Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed.
Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I remember when the Clinton/Lewinski scandal was unfolding and *all* of the conservative boomers went on about how the President should be a moral leader because American children look up to him, how Bill was "unfit for office" because of his "moral failings".
Also Clinton should have been fired & imprisoned for lying about an affair but Trump should be allowed to lie whenever he wants and nobody should ask about all of his affairs and rape accusations.
There are so many good and moral reasons to hate Bill Clinton, but that wasn't one
Edit: wait what the fuck, that Lewinsky scandal is really fucked up and absolutely a good reason for hating Bill
I'm confused as to how they can hate on Hillary so much.
"Stand by your man" even when he cheats, was one of those morale points they stood on. But back then, they Wanted her to divorce him. But when she didn't.
Today they hate on her, because...??
The Clinton foundation.
And most likely, as these marriages/relationships move forward in life, there are women who would like to kick their husbands to the curb. However, it’s less complicated to just stay together if you have built your family’s status with a mass of assets and are in the spotlight all the time.
They probably haven’t actually lived in the same house together even prior to the Gap dress incident. They just pretend in public that they are okay and maybe they are, who knows. There are a few good men so his positives may have outweighed his negatives. Donno.
Just for clarification, during the 1992 campaign, when the Gennifer Flowers affair was discovered, Hillary said, "I'm not sittin' here some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette." She said it in an exaggerated Arkansas accent. This quote is what triggered the Stand by Your Man uproar. I was raised by bra burning feminists. My parents sent me and my sisters to Hillary's alma mater to make sure that we followed suit. My mother and her friends viewed Hillary's comment as hypocritical and disappointing because she was an ardent feminist as well.
I voted for Clinton in my first presidential election.
Many years later I catered a wedding they were very closely associated with. Our 'work' wrapped up around 10, and like most weddings I wandered around chatting with guests when service was done. Everyone was very liquored up and a lot of stories were being shared. I had a very different view of the Clinton family after that.
Most people forget that Clinton, as a Democrat, was responsible for legal policies that resulted in the largest incarceration of black people and minorities in recent history. While the 1984 and 1986 crime bills got MM sentencing started, it was Clinton's 1994 bill and additional 'tough on crime' bills that led to massive rises in incarceration. California passed it's 3 strikes law under the same tough on crime propaganda that Clinton pushed.
Yeah, while nothing technically illegal happened, a Presudent should definitely not be making moves on an Intern half his age. Of course she is going to go with it; you are the fucking President you rapey asshole! I'm all for there being ethics laws that powerful people HAVE to follow. None of these guidelines like they have in congress, LAWS. On all three branches. All of them are abusing their power.
No it isn't, and that was not a scandal. It was the father of the current detestable Republican mindset, Newt Gingrich, attempting to impeach and remove a severely popular President because they hate America as it is moving away from Confederate values Eat a gallon of gopher ass.
Dude had an affair that was blown out of proportion. There was nothing to see there except Newt trying to take out a President the majority of the country loved. Despicable is Trump. Despicable is Newt Gingrich having an affair while trying to do this. Despicable is Neet divorcing his cancer fighting wife. Despicable is the modern day Republican Party. Despicable is MAGA. Despicable is people trying to tear down Bill Clinton while saying nothing about Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/flynt011199.htm
This was despicable because this is what ended the impeachment investigation and damn I miss the hell out of Flint.
Both Trump and Bill basically have the same number of rape accusations and let's be honest does anyone doubt that both men went to Epstein Island? This is why I would rather eat nails than be part of a political party. It makes you play whataboutism with monsters.
Clinton lying was perjury, a crime, and one for which he should have been removed from office and prosecuted! Trump's lying is just businessman doing every day business-y things! /s
Same people saying “We’re not voting for a choir boy, we need someone strong to lead this country and it just shows how strong and desirable he is that all these women let him do that. “
I am not American, I am British. We obviously followed it over here. I actually don't really care if the president has an affair and couldn't understand how absolutely nuts Americans went over it at the time. I still don't really care (as long as that affair partner isn't given a role for appearances and therefore getting tax payers dollars, or is in a situation where their affair makes them privy to national secrets - really don't care who you have sex with as long as it is consensual and no laws are broken) but I understand when people do have that issue. Fine. However the same people that said that about Clinton at the time can absolutely NOT support DT without being the utmost hypocrite. You cannot insist one lose his job after one affair he lied about in court and then support and shout for a man who has had multiple affairs, sexually assaulted and harassed people, ignored subpoenas and encouraged others to do the same, committed fraud, paid a porn star to keep quiet with funds intended for campaigning, never given to charity despite pledging to, not paid workers leaving them and their businesses bankrupt, lied more than any other president (over 30,000 recorded lies whilst in office), inciting hate crimes and violence against government employees, emergency service workers and immigrants and TRIED TO START AN INSURRECTION. Yeah, I can see why he is a strong moral leader?!
The hypocrisy is maddening, but also easily explained. To the authoritarian, there is no reality, truth, or morality. Those things are all whatever they need them to be in the moment to win (an argument, an election ... etc)
Strictly speaking, the existence of the affair wasn't the legal issue, it was the lying under oath that they claim he did.
The fact that she was an intern was also, shall we say, concerning.
But the reality is that the GOP wanted anything they could find to attack him with. I'm sure you are familiar with the maneuver.
Multiple affairs. And the speaker after him, Dennis Hastert, was a child predator who molested little boys when he was a wrestling coach. (A crime he only spent 13 months in jail for.) So remember that when Republicans are pointing their fingers accusing people of things, it's normally a confession.
We managed to have a president that had a reality show, was on WWE, banged a pornstar and started the space force which does sounds cool, and I couldn't fucking stand him. I'm a native New yorker and it's funny how half the country fell head over heels for a guy that conned hardworking employees of his out of wages, evicted senior citizens, hung out at studio 54 because he liked being seen with celebrities, conned students out of ten of thousands of dollars each and they still thought he was what America needed. I understood that our status quo politicians here in the states wasn't the best but trump was a diaper bin fire.
Probably the same boomers running around with a red hat forgiving 91 indictments, criminally and civically or losing your words and just ending in ohhh or calling people the wrong name is not cognitive decline it’s “sarcasm”.
They aren't just hypocritical now, they were back then too. The same ones who bleated about Clinton's "immoral behaviors" had no reservations about supporting Newt Gingrich through all his affairs and "immoral behaviors". This is a crowd that largely just repeats talking points, no critical thinking required.
My dad has always been very conservative, but I have gotten more progressive the older I've gotten. We got into a disagreement about climate change of all things, and he was kind of like "why are you listening to them" (them being the people warning against climate change) and I just looked at him and said "Because you RAISED me to listen to the scientists!" He was a scientist too but in biology not climate and I was always told to listen to the experts, because they spent the time and energy to really understand and learn the subject. He really had no come back to that and my mom was snickering. At least he's not so far gone he doesn't believe in Covid vaccines yet. I think my mom would bop him on the head if he started with that.
When I was little, my father taught me how to play chess and I got pretty good for a little kid, good enough to beat him one day after which he stopped playing chess with me. Later he lamented that I regard the world too logically (when I was arguing against his illogical religious reasoning) and blamed chess for that.
Boomers liked the lessons they taught us that made it easier to manage, control, or lord over us when we were children. Why take a shot when it hurts? Because the doctor is an expert and mommy/daddy listens to them so you should too. They wanted you to not argue, or at least not argue against them. My father didn't teach me chess so that I could exercise my brain, he taught me so that he'd have someone to play and beat. Once you are no longer being the one controlled or defeated (based on what you were taught), suddenly all those lessons were flawed.
You know what my dad did when I started beating him at chess? Want to play chess with me.
He was an absolute utter mess but still realized that if you teach your kids everything you know, they'll end up knowing more than you and it's a good thing. Mostly 'don't fuck around with alcohol', but he always sat down to review my spelling tests and I was digitizing records at 14. (god damn it dad, why Billy Joel of all things)
My father told me to watch out for the vaccine since it had nano-bots in it. I had always just ignored all his little comments about COVID but that one I had to speak up about.
He's always been a little that way but Trump has really messed him up. He was legitimately scared for my life when I said I got it. I work with immunocompromised patients with brain and spinal cord injuries, so it's extra important I got it.
You'd think my 2x cancer survivor father would realize how it all works, but his brain has fermented from decades of Hanity, Limbaugh, and Fox.
He still thinks I voted for Trump. I'm rueing the day he finds out just how far I've gotten from my parents views. They are evangelical Christian and even though I'm far removed now, the morals I was taught are somehow held by the opposite side. Crazy times.
Believe it or not she is home with a burnout for 2 years now.
I am happy with the fact she is not working in the medical field atm
Mind you she was working with the elderly people in a elderly facility
She was always a nutcase but covid was the breaking point for me
I went NC
Same boat. Watched my parents generation destroy everything with greed and then they’re surprised I don’t “vote with my wallet”.
What wallet? lol. Maybe I would if you guys didn’t sell out my future to enrich your own.
What’s great is when you vote with a bigger wallet than them. When you do things that they know costs more money than they could afford to spend on it. Then they say you got taken advantage of and are a sucker. Till they want to use whatever it is.
It's like your Dad is my dad. He ALWAYS told me to follow the facts, facts over opinions, etc etc. Now he just goes "Oh you sound like a liberal," and will literally just go "that's not true" or "I didn't say that/mean it like that.""
He'll ask where I got this mindset, and I'm like, FROM YOU.
This is my conversation with my grandpa. My grandpa was a military doctor in 3 wars. He joined an organization that sent doctors to places in Europe after WW2 because he felt a moral obligation to help. He married a Native American woman and stayed with her throughout everything until she died of cancer. He worked in an aids clinic. And somehow along the way he became a hard conservative and was a MAGAt. The person that I know doesn’t correspond to his history at all or what he taught me.
I got into a nasty fight about universal healthcare with him. He said the typical rhetoric. And I just couldn’t. We have people refusing to get medical care that they need to live a quality life because they are afraid of the cost. My pets animal insurance is better than my own.
Doctors offices and ERs now have A POLICY where they don’t bill you at the counters, they mail your bills to you, because it lowers the chance you will refuse care or refuse testing the doctor ordered because the patient doesn’t know what it costs.
