helping people rated highly in values. Both sides of American politics would claim that as their values.
Let’s not forget that FDR, essentially the closest thing the US has had to a socialist president, was elected four times to help dig us out of that mess. He was so fucking popular.
Probably because they’ve yet to see a right-wing government complete a 4 year term without a calamity occurring.
I’m 100% serious.
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What generation has seen that, though?
I asked an AI:
when was thr last time a Republican president completed a 4 year term without a catastrophic event happening
Calvin Coolidge (1923–1929)
Calvin Coolidge, a Republican, completed a full four-year term from August 1923 to March 1929 after succeeding Warren G. Harding, followed by winning election in 1924 for a nearly full second term.[1][2] His presidency occurred during the Roaring Twenties, marked by economic prosperity rather than immediate catastrophe, though the Great Mississippi Flood in 1927 prompted limited federal response.[3][4] Scandals from the prior administration lingered but did not erupt into a defining crisis under Coolidge, who distanced himself effectively.[5]
No Republican president since Coolidge has completed a full four-year term without a major event widely viewed as catastrophic. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) managed two terms amid Cold War tensions like the U-2 incident, Suez Crisis, and civil rights struggles, but these defined his era as turbulent.[6][7] William Howard Taft (1909–1913) finished one term but alienated progressives, leading to party splits without a singular disaster.[8]
Earlier examples like Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885) involved party defeats and reform pushes post-assassination, not uneventful stability.[9] Defining “catastrophic” as economic collapse, war, scandal, or disaster, Coolidge stands as the last with relative calm before the 1929 crash under Hoover.[10][3]
Citations: [1] List of presidents of the United States - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States [2] Presidency of Calvin Coolidge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Calvin_Coolidge [3] Calvin Coolidge: Impact and Legacy - Miller Center https://millercenter.org/president/coolidge/impact-and-legacy [4] In 1927, Calvin Coolidge refused to provide aid during the Great Mississippi Flood, despite six governors requesting it. He also refused to visit the disaster zone. https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/1m5q805/in_1927_calvin_coolidge_refused_to_provide_aid/ [5] The Last Time a President Got a Pass on a Scandal- … https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/06/calvin-coolidge-scandals-donald-trump-226576 [6] Dwight D. Eisenhower - Key Events - Miller Center https://millercenter.org/president/dwight-d-eisenhower/key-events [7] Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Dwight_D._Eisenhower [8] William Howard Taft | Biography, Accomplishments, Presidency … https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Howard-Taft [9] Presidency of Chester A… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Chester_A._Arthur [10] Major Crises During Every US Presidency | Stacker https://stacker.com/stories/politics/major-crises-during-every-us-presidency [11] What Happened the Last Time Republicans Had a Majority … https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/1928-congress-last-time-republicans-had-a-majority-this-huge-112913 [12] Presidents Who Didn’t Win a Second Term https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0812/5-presidents-who-couldnt-secure-a-second-term.aspx [13] Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Lyndon_B._Johnson [14] 50 Worst Decisions In American Politics’ Last 50 Years … https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-lists/worst-decisions-american-politics-1974-2024-1234940313/ [15] Every single republican president since Theodore … https://www.reddit.com/r/AskConservatives/comments/16uufz4/every_single_republican_president_since_theodore/ [16] Life-changing disasters have shaped our modern presidents https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3848362-life-changing-disasters-have-shaped-our-modern-presidents/ [17] Remember last time a republican president had their 2nd term? https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/1lq8kqn/remember_last_time_a_republican_president_had/ [18] Main Events of the Eisenhower Presidency, 1953-61 http://www.kansasheritage.org/abilene/ikeeven.html [19] William Taft - Key Events - Miller Center https://millercenter.org/president/william-taft/key-events [20] Chester A. Arthur: Impact and Legacy | Miller Center https://millercenter.org/president/arthur/impact-and-legacy [21] Calvin Coolidge - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge [22] Timeline of the William McKinley presidency - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_William_McKinley_presidency [23] List of Republican Presidents https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/list-of-republican-presidents.html [24] Benjamin Harrison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Harrison [25] William McKinley Event Timeline https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/william-mckinley-event-timeline [26] List of presidents of the United States https://www.britannica.com/topic/Presidents-of-the-United-States-1846696 [27] A String of 6 Forgettable U.S. Presidents https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/history/american/a-string-of-6-forgettable-u-s-presidents-151452/
Quite easily explained: older generations accumulated wealth as they got older, so the central message of the right “I got mine, fuck you” (paraphrased) resonated more with them.
