Elections don’t work for Republicans, because we’re the first generation to be royally fucked and we’re pissed off. Boomers would be pissed too if they were on the bottom of the capitalism pyramid scheme.
Yeah and they so don’t work for Republicans that they still have 48% of the house and senate combined. Those poor Republicans totally unrepresented
Only because of gerrymandering, voter suppression and the Electoral College. Far as that last goes, they have about zero chance if we went by the popular vote.
You might not have got the memo, but it’s clear to the GOP they’re on their heels. Why else would they be trying to pass hundreds of voter suppression laws at the state level?
Oh completely fair I know
No, see, conservatives are used to being the oppressors. If you stop that and make things actually fair instead, it’s tantamount to oppressing them!
We’ve probably all heard the saying by now that when you’re used to being in a position of privilege, equality feels like oppression. Is there a more compact term for this?
Affluenza
Gen X was the first generation to be royally fucked, but they were also whiny defeatist shitheads who insisted voting doesn’t matter and chose to allow boomers to continue destroying society.
That’s a pretty ignorant assessment. We were apathetic, but we hardly rolled over for the boomers.
GenX did the whole “vote or die” thing. GenX was credited with getting Clinton into office. GenX would have also been the ones to get Gore into office if it wasn’t for the Florida fuckery. Imagine how different things would have gone under President Gore.
I still think about this on occasion, what life would be like with the rightfully elected Gore taking office instead of W Bush. The idea that we couldn’t take enough time for FL recounts because the damn corporate media had already called the elections is still infuriating!
GenX did the whole “vote or die” thing. GenX was credited with getting Clinton into office. GenX would have also been the ones to get Gore into office if
As a GenXer, I’m sure you know what Judge Judy says about couldas, wouldas, and shouldas. I understand your frustration, but apathy is rolling over for the boomers and “vote or die” just makes the voter turnout figures worse.
We voted. We protested. We just didn’t understand what was happening. And we are a tiny generation. There will never be a GenX president.
A lot of us also bought into the conservative bullshit our parents taught us. Not all of us, but too many. Paul Ryan is a perfect example of that.
“Chose”… how is being outnumbered at the polls a choice?
Gen X is one of the last generations still slanting to the right as they age. Complain all you want, but in general, gen X has been a wet fart in response to the rise of fascism.
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Give it time, I bet other generations slant to the right as they age, too. Though I haven’t seen the data that Gen X has done this, I would believe it.
Nah, most people don’t openly regress more than they stop progressing.
Gen X stopped progressing at a time when it was only tacitly OK to support LGBT+ people, and capitalism was an unblemished gem. That is why they trend back toward conservative: Many haven’t even thought through issues until they’re now watching their 401k’s slip. That leaves quite a few OK with measures that younger people are against on principle.
It makes total sense. Millennials WILL similarly stop progressing, but it’s going to be with a much greater understanding of other perspectives and after getting fucked harder by corporations. Hopefully Z and younger DO embarass millennials some day, because, frankly, I’ve met too many millennial idiots for my taste. Many who managed to buy a house early after 2008 seem to be in that blissfully ignorant state where they’ll surely reveal