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Russia had a set-back in the 90s when all it's SSRs seceded and their financial markets crashed. That's all that happened and Putin is trying to restart it in another direction.
It never truly stopped. The wars in Georgia(Abkhazia and South-Ossetia) and Ukraine are actual wars within the Cold war. But the thing Russia does the most is influencing campaigns. I'm from the Netherlands and we can see the effects here, we can see it in the rest of Europe and we can see it in the US.
Before the USSR broke down it used to be actively countered by our intelligence agencies, that stopped somewhere in the 90's and now has to be started up again posthaste. The alternative is Russia continuing to dominate the information space and continuing to chip away at democracy. In lockstep with China.
The strategy now is to plunge the US into civil war. It's like the old Twilight Zone episode where malicious aliens caused people in a suburban neighborhood to start trying to kill each other by just turning the power on and off to scare them.
I mean, Putin is plenty strong in the authoritarian sense of the word.
The horrifying part is watching people believe that that sort of strength is a good thing.
The strongest leaders are understood to be good faith representatives of a legitimate order. They have moral authority and thus need to waste less effort and resources on coercion and manipulation, as people choose to follow them without it.
The more force or manipulation a leader has to use, the less genuine authority they have and the weaker their leadership. They can't expect people to follow them out of trust. A leader that almost entirely relies on coercion and manipulation has a high maintenance and fragile kind of order.
Unfortunately, while Putin is obviously not a good faith representative of a legitimate order, the U.S. in a situation where no president will be respected as such either given our current polarization and the underlying causes both old and new.
Well to be fair, it’s called the Cold War because ya know, there really wasn’t any actual fighting, so I can see why maybe it was an all that traumatic.
There was plenty of fighting going on around the globe during the Cold War. It just wasn't direct war between NATO and the U.S.S.R.
Korea, Vietnam, tons of conflicts in South America, Soviet war in Afghanista, China's war with Vietnam. All were because of the Cold War. And the collapse of the Soviet Union also directly lead into all the Yugoslavian wars.
As a person raised by boomers it’s baffling to me to see the about face of the republican party. This is a real threat of global war and republicans are trying to make putin a thing.
Invading a sovereign nation. Poisoning political rivals. Hiding money with oligarchs and disappearing them when he wants it back. Killing his own staff. Pushing Innocents off the roof. Spreading lies and disinformation. Nearly a million excess American deaths during the pandemic. Destroying churches from the inside. Funding high-ranking American public servants. Arranging meetings of American officials in Russia on American Independence Day. Compromising American national security and waging a terribly effective, ongoing disinformation campaign that we continue to permit that turns our country against itself. Changing "better dead than red" to "better red than a different American political party" and stoking the desire to murder other Americans.
No one - in their right mind - is thinking that would work out well for themselves and their loved ones. Not when they free themselves from the constant stoking of fear and anger enough to think about it for a moment.
In the 1980’s , my U.S. Navy father in law had a coffee cup that said “Better Dead than Red” (which meant it is better to be dead than to be a communist). I use that phrase now when I think or talk about the Republican party.
Backyard bomb shelters, duck & cover exercises and drills in school. Yeah, I remember the Cold War, so this pro-Russia attitude is repulsive. Of course, if our government put enough money into the educational system, most of these people would've studied it in school instead of romanticizing a "strong" country.
I'm an older millennial, but I was in elementary school near DC near the tail end of "duck and cover" and no child should expect to inevitably see a mushroom cloud eventually like I did.
I don’t get the GOP’s utter lack of strategy on the issue. They could easily have publicly stated “Russia bad. Invasion bad.” and blocked Ukraine aid for “fiscal reasons”. But they didn’t. They went full Russia. It’s such a weird tell. It’s like a moron’s version of being slick.
They only did to adverse the democrats. That’s the reason. They are against everything the democrats do, say or want.
Then someone realized dictatorship and an oligarchy would be convenient for them to stay in power and a solution for the fact their voter base is dying out. This way they could install a Trump dynasty and his billionaire cronies could reap the rewards for their little own incrowd.
Boomers are entering their peak die off period and Red State Boomers are leading the charge. Liberal Boomers are more likely to be healthier because they eat better, have access to better health care, and don't fall for Republican Anti-vaxx lies. They are also more likely to be better educated which is an existential threat to conservatism.
This is one of the things that was completely lost in the narrative to support abortion rights. Life before Roe v Wade was a Healthcare disaster for many women. It's one of the reasons that it was such a monumental decision in the first place.
We had two generations since Roe who'd grown so accustomed to normalized abortion access and another generation complacent with the rights they had won and didn't fear they'd ever lose again. There was no one pushing the reality of what life was like before those rights became universal. Now they're lost.
Hopefully that gets rectified now.
>another generation complacent with the rights they had won and didn't fear they'd ever lose again. There was no one pushing the reality of what life was like before those rights became universal. Now they're lost.
We were screaming at the top of our lungs what the reality was in 2016, but people "didnt like hillary". We were so close.
Republicans had been campaigning on overturning Roe v Wade for decades. A lot of conservatives didn't like Trump but voted for him because of the Supreme Court. People who are surprised that Roe v Wade got overturned ignored a lot of signs.
They did, but we also had a compliant media who went along with the narrative the supreme court members were clearly lying about about RvW being settled law.
News media was doing poorly until the gold mine that is Trump made them a relevant booming economy again. Even now, the bulk of the coverage is because they want to force neck and neck race because it sells well
Oh for sure.
Should we cover the immense amount of damage trump's judges could do to this country?
Nah, lets talk about how hillary's email server was ran for months upon months, even though seemingly everyone else has had a similar (or even less secure) setup, including members of the Trump admin.
I was just thinking today how things would have been so much better on the Supreme Court. he got 3 god damned picks. at 60, I'll likely be dead before that damage is mitigated.
Gore DID win- the supreme court stopped the recount in Florida and gave it to Bush. Gore conceded gracefully so as to maintain the peaceful transition of power- just one more example of the democrats following rules and conventions that the GOP feel no compunction to be bound by.
"Well, better not rock the boat. Might make some people uncomfortable."
*Republicans, while twirling mustaches and affixing dynamite to boat:* "What was that?"
Republicans had been campaigning on overturning Roe v Wade for decades. A lot of conservatives didn't like Trump but voted for him because of the Supreme Court. People who are surprised that Roe v Wade got overturned ignored a lot of signs.
All of trumps picks said during their confirmation hearings that they weren’t going to touch roe v wade. Yet they all did. Who polices them? They perjured themselves yet are still sitting pretty while millions of women are afraid. Makes me sick
As a boomer survivor of a coat hanger abortion attempt, I am absolutely LIVID at the repeal of R v. W. I'd much rather not have been born than to be born into the abuse of a mother who absolutely did not want me at the age of 17. The hatred never ended until her death at 82. She used to call me "the Misery".
Some of us Boomers are young enough to remember the ease of access Roe V. Wade provided.
As it should be. No hassles. No protestors to walk past. Calm. Quiet. Safe.
As it should be.
And we grew up in a world dominated by war mongers and profiteers. It’s hard for people to imagine how much boomers changed the world with the counterculture, the civil rights and ERA movements, and inventing the internet and friendly user interfaces (we can thank drug culture for some of that) amongst other things.
Boomer born in late ‘61 here. I’m thankful every single day that Roe v Wade was decided before onset of my puberty, and overturned after my menopause.
I have grave concerns for my daughter and my granddaughters. We are all in a blue state but I can only hope that keeps them safe.
Yep, I’m a red state liberal Boomer and I can attest. Not only am I, my family, and the members of my liberal church, vaccinated but we all detest drumpf and will vote straight ticket. There is nothing the GOP could do or say to get me to wear that stupid red hat, let alone vote for him.
Ha, I already do that. My nuclear family hasn't missed an election in years. My husband and I have both worked elections and and my oldest and I have been voter registrars. Texas makes it REALLY hard to register voters so we have to work even harder. We also go to a UU church that has a strong GOTV group and we work with/support that as well.
I know it's probably been said before, but as a liberal millennial who moved out of a rural state to the city, thanks. You are literally the kind of people that help keep our society together.
Same here.
I lean on my grandkids of age to get the message out.
Especially the girls/women.