Newer generations only accumulate debt.
It was a baby boomer/greatest generation thing. The generation that served in ww2 benefitted greatly from massive programs to aid returning veterans, thus fueling both education, home ownership, and post-war consumerism. They were able to pass that onto the generation that came after, the baby boomers.
By the time the youngest baby boomers became adults the systems that allowed them and their parents to accumulate wealth began to be dismantled. Neoliberalism didnt happen in a day. It took years to fully tear the old system apart and years before the effect would be fully felt and visible. By then the older people cannot associate the ‘now’ with the events of several years ago, and younger people have never experienced the things that their parents did.
In short. The version of capitalism that WW2 veterans in the West lived with after the war ‘worked’ for them, while Communist regimes, most of which were built on exploited colonial holdings, or war torn nations that were never developed to begin with… Eastern Europe was much poorer than Western Europe even before WW2, and after WW2 they were both poor and bombed to hell and back. Vietnam was a French colony and the Vietnamese were fighting the French for liberation before they got taken over by the Japanese, who the Vietnamese also fought, before fighting the French and the Americans afterward. China was the USSR of the East… and also extremely underdeveloped.
This means seeing authoritarianism and poverty in ‘Communist’ regimes while seeing wealth in the US, Canada, the UK, and France after ww2 (which were built heavily on US aid and some where never bombed, like the US and Canada… and France adopted a fuckload of government intervention that fueled their growth) was something that people of that time would associate with those regimes, making it easier for them to think that the socialism there is what caused the poverty when in reality that was simply their starting position and not the end result.
The shit we are seeing now is basically disproving all of it. Russia has been ‘capitalist’ for 35 years now and they are still heavily underdeveloped in addition to being more authoritarian than it was under certain soviet regimes. Shit that was affordable and easy in the West, even in bad economic times, is now becoming prohibitively expensive. Food production is still extremely high and food waste is incredible… but food prices are continuing to get worse and worse.
Also for those who care to look at things from an actual historic perspective, it is becoming apparent that the reason why shit was good in the past was not due to endless economic growth but social policy and legislation.
Building more houses and apartments is pointless. There are too many apartments and too many houses. They are expensive because housing turned from making places to live to a speculative market. This is why Canadian cities are unlivable now.
Exactly.
Even greedy millennials who are very low on the whole “wanting for others to be well, not just myself” kind of feeling and personal principles are themselves experiencing how it is to be born under the boot and realizing one is destined to be under it until the day one dies, and that feels bad, it feels unfair, it makes you want to “fuck this shit up”.
It’s not that millennials are inherently better or worse than other age groups, it’s that they’re far more likely than older generations to be familiar with being relentlessly victimize by present day society, through no fault of their own and merely due to something they were born with (specifically the “when they were born”).
Basically far more of them know how it feels to be born poor in a society that gives you almost zero chances to climb up from that no matter how capable you are and how hard you work, than previous generations.
You know which countries had Communist revolutions? The kind with lots and lots of poor people with zero chance of improving their lot, such as Czarist Russia.
Heh… as Marx got older, he moved from around -5,-5 on the political compass, to around -10,0.
Yeah. Maybe age alone is not the driving criteria. ;)
Maybe people just say that to make those prone to following do that.