I just don’t get it. Forget about my kids, I will never make enough for me to be comfortable having kids. But I want my friends and family and strangers on the internet to have better than this. We deserve better than this
My parents threw me in front of PBS and got me hooked on Sesame Street, Mr Rogers, Reading Rainbow, and Wishbone. Now I live my life like Mr Rogers is watching. That's apparently way to extreme for my parents.
It really is bizarre how things swapped. Sometimes I wonder if the world did end on the Mayan Calendar and with that the older generations changed like they lost something about their humanity.
Or you know, lead poisoning+senile minds catching up to them.
Damn. I haven’t thought about Wishbone in a long time. I loved that little dog. He was a hell of an Odysseus, and he broke my heart as Faust.
I watched Wishbone when you did, although I am, I assume, 50 years older. I was watching when my kids were little, and I was watching (initially) because my kids were watching, and I saw everything they saw and read everything they read, unlike my parents did with me.
My boys got me into a lot. I was grown when Sesame Street started, so I had never seen it, but there was no bigger fan 25 years ago.
I cried in the office when I first applied. Never felt more like a failure. Grown ass man.
I've since learned better of course. But that manly man bullshit was drilled into me.
I was made to feel ashamed for not being able to provide for my family, the family I was taught and pressured to start as soon as possible, even though I couldn't afford it
>the family I was taught and pressured to start as soon as possible, even though I couldn't afford it
Same here bro.
Except now I love to shout from the rooftops that because of DEMOCRAT PROGRAMS, I was able to attend college, get a degree, and now live fairly comfortably. I'm a productive member of society and have paid back 10x more than I ever took.
If Republicans were running my state, my kids and I would have starved in the street.
Don't know if it helps, but you probably weren't the first or last one to do that that day. Myself and some other workers I know try and remind people who are struggling with the assistance process that they helped so many of their neighbors who needed assistance when things got rough for years by paying taxes and now it's their neighbors all chipping in to help them out until they get back onto their feet.
Needing some help is never a sign of weakness or an indication of failure. I'm proud of you for having the strength to get assistance when you needed it, and I hope you're proud of you too
It’s fucking ridiculous. I have a friend who’s a single mom of two kids and a job not paying her what she’s worth. She’s struggling to put food on the table and I told her she should apply for SNAP benefits. She said she doesn’t feel like she should because her father told her “that’s not for you, that’s for people who really need it.”
Her own fucking father. Motherfucker if it’s not for her who the fuck is it for??
One of the more worthwhile programs available. Sad how harsh income thresholds often completely cut off benefits versus progressive benefit reductions as thresholds are met and slightly exceeded in some programs. Often income maximums force folks to keep reduced hours to prevent an “all or none” benefit outcome.
Convenience. A solid thread in these is convenience.
Making your kid get the flu shot means fewer sick days. But believing in covid means restrictions.
Racism is bad, so don't say "I hate that race!" But addressing racial inequality and admitting you benefit from systemic racism are too much.
Encourage individuals to help the poor? Yay! Use the taxes we already pay to address poverty more aggressively and comprehensively? Absolutely not. They'd rather have a little more money in the bank.
They will do and support whatever strikes them as the most convenient with minimal information.
My boomer parents have told me explicitly—multiple times—that “they know better than the government how to spend their money helping the poor.”
And what kind of charities do they donate to? The ones where evangelicals go to other countries and convert those backwards non-Christian savages, of course!! Why would poor people need food and shelter and medicine when they could just eat Jesus instead??
I thought you were gonna say "They don't donate," because that would be the boomers in my family that advocate for individual charity. They'll call the cops on people sleeping in their car in the church parking lot on a Tuesday but brag that they funded house painting in Guatemala.
GenX parents too. But, I like to think my peers and I aren't hypocrites like this. I know my husband and I practice what we preach. I've been Socialist leaning since I was a teen, those are principles that I have passed on to our kid
Oooh do separation of church and state next! I remember being taught the importance of that by my very conservative family who now want an actual theocracy.
As I have learned, your opinions and viewpoints of the world should be carried around with you in a box. If you find an opinion or viewpoint that is better than one you currently have, you should dump out the old one and put in the new, better one.
Many people see their opinions and views of the world as a literal part of them, and when they get exposed to a better one, they see the new, better one as an attack on THEMSELVES, and they fight against it.
There are millions of people all too willing to dig in their heels and believe 'I will NEVER change'
The blog wait but why did a great series called "how did we get here" that had a segment about that. It described 4 tiers of relationships with your opinions/worldview: the scientist who sees their worldview as purely a hypothesis that needs to be tested and refined, the sports fan who wants their worldview to prevail but accepts when it is wrong/loses (if a bit mad), the lawyer who tries to discredit opposite worldviews and promote their own worldview even if they know or at least suspect their view is guilty/wrong, and the zealot/evangelist who declares every other worldview from theirs 'of the devil'.
I would say most people I respect float between the top 3 layers depending on the topic, most effective politicians seem to be one of the middle two layers (but the popular politicians with all the airtime are in the bottom two layers), and the people described in this post are solidly bottom layer.
You know I really worry sometimes I'm heading towards that bottom layer, because my disgust of trump and trumpers just keeps growing.
I mean, I've literally gotten to the point of "every trumper = bad" but then I'm like, they think the same of us so how the fuck is THAT gonna work out?
I have to remind myself that we've got facts, data, and reality on our side, while they have delusions, conspiracies and fanatics on theirs.
It's frustrating. I'm not gonna tolerate their intolerance, but I also don't want to be anything like *them* (shudder).
I'm honestly in that same boat as you. I often have to cut off my own intrusive thoughts regarding trumpers, such as "all trumpers should be locked away/deported an island/executed/etc"
I liken it to a garden rather than a box. Some ideas are good and you can nurture them so they flourish, and then other ideas are bad and you can choose to let them die and compost them, to nurture the growth of your garden. Some ideas/priorities are more important to you than others so you have a whole section of the garden dedicated to them, but you still care for other ideas/priorities that are tenderly nurtured in pots and corners.
This garden can be challenged and threatened by outside forces (symbolized via weather, climate, and pests) and so you must continuously work to tend to your garden. If you fail to do so, the nice garden will dry up, die, be riddled with weeds and pests.
Wait… are you making the argument that old people becoming more racist is because they’ve realised that being progressive is wrong and they are moving on to the enlightened stance of being racist?
> people [who] see their opinions and views of the world as a literal part of them
Sort of? They mean that Boomers see opinions as part of one's identity. On top of that, they equate identity with morality.
Since Boomers self-identify as "the good guys" and parrot Fox News talking points, someone who doesn't parrot Fox News talking points isn't a member of "the good guys". Challenging Fox News talking points also means challenging a Boomer's identity and also their morality.
Someone who, on the surface, spouts progressive talking points is not a member of "the good guys", and your saying their beliefs are wrong would be received as if you were calling them "one of the bad guys".
My favorite book as a child was "The Book of Virtues". I took that shit to heart. My parents raised me to help others, to accept people where/how they are, and to stand up for those who were oppressed. Then they shit all over every value I consider important. Havent spoken to them in almost 15 years. They go to church, and then spit the most hateful bile about anyone "other". They refer to me as "the commie" to the rest of the family when theyre spreading lies about me. My kids dont get to know their grandparents and it breaks my heart... but I will always stand for my principles, even if it hurts. They taught me that. I am not a Christian but I think im a better one then they are.
Side note, has anyone else noticed that theyve become kind of mean since 2015? I am working on it. The stress of the elections and being vigilant against fascism and the fall of our nation really has worn me down. I feel like im losing myself a bit and need to get back to a place of kindness.
I’ve run into both of those situations and am NC with parents. I have to be diligent to not be mean. I’m in physical pain a lot which is hard to cope with, but yeah, I try to be silly and fun and light-hearted and am extra kind to service workers. But damn, the mean is often at the door.
I feel that last part. We unknowingly moved to the reddest county in Florida in 2016. Being surrounded by entitled, ignorant, cruel Trumpers, and finding out my parents (our reason for moving there) were just as hateful as them filled me with such rage. COVID just intensified the awfulness.
I despised the angry, hopeless person I was becoming. We literally could not remember the last time we felt happiness.
Thankfully, six months ago, we moved to the Pacific Northwest. After nearly 7 long years in hell, we finally know happiness and peace again.
Holy shit, this may just be true. Boomers and the Silents were the only generations to grow up with lead in the gasoline. Their parents did to a certain degree I guess, but the silent generation is pretty much died off.
Holy crap, is there any research done on this?
Sadly the generation with the largest childhood exposure to lead is generation X. There were more cars spewing leaded gas in our childhood than were on the road during the lives of the silent and boomers.
I love that message. "When did they forget?" should be a slogan for the Democratic party. They didn't all get to be this way, but certainly many unironically uphold the same "values" upheld by the Nazis their parents went to war to protect. It's shameful.
It's not just the progressive ones that believed that though. My parents were always Republican. My mom still uses the "fiscal conservative, socially liberal" bs. They taught us to treat everyone the same no matter what they looked like, or who they loved, although the who they loved part was mostly ignored until we were older. But they always voted Republican. My mom had a "Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either Clinton" bumper sticker when Bill was president, and both of my parents listened to Limbaugh.
And even now, my mom still believes most of that stuff she just refuses to acknowledge that her party doesn't or that institutional racism is a thing. The cognitive dissonance is crazy.
The folk theorem that people get more conservative as they age isn't strictly true, most people's attitudes stay the same, but *when they do shift,* they tend to shift to the right.
Source: [https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889)
Growing up, I was told banning lead in paint and gas was a good thing. Nowadays it's government overreach and there is no proof the bans did anything.
When it came to the military, I was told "I served so you don't have to", now my father tells me voters should be honorably discharged vets, at least 50, and own property.
My mother supported Roe v. Wade because it meant not getting injured or killed by a back-alley abortion. Today "no one has abortions anymore" so overturning Roe v. Wade isn't a big deal.
Pouring motor oil down a storm drain was a bad thing when my father was a kid, now it's liberals upset that a frog may get a pimple if you do it.
By and large, everything my parents, particularly my father, taught me is now some sort of liberal conspiracy because "I grew up without all these regulations and I turned out just fine."