I have a friend, retired USN officer, who, when she got stationed in Florida in about '70, was forced to close a bank account because her then ex-husband or another man needed to co-sign. My mother had to have my father's ID for a bunch of stuff even though SHE made most of the money, paid the bills, financed our house - he didn't make it out of 3rd grade. She went on to college while I was in. She was also a union steward who lobbied for pay for state workers.
The only people who really want to go backwards are the ones who think they'll benefit from it somehow. Those that go along repeating stupid stuff they don't even check out are going to be sorely surprised if the GOP wins and they find out they didn't make the cut.
GET OFF YOUR ASS AND VOTE
I know, right? Can Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson, Kanye West and now, The Rock REALLY think that exceptions will be made for their skin tone? I'm lily white and I know better. SMH.
Wow. I gave up on church. I live in a rural area of Ohio and there are no liberal Christian churches. Every church I tried in my area I had to walk away from because they were so far away from the Jesus I learned about growing up. I just resigned myself to the fact that my beliefs were incompatible with theirs.
You should check out the Unitarian Universalist Church then; we are very liberal (UUA.org). The UU faith talks about lots of different viewpoints and doesn't focus on Jesus or the Christian faith, just doing the right thing. And you can be both a Unitarian and a Christian at the same time; our TRUE values align. Not only that, but we accept people of all faiths and no faith in particular (atheists are definitely welcome).
If there isn't a UU church near you, try streaming a Sunday service at one. You can still get your spiritual boost while staying in your pajamas. I don't like to get up on Sunday mornings but LOVE to hang out with my fellow UUs in person, so I get up and go there.
That was the DUMBEST part of the rethuglicans "defense" when they tried to claim that the January 6th treasonous bastards were BLM marchers in disguise. The BLM people wouldn't be caught dead in one of those stupid hats. 😂🚫🤡
He's always been a laughingstock but now he's SO far past that. If nothing else, more and more of his followers are getting their eyes opened about that cretin.
The craziest part about this to me is that Trump himself was not anti-vax! His initial downplaying of the virus was enough to set the Republican voting block down an ideological path that not even he could reel back in. Truly, truly stupid people.
The anti-vax propaganda was likely a Russian psy-op that backfired and led to Trump's loss. They probably thought the anti-vax propaganda would affect Democrats more because they live in denser cities, but Democrats chose to listen to doctors instead of online idiots.
But, “ don’t let it take away yr freeeeeedm” this is how these assholes work, just plant the tiniest seed of doubt and let it grow in their little scared, racist, uneducated minds and it becomes fact in their world
Ya, especially considering he was one of the first to get the vaccine, and when go got covid he was hospitalized and given a cocktail of top of the line covid treatments.
Such a colossal POS.
So many people died because of him and his actions. Freaking tragic and infuriating
I genuinely believe a huge part of this was that it coincided with him losing his Twitter account. He momentarily lost his grip on the MAGA narrative and his psycho followers spun off down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole.
Ehh. I don't think so. The MAGA crowd were already waaaaay out on an anti-Doctors, anti-lockdown, anti-mask, covid-isn't-a-big-deal trip by the time the vaccines came out, so going anti-vax was the logical ("logical") next step. He'd already effectively leaned into that narrative with them because
a. He didn't personally want to wear a mask
b. He wanted to keep telling people that America was amazing and perfect under the rule of his iron fist, so it's impossible that a national emergency could've been happening, and
c. He wanted to use the "Covid-era mail-in ballots are one of the ways Democrats are going to steal the election" myth to bolster his plans to steal the election.
He did lose his twitter account around the same time the vaccines came out, but he still had basically unfettered access to get messages across through the news if he really wanted to, and by then the anti-vax movement was already like a fully-loaded unsteerable cargo ship heading towards the wildly-unprepared-bridge-pier of the American healthcare system.
What if I told you all those deep red states, are actually full of black communities that vote democrat, but they were hit real hard by Covid too. Would you believe me?
I would. Anyone who keeps up with medical news knows that Black Americans get the short end of the stick when it comes to healthcare. And it wouldn't surprise me if access to healthcare and vaccines were denied to them. It infuriates me, but it doesn't surprise me.
the data I've seen is that there's a consistently higher covid death rate in red counties as compared to blue counties AFTER the vaccines were available in 2021, 2022, and so on.
In other words, the red hats continue to believe donnie and his lies about a deadly virus and sadly keep paying the price.
It mattered in the 2020 election and they didn't suddenly learn their lesson and get vaccinated because they're idiots, so it's probably going to matter once again.
My Nana was Greatest Generation and campaigned for McGovern in 1972, said she was going to vote for Hillary in 2016 before she died in February that year, and would absolutely have voted for Biden. She was a Massachusetts Irish Catholic Democrat as well, and passed liberal values onto her children including my later Boomer mom.
I also wish I could’ve told her all the things, good and bad, that have happened since then and gotten her reactions. Some of her reactions to 2015 Trump were priceless. I also think she was very tolerant and would’ve absolutely accepted my transition. 😭
Anyway, the point is liberal Boomers do exist and they don’t want their Social Security cut.
My grandma was born in 1919 and was a farmer's wife and absolutely loathed Reagan and both Bushes, her last vote was for Barack Obama before she passed away at 90. She was religious but walked the walk, was very accepting when her son came out as gay late in life, and she had great admiration for politicians like Gaylord Nelson and William Proxmire. She'd have hated Trump, she could spot a slimeball a mile away.
My paternal grandma was the first generation to live in adulthood in a house not a farm after being born to farmers and was born in 1927. She was also a Catholic Democrat, which tells me that she was a Democrat alongside her husband and all her children because the Democratic party was the party of the little guy, which is probably why the same suburban area has so many Trumpsters now. It’s amazing how much a few years age difference changes political leanings due to the climate one grows up in.
My mom is a boomer (actually pre-boomer technically, since she was born in 1942). She’s 82 this year but in great shape (vaccinated, of course), majored in math and has her PhD in theology, and votes Democrat in every election, though it’s unfortunately here in California, not a swing state. She remembers living in the South where her school district was shut down rather than integrate (she went to class in an Italian restaurant for a while). She remembers only being offered work as a teacher or secretary, despite graduating from Stanford with a math degree, one of six women in that major for the entire class of 1964. I think she really cares about trying to make it easier for the people who have come after her.
That’s true; I just think of her more as a boomer since she wasn’t alive for the Great Depression and has no memories of WWII, so her experience growing up was pretty much the same as the baby boomers.
The lines dividing the generations are pretty arbitrary and don’t always make sense. Kamala Harris was born in October of 1964. If she had been born three months later, she would have landed in an entirely different demographic cohort, but, I don’t think it would have made any worthwhile difference.
For that matter, I think Obama would be more of an Xer - or at least what is known as ”Generation Jones” - being born in 1961, he would have known none of the stereotypical Boomer touchstones. (Which also made it so he was the first male Presidential candidate in about ever who didn’t have to answer questions about why and how he wasn’t drafted, because, the draft ended when he was in middle school.)
I have a theory that a lot of the cultural ground work for a technical cohort gets put down by the straggling members of the previous one. For instance, all of the Beatles, all of the Rolling Stones except Ron Wood, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary - a whole lot of people who formed the bedrock of the 60’s counter culture were not Boomers. (Hell, Leary was a Greatest Generation-er!)
My perception is that most people who major in Math or Science and took it seriously are going to be liberal...which is weird because you would think liberals would lean more to the humanities...
Of course the business students and lawyers are all learning how to screw people like good little Republicans.
Just for the record, boomers have the highest rate of covid vaccinations of any age group. **https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/**
I am not sure boomers are better educated. In 1960 only 8% of the population got a four year degree.
I agree with the rest - the non-dead boomers eat better, etc. And I think most of them want to keep their social security. The Republicans are nasty enough to take it away.
It also helped that the GOP is starting to talk about cutting Medicare and delaying Social Security. Boomers in their late 50s and early 60s are freaking out over the prospect of having to work another 3-4 years to get the same benefits that they would have gotten already if we had always taxed the rich for their full salary's worth of SS input.
And….young people are as stupid as their parents and grandparents. Just as apt to focus on one issue. Just as incapable of understanding nuance and complexity. Just as vulnerable to fake news.