That and the money. “No. It’s mine.”
We millennials were deprived of all of that.
Right wing parties feed on fear: the fear of losing what you have.
Millenials have had no chance to build anything to lose. They’re not self contained fiefdoms jealously guarding Whats Mine Is Mine, they rely heavily on social groups and community.
Get on my property!
Maybe because concervativism went from stay at home mom’s to ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Because everything is fucking my shit up and family is worth less than nothing. Older generations got some personal benefit from fasch policy as they aged.
Me, I just see it proven evil and stupid literally every single day. Hard work just gets you more debt. Ownership is fake unless youre already wealthy. The law doesn’t protect me. The government is not my friend. The people in charge dont know what they’re fucking doing unless there’s a child in the room-and in that case I’d rather not know, but keep finding the fuck out. We know we don’t get to retire.
It’s a material interest thing. And at this point a lot of us aren’t dumb enough to betray our comrades for the scraps our grandparents go6 by age 30.
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No shit. We are living in a worse time of inequality than the gilded age.
Saw our boomer and genX parents ride the rise, told it’d be ours too, only to witness everything taken away, revealing only the lies remaining; the false promises that daddy corporation would take care of us all.
On a personal note, saw my parents throw away their entire 2 million, cost me a million in effort through blackmail, slavery, torture and fraud, and then inverted my efforts, so it’s like they managed to throw away 4 million, and then I’m there with the government doing waves of culls of the disabled poor by cutting them off to starve, denying them even the pittance (~ I’ve heard said, disabled people’s costs of living are 4-10 times higher, and, so, why is the top rate of disability support income less than half what they say is the living wage?)… yeah, the inequality keeps going down all the way. Not just comparing the billionaires and trillionaires to the working class and upper precariat. … All while knowing the technology exists to emancipate everybody to lush abundance… Buuuut, is suppressed, because, ’ gotta keep those rents and regressive tax extortion and usury flowing, eh?
Sucks being dependent on your abuser.
… Will not be televised.
Let’s go! One last Millennials are ruinning…
Fascism!
“First generation to be worth a damn”
No matter how good or bad your situation is, turning right is like gouging your own eyes out. It makes the situation worse for literally everyone. Even the hyper rich would be better off under a more left paradigm.
Maybe as a group ? but I am cis white Gen X and started out as middling conservative in my eary 20s, now green environmentalist and anarcho-socalist at 58.
How anyone can age, look around at the enviormental devestation, including climate change enhanced catastrophes that are going to get much much worse along with vast inequality and think this is good lets keep doing this, is bemusing beyond my ability to understand.
Greed
We’re in the post-truth era. People have been taught that scientific consensus is equal in weight to their feelings on an issue. Climate change can be dismissed as fake news even though there is abundant evidence, it’s a disturbing thought so it can just be thrown out.
I know anecdotes aren’t data, but I’m a millennial who moved further left with age.
I started left, but am now more vehemently so.
I started as a communist and ended up an anarchist.
Millennials are the first generation to move left as they age
I told you boomers I was gonna do that, when I was 17, already coming out of my corporate-fanboi phase of my teens. “Afukinatoadaso”
Glad there are millennials who came after me doing so too. Unsurprising, given what we went through. Well done capitalism, selling out our futures.
Now I just hope more remembered it’s freedom too, and not just jumping boat from Big Baron into the arms of Big Brother (or Big Bully, or Big Bank, or Big Blight, or Big Bot).
Like ol Mikey Bakunin said: “We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.” – Mikhail Bakunin https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin
[Edit… it’s only early to mid 40s for the first Millennials so far… We’ll see if that sticks. As the saying goes, “60’s the new 40”.]
I’ve yet to personally meet a GenX republican.
Really? Because they are the generation most likely to vote republican
Maybe so, but I haven’t met any.
I have an in-law that fits the bill, “closet MAGA” you could even say. But I’m in the South US, so skewed right is common here