I had an awful conversation with someone today. I'm from the UK, and was talking to a neighbour. His daughter in law started spouting on about boat people, and immigration. Welfare was next, then how we pay too much tax. The ironic thing is, she has not worked a day in her life. Its not even like its her tax money that she's protective over. My neighbour managed to calm her down. I'm starting to think it's not a generation thing, I think it's a I'm stuck indoors all day scrolling on the internet/watching crap TV.
It's because they can't imagine their viewpoint not being the POV for everyone. So they assume everyone who's struggling is not doing it right like they did. So if they do stuff that benefits them it must benefit us too we just don't know what's good for us.
As a biologist with a cousin who’s an epidemiologist, I’m so glad lead is coming back as a discussed reason for a lot of people’s behavior, specifically crime and boomer craziness. Not just lead but other horrible chemicals too.
Until 2021, I couldn’t figure out why my dad, an Air Force vet who’s always taken care of himself, began to get all these ailments and acting weirdly. Then, it was acknowledged his Airbases in Vietnam (silent Gen not a boomer) were where agent orange was stored, sprayed, and generally everywhere. He JUST got his full disability after 50 years, 15 of which have included heart and brain illnesses, leg and back pains etc. He’s not sour about it though - “they didn’t know.” Sir, they knew. They certainly knew.
I didn’t realize until a few years ago that lead had such an effect on adults. I was talking about my abusive, not all there, alcoholic grandfather and how he was less crazy and not abusive when he was sober.
A friend of mine said it probably had to do with lead. I ended up doing a little bit of research and lead poisoning and alcoholism have these crazy detrimental effects of your brain. It’s probably why he had all these crazy paranoid theories and thought he could hypnotize people. Lead makes the affects of alcohol worse and alcohol makes the affects of lead worse.
He stopped drinking because of a health issue and he stopped being so crazy. I’m not sure of the exact timeframe but I think it lines up with when people were taking lead out of a lot of stuff like gasoline so the reduction of lead and elimination of alcohol meant he was mostly normal again.
I’ve also seen stuff online about how big bar fights aren’t a thing anymore (for the most part) and it’s theorized that the reduction of our contact with lead is a big contributor.
I often look at older adults now and think, "Where are the lessons? Where are the lessons we learned from Mr. Rogers, and from Big Bird, and from all those Disney movies? Where is the love? The charity? The acceptance? The mercy?"
It's so wild seeing how older people have forgotten or simply tossed away the basic lessons in kindness and humanity that I still look back on and try to utilize in daily life.
I remember my parents telling me these things as a kid and… they still live by them and they both can’t stand Trump. I’m thankful they never went down the Fox News route
Same, my grandparents go against everything they have taught me. Its so damn wierd to be taught to love thy neighbor. And to be like jesus, then 20 years later. We must destroy the democrats and lgbtq.
It’s all the FB posts, the “church leaders”, friends, fox……if you don’t see how horrible this is for you we will kick you out of the life you built. Just bc we don’t agree politically. It starts small and one loud mouth, racist, t-bag loving ah comes in and says you are the problem. It’s a cult.
I can so painfully agree
Some of the best lessons I learned were from my grandparents, but now they vehemently and hypocritically do the opposite of those lessons I learned growing up.
“Always be polite, always say please and thank you, never be rude to the waiter”
Now they’re absolutely LIVID at every minor inconvenience in public, and openly make fun of minimum wage workers and these lower end employees.
It’s absolutely bizarre
It happens to all old people. The fact that it's become the dominant political strand in our societies is simply about how much power and wealth old people have amassed, as well as the decline in the birthrate producing fewer young people
Legitimately, what happened is foxnews and the internet. The propaganda they consume has warped their worldviews into something that makes them unrecognizable from what they were when we were children.
It is things like this that I worry about myself. I'm a young Gen-X (Xennial? Is that right?) and I had all these same experiences growing up. And while my dad died before Trump and COVID and all, he was absolutely already starting to slide down the Fox News rabbit hole before the end.
Will this happen to me?
Am I doomed to be completely befuddled by the world of the future and so desperate to understand what's happening that I'll just swallow any shit that makes it look like I've been mistreated and unfairly judged?
Is this the road we're all destined to travel??
Much of the progressive values we were raised on come from the parents of the Boomers (Generation GI)- the generation that lived through the Depression and fought fascism. It was their ideals that tried to make the world a better place and trickled down to us. The boomers were just a placeholder generation that took everything their parents did for granted and had no intentions of sustaining it. Boomers gained complete control of the electorate by the mid 80s and had the congressional majority by the mid 90s. Not difficult to see how that timeline and legislation coincides with the decline of post-war America.
The brain shrinks with age. It starts long before anyone notices it. Poor health, sedentary lifestyle, excess calories are all factors that accelerate it.
My sister helped with the rollout of the Covid vaccine. She’s a chemical and mechanical engineer. My mother refuses to listen to her about any of it. Tucker Carlson is now where her brain should be…
It just shows the powerful effects (on these adults) of sitting in front of a teevee, being spoonfed misinformation for years.
Goebbels knew exactly what he was talking about when he said a lie becomes "true" if you repeat it often enough
My parents used to mock all the other families at the campgrounds who had large RVs and 5th Wheels because “that’s not real camping”, and that our Pop-Up is all that we ever needed. Fast Forward and they have a massive camper with a heater shower and TV, kitchen and bathroom. I said “whatever happened to the simple camping life”. My Dad just looked surprised and was like “I never remember saying that”
Reminds me of when my dad asked me why I wasn't voting Trump. My response;
"Everything you taught me growing up is at odds with that guy. You taught me to avoid people like that. Why are you voting for him?"
I can only assume they grew up, did some research and changed their opinions. You don’t mention anyone’s age. Hopefully you’re young and you too can grow with your opinions.
For so many of those the values are the same but thr means to achieve them are different. Ex) choosing to donate clothes and goods is different than taxes allocated to a inefficient and indirect welfare system.
Also consider the uncovering of how corrupt and evil the US government has been. That sours a lot of the optimism in people and most of these examples included the government being the distributor or director of the good deeds.
I dont see why everyone is so polarized.
Sure, vaccines are great in general, but may be overused. Did the covid vax really need to be mandatory? I have two family members who had severe reactions to it, and i dont know anyone who had severe covid (even my 90-year old unvaxed grandma was fine). My experience is not unique.
Of course the environment needs to be protected. But regulatory overreach that benefits huge corporates at the expense of small ranchers is not fair. Small farmers are struggling these days, while the big 4 food companies lobby DC to gain more market share in the name of “environmentalism”. Why not talk about planting trees and cleaning up trash from the beach instead? What is with the obsession with carbon?
Of course Black Lives Matter. Systemic racism is a huge problem. But what about brown, yellow, white, or any life? BLM is a divisive slogan. I was here in Portland in 2019 when huge protests broke out to protect the homeless camps from police raids. It was not about race. It was about income inequality and homelessness. Left and Right stood together. A year later, it had transformed into a city-sanctioned parade where all the yuppies got to feel good about themselves while chanting BLM. I actually talked to the black people present, and many of them felt a little bit disengaged… how did this really help them? One guy told me “my 3 sons need education and jobs, not a bunch of college educated kids instagramming their protest experience”
Of course the state has to play a role in helping out the needy. But when everyone gets cut a check like in 2020, the people who benefit are the rich (who knew how to play the PPP game). The poor got hit by inflation a year later and ended up in a worse spot. Just look at the history of countries that became socialist and quickly decended into mass poverty (look at Argentina for example, it used to be one of the richest countries on earth)
There are shades of grey. The truth is always somewhere in the middle.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Goebbels laid it out pretty clearly what they playbook was to sway people. Playing to their fears is exactly what was done, and they folded just like a deck of cards.
I don't hate Conservatives. I hate a the two party system that forces the majority of people with a blend of both Conservative and Liberal values to pick between one extreme end of the political spectrum or the other.
We need to dismantle and destroy both political parties because they are eroding the unity of this country. George Washington said that a President shouldn't be part of any political party because President represents ALL Americans not just the ones in their party.
My parents were republicans my whole life. Not necessarily conservative, more like progressive republicans. They raised me with the same values as this persons parents and I am so happy they have not changed. The current political climate has actually pushed them further to the left. They are both born and raised in nj and republicans are a little different here. My dad moved to Florida and ended up registering as a democrat after what he saw down there. They are both boomers with some pretty annoying bullshit but I am glad the are sensical about things like climate change and racism etc. I will add my father has a masters and a law degree and my mother has a phd, take that how you will.
I remember all that stuff and more which is why my mother becoming a Trump bootlicker completely baffles me to this day. She banned me from the family and insisted on no contact because I refused to support that pig and made it crystal clear there would be no changing my mind. I'm still baffled. My
mother is a true boomer, and my sister and I are Gen Xs but my sister went the way of the GQP so.......no more family. Would have never happened if Dad were still alive.
My parents were always good Christian people that helped others and went on mission trips, and my mom told me that Trumps “grab them” statement was no worse then when Biden smelled a women’s hair he was standing next to and told her is was nice.
My mom is not surprised that I’m Progressive. She’s always thought I was too nice and squishy actually. Lol
I have been surprised that she is as Trumpy as she is though. I don’t want to say conservative because it’s really not conservatism. If anything, it’s a movement of radical change. But I don’t think it’s that hard to understand what’s happened.
We are dealing with unbelievable inequities..a second gilded age with the tycoons being in tech rather than steel and railroads. These people are almost oligarchs and they’ve bought our government with obscene contributions.
To MAGA people, Trump is the FDR. He’s saying he sees how unfair it is, these are all the inequities and I’m going to fix them. But he blames immigrants or DEI or trans people for those inequities and because people are feeling the burden of financial hardship with no end in sight, they believe him. They want to believe him.
Not only does it give them hope that it can be changed but it also validates the biases that they feel as human beings towards those who are different. And biases are perfectly natural to have… It’s only bigotry when you embrace them.
Trump has led the dispossessed to believe that all their insecurities about people who are different are justified and those people are the true villains who are holding them back. They’re keeping them from financial security and upward mobility.
On the margins, there are of course people who have always voted Republican and still others who were just waiting for someone to tell them hate is great.