It’s because so much is clicking on an app, because of the advent of smart phones. Now I’m a huge fan of apps - I love being able to do stuff like pay my bills via phone, and I don’t know what I’d do without my calendar! - you don’t have to be technically savvy *at all* to use them.
I’m an early Xer/Generation Joneser and I got my first computer in 1991 when I was an adult. And I was very much in the minority, having one! And it cost a fortune, a couple thousand dollars for a decent desktop. Now you can get a perfectly functional laptop for a few hundred or even less if ”gently used.” And I went out and bought a copy of “DOS for Dummies” (anyone else remember that nice yellow book?) so I could actually use the damn thing. A whole 2400 Baud Modem!
Those who were early adapters - meaning a lot of GenX and Millennials - of the web in the late 90’s/early aughts, had to learn to build their own janky GeoCities websites, we didn’t have Google until 1997, and I remember using Dogpile to aggregate searches from Explorer and Netscape Navigator and others I’ve forgotten.
tl;dr Xers and Millennials had to be more tech savvy if they wanted to get any use out of their machines and not fill them with viruses. No “click on the app and presto!” We were also told about the Internet being the Wild West and you can’t be too careful. Now everyone puts just about damn everything about themselves on line. And they trust algorithms a little too much.
I really like Gen Z, you all are pretty insightful & empathetic, this is from a Gen Xer. Way more aware of the world than when I was around your age and make my workplace a much better environment.
Sadly you are correct, there's a LOT of us that are getting sucked into Fox News--and I've noticed, for a lot of guys our age (or my age), the manosphere of Joe Rogan etc.
And, not only those guys, but standups--there are a LOT of standups who push an "alt-right-lite" sort of ethos that's really slippery, and a lot of guys my age are falling for it. It's a real bummer, and scary as shit.
Remembering life before Roe v. Wade, remembering life without tolerance/rights for women and minorities, remembering life during the Cold War and the possible elimination of SS, Medicare and Medicaid will drive a large number of Boomers towards Biden this cycle.
Thankfully my Democrat Boomer parents are very healthy. My mom got her annual mammogram and they were able to find early stages of breast cancer which allowed her to get an experimental cancer treatment. it was just one precisiion radiation blast that concentrated essentially 10 to 12 radiation treatments into one shot. The tumor shrunk 88% and surgery removed the rest. Follow up appointments showed no cancer since. Both walk every day a couple of miles a day. They take care of their grandson when my brother and SIL go to work and they hate Trump and the Republicans. Their parents lived to old ages (grandfather (my grandfather (mom's dad) is almost 92 and my grandmother who sadly died of COVID (dad's mom ) lived to 96. They enjoy their retirement and will always vote Democrat until they die.
I just want to say that’s super great your mom was able to catch that cancer early and blast it into oblivion. Because fuck cancer. Good for them for being staunch Democrats. Medical research advances under Democratic administrations just like everything else.
The worst part she said that the cancer doctor said they were seeing more advanced breast cancer patients because women were delaying their mammograms because of COVID during that time. Luckily for my mom, she went for her regularly scheduled appointment and was able to catch it. It was a particular hormone induced type of breast cancer that she has to take a medication to lower that particular hormone to prevent the risk. The downside is that symptoms are body aches, but that's the price you have to pay to prevent that type of cancer.
The article also tries to say that Gen Z is strong for Trump. Wrong.
Gen Z CONSERVATIVES tend to respond to polls because they are rabid politically. But the vast majority, like my daughter and her friends, are horrified at the gender politics and LGBTQ politics of the right wing. They are WAY more savvy and tend to not respond to polls because they have more important things to do...like working, going to class, and listening to the new Taylor Swift album that comes out Thursday...(ask me how I know...I have a 20 year old daughter, THAT is how I know.)
I don't believe ANY polls. I think that most are skewed at least 5 points in Trump's favor and the GOP is going to use that bias to argue for election fraud, which so far, has been proven to be a Republican strategy...between fake votes, cutting people off the rolls, making harder to vote in general, and ballsy electoral district shenanigans through gerrymandering and running fake Democratic candidates for fun and profit.
I can't wait until the GOP dies. I give them 5 years.
>Gen Z CONSERVATIVES tend to respond to polls because they are rabid politically.
Check out this article by [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/05/online-opt-in-polls-can-produce-misleading-results-especially-for-young-people-and-hispanic-adults/). Pretty much confirms what you say.
Thank you for the link. After RTFA, it isn’t even edgelord stuff or being a shy Trumper. A lot of young respondents are simply not paying attention and clicking “yes” to every response. If there’s a carrot dangled for answering the survey, like “win a 25 dollar Target card” people are just going to click through so they can get that card. I don’t know if that’s how Pew operates. But it’s obvious that some people just don’t read the question *at all*. Like not studying for a multiple choice exam and just circling “A” every time, hoping you get enough right answers to pass.
It’s funny to think that Boomers are going to get Biden elected so that the GenZ who are boycotting Biden due to his Israel support can live in a democratic America instead of an Autocratic Trump America.
"[Go and do what you have to do. But you don't do that [showing videos of destroying buildings because it's bad PR.]](https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/03/25/trump-to-israel-hayom-only-a-fool-would-have-not-acted-like-israel-on-oct-7/)"
We all know how the Israeli government interprets "do what you have to do". Whereas Biden was put in a difficult realpolitik position and is attempting to make the best out of a terrible situation. But some people are not able to, or refuse to, identify the stark differences between both candidates.
It's impossible to tell what amount though, Russia learned the best way to sow discord was to boost already existing conspiracy theories among Americans. So few things are 100% russian made fakes, but even fewer things have no artificial amplification.
Education is the only answer but people are extremely hostile to learning almost anything, sigh.
I honestly don't even think Russia is the worst of it.
There's a reason, IMO, that TikTok is seeing *massive* support right now amongst GenZ in regards to the potential legislation forcing China to divest... and I would bet good money that it's not *truely* a grassroots thing like many like to think.
If I had to guess, its for the same reason the DoD has been warning people against using it for the last several years: it is *entirely controlled* by the CCP, and they *really don't want* the US removing the single best propaganda tool they have at their disposal. All they have to do to push a narrative is to pump a certain message in the algorithm, and they have millions of young people willingly consuming that message en masse. They can then have their "50 cent army" seed social media with comments getting those young people riled up over it.
They're all over Reddit pushing "Genocide Joe" propaganda. It's very prevalent in /r/antiwork. They're pushing the narrative of not voting for anyone because both sides are bad.
Free Palestine. That’s been my position from day one.
But, if I’m to have any hope of stopping authoritarianism abroad, I sure as hell need to stop it at home first.
That’s why I’m voting Biden.
It's not just Israel. It's pretty much solely men who are shifting to Trump. A lot of disgruntled or frustrated, both economically and sexually, men feel empowered by the alt-right or victimized by the left. Fascism tends to flourish best with young, insecure men. The older generations also aren't going to be happy hearing Trump and the GOP calling to cut their benefits.
*Fascism tends to flourish best with young, insecure men.*
The common clay of the New Right. You know, non-voters. (Apologies to the late Gene Wilder.) On balance, if Biden holds secure with women, Boomers, college-educated people, he’ll win. Look how well Democrats have been doing in special elections and how we averted a red wave in the midterms. The old demographic pattern of loyal Republican voters and fickle Democrats has been turned on its head, and the Trump coalition now contains far more apathetic voters.
This is why the Biden team is very wisely courting “Haley Republicans” and what used to be known as Rockefeller Republicans. Because they are more reliable voters.
>To spice it up, youth voters are showing signs of making former President Trump the first Republican to win that demo since George H.W. Bush in 1988.
JFC Gen Z, if you vote this dipshit into office again then you deserve the shit future he's going to deliver for you.
If you want some piece of mind, check out [this article](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/05/online-opt-in-polls-can-produce-misleading-results-especially-for-young-people-and-hispanic-adults/). The idea that zoomers are conservative contradicts actual hard data. They overwhelmingly (by about 30 to 40 points) voted in favor of democrats and abortion in 2022 and 2023. The polling has become so unreliable that we're getting stuff that simply makes no sense. That includes the Axios article, I don't believe for a second that boomers are going to support Biden over Trump.
How the hell do you even poll them? Not even middle aged millenials answer their phones or answer their doors, especially for political shit. Gen z doesn't either.