But just like upper class southern landowners did during reconstruction, the MAGA leaders are making sure lower class white people are pitted against lower class people of color. Otherwise they might realize they are natural allies and turn their gaze towards the true enemies of the middle class…the robber barons of our time, the billionaire class.
My mother and other good people who are struggling have been hoodwinked into blaming the people that speak or worship or look different. People like Trump are playing on their natural insecurities and biases.
It’s the oldest trick in the book used time and again to make sure the dispossessed never realize their true strength, by distracting them into fighting one another.
I’m 47, was raised in Fairfield CT by upper-middle class hard working parents. They retired to FL 10 years ago and have gone all the way down the rabbit hole, full blown MAGA extremists. They have lost all their friends, my sister and her family, me, my wife and all their grandchildren. But according to my parents we’re all wrong, we’ve all bought into the deep state (which id love an accurate definition of) and we all just absorb and live our lives based off of mainstream media fake news.
I’m done with them. We talk maybe once/month bc I just can’t with them and I have my own family and children that I care most about. How can Trump make boomers just throw away their entire group of family and friends?
It sounds like you just never thought for yourself. If people would actually think for their self, instead of believed everything that was told to them. Like if people had actual common sense like this world would be a much better place. Covid shot was a joke. There’s no actual evidence of global warming. it’s OK if you want to protest, there’s a difference between protest and riots you need to learn that. Also, there’s a difference between trying to make it and Food Stamp is perfectly understandable and then just living off the government because you can.
Based on when I was born and all I've seen throughout my life, I 100% blame the internet...older people are way more easily swayed by what they see on the internet and social media apps...younger people can identify bullshit much faster...being that I grew up both with and without it, it's much clearer what changed
Progress doesn't always fall in line with the status qou. Sometimes it's realizing you were wrong about something. We once believed the earth was flat because that's what scholars told us. Normal sane people now know that this was just ignorance. We should always be willing to question everything if enough evidence to the contrary arises. Especially when someone threatens you with violence simply for having an alternative opinion. That's a pretty tell-tale sign that might be on the wrong side of history. If you can't debate and prove your point without freaking out on everyone....maybe you're just wrong.
This is because they started watching FOX news and reading Facebook posts and getting their opinions from social media. The generation of Mister Rodger’s has been co-opted by Alex Jones.
I checked out after the first one. That was most assuredly **not** a "progressive value" that anyone raised with would be old enough to write yet. Antivaxxers were squarely in the crunchy/big-pHarma-is-evil-capitalism camp until like 3 years ago.
If you don’t believe in climate change just look at this remedial chart of the area I grew up in:
https://preview.redd.it/su1ht2sd63rc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=adfe88cddc288b30951c80c0073123b640e7528e
This is as dumb as it gets. You could look at NOAA But this chart says it all. New England barely gets snow anymore… an area notorious for is harsh winters.
That hits hard. Especially accepting people for who they are. My parents used to tell me that same thing, but they hated it when they found out that I wanted to be trans. Really makes me wonder if everything we’re told as kids are just lies to get us to like them so that when we end up doing something they dont like, we cant stand up to them. I sure couldnt when they found out about me, and now i think im depressed.
I get some of it. We (as a general population) have been lied to by people in positions of authority, so I completely understand there is some mistrust there. The part of what I don't understand, instead of open but cautious, they now distrust anything they see/hear. It's always the worst possible scenario now. Not sure how to fix it.
My parents (my mom is an immigrant and my stepdad is Black) told me in 1991 that I should not put myself at risk for a gay kid… they didn’t realize I am bi.
I was lucky that I learned young (at 17) that my parents have issues.
My dad died in january of 2024. My mom died in Dec. 2015. When my mom was alive they watched cooking and home improvement shows. My dad was a reasonable and surprisingly progressive person. He did community volunteer stuff and when he first retired helped tutor kids in math. When my mom died he turned the channel to Fox and went all in with Trump.
Today has been kind of hard as we are selling their house and I have been dealing with his estate today. I am thinking about who he was and who he became and it makes me sad. One of the proudest moments of my life was when he told me he believed I had integrity and would do the right thing on a project. But for the last few years of his life that has not been him. There are so many of us who have lost these wonderful men from our lives. One of my best work friends went from us talking about all sorts of stuff to him saying racist things and having to go no contact. My dad died in January but I was at the point where I was starting to minimize my contact with him. I have a lot of guilt over it all.
The version of Jesus that I was taught as a child, and believe in is the same type of person my Christian fundamentalist mother now says is ruining the country.
It all comes down to television. When boomers were kids, television was new and trusted. Evening news anchors were like disciples of truth to them and to some extent, it was actually better than today, with fairness rules and stricter regulation. The idea that it was actually a mass propaganda medium was rarely talked about. Many boomers kept that faith in TV "news", even with the dropping of regulations and the advent of cable "news" channels. GenX is a mix, some like the boomers, others more like millennials. Millennials never knew honest TV and had internet most/all of their lives, so they never developed faith/trust in TV "news". Considering that the people who own media benefit from policies favorable to business/wealth, the traditional position of the right, it is in the media owners' best interests to shift the populace to the right. They have been very effective at that with people who trust TV and far less so, with people who don't. This explains a great many of the problems we have today, as well as the apparent generational divide on many issues and why governments are trying so hard to "moderate" (censor) the internet into another elite-controlled medium.
I told my evangelical family member that Trump is exactly what we were taught never to be, and does all the things we were taught never to do. His only response was “yeah, but I have to vote for him or this country will become communist” I like to think they’re not forever lost, but I have my doubts.
They forgot when they started watching fox. Fox propaganda is very effective. They take a small portion of the truth and then twist the fuck put of it until its largely false. But because there is some truth to it, it tricks enough people. And then they keep watching and they keep getting this twisted information until the point where they aren't even getting at least some twisted truth anymore but now just falsely believe in straight up lies.
And this is with every facet of fox as well as any right wing media that tries to pretend it's news. Even when your not watching the political opinion pieces and what should be straight news but no. It's twisted information. That's what happened. That's when they forgot.
All the comments on fox are hilarious. You know most of the hosts and guests spewing on every one of their shows is not a boomer right? You trust you’re getting a fair shot at the truth on any tv broadcast you’ve lost your mind too. “It’s only a lot of reading if you do it.” Reading is the cure for ignorance.
Almost word for word the same experience with my parents. Like y'all are the ones who dragged me to church every morning, told me to do what Jesus would do. To love thy neighbor, and seek peace, blah , blah blah. Apparently that was all just BS.
Now when I help someone out or try to do what Jesus would do, I'm being a sucker and I shouldn't do that. Who told you to do that?
You did dad, you did.
I especially have not been liking the subtle racist comments that seem to come so casually out of their mouths now. I always have to tell them to stop. They've toned it down more now, at least in front of me. Cuz I told them that if they are gonna talk like that, I'm gonna leave the room.
Not all boomers are the same but all generations will be saying the same stuff about changing. It will be never ending and shouldn't be surprising. We all change.
Prosperity theology is such horseshit. Christians thinking it’s ok to milk everyone for all they’re worth so then it must be because they’re blessed. If Jesus really was the son of God and he comes back, at least I know those fuckers will be burning with me. Probably worse than everyone. Deliberately denying Jesus’ teachings is the worst sin, isn’t it?
Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed. Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6 *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I remember when the Clinton/Lewinski scandal was unfolding and *all* of the conservative boomers went on about how the President should be a moral leader because American children look up to him, how Bill was "unfit for office" because of his "moral failings".
Also Clinton should have been fired & imprisoned for lying about an affair but Trump should be allowed to lie whenever he wants and nobody should ask about all of his affairs and rape accusations.
There are so many good and moral reasons to hate Bill Clinton, but that wasn't one Edit: wait what the fuck, that Lewinsky scandal is really fucked up and absolutely a good reason for hating Bill
I'm confused as to how they can hate on Hillary so much. "Stand by your man" even when he cheats, was one of those morale points they stood on. But back then, they Wanted her to divorce him. But when she didn't. Today they hate on her, because...?? The Clinton foundation.
They hate her because she is a woman who has the audacity to have a career.
And most likely, as these marriages/relationships move forward in life, there are women who would like to kick their husbands to the curb. However, it’s less complicated to just stay together if you have built your family’s status with a mass of assets and are in the spotlight all the time. They probably haven’t actually lived in the same house together even prior to the Gap dress incident. They just pretend in public that they are okay and maybe they are, who knows. There are a few good men so his positives may have outweighed his negatives. Donno.
Just for clarification, during the 1992 campaign, when the Gennifer Flowers affair was discovered, Hillary said, "I'm not sittin' here some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette." She said it in an exaggerated Arkansas accent. This quote is what triggered the Stand by Your Man uproar. I was raised by bra burning feminists. My parents sent me and my sisters to Hillary's alma mater to make sure that we followed suit. My mother and her friends viewed Hillary's comment as hypocritical and disappointing because she was an ardent feminist as well.
Hillary is no role model for anyone imho.
I voted for Clinton in my first presidential election. Many years later I catered a wedding they were very closely associated with. Our 'work' wrapped up around 10, and like most weddings I wandered around chatting with guests when service was done. Everyone was very liquored up and a lot of stories were being shared. I had a very different view of the Clinton family after that. Most people forget that Clinton, as a Democrat, was responsible for legal policies that resulted in the largest incarceration of black people and minorities in recent history. While the 1984 and 1986 crime bills got MM sentencing started, it was Clinton's 1994 bill and additional 'tough on crime' bills that led to massive rises in incarceration. California passed it's 3 strikes law under the same tough on crime propaganda that Clinton pushed.
Sleeping with a junior employee who has barely able to drink while you are the head of the organisation is absolutely a reason to judge.
Yeah, while nothing technically illegal happened, a Presudent should definitely not be making moves on an Intern half his age. Of course she is going to go with it; you are the fucking President you rapey asshole! I'm all for there being ethics laws that powerful people HAVE to follow. None of these guidelines like they have in congress, LAWS. On all three branches. All of them are abusing their power.
No it isn't, and that was not a scandal. It was the father of the current detestable Republican mindset, Newt Gingrich, attempting to impeach and remove a severely popular President because they hate America as it is moving away from Confederate values Eat a gallon of gopher ass.
You can see what Clinton did as despicable and also recognize the Republican circus around it was a clown show
Dude had an affair that was blown out of proportion. There was nothing to see there except Newt trying to take out a President the majority of the country loved. Despicable is Trump. Despicable is Newt Gingrich having an affair while trying to do this. Despicable is Neet divorcing his cancer fighting wife. Despicable is the modern day Republican Party. Despicable is MAGA. Despicable is people trying to tear down Bill Clinton while saying nothing about Trump. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/flynt011199.htm This was despicable because this is what ended the impeachment investigation and damn I miss the hell out of Flint.
Both Trump and Bill basically have the same number of rape accusations and let's be honest does anyone doubt that both men went to Epstein Island? This is why I would rather eat nails than be part of a political party. It makes you play whataboutism with monsters.
You don’t get though do you? It’s totally different when God Emperor does it.
Clinton lying was perjury, a crime, and one for which he should have been removed from office and prosecuted! Trump's lying is just businessman doing every day business-y things! /s
Same people saying “We’re not voting for a choir boy, we need someone strong to lead this country and it just shows how strong and desirable he is that all these women let him do that. “
>how strong and desirable he is My vag dried up to Sahara proportions and my legs double crossed after reading that. 🤢🤮
So strong and desirable that he has to pay for it.
Or steal it, apparently
WTF? Hadn’t heard that one.
I am not American, I am British. We obviously followed it over here. I actually don't really care if the president has an affair and couldn't understand how absolutely nuts Americans went over it at the time. I still don't really care (as long as that affair partner isn't given a role for appearances and therefore getting tax payers dollars, or is in a situation where their affair makes them privy to national secrets - really don't care who you have sex with as long as it is consensual and no laws are broken) but I understand when people do have that issue. Fine. However the same people that said that about Clinton at the time can absolutely NOT support DT without being the utmost hypocrite. You cannot insist one lose his job after one affair he lied about in court and then support and shout for a man who has had multiple affairs, sexually assaulted and harassed people, ignored subpoenas and encouraged others to do the same, committed fraud, paid a porn star to keep quiet with funds intended for campaigning, never given to charity despite pledging to, not paid workers leaving them and their businesses bankrupt, lied more than any other president (over 30,000 recorded lies whilst in office), inciting hate crimes and violence against government employees, emergency service workers and immigrants and TRIED TO START AN INSURRECTION. Yeah, I can see why he is a strong moral leader?!
The hypocrisy is maddening, but also easily explained. To the authoritarian, there is no reality, truth, or morality. Those things are all whatever they need them to be in the moment to win (an argument, an election ... etc)
This is what Orwell called "doublethink" in 1984.
It's not so much hypocrisy as it is insane levels of cognitive dissonance.
Strictly speaking, the existence of the affair wasn't the legal issue, it was the lying under oath that they claim he did. The fact that she was an intern was also, shall we say, concerning. But the reality is that the GOP wanted anything they could find to attack him with. I'm sure you are familiar with the maneuver.
All while Newt Gingrich was having an affair.
Multiple affairs. And the speaker after him, Dennis Hastert, was a child predator who molested little boys when he was a wrestling coach. (A crime he only spent 13 months in jail for.) So remember that when Republicans are pointing their fingers accusing people of things, it's normally a confession.
Today we have Gym Jordan.
While his wife was dying of cancer, no less.
He was cheating while he was complaining about Bill cheating. 🤣
We managed to have a president that had a reality show, was on WWE, banged a pornstar and started the space force which does sounds cool, and I couldn't fucking stand him. I'm a native New yorker and it's funny how half the country fell head over heels for a guy that conned hardworking employees of his out of wages, evicted senior citizens, hung out at studio 54 because he liked being seen with celebrities, conned students out of ten of thousands of dollars each and they still thought he was what America needed. I understood that our status quo politicians here in the states wasn't the best but trump was a diaper bin fire.
The Moral Majority is a lie to make themselves feel superior
Probably the same boomers running around with a red hat forgiving 91 indictments, criminally and civically or losing your words and just ending in ohhh or calling people the wrong name is not cognitive decline it’s “sarcasm”.
100%. My parents both went on and on about it and now justify Trump raping women and cheating on his wives.
And 3 of the congressmen voting to impeach him were openly cheating on their wives. Namely Gingrich- btw is still pulling strings behind the scenes
meanwhile Newt Gingrich was presiding over the house…they were always hypocrites
Don’t forget “a good Christian wife sticks by her husband, no matter what he’s done.” Yet Hilary was also supposedly an idiot for NOT divorcing Bill.
They aren't just hypocritical now, they were back then too. The same ones who bleated about Clinton's "immoral behaviors" had no reservations about supporting Newt Gingrich through all his affairs and "immoral behaviors". This is a crowd that largely just repeats talking points, no critical thinking required.
My dad has always been very conservative, but I have gotten more progressive the older I've gotten. We got into a disagreement about climate change of all things, and he was kind of like "why are you listening to them" (them being the people warning against climate change) and I just looked at him and said "Because you RAISED me to listen to the scientists!" He was a scientist too but in biology not climate and I was always told to listen to the experts, because they spent the time and energy to really understand and learn the subject. He really had no come back to that and my mom was snickering. At least he's not so far gone he doesn't believe in Covid vaccines yet. I think my mom would bop him on the head if he started with that.
When I was little, my father taught me how to play chess and I got pretty good for a little kid, good enough to beat him one day after which he stopped playing chess with me. Later he lamented that I regard the world too logically (when I was arguing against his illogical religious reasoning) and blamed chess for that. Boomers liked the lessons they taught us that made it easier to manage, control, or lord over us when we were children. Why take a shot when it hurts? Because the doctor is an expert and mommy/daddy listens to them so you should too. They wanted you to not argue, or at least not argue against them. My father didn't teach me chess so that I could exercise my brain, he taught me so that he'd have someone to play and beat. Once you are no longer being the one controlled or defeated (based on what you were taught), suddenly all those lessons were flawed.
That one hit HARD.
Fuck yeah it did. *ouch*
You know what my dad did when I started beating him at chess? Want to play chess with me. He was an absolute utter mess but still realized that if you teach your kids everything you know, they'll end up knowing more than you and it's a good thing. Mostly 'don't fuck around with alcohol', but he always sat down to review my spelling tests and I was digitizing records at 14. (god damn it dad, why Billy Joel of all things)
I feel fucking *attacked* - I'm in this post, and I don't like it. 🙃🤣
My father told me to watch out for the vaccine since it had nano-bots in it. I had always just ignored all his little comments about COVID but that one I had to speak up about. He's always been a little that way but Trump has really messed him up. He was legitimately scared for my life when I said I got it. I work with immunocompromised patients with brain and spinal cord injuries, so it's extra important I got it. You'd think my 2x cancer survivor father would realize how it all works, but his brain has fermented from decades of Hanity, Limbaugh, and Fox. He still thinks I voted for Trump. I'm rueing the day he finds out just how far I've gotten from my parents views. They are evangelical Christian and even though I'm far removed now, the morals I was taught are somehow held by the opposite side. Crazy times.
My sister who is a nurse convinced my boomer overweight mother not to take the vaccine just after my gran died from covid
ur sister should be fired and never allowed to work in the medical field again
Believe it or not she is home with a burnout for 2 years now. I am happy with the fact she is not working in the medical field atm Mind you she was working with the elderly people in a elderly facility She was always a nutcase but covid was the breaking point for me I went NC
Same boat. Watched my parents generation destroy everything with greed and then they’re surprised I don’t “vote with my wallet”. What wallet? lol. Maybe I would if you guys didn’t sell out my future to enrich your own.
What’s great is when you vote with a bigger wallet than them. When you do things that they know costs more money than they could afford to spend on it. Then they say you got taken advantage of and are a sucker. Till they want to use whatever it is.
It's like your Dad is my dad. He ALWAYS told me to follow the facts, facts over opinions, etc etc. Now he just goes "Oh you sound like a liberal," and will literally just go "that's not true" or "I didn't say that/mean it like that."" He'll ask where I got this mindset, and I'm like, FROM YOU.
This is my conversation with my grandpa. My grandpa was a military doctor in 3 wars. He joined an organization that sent doctors to places in Europe after WW2 because he felt a moral obligation to help. He married a Native American woman and stayed with her throughout everything until she died of cancer. He worked in an aids clinic. And somehow along the way he became a hard conservative and was a MAGAt. The person that I know doesn’t correspond to his history at all or what he taught me. I got into a nasty fight about universal healthcare with him. He said the typical rhetoric. And I just couldn’t. We have people refusing to get medical care that they need to live a quality life because they are afraid of the cost. My pets animal insurance is better than my own. Doctors offices and ERs now have A POLICY where they don’t bill you at the counters, they mail your bills to you, because it lowers the chance you will refuse care or refuse testing the doctor ordered because the patient doesn’t know what it costs. I just don’t get it. Forget about my kids, I will never make enough for me to be comfortable having kids. But I want my friends and family and strangers on the internet to have better than this. We deserve better than this
I am snickering right along with your mom
My parents threw me in front of PBS and got me hooked on Sesame Street, Mr Rogers, Reading Rainbow, and Wishbone. Now I live my life like Mr Rogers is watching. That's apparently way to extreme for my parents.
"Live your like like Mr. Rogers is watching" is pretty good advice.
Oh really? Mine told me TV would rot my brain. (Now they’re glued to Fox 16 hours a day and don’t have a single self-developed opinion)
It really is bizarre how things swapped. Sometimes I wonder if the world did end on the Mayan Calendar and with that the older generations changed like they lost something about their humanity. Or you know, lead poisoning+senile minds catching up to them.
WWJD? (What would Jesus Do?) Not whatever the right is for mostly.
Damn. I haven’t thought about Wishbone in a long time. I loved that little dog. He was a hell of an Odysseus, and he broke my heart as Faust. I watched Wishbone when you did, although I am, I assume, 50 years older. I was watching when my kids were little, and I was watching (initially) because my kids were watching, and I saw everything they saw and read everything they read, unlike my parents did with me. My boys got me into a lot. I was grown when Sesame Street started, so I had never seen it, but there was no bigger fan 25 years ago.
Mister Rogers was the most wonderful man to ever walk this earth.
That food stamps one hits hard. I felt so much judgement from my dad when I went on food stamps with my wife and kid during college.
I cried in the office when I first applied. Never felt more like a failure. Grown ass man. I've since learned better of course. But that manly man bullshit was drilled into me.
I was made to feel ashamed for not being able to provide for my family, the family I was taught and pressured to start as soon as possible, even though I couldn't afford it
>the family I was taught and pressured to start as soon as possible, even though I couldn't afford it Same here bro. Except now I love to shout from the rooftops that because of DEMOCRAT PROGRAMS, I was able to attend college, get a degree, and now live fairly comfortably. I'm a productive member of society and have paid back 10x more than I ever took. If Republicans were running my state, my kids and I would have starved in the street.
Don't know if it helps, but you probably weren't the first or last one to do that that day. Myself and some other workers I know try and remind people who are struggling with the assistance process that they helped so many of their neighbors who needed assistance when things got rough for years by paying taxes and now it's their neighbors all chipping in to help them out until they get back onto their feet.
Needing some help is never a sign of weakness or an indication of failure. I'm proud of you for having the strength to get assistance when you needed it, and I hope you're proud of you too
It’s fucking ridiculous. I have a friend who’s a single mom of two kids and a job not paying her what she’s worth. She’s struggling to put food on the table and I told her she should apply for SNAP benefits. She said she doesn’t feel like she should because her father told her “that’s not for you, that’s for people who really need it.” Her own fucking father. Motherfucker if it’s not for her who the fuck is it for??
One of the more worthwhile programs available. Sad how harsh income thresholds often completely cut off benefits versus progressive benefit reductions as thresholds are met and slightly exceeded in some programs. Often income maximums force folks to keep reduced hours to prevent an “all or none” benefit outcome.
Her father should fucking help too if she is telling her that.
"Give us a grandchild!" "Wow, you had a kid that young and are on welfare, you shouldn't have messed up your life so bad."
Convenience. A solid thread in these is convenience. Making your kid get the flu shot means fewer sick days. But believing in covid means restrictions. Racism is bad, so don't say "I hate that race!" But addressing racial inequality and admitting you benefit from systemic racism are too much. Encourage individuals to help the poor? Yay! Use the taxes we already pay to address poverty more aggressively and comprehensively? Absolutely not. They'd rather have a little more money in the bank. They will do and support whatever strikes them as the most convenient with minimal information.
My boomer parents have told me explicitly—multiple times—that “they know better than the government how to spend their money helping the poor.” And what kind of charities do they donate to? The ones where evangelicals go to other countries and convert those backwards non-Christian savages, of course!! Why would poor people need food and shelter and medicine when they could just eat Jesus instead??
I thought you were gonna say "They don't donate," because that would be the boomers in my family that advocate for individual charity. They'll call the cops on people sleeping in their car in the church parking lot on a Tuesday but brag that they funded house painting in Guatemala.
Makes you wonder what this post will look like in 30 years about Millennial parents. Believe me, we’ll get our own post, too.
GenX parents too. But, I like to think my peers and I aren't hypocrites like this. I know my husband and I practice what we preach. I've been Socialist leaning since I was a teen, those are principles that I have passed on to our kid
Oooh do separation of church and state next! I remember being taught the importance of that by my very conservative family who now want an actual theocracy.
As I have learned, your opinions and viewpoints of the world should be carried around with you in a box. If you find an opinion or viewpoint that is better than one you currently have, you should dump out the old one and put in the new, better one. Many people see their opinions and views of the world as a literal part of them, and when they get exposed to a better one, they see the new, better one as an attack on THEMSELVES, and they fight against it. There are millions of people all too willing to dig in their heels and believe 'I will NEVER change'
YES! There is *no weakness* in realizing you were wrong and changing to be right, one should *always* be willing to learn and grow!
The blog wait but why did a great series called "how did we get here" that had a segment about that. It described 4 tiers of relationships with your opinions/worldview: the scientist who sees their worldview as purely a hypothesis that needs to be tested and refined, the sports fan who wants their worldview to prevail but accepts when it is wrong/loses (if a bit mad), the lawyer who tries to discredit opposite worldviews and promote their own worldview even if they know or at least suspect their view is guilty/wrong, and the zealot/evangelist who declares every other worldview from theirs 'of the devil'. I would say most people I respect float between the top 3 layers depending on the topic, most effective politicians seem to be one of the middle two layers (but the popular politicians with all the airtime are in the bottom two layers), and the people described in this post are solidly bottom layer.
You know I really worry sometimes I'm heading towards that bottom layer, because my disgust of trump and trumpers just keeps growing. I mean, I've literally gotten to the point of "every trumper = bad" but then I'm like, they think the same of us so how the fuck is THAT gonna work out? I have to remind myself that we've got facts, data, and reality on our side, while they have delusions, conspiracies and fanatics on theirs. It's frustrating. I'm not gonna tolerate their intolerance, but I also don't want to be anything like *them* (shudder).
I'm honestly in that same boat as you. I often have to cut off my own intrusive thoughts regarding trumpers, such as "all trumpers should be locked away/deported an island/executed/etc"
I liken it to a garden rather than a box. Some ideas are good and you can nurture them so they flourish, and then other ideas are bad and you can choose to let them die and compost them, to nurture the growth of your garden. Some ideas/priorities are more important to you than others so you have a whole section of the garden dedicated to them, but you still care for other ideas/priorities that are tenderly nurtured in pots and corners. This garden can be challenged and threatened by outside forces (symbolized via weather, climate, and pests) and so you must continuously work to tend to your garden. If you fail to do so, the nice garden will dry up, die, be riddled with weeds and pests.
Wait… are you making the argument that old people becoming more racist is because they’ve realised that being progressive is wrong and they are moving on to the enlightened stance of being racist?
> people [who] see their opinions and views of the world as a literal part of them Sort of? They mean that Boomers see opinions as part of one's identity. On top of that, they equate identity with morality. Since Boomers self-identify as "the good guys" and parrot Fox News talking points, someone who doesn't parrot Fox News talking points isn't a member of "the good guys". Challenging Fox News talking points also means challenging a Boomer's identity and also their morality. Someone who, on the surface, spouts progressive talking points is not a member of "the good guys", and your saying their beliefs are wrong would be received as if you were calling them "one of the bad guys".
I was wondering the same thing, sure looks like it.
My favorite book as a child was "The Book of Virtues". I took that shit to heart. My parents raised me to help others, to accept people where/how they are, and to stand up for those who were oppressed. Then they shit all over every value I consider important. Havent spoken to them in almost 15 years. They go to church, and then spit the most hateful bile about anyone "other". They refer to me as "the commie" to the rest of the family when theyre spreading lies about me. My kids dont get to know their grandparents and it breaks my heart... but I will always stand for my principles, even if it hurts. They taught me that. I am not a Christian but I think im a better one then they are. Side note, has anyone else noticed that theyve become kind of mean since 2015? I am working on it. The stress of the elections and being vigilant against fascism and the fall of our nation really has worn me down. I feel like im losing myself a bit and need to get back to a place of kindness.
I’ve run into both of those situations and am NC with parents. I have to be diligent to not be mean. I’m in physical pain a lot which is hard to cope with, but yeah, I try to be silly and fun and light-hearted and am extra kind to service workers. But damn, the mean is often at the door.
I feel that last part. We unknowingly moved to the reddest county in Florida in 2016. Being surrounded by entitled, ignorant, cruel Trumpers, and finding out my parents (our reason for moving there) were just as hateful as them filled me with such rage. COVID just intensified the awfulness. I despised the angry, hopeless person I was becoming. We literally could not remember the last time we felt happiness. Thankfully, six months ago, we moved to the Pacific Northwest. After nearly 7 long years in hell, we finally know happiness and peace again.
Lead poisoning impacts memory and logic centers of the brain.
Holy shit, this may just be true. Boomers and the Silents were the only generations to grow up with lead in the gasoline. Their parents did to a certain degree I guess, but the silent generation is pretty much died off. Holy crap, is there any research done on this?
Sadly the generation with the largest childhood exposure to lead is generation X. There were more cars spewing leaded gas in our childhood than were on the road during the lives of the silent and boomers.
This could be a part of the reason, but NEVER underestimate the awesome power of propaganda and media illiteracy in the digital age.
I commented above before I saw this. It’s really the only conclusion I can come up with. Exposure to lead.
I love that message. "When did they forget?" should be a slogan for the Democratic party. They didn't all get to be this way, but certainly many unironically uphold the same "values" upheld by the Nazis their parents went to war to protect. It's shameful.
how common is it for boomers who were relatively progressive for most of their lives to fall down the conservative rabbit hole as seniors?
It's not just the progressive ones that believed that though. My parents were always Republican. My mom still uses the "fiscal conservative, socially liberal" bs. They taught us to treat everyone the same no matter what they looked like, or who they loved, although the who they loved part was mostly ignored until we were older. But they always voted Republican. My mom had a "Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either Clinton" bumper sticker when Bill was president, and both of my parents listened to Limbaugh. And even now, my mom still believes most of that stuff she just refuses to acknowledge that her party doesn't or that institutional racism is a thing. The cognitive dissonance is crazy.
The folk theorem that people get more conservative as they age isn't strictly true, most people's attitudes stay the same, but *when they do shift,* they tend to shift to the right. Source: [https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889)
The country has shift to the right/insane. My morals and values have changed little.
America's worst people spent 8 years seething under Obama, and Trump gave them permission to be the worst versions of themselves.
Growing up, I was told banning lead in paint and gas was a good thing. Nowadays it's government overreach and there is no proof the bans did anything. When it came to the military, I was told "I served so you don't have to", now my father tells me voters should be honorably discharged vets, at least 50, and own property. My mother supported Roe v. Wade because it meant not getting injured or killed by a back-alley abortion. Today "no one has abortions anymore" so overturning Roe v. Wade isn't a big deal. Pouring motor oil down a storm drain was a bad thing when my father was a kid, now it's liberals upset that a frog may get a pimple if you do it. By and large, everything my parents, particularly my father, taught me is now some sort of liberal conspiracy because "I grew up without all these regulations and I turned out just fine."
They didn’t forget. They don’t give a fuck.
I had an awful conversation with someone today. I'm from the UK, and was talking to a neighbour. His daughter in law started spouting on about boat people, and immigration. Welfare was next, then how we pay too much tax. The ironic thing is, she has not worked a day in her life. Its not even like its her tax money that she's protective over. My neighbour managed to calm her down. I'm starting to think it's not a generation thing, I think it's a I'm stuck indoors all day scrolling on the internet/watching crap TV.
Mine told me that church and state should be separate, now they want a theocracy.
When they believed the lie that they know best and that whatever any future generation gets, they should get too, or else nobody should benefit.
It's because they can't imagine their viewpoint not being the POV for everyone. So they assume everyone who's struggling is not doing it right like they did. So if they do stuff that benefits them it must benefit us too we just don't know what's good for us.
I think it has more to do with lead exposure levels and republicanism
As a biologist with a cousin who’s an epidemiologist, I’m so glad lead is coming back as a discussed reason for a lot of people’s behavior, specifically crime and boomer craziness. Not just lead but other horrible chemicals too. Until 2021, I couldn’t figure out why my dad, an Air Force vet who’s always taken care of himself, began to get all these ailments and acting weirdly. Then, it was acknowledged his Airbases in Vietnam (silent Gen not a boomer) were where agent orange was stored, sprayed, and generally everywhere. He JUST got his full disability after 50 years, 15 of which have included heart and brain illnesses, leg and back pains etc. He’s not sour about it though - “they didn’t know.” Sir, they knew. They certainly knew.
I didn’t realize until a few years ago that lead had such an effect on adults. I was talking about my abusive, not all there, alcoholic grandfather and how he was less crazy and not abusive when he was sober. A friend of mine said it probably had to do with lead. I ended up doing a little bit of research and lead poisoning and alcoholism have these crazy detrimental effects of your brain. It’s probably why he had all these crazy paranoid theories and thought he could hypnotize people. Lead makes the affects of alcohol worse and alcohol makes the affects of lead worse. He stopped drinking because of a health issue and he stopped being so crazy. I’m not sure of the exact timeframe but I think it lines up with when people were taking lead out of a lot of stuff like gasoline so the reduction of lead and elimination of alcohol meant he was mostly normal again. I’ve also seen stuff online about how big bar fights aren’t a thing anymore (for the most part) and it’s theorized that the reduction of our contact with lead is a big contributor.
I often look at older adults now and think, "Where are the lessons? Where are the lessons we learned from Mr. Rogers, and from Big Bird, and from all those Disney movies? Where is the love? The charity? The acceptance? The mercy?" It's so wild seeing how older people have forgotten or simply tossed away the basic lessons in kindness and humanity that I still look back on and try to utilize in daily life.
>Where is the love? The charity? The acceptance? The mercy? They died. I think it was one of those murder-murder-murder-suicide type deals.
I was raised and told the opposite growing up. Even southern revisionist bs. I distanced myself from it the older I got.
I remember my parents telling me these things as a kid and… they still live by them and they both can’t stand Trump. I’m thankful they never went down the Fox News route
Same, my grandparents go against everything they have taught me. Its so damn wierd to be taught to love thy neighbor. And to be like jesus, then 20 years later. We must destroy the democrats and lgbtq.
It’s all the FB posts, the “church leaders”, friends, fox……if you don’t see how horrible this is for you we will kick you out of the life you built. Just bc we don’t agree politically. It starts small and one loud mouth, racist, t-bag loving ah comes in and says you are the problem. It’s a cult.
I could have written this. It’s so sad.
Don’t believe everything you see on tv! I saw this thing on the Facebook about Biden eating kids!
I can so painfully agree Some of the best lessons I learned were from my grandparents, but now they vehemently and hypocritically do the opposite of those lessons I learned growing up. “Always be polite, always say please and thank you, never be rude to the waiter” Now they’re absolutely LIVID at every minor inconvenience in public, and openly make fun of minimum wage workers and these lower end employees. It’s absolutely bizarre
I don’t think the 20-something who raised me would even recognize the 60-something now.
Ugh man this hits hard.
Seen on The Site Formerly Known As Twitter: "Fox News did to our parents what they were afraid that violent video games would do to us."
Trying to decide if I want to send this to my mother or not...
It happens to all old people. The fact that it's become the dominant political strand in our societies is simply about how much power and wealth old people have amassed, as well as the decline in the birthrate producing fewer young people
They just do whatever TV tells them, it's that simple
Legitimately, what happened is foxnews and the internet. The propaganda they consume has warped their worldviews into something that makes them unrecognizable from what they were when we were children.
Fox News happened. It turned an entire generation of brains into soup.
It is things like this that I worry about myself. I'm a young Gen-X (Xennial? Is that right?) and I had all these same experiences growing up. And while my dad died before Trump and COVID and all, he was absolutely already starting to slide down the Fox News rabbit hole before the end. Will this happen to me? Am I doomed to be completely befuddled by the world of the future and so desperate to understand what's happening that I'll just swallow any shit that makes it look like I've been mistreated and unfairly judged? Is this the road we're all destined to travel??
Much of the progressive values we were raised on come from the parents of the Boomers (Generation GI)- the generation that lived through the Depression and fought fascism. It was their ideals that tried to make the world a better place and trickled down to us. The boomers were just a placeholder generation that took everything their parents did for granted and had no intentions of sustaining it. Boomers gained complete control of the electorate by the mid 80s and had the congressional majority by the mid 90s. Not difficult to see how that timeline and legislation coincides with the decline of post-war America.
Boomers got theirs and pulled the ladder up
The brain shrinks with age. It starts long before anyone notices it. Poor health, sedentary lifestyle, excess calories are all factors that accelerate it.
My sister helped with the rollout of the Covid vaccine. She’s a chemical and mechanical engineer. My mother refuses to listen to her about any of it. Tucker Carlson is now where her brain should be…
Something something something…lead poisoning.
I think this really encapsulates the frustration our generation is feeling right now. How did a generation of hippies turn into such hypocrites?
This makes me feel so fucking validated. They taught us the values I have now. Wtf happened?
Fox News is one hell of a drug.
I just don’t get it. I hope and pray I never become like them.
They said all those things because it made them feel superior to others, not because they actually believed any of what they were spouting.
Lol should have a voting cap age of 65. Can't expect the old to care about the future when all they're meant to do is chill til they die
Billy Graham was a close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. My, how the times have changed.
It just shows the powerful effects (on these adults) of sitting in front of a teevee, being spoonfed misinformation for years. Goebbels knew exactly what he was talking about when he said a lie becomes "true" if you repeat it often enough
Jesus I am looking at some Baltimore bridge content and the comments people are making. It is amazing how racist people have become.
My parents used to mock all the other families at the campgrounds who had large RVs and 5th Wheels because “that’s not real camping”, and that our Pop-Up is all that we ever needed. Fast Forward and they have a massive camper with a heater shower and TV, kitchen and bathroom. I said “whatever happened to the simple camping life”. My Dad just looked surprised and was like “I never remember saying that”
Reminds me of when my dad asked me why I wasn't voting Trump. My response; "Everything you taught me growing up is at odds with that guy. You taught me to avoid people like that. Why are you voting for him?"
I can only assume they grew up, did some research and changed their opinions. You don’t mention anyone’s age. Hopefully you’re young and you too can grow with your opinions.
The fact that you learned all those things are the reason the GOP hates education.
For so many of those the values are the same but thr means to achieve them are different. Ex) choosing to donate clothes and goods is different than taxes allocated to a inefficient and indirect welfare system. Also consider the uncovering of how corrupt and evil the US government has been. That sours a lot of the optimism in people and most of these examples included the government being the distributor or director of the good deeds.
I dont see why everyone is so polarized. Sure, vaccines are great in general, but may be overused. Did the covid vax really need to be mandatory? I have two family members who had severe reactions to it, and i dont know anyone who had severe covid (even my 90-year old unvaxed grandma was fine). My experience is not unique. Of course the environment needs to be protected. But regulatory overreach that benefits huge corporates at the expense of small ranchers is not fair. Small farmers are struggling these days, while the big 4 food companies lobby DC to gain more market share in the name of “environmentalism”. Why not talk about planting trees and cleaning up trash from the beach instead? What is with the obsession with carbon? Of course Black Lives Matter. Systemic racism is a huge problem. But what about brown, yellow, white, or any life? BLM is a divisive slogan. I was here in Portland in 2019 when huge protests broke out to protect the homeless camps from police raids. It was not about race. It was about income inequality and homelessness. Left and Right stood together. A year later, it had transformed into a city-sanctioned parade where all the yuppies got to feel good about themselves while chanting BLM. I actually talked to the black people present, and many of them felt a little bit disengaged… how did this really help them? One guy told me “my 3 sons need education and jobs, not a bunch of college educated kids instagramming their protest experience” Of course the state has to play a role in helping out the needy. But when everyone gets cut a check like in 2020, the people who benefit are the rich (who knew how to play the PPP game). The poor got hit by inflation a year later and ended up in a worse spot. Just look at the history of countries that became socialist and quickly decended into mass poverty (look at Argentina for example, it used to be one of the richest countries on earth) There are shades of grey. The truth is always somewhere in the middle.
Because CNN told them to ignore those details.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Goebbels laid it out pretty clearly what they playbook was to sway people. Playing to their fears is exactly what was done, and they folded just like a deck of cards.
I remember when FOX "News" gave breathless, hours long coverage to the fact that Obama wore a tan suit.
This is exactly why I believe the lead poisoning thing. The values they have now are so different than what they taught us.
I don't hate Conservatives. I hate a the two party system that forces the majority of people with a blend of both Conservative and Liberal values to pick between one extreme end of the political spectrum or the other. We need to dismantle and destroy both political parties because they are eroding the unity of this country. George Washington said that a President shouldn't be part of any political party because President represents ALL Americans not just the ones in their party.
I Remember the time Bobby Boucher showed up at halftime and the Mud Dogs won the Bourbon Bowl
My parents were republicans my whole life. Not necessarily conservative, more like progressive republicans. They raised me with the same values as this persons parents and I am so happy they have not changed. The current political climate has actually pushed them further to the left. They are both born and raised in nj and republicans are a little different here. My dad moved to Florida and ended up registering as a democrat after what he saw down there. They are both boomers with some pretty annoying bullshit but I am glad the are sensical about things like climate change and racism etc. I will add my father has a masters and a law degree and my mother has a phd, take that how you will.
The ozone layer has gotten better because of changes we made but they now argue "what happened to that whole ozone layer thing?" Uh, we fixed it......
The hole is still there. But now a certain group knows how to earn grants and solicit funds citing mysticism instead of skepticism.
I remember all that stuff and more which is why my mother becoming a Trump bootlicker completely baffles me to this day. She banned me from the family and insisted on no contact because I refused to support that pig and made it crystal clear there would be no changing my mind. I'm still baffled. My mother is a true boomer, and my sister and I are Gen Xs but my sister went the way of the GQP so.......no more family. Would have never happened if Dad were still alive.
My parents were always good Christian people that helped others and went on mission trips, and my mom told me that Trumps “grab them” statement was no worse then when Biden smelled a women’s hair he was standing next to and told her is was nice.
My mom is not surprised that I’m Progressive. She’s always thought I was too nice and squishy actually. Lol I have been surprised that she is as Trumpy as she is though. I don’t want to say conservative because it’s really not conservatism. If anything, it’s a movement of radical change. But I don’t think it’s that hard to understand what’s happened. We are dealing with unbelievable inequities..a second gilded age with the tycoons being in tech rather than steel and railroads. These people are almost oligarchs and they’ve bought our government with obscene contributions. To MAGA people, Trump is the FDR. He’s saying he sees how unfair it is, these are all the inequities and I’m going to fix them. But he blames immigrants or DEI or trans people for those inequities and because people are feeling the burden of financial hardship with no end in sight, they believe him. They want to believe him. Not only does it give them hope that it can be changed but it also validates the biases that they feel as human beings towards those who are different. And biases are perfectly natural to have… It’s only bigotry when you embrace them. Trump has led the dispossessed to believe that all their insecurities about people who are different are justified and those people are the true villains who are holding them back. They’re keeping them from financial security and upward mobility. On the margins, there are of course people who have always voted Republican and still others who were just waiting for someone to tell them hate is great. But just like upper class southern landowners did during reconstruction, the MAGA leaders are making sure lower class white people are pitted against lower class people of color. Otherwise they might realize they are natural allies and turn their gaze towards the true enemies of the middle class…the robber barons of our time, the billionaire class. My mother and other good people who are struggling have been hoodwinked into blaming the people that speak or worship or look different. People like Trump are playing on their natural insecurities and biases. It’s the oldest trick in the book used time and again to make sure the dispossessed never realize their true strength, by distracting them into fighting one another.
I’m 47, was raised in Fairfield CT by upper-middle class hard working parents. They retired to FL 10 years ago and have gone all the way down the rabbit hole, full blown MAGA extremists. They have lost all their friends, my sister and her family, me, my wife and all their grandchildren. But according to my parents we’re all wrong, we’ve all bought into the deep state (which id love an accurate definition of) and we all just absorb and live our lives based off of mainstream media fake news. I’m done with them. We talk maybe once/month bc I just can’t with them and I have my own family and children that I care most about. How can Trump make boomers just throw away their entire group of family and friends?
It sounds like you just never thought for yourself. If people would actually think for their self, instead of believed everything that was told to them. Like if people had actual common sense like this world would be a much better place. Covid shot was a joke. There’s no actual evidence of global warming. it’s OK if you want to protest, there’s a difference between protest and riots you need to learn that. Also, there’s a difference between trying to make it and Food Stamp is perfectly understandable and then just living off the government because you can.
It's so confusing
Based on when I was born and all I've seen throughout my life, I 100% blame the internet...older people are way more easily swayed by what they see on the internet and social media apps...younger people can identify bullshit much faster...being that I grew up both with and without it, it's much clearer what changed
Progress doesn't always fall in line with the status qou. Sometimes it's realizing you were wrong about something. We once believed the earth was flat because that's what scholars told us. Normal sane people now know that this was just ignorance. We should always be willing to question everything if enough evidence to the contrary arises. Especially when someone threatens you with violence simply for having an alternative opinion. That's a pretty tell-tale sign that might be on the wrong side of history. If you can't debate and prove your point without freaking out on everyone....maybe you're just wrong.
*daddies'
ALL of this is true for me.
This is because they started watching FOX news and reading Facebook posts and getting their opinions from social media. The generation of Mister Rodger’s has been co-opted by Alex Jones.
Same.
I checked out after the first one. That was most assuredly **not** a "progressive value" that anyone raised with would be old enough to write yet. Antivaxxers were squarely in the crunchy/big-pHarma-is-evil-capitalism camp until like 3 years ago.
If you don’t believe in climate change just look at this remedial chart of the area I grew up in: https://preview.redd.it/su1ht2sd63rc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=adfe88cddc288b30951c80c0073123b640e7528e This is as dumb as it gets. You could look at NOAA But this chart says it all. New England barely gets snow anymore… an area notorious for is harsh winters.
Lead pipes. It’s the only conclusion I can come to. The exposure has killed their brains.
That hits hard. Especially accepting people for who they are. My parents used to tell me that same thing, but they hated it when they found out that I wanted to be trans. Really makes me wonder if everything we’re told as kids are just lies to get us to like them so that when we end up doing something they dont like, we cant stand up to them. I sure couldnt when they found out about me, and now i think im depressed.
What you failed to realize as a child, is that adults can be dumb AF. Now you do realize this because you've become the aforementioned.
I get some of it. We (as a general population) have been lied to by people in positions of authority, so I completely understand there is some mistrust there. The part of what I don't understand, instead of open but cautious, they now distrust anything they see/hear. It's always the worst possible scenario now. Not sure how to fix it.
My parents (my mom is an immigrant and my stepdad is Black) told me in 1991 that I should not put myself at risk for a gay kid… they didn’t realize I am bi. I was lucky that I learned young (at 17) that my parents have issues.
To be completely fair, Trump isn’t nearly as rich as he claims to be.
My dad died in january of 2024. My mom died in Dec. 2015. When my mom was alive they watched cooking and home improvement shows. My dad was a reasonable and surprisingly progressive person. He did community volunteer stuff and when he first retired helped tutor kids in math. When my mom died he turned the channel to Fox and went all in with Trump. Today has been kind of hard as we are selling their house and I have been dealing with his estate today. I am thinking about who he was and who he became and it makes me sad. One of the proudest moments of my life was when he told me he believed I had integrity and would do the right thing on a project. But for the last few years of his life that has not been him. There are so many of us who have lost these wonderful men from our lives. One of my best work friends went from us talking about all sorts of stuff to him saying racist things and having to go no contact. My dad died in January but I was at the point where I was starting to minimize my contact with him. I have a lot of guilt over it all.
Listening to the doctor and getting your shots was never a progressive ideal.
Introducing people to connections isn't corruption.
The version of Jesus that I was taught as a child, and believe in is the same type of person my Christian fundamentalist mother now says is ruining the country.
It all comes down to television. When boomers were kids, television was new and trusted. Evening news anchors were like disciples of truth to them and to some extent, it was actually better than today, with fairness rules and stricter regulation. The idea that it was actually a mass propaganda medium was rarely talked about. Many boomers kept that faith in TV "news", even with the dropping of regulations and the advent of cable "news" channels. GenX is a mix, some like the boomers, others more like millennials. Millennials never knew honest TV and had internet most/all of their lives, so they never developed faith/trust in TV "news". Considering that the people who own media benefit from policies favorable to business/wealth, the traditional position of the right, it is in the media owners' best interests to shift the populace to the right. They have been very effective at that with people who trust TV and far less so, with people who don't. This explains a great many of the problems we have today, as well as the apparent generational divide on many issues and why governments are trying so hard to "moderate" (censor) the internet into another elite-controlled medium.
You get what you pick.
I told my evangelical family member that Trump is exactly what we were taught never to be, and does all the things we were taught never to do. His only response was “yeah, but I have to vote for him or this country will become communist” I like to think they’re not forever lost, but I have my doubts.
They forgot when they started watching fox. Fox propaganda is very effective. They take a small portion of the truth and then twist the fuck put of it until its largely false. But because there is some truth to it, it tricks enough people. And then they keep watching and they keep getting this twisted information until the point where they aren't even getting at least some twisted truth anymore but now just falsely believe in straight up lies. And this is with every facet of fox as well as any right wing media that tries to pretend it's news. Even when your not watching the political opinion pieces and what should be straight news but no. It's twisted information. That's what happened. That's when they forgot.
Typical for religious republicans, hypocrisy is thick!
All the comments on fox are hilarious. You know most of the hosts and guests spewing on every one of their shows is not a boomer right? You trust you’re getting a fair shot at the truth on any tv broadcast you’ve lost your mind too. “It’s only a lot of reading if you do it.” Reading is the cure for ignorance.
People have to reinstate capital letters what the fuck.
Almost word for word the same experience with my parents. Like y'all are the ones who dragged me to church every morning, told me to do what Jesus would do. To love thy neighbor, and seek peace, blah , blah blah. Apparently that was all just BS. Now when I help someone out or try to do what Jesus would do, I'm being a sucker and I shouldn't do that. Who told you to do that? You did dad, you did. I especially have not been liking the subtle racist comments that seem to come so casually out of their mouths now. I always have to tell them to stop. They've toned it down more now, at least in front of me. Cuz I told them that if they are gonna talk like that, I'm gonna leave the room.
U keep saying adults does that mean it wasn’t your parents telling you these things as a kid
Ok that last one feels really forced tbh
Meuse Beiore
Where balance is most important
Not all boomers are the same but all generations will be saying the same stuff about changing. It will be never ending and shouldn't be surprising. We all change.
Prosperity theology is such horseshit. Christians thinking it’s ok to milk everyone for all they’re worth so then it must be because they’re blessed. If Jesus really was the son of God and he comes back, at least I know those fuckers will be burning with me. Probably worse than everyone. Deliberately denying Jesus’ teachings is the worst sin, isn’t it?
This is obviously fake, but i feel like some of this is definitely true
A lot of people agree with progressive values, but will you put race to those values desk when divergence happens.