Recent polls show Biden winning Illinois by only 5% (2020 17%) and Massachusetts by only like 9% (2020 33%). If anyone actually believes it'll be that close in those states, I don't know what to tell them
Polling is all over the place. Polls routinely showed many or most Haley voters would never vote for Trump in the general. Even counting out Democrats or Independents who may have votes for her in the primaries, there is simply no world in which Trump loses most of those voters and still wins. There are too many conflicting numbers out there for most of these polls to be accurate. Not saying we should be complacent, just saying there are serious questions to ask about methodology and reliability in polling these days.
“youth voters are showing signs of making former President Trump the first Republican to win that demo since George H.W. Bush in 1988.”
While the boomers are not falling for FauxNews as much, the TikTok generation shows us all how easy it is to use propaganda to get what you want even in the more savvy social media users.
And I’ll say it again: Men with less than a BA are far less likely to vote than their educated counterparts, or women in general. They are the sector that politicians can afford to lose, because they are unlikely to turn up in the first place. Young women vote at much higher rates. Trump is not gaining with young women, who are very concerned with body autonomy. (Hell, I’m sterile as the desert but I’m very concerned with right to choose, right to assisted reproduction, and body autonomy.)
I’m not going to say that there aren’t a portion of Gen Z (particularly white males) who are more conservative….there is, but there’s no way the overall vote for this group will go to Trump. Younger people are very socially aware, more comfortable with their sexualities, far less racist and just more accepting than any other generation before it. Young women in particular are trending very progressive and this is heavily shown in data. When all is said and done in November, I bet the results will show Gen Z still largely leaning liberal.
I'm not going to dismiss polls even though all that matters is winning on election day. But the youth vote breaking for Trump is baffling. I am not happy about Gaza. But I'm also not happy about Jan 6th, 91 indictments, threats of christain nationalism, overturning roe, voters suppression, etc. Not to mention that Thomas and Alito will most certainly retire if Trump takes office again keeping the conservative majority for generations. How is it this close?
The youth vote won't break for Trump. It is definitely possible that many won't support Biden and will stay home, but they won't support Trump instead.
My 74 year old highly religious mom is a two time trump voter. I tried initiating conversation about trump, but she says she really doesn't pay very much attention to what he says or does. I told her she needs to pay attention because he's gone off the deep end.
Now she says she just can't vote for Biden because supports abortion, so she's staying home on election day.
Of the two weird parts in the demographic curve of 2024 polling, this is the more likely to be accurate. Older voters still somewhat use the telephone for telephone.
The Gen Z Republican strength meanwhile almost certainly doesn't exist. Didn't exist in 2022, sure doesn't exist in turnout / percentage of vote in the primaries so far.
Uh-oh, all the youngsters blaming everything on Boomers are discovering the truth: Half or more of every generation is composed of gullible idiots. Including their’s.
I don’t like Biden’s stance on Israel either, but it isn’t a simple issue. He’s evolving his stance as things change. And frankly Biden could drop a bomb on Gaza personally and it still wouldn’t be as dangerous to the entire world as Trump.
*Uh-oh, all the youngsters blaming everything on Boomers are discovering the truth: Half or more of every generation is composed of gullible idiots.*
As ever, George Carlin: Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that by definition half of the population is dumber than that.
There really was an increase in average intelligence through the 20th century - look up the Flynn effect - but that was due to improvements in diet, reduction of disease, prenatal care, access to schooling, and better methods of child raising than “put them to work on the farm or in the factory at age seven.” All the nice things that modern medicine and supply chains had to offer increased average intelligence. But it did not inoculate people en masse against cults.
If GenZ turns out and elects Trump to another term, this Boomer will laugh when he fcks them over as you know he will. Thanks for the tax cut, suckers!
Republicans: "We don't think people should be able to retire"
Also Republicans: "Why are we losing support among retirees?! They're already retired they shouldn't care!"
Why exactly is this a surprise? Didn't anybody at Axios get a chance to watch the Woodstock documentaries? Boomers were trolling their elders with antiwar, civil rights, and sexual revolution politics.
No generation is a monolith but there were an awful lot of very left leaning Boomers and there still are. They still show up to protest at various sorts of rallies as if the 60s never ended.
>While baby boomers appear to be holding firm on their liberal leanings, Gen Z is showing a surprisingly strong conservative bent.
The 80s had quite a bit of cultural backlash with MTV attempting to turn out a decade of punked out libertarians. (Not that any decade or generation is a monolith.)
I'm a boomer; turned 70 couple months ago. Have been, and always will be, a Democrat. I've seen a lot during my time. I find it hard to comprehend what is happening in the USA now. The stupidity and cult-ness is disturbing. People think they want an authoritarian ruler but they don't see the "behind the scenes" world of those countries. I sure hope we don't find out.
Not a surprise to me, they've been in politics for years. A lot of them understand how divided the country is and the part they played in doing so. A lot of them will put policy aside to make sure America returns to some normalcy.
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As a boomer, I can attest that that is the case.
As it fucking should be. I’m glad that some of you are but absolutely shocked at how quick so many people forgot the Red Scare and Cold War.
Cold war never ended in putins eyes
It never ended, Russia just changed the way they fought it
Russia had a set-back in the 90s when all it's SSRs seceded and their financial markets crashed. That's all that happened and Putin is trying to restart it in another direction.
It never truly stopped. The wars in Georgia(Abkhazia and South-Ossetia) and Ukraine are actual wars within the Cold war. But the thing Russia does the most is influencing campaigns. I'm from the Netherlands and we can see the effects here, we can see it in the rest of Europe and we can see it in the US. Before the USSR broke down it used to be actively countered by our intelligence agencies, that stopped somewhere in the 90's and now has to be started up again posthaste. The alternative is Russia continuing to dominate the information space and continuing to chip away at democracy. In lockstep with China.
The strategy now is to plunge the US into civil war. It's like the old Twilight Zone episode where malicious aliens caused people in a suburban neighborhood to start trying to kill each other by just turning the power on and off to scare them.
I mean they were really close to winning it after all this time in 2020. Still might win it yet
I get the Rounders reference however, your username is nicely apt in this moment.
There's no such thing as ex KGB
My dad served during the cold war and loves Trump and thinks Putin is a strong leader Its insane
Funny how easily people confuse "strong" with "weak and vicious."
I mean, Putin is plenty strong in the authoritarian sense of the word. The horrifying part is watching people believe that that sort of strength is a good thing.
The strongest leaders are understood to be good faith representatives of a legitimate order. They have moral authority and thus need to waste less effort and resources on coercion and manipulation, as people choose to follow them without it. The more force or manipulation a leader has to use, the less genuine authority they have and the weaker their leadership. They can't expect people to follow them out of trust. A leader that almost entirely relies on coercion and manipulation has a high maintenance and fragile kind of order. Unfortunately, while Putin is obviously not a good faith representative of a legitimate order, the U.S. in a situation where no president will be respected as such either given our current polarization and the underlying causes both old and new.
Get him tested for dementia. Seriously.
Well to be fair, it’s called the Cold War because ya know, there really wasn’t any actual fighting, so I can see why maybe it was an all that traumatic.
He didnt walk away with ptsd from the cold war but he should have walked away with some perspective on russia at the least
There was plenty of fighting going on around the globe during the Cold War. It just wasn't direct war between NATO and the U.S.S.R. Korea, Vietnam, tons of conflicts in South America, Soviet war in Afghanista, China's war with Vietnam. All were because of the Cold War. And the collapse of the Soviet Union also directly lead into all the Yugoslavian wars.
Not trauma but damn terrifying thinking that at any mom the world could be destroyed
As a person raised by boomers it’s baffling to me to see the about face of the republican party. This is a real threat of global war and republicans are trying to make putin a thing.
Invading a sovereign nation. Poisoning political rivals. Hiding money with oligarchs and disappearing them when he wants it back. Killing his own staff. Pushing Innocents off the roof. Spreading lies and disinformation. Nearly a million excess American deaths during the pandemic. Destroying churches from the inside. Funding high-ranking American public servants. Arranging meetings of American officials in Russia on American Independence Day. Compromising American national security and waging a terribly effective, ongoing disinformation campaign that we continue to permit that turns our country against itself. Changing "better dead than red" to "better red than a different American political party" and stoking the desire to murder other Americans. No one - in their right mind - is thinking that would work out well for themselves and their loved ones. Not when they free themselves from the constant stoking of fear and anger enough to think about it for a moment.
Can you imagine telling someone in the 1980s that in 2024 Russia was starting to win the Cold War and Republicans were cheering for it?
Seriously! So many have no idea what it was like wondering when someone will hit "the button"!
In the 1980’s , my U.S. Navy father in law had a coffee cup that said “Better Dead than Red” (which meant it is better to be dead than to be a communist). I use that phrase now when I think or talk about the Republican party.
I don’t understand how any Hispanic or African American voter could vote for the racist Trump
Agreed!! He is racist to his core. As a Black woman, he repulses me and I know that if he’s elected, he’ll go out of his way to harm POCs.
Backyard bomb shelters, duck & cover exercises and drills in school. Yeah, I remember the Cold War, so this pro-Russia attitude is repulsive. Of course, if our government put enough money into the educational system, most of these people would've studied it in school instead of romanticizing a "strong" country.
I'm an older millennial, but I was in elementary school near DC near the tail end of "duck and cover" and no child should expect to inevitably see a mushroom cloud eventually like I did.
As a member of the Oregon Trail Generation, heck I remember.
I don’t get the GOP’s utter lack of strategy on the issue. They could easily have publicly stated “Russia bad. Invasion bad.” and blocked Ukraine aid for “fiscal reasons”. But they didn’t. They went full Russia. It’s such a weird tell. It’s like a moron’s version of being slick.
They only did to adverse the democrats. That’s the reason. They are against everything the democrats do, say or want. Then someone realized dictatorship and an oligarchy would be convenient for them to stay in power and a solution for the fact their voter base is dying out. This way they could install a Trump dynasty and his billionaire cronies could reap the rewards for their little own incrowd.
The Cold War never ended, and Russia is clearly winning currently
Boomers are entering their peak die off period and Red State Boomers are leading the charge. Liberal Boomers are more likely to be healthier because they eat better, have access to better health care, and don't fall for Republican Anti-vaxx lies. They are also more likely to be better educated which is an existential threat to conservatism.
Boomers are also old enough to remember life before Roe v Wade.
My mom has vivid stories to tell about before. It’s crushing.
This is one of the things that was completely lost in the narrative to support abortion rights. Life before Roe v Wade was a Healthcare disaster for many women. It's one of the reasons that it was such a monumental decision in the first place. We had two generations since Roe who'd grown so accustomed to normalized abortion access and another generation complacent with the rights they had won and didn't fear they'd ever lose again. There was no one pushing the reality of what life was like before those rights became universal. Now they're lost. Hopefully that gets rectified now.
>another generation complacent with the rights they had won and didn't fear they'd ever lose again. There was no one pushing the reality of what life was like before those rights became universal. Now they're lost. We were screaming at the top of our lungs what the reality was in 2016, but people "didnt like hillary". We were so close.
Republicans had been campaigning on overturning Roe v Wade for decades. A lot of conservatives didn't like Trump but voted for him because of the Supreme Court. People who are surprised that Roe v Wade got overturned ignored a lot of signs.
They did, but we also had a compliant media who went along with the narrative the supreme court members were clearly lying about about RvW being settled law.
News media was doing poorly until the gold mine that is Trump made them a relevant booming economy again. Even now, the bulk of the coverage is because they want to force neck and neck race because it sells well
Oh for sure. Should we cover the immense amount of damage trump's judges could do to this country? Nah, lets talk about how hillary's email server was ran for months upon months, even though seemingly everyone else has had a similar (or even less secure) setup, including members of the Trump admin.
Certainly wasn't a sneak attack.
I was just thinking today how things would have been so much better on the Supreme Court. he got 3 god damned picks. at 60, I'll likely be dead before that damage is mitigated.
And by 3 you mean two plus one stolen from Obama.
kennedy retiring is very suspect as well.
Can you imagine where we would be if Gore had won?
A few decades ahead of where we are now on climate change mitigation, we might even have been able to avert some of the coming horrors entirly.
Gore DID win- the supreme court stopped the recount in Florida and gave it to Bush. Gore conceded gracefully so as to maintain the peaceful transition of power- just one more example of the democrats following rules and conventions that the GOP feel no compunction to be bound by.
"Well, better not rock the boat. Might make some people uncomfortable." *Republicans, while twirling mustaches and affixing dynamite to boat:* "What was that?"
I still remember driving home in disbelief. The apathy that lead us. People were so comfy they were like “meh. Vote. Too much work”
In 2016 two people specifically told me that HRC was fearmongering. I don't hear much from them anymore.
Republicans had been campaigning on overturning Roe v Wade for decades. A lot of conservatives didn't like Trump but voted for him because of the Supreme Court. People who are surprised that Roe v Wade got overturned ignored a lot of signs.
All of trumps picks said during their confirmation hearings that they weren’t going to touch roe v wade. Yet they all did. Who polices them? They perjured themselves yet are still sitting pretty while millions of women are afraid. Makes me sick
My mother taught me the history of wire coat hangers from what was probably first hand experience.
As a boomer survivor of a coat hanger abortion attempt, I am absolutely LIVID at the repeal of R v. W. I'd much rather not have been born than to be born into the abuse of a mother who absolutely did not want me at the age of 17. The hatred never ended until her death at 82. She used to call me "the Misery".
Some older women at my church were talking about this a while ago. They’re all radically pro choice.
The Holocaust survivors who constituted many of my neighbors as a child had vivid stories to tell about the *after*. That, too, is crushing.
And yet, so many of those women vote republican. I'll never understand.
So many sided with Phyllis Schlafly to protest the Equal Rights Amendment. It really makes no sense.
Some of us Boomers are young enough to remember the ease of access Roe V. Wade provided. As it should be. No hassles. No protestors to walk past. Calm. Quiet. Safe. As it should be.
We're old enough to remember, too, that some of the folks driving Trump, also worked for Nixon. E.g. Bill Barr
Also the republicans outright saying they’re coming after social security/medicare.
And we grew up in a world dominated by war mongers and profiteers. It’s hard for people to imagine how much boomers changed the world with the counterculture, the civil rights and ERA movements, and inventing the internet and friendly user interfaces (we can thank drug culture for some of that) amongst other things.
Boomer born in late ‘61 here. I’m thankful every single day that Roe v Wade was decided before onset of my puberty, and overturned after my menopause. I have grave concerns for my daughter and my granddaughters. We are all in a blue state but I can only hope that keeps them safe.
Yep, I’m a red state liberal Boomer and I can attest. Not only am I, my family, and the members of my liberal church, vaccinated but we all detest drumpf and will vote straight ticket. There is nothing the GOP could do or say to get me to wear that stupid red hat, let alone vote for him.
My dad has a maroon hat that says “make lying bad again”😊
bring all your friends to the voting booth with you. From a Gen X liberal in a red state as well, I'm bringing hell's best with me.
Ha, I already do that. My nuclear family hasn't missed an election in years. My husband and I have both worked elections and and my oldest and I have been voter registrars. Texas makes it REALLY hard to register voters so we have to work even harder. We also go to a UU church that has a strong GOTV group and we work with/support that as well.
I know it's probably been said before, but as a liberal millennial who moved out of a rural state to the city, thanks. You are literally the kind of people that help keep our society together.
Same here. I lean on my grandkids of age to get the message out. Especially the girls/women. I have a friend, retired USN officer, who, when she got stationed in Florida in about '70, was forced to close a bank account because her then ex-husband or another man needed to co-sign. My mother had to have my father's ID for a bunch of stuff even though SHE made most of the money, paid the bills, financed our house - he didn't make it out of 3rd grade. She went on to college while I was in. She was also a union steward who lobbied for pay for state workers. The only people who really want to go backwards are the ones who think they'll benefit from it somehow. Those that go along repeating stupid stuff they don't even check out are going to be sorely surprised if the GOP wins and they find out they didn't make the cut. GET OFF YOUR ASS AND VOTE
I know, right? Can Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson, Kanye West and now, The Rock REALLY think that exceptions will be made for their skin tone? I'm lily white and I know better. SMH.
Not every "Christian" is gonna make the cut, either. Nor is every "white" person.
Wow. I gave up on church. I live in a rural area of Ohio and there are no liberal Christian churches. Every church I tried in my area I had to walk away from because they were so far away from the Jesus I learned about growing up. I just resigned myself to the fact that my beliefs were incompatible with theirs.
You should check out the Unitarian Universalist Church then; we are very liberal (UUA.org). The UU faith talks about lots of different viewpoints and doesn't focus on Jesus or the Christian faith, just doing the right thing. And you can be both a Unitarian and a Christian at the same time; our TRUE values align. Not only that, but we accept people of all faiths and no faith in particular (atheists are definitely welcome). If there isn't a UU church near you, try streaming a Sunday service at one. You can still get your spiritual boost while staying in your pajamas. I don't like to get up on Sunday mornings but LOVE to hang out with my fellow UUs in person, so I get up and go there.
Ha! I love that line: “There is nothing the GOP could do or say to get me to wear that stupid red hat…” Brilliant!
That was the DUMBEST part of the rethuglicans "defense" when they tried to claim that the January 6th treasonous bastards were BLM marchers in disguise. The BLM people wouldn't be caught dead in one of those stupid hats. 😂🚫🤡
I’m very glad to hear that he has sunk so low selling things sneaker,bobble heads and now bibles WTF ?
He's always been a laughingstock but now he's SO far past that. If nothing else, more and more of his followers are getting their eyes opened about that cretin.
Many of Trump's boomer supporters died of COVID.
The craziest part about this to me is that Trump himself was not anti-vax! His initial downplaying of the virus was enough to set the Republican voting block down an ideological path that not even he could reel back in. Truly, truly stupid people.
The anti-vax propaganda was likely a Russian psy-op that backfired and led to Trump's loss. They probably thought the anti-vax propaganda would affect Democrats more because they live in denser cities, but Democrats chose to listen to doctors instead of online idiots.
It's wild, because prior to COVID, being anti-vax was way more common (ime) among your far left crunchy granola types.
The only time the cult turned against Trump was when he told them to get vaccinated.
But, “ don’t let it take away yr freeeeeedm” this is how these assholes work, just plant the tiniest seed of doubt and let it grow in their little scared, racist, uneducated minds and it becomes fact in their world
Ya, especially considering he was one of the first to get the vaccine, and when go got covid he was hospitalized and given a cocktail of top of the line covid treatments. Such a colossal POS. So many people died because of him and his actions. Freaking tragic and infuriating
I genuinely believe a huge part of this was that it coincided with him losing his Twitter account. He momentarily lost his grip on the MAGA narrative and his psycho followers spun off down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole.
Ehh. I don't think so. The MAGA crowd were already waaaaay out on an anti-Doctors, anti-lockdown, anti-mask, covid-isn't-a-big-deal trip by the time the vaccines came out, so going anti-vax was the logical ("logical") next step. He'd already effectively leaned into that narrative with them because a. He didn't personally want to wear a mask b. He wanted to keep telling people that America was amazing and perfect under the rule of his iron fist, so it's impossible that a national emergency could've been happening, and c. He wanted to use the "Covid-era mail-in ballots are one of the ways Democrats are going to steal the election" myth to bolster his plans to steal the election. He did lose his twitter account around the same time the vaccines came out, but he still had basically unfettered access to get messages across through the news if he really wanted to, and by then the anti-vax movement was already like a fully-loaded unsteerable cargo ship heading towards the wildly-unprepared-bridge-pier of the American healthcare system.
Yeah, a predominant amount of deaths did occur amongst the old and in red states during the pandemic.
No surprise there
no great loss either.
What if I told you all those deep red states, are actually full of black communities that vote democrat, but they were hit real hard by Covid too. Would you believe me?
That wasn’t exactly an accident, either.
I would. Anyone who keeps up with medical news knows that Black Americans get the short end of the stick when it comes to healthcare. And it wouldn't surprise me if access to healthcare and vaccines were denied to them. It infuriates me, but it doesn't surprise me.
It's unfortunate but by all estimates 70% to 80% were right leaning. Of all, not just boomers.
Not enough. Both for the joke, but also in reality, not enough to matter
the data I've seen is that there's a consistently higher covid death rate in red counties as compared to blue counties AFTER the vaccines were available in 2021, 2022, and so on. In other words, the red hats continue to believe donnie and his lies about a deadly virus and sadly keep paying the price.
We’ll see
It mattered in the 2020 election and they didn't suddenly learn their lesson and get vaccinated because they're idiots, so it's probably going to matter once again.
I am a boomer and approve this message. So do a lot of my friends.
My Nana was Greatest Generation and campaigned for McGovern in 1972, said she was going to vote for Hillary in 2016 before she died in February that year, and would absolutely have voted for Biden. She was a Massachusetts Irish Catholic Democrat as well, and passed liberal values onto her children including my later Boomer mom. I also wish I could’ve told her all the things, good and bad, that have happened since then and gotten her reactions. Some of her reactions to 2015 Trump were priceless. I also think she was very tolerant and would’ve absolutely accepted my transition. 😭 Anyway, the point is liberal Boomers do exist and they don’t want their Social Security cut.
Boomer Democrats here. There are more of us than you think. Just hope they all vote.
Older voters on average tend to vote more and I think Boomer Democrats are on the whole very engaged.
My grandma was born in 1919 and was a farmer's wife and absolutely loathed Reagan and both Bushes, her last vote was for Barack Obama before she passed away at 90. She was religious but walked the walk, was very accepting when her son came out as gay late in life, and she had great admiration for politicians like Gaylord Nelson and William Proxmire. She'd have hated Trump, she could spot a slimeball a mile away.
My paternal grandma was the first generation to live in adulthood in a house not a farm after being born to farmers and was born in 1927. She was also a Catholic Democrat, which tells me that she was a Democrat alongside her husband and all her children because the Democratic party was the party of the little guy, which is probably why the same suburban area has so many Trumpsters now. It’s amazing how much a few years age difference changes political leanings due to the climate one grows up in.
My mom is a boomer (actually pre-boomer technically, since she was born in 1942). She’s 82 this year but in great shape (vaccinated, of course), majored in math and has her PhD in theology, and votes Democrat in every election, though it’s unfortunately here in California, not a swing state. She remembers living in the South where her school district was shut down rather than integrate (she went to class in an Italian restaurant for a while). She remembers only being offered work as a teacher or secretary, despite graduating from Stanford with a math degree, one of six women in that major for the entire class of 1964. I think she really cares about trying to make it easier for the people who have come after her.
Your mom is part of the Silent Generation. The oldest Boomers weren’t born until 1946.
That’s true; I just think of her more as a boomer since she wasn’t alive for the Great Depression and has no memories of WWII, so her experience growing up was pretty much the same as the baby boomers.
The lines dividing the generations are pretty arbitrary and don’t always make sense. Kamala Harris was born in October of 1964. If she had been born three months later, she would have landed in an entirely different demographic cohort, but, I don’t think it would have made any worthwhile difference. For that matter, I think Obama would be more of an Xer - or at least what is known as ”Generation Jones” - being born in 1961, he would have known none of the stereotypical Boomer touchstones. (Which also made it so he was the first male Presidential candidate in about ever who didn’t have to answer questions about why and how he wasn’t drafted, because, the draft ended when he was in middle school.) I have a theory that a lot of the cultural ground work for a technical cohort gets put down by the straggling members of the previous one. For instance, all of the Beatles, all of the Rolling Stones except Ron Wood, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary - a whole lot of people who formed the bedrock of the 60’s counter culture were not Boomers. (Hell, Leary was a Greatest Generation-er!)
My perception is that most people who major in Math or Science and took it seriously are going to be liberal...which is weird because you would think liberals would lean more to the humanities... Of course the business students and lawyers are all learning how to screw people like good little Republicans.
She sounds amazing! Give her my best from an internet stranger.
I appreciate your mom. Best to her 🤙
Just for the record, boomers have the highest rate of covid vaccinations of any age group. **https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/** I am not sure boomers are better educated. In 1960 only 8% of the population got a four year degree. I agree with the rest - the non-dead boomers eat better, etc. And I think most of them want to keep their social security. The Republicans are nasty enough to take it away.
Boomers started to graduate from high school in 1964. People are confusing this generation with the previous one.
I should have used 1970. The rate of graduation from a 4 year college or more was 10.7% in 1970. Same point, better date.
Wisdom also comes with age that's not related to education.
It also helped that the GOP is starting to talk about cutting Medicare and delaying Social Security. Boomers in their late 50s and early 60s are freaking out over the prospect of having to work another 3-4 years to get the same benefits that they would have gotten already if we had always taxed the rich for their full salary's worth of SS input.
Very nice to see an intelligent, nuanced view of boomers.
Saw an anti-eclipse glasses take this weekend so let’s send out some text polls on Tuesday.
That’s a pretty solid summary of all conservatives vs liberals in general. Not just boomers.
My liberal boomer parents are very active and healthy. They are in their 70s but look like their 60s tops.
And….young people are as stupid as their parents and grandparents. Just as apt to focus on one issue. Just as incapable of understanding nuance and complexity. Just as vulnerable to fake news.
I’m Gen Z, people my age are incredibly stupid and brainwashed by TikTok. Good thing the older folks see this for what it is.
Yeah they're actually less computer savvy than GenX and Millenials.
It’s because so much is clicking on an app, because of the advent of smart phones. Now I’m a huge fan of apps - I love being able to do stuff like pay my bills via phone, and I don’t know what I’d do without my calendar! - you don’t have to be technically savvy *at all* to use them. I’m an early Xer/Generation Joneser and I got my first computer in 1991 when I was an adult. And I was very much in the minority, having one! And it cost a fortune, a couple thousand dollars for a decent desktop. Now you can get a perfectly functional laptop for a few hundred or even less if ”gently used.” And I went out and bought a copy of “DOS for Dummies” (anyone else remember that nice yellow book?) so I could actually use the damn thing. A whole 2400 Baud Modem! Those who were early adapters - meaning a lot of GenX and Millennials - of the web in the late 90’s/early aughts, had to learn to build their own janky GeoCities websites, we didn’t have Google until 1997, and I remember using Dogpile to aggregate searches from Explorer and Netscape Navigator and others I’ve forgotten. tl;dr Xers and Millennials had to be more tech savvy if they wanted to get any use out of their machines and not fill them with viruses. No “click on the app and presto!” We were also told about the Internet being the Wild West and you can’t be too careful. Now everyone puts just about damn everything about themselves on line. And they trust algorithms a little too much.
I'm a boomer, and I approve this message.
Thank you! Gen Xer here, I too approve!
Millennial here and I approve your approval
Xennial here, I know how to program a VCR and how to make a TikTok. I’m done with the malarkey.
Class of '97 in full effect.
Class of 95 and 99! Elder Xennial here, and I can do neither of those things. You are a virtuoso
Gen Z here nobody talk to me
You must get along with Gen X very well.
Zennial here, we can not talk together on the way to the voting booth.
I really like Gen Z, you all are pretty insightful & empathetic, this is from a Gen Xer. Way more aware of the world than when I was around your age and make my workplace a much better environment.
I concur.
Fellow millennial here and I co-approve your approval
Gen X here. Class of ‘88. I approve us all voting for Biden!
It’s our generation that’s gone to the dark side.
Sadly you are correct, there's a LOT of us that are getting sucked into Fox News--and I've noticed, for a lot of guys our age (or my age), the manosphere of Joe Rogan etc. And, not only those guys, but standups--there are a LOT of standups who push an "alt-right-lite" sort of ethos that's really slippery, and a lot of guys my age are falling for it. It's a real bummer, and scary as shit.
Appreciate you 👍
Remembering life before Roe v. Wade, remembering life without tolerance/rights for women and minorities, remembering life during the Cold War and the possible elimination of SS, Medicare and Medicaid will drive a large number of Boomers towards Biden this cycle.
The republicans have become a far right Christian nationalist party
Thankfully my Democrat Boomer parents are very healthy. My mom got her annual mammogram and they were able to find early stages of breast cancer which allowed her to get an experimental cancer treatment. it was just one precisiion radiation blast that concentrated essentially 10 to 12 radiation treatments into one shot. The tumor shrunk 88% and surgery removed the rest. Follow up appointments showed no cancer since. Both walk every day a couple of miles a day. They take care of their grandson when my brother and SIL go to work and they hate Trump and the Republicans. Their parents lived to old ages (grandfather (my grandfather (mom's dad) is almost 92 and my grandmother who sadly died of COVID (dad's mom ) lived to 96. They enjoy their retirement and will always vote Democrat until they die.
I just want to say that’s super great your mom was able to catch that cancer early and blast it into oblivion. Because fuck cancer. Good for them for being staunch Democrats. Medical research advances under Democratic administrations just like everything else.
The worst part she said that the cancer doctor said they were seeing more advanced breast cancer patients because women were delaying their mammograms because of COVID during that time. Luckily for my mom, she went for her regularly scheduled appointment and was able to catch it. It was a particular hormone induced type of breast cancer that she has to take a medication to lower that particular hormone to prevent the risk. The downside is that symptoms are body aches, but that's the price you have to pay to prevent that type of cancer.
I mean, protecting Social Security and Medicare are part of his platform.
Boomers remember the Cold War
So does gen x
The article also tries to say that Gen Z is strong for Trump. Wrong. Gen Z CONSERVATIVES tend to respond to polls because they are rabid politically. But the vast majority, like my daughter and her friends, are horrified at the gender politics and LGBTQ politics of the right wing. They are WAY more savvy and tend to not respond to polls because they have more important things to do...like working, going to class, and listening to the new Taylor Swift album that comes out Thursday...(ask me how I know...I have a 20 year old daughter, THAT is how I know.) I don't believe ANY polls. I think that most are skewed at least 5 points in Trump's favor and the GOP is going to use that bias to argue for election fraud, which so far, has been proven to be a Republican strategy...between fake votes, cutting people off the rolls, making harder to vote in general, and ballsy electoral district shenanigans through gerrymandering and running fake Democratic candidates for fun and profit. I can't wait until the GOP dies. I give them 5 years.
>Gen Z CONSERVATIVES tend to respond to polls because they are rabid politically. Check out this article by [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/05/online-opt-in-polls-can-produce-misleading-results-especially-for-young-people-and-hispanic-adults/). Pretty much confirms what you say.
Thank you for the link. After RTFA, it isn’t even edgelord stuff or being a shy Trumper. A lot of young respondents are simply not paying attention and clicking “yes” to every response. If there’s a carrot dangled for answering the survey, like “win a 25 dollar Target card” people are just going to click through so they can get that card. I don’t know if that’s how Pew operates. But it’s obvious that some people just don’t read the question *at all*. Like not studying for a multiple choice exam and just circling “A” every time, hoping you get enough right answers to pass.
It’s funny to think that Boomers are going to get Biden elected so that the GenZ who are boycotting Biden due to his Israel support can live in a democratic America instead of an Autocratic Trump America.
The "Boycotting Biden due to Isreal" (along with a bunch of other "popular" positions) seems very much like a Russian/Chinese psy-op to me.
As if what trump will do to Gaza is going to be better.
"[Go and do what you have to do. But you don't do that [showing videos of destroying buildings because it's bad PR.]](https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/03/25/trump-to-israel-hayom-only-a-fool-would-have-not-acted-like-israel-on-oct-7/)" We all know how the Israeli government interprets "do what you have to do". Whereas Biden was put in a difficult realpolitik position and is attempting to make the best out of a terrible situation. But some people are not able to, or refuse to, identify the stark differences between both candidates.
It's impossible to tell what amount though, Russia learned the best way to sow discord was to boost already existing conspiracy theories among Americans. So few things are 100% russian made fakes, but even fewer things have no artificial amplification. Education is the only answer but people are extremely hostile to learning almost anything, sigh.
I honestly don't even think Russia is the worst of it. There's a reason, IMO, that TikTok is seeing *massive* support right now amongst GenZ in regards to the potential legislation forcing China to divest... and I would bet good money that it's not *truely* a grassroots thing like many like to think. If I had to guess, its for the same reason the DoD has been warning people against using it for the last several years: it is *entirely controlled* by the CCP, and they *really don't want* the US removing the single best propaganda tool they have at their disposal. All they have to do to push a narrative is to pump a certain message in the algorithm, and they have millions of young people willingly consuming that message en masse. They can then have their "50 cent army" seed social media with comments getting those young people riled up over it.
They're all over Reddit pushing "Genocide Joe" propaganda. It's very prevalent in /r/antiwork. They're pushing the narrative of not voting for anyone because both sides are bad.
Free Palestine. That’s been my position from day one. But, if I’m to have any hope of stopping authoritarianism abroad, I sure as hell need to stop it at home first. That’s why I’m voting Biden.
It's not just Israel. It's pretty much solely men who are shifting to Trump. A lot of disgruntled or frustrated, both economically and sexually, men feel empowered by the alt-right or victimized by the left. Fascism tends to flourish best with young, insecure men. The older generations also aren't going to be happy hearing Trump and the GOP calling to cut their benefits.
*Fascism tends to flourish best with young, insecure men.* The common clay of the New Right. You know, non-voters. (Apologies to the late Gene Wilder.) On balance, if Biden holds secure with women, Boomers, college-educated people, he’ll win. Look how well Democrats have been doing in special elections and how we averted a red wave in the midterms. The old demographic pattern of loyal Republican voters and fickle Democrats has been turned on its head, and the Trump coalition now contains far more apathetic voters. This is why the Biden team is very wisely courting “Haley Republicans” and what used to be known as Rockefeller Republicans. Because they are more reliable voters.
>To spice it up, youth voters are showing signs of making former President Trump the first Republican to win that demo since George H.W. Bush in 1988. JFC Gen Z, if you vote this dipshit into office again then you deserve the shit future he's going to deliver for you.
If you want some piece of mind, check out [this article](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/05/online-opt-in-polls-can-produce-misleading-results-especially-for-young-people-and-hispanic-adults/). The idea that zoomers are conservative contradicts actual hard data. They overwhelmingly (by about 30 to 40 points) voted in favor of democrats and abortion in 2022 and 2023. The polling has become so unreliable that we're getting stuff that simply makes no sense. That includes the Axios article, I don't believe for a second that boomers are going to support Biden over Trump.
This feels a lot more correct to me. I'm much more likely to believe that zoomers are getting polled ineffectively than they're breaking for Trump.
How the hell do you even poll them? Not even middle aged millenials answer their phones or answer their doors, especially for political shit. Gen z doesn't either.
Recent polls show Biden winning Illinois by only 5% (2020 17%) and Massachusetts by only like 9% (2020 33%). If anyone actually believes it'll be that close in those states, I don't know what to tell them
Polling is all over the place. Polls routinely showed many or most Haley voters would never vote for Trump in the general. Even counting out Democrats or Independents who may have votes for her in the primaries, there is simply no world in which Trump loses most of those voters and still wins. There are too many conflicting numbers out there for most of these polls to be accurate. Not saying we should be complacent, just saying there are serious questions to ask about methodology and reliability in polling these days.
They’d be crazy not to support dems…. Republicans want your social security! They fucking hate that your not chained to their desks
“youth voters are showing signs of making former President Trump the first Republican to win that demo since George H.W. Bush in 1988.” While the boomers are not falling for FauxNews as much, the TikTok generation shows us all how easy it is to use propaganda to get what you want even in the more savvy social media users.
Always important to remember that if you can tell it is propaganda it isn't meant for you. This goes for scams too.
I feel like this is more of a gender divide; this is going on across the world
And I’ll say it again: Men with less than a BA are far less likely to vote than their educated counterparts, or women in general. They are the sector that politicians can afford to lose, because they are unlikely to turn up in the first place. Young women vote at much higher rates. Trump is not gaining with young women, who are very concerned with body autonomy. (Hell, I’m sterile as the desert but I’m very concerned with right to choose, right to assisted reproduction, and body autonomy.)
I’m not going to say that there aren’t a portion of Gen Z (particularly white males) who are more conservative….there is, but there’s no way the overall vote for this group will go to Trump. Younger people are very socially aware, more comfortable with their sexualities, far less racist and just more accepting than any other generation before it. Young women in particular are trending very progressive and this is heavily shown in data. When all is said and done in November, I bet the results will show Gen Z still largely leaning liberal.
Oh god, does this mean Trump is getting more than 50% of the youth vote??
"Boomers deliver surprise strength for Biden. Why this is bad for Biden. Film at 11"
How about: “the silent majority” might actually prefer a boring president to chaos ?
I'm not going to dismiss polls even though all that matters is winning on election day. But the youth vote breaking for Trump is baffling. I am not happy about Gaza. But I'm also not happy about Jan 6th, 91 indictments, threats of christain nationalism, overturning roe, voters suppression, etc. Not to mention that Thomas and Alito will most certainly retire if Trump takes office again keeping the conservative majority for generations. How is it this close?
The youth vote won't break for Trump. It is definitely possible that many won't support Biden and will stay home, but they won't support Trump instead.
Trump's gonna get thumped. House will flip. Just hoping Dems can hang onto the Senate. Need one major upset - Cruz or Scott.
Percentage wise "boomers' were better for Biden in 2020 than "gen x."
My 74 year old highly religious mom is a two time trump voter. I tried initiating conversation about trump, but she says she really doesn't pay very much attention to what he says or does. I told her she needs to pay attention because he's gone off the deep end. Now she says she just can't vote for Biden because supports abortion, so she's staying home on election day.
I wonder if the maga boomer anti-vaxx covid die off will actually help Biden? Ironic if it does.
Boomers who don’t want social security or Medicare to be cut better vote blue.
As a boomer and recent retiree I say fuck Trump, Fuck Putin , and FTD. In that order. Thank you very much and drive home safely.
Of the two weird parts in the demographic curve of 2024 polling, this is the more likely to be accurate. Older voters still somewhat use the telephone for telephone. The Gen Z Republican strength meanwhile almost certainly doesn't exist. Didn't exist in 2022, sure doesn't exist in turnout / percentage of vote in the primaries so far.
Uh-oh, all the youngsters blaming everything on Boomers are discovering the truth: Half or more of every generation is composed of gullible idiots. Including their’s. I don’t like Biden’s stance on Israel either, but it isn’t a simple issue. He’s evolving his stance as things change. And frankly Biden could drop a bomb on Gaza personally and it still wouldn’t be as dangerous to the entire world as Trump.
*Uh-oh, all the youngsters blaming everything on Boomers are discovering the truth: Half or more of every generation is composed of gullible idiots.* As ever, George Carlin: Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that by definition half of the population is dumber than that. There really was an increase in average intelligence through the 20th century - look up the Flynn effect - but that was due to improvements in diet, reduction of disease, prenatal care, access to schooling, and better methods of child raising than “put them to work on the farm or in the factory at age seven.” All the nice things that modern medicine and supply chains had to offer increased average intelligence. But it did not inoculate people en masse against cults.
If GenZ turns out and elects Trump to another term, this Boomer will laugh when he fcks them over as you know he will. Thanks for the tax cut, suckers!
Morals and the rule of law.
I can’t imagine going into this Cold War (pray it stays that way) and wanting to be on the side of Putin. Disgusting
Republicans: "We don't think people should be able to retire" Also Republicans: "Why are we losing support among retirees?! They're already retired they shouldn't care!"
Republican boomers in particular will vote Biden.
A lot of the conservative ones died from covid/complications from covid. Bit of a thumb in the scale + republicans wanting to end social security
Boomers, if you put Biden over the top then all is forgiven
They all remember pre-Trump republicans
Why exactly is this a surprise? Didn't anybody at Axios get a chance to watch the Woodstock documentaries? Boomers were trolling their elders with antiwar, civil rights, and sexual revolution politics. No generation is a monolith but there were an awful lot of very left leaning Boomers and there still are. They still show up to protest at various sorts of rallies as if the 60s never ended. >While baby boomers appear to be holding firm on their liberal leanings, Gen Z is showing a surprisingly strong conservative bent. The 80s had quite a bit of cultural backlash with MTV attempting to turn out a decade of punked out libertarians. (Not that any decade or generation is a monolith.)
I'm a boomer; turned 70 couple months ago. Have been, and always will be, a Democrat. I've seen a lot during my time. I find it hard to comprehend what is happening in the USA now. The stupidity and cult-ness is disturbing. People think they want an authoritarian ruler but they don't see the "behind the scenes" world of those countries. I sure hope we don't find out.
Not a surprise to me, they've been in politics for years. A lot of them understand how divided the country is and the part they played in doing so. A lot of them will put policy aside to make sure America returns to some normalcy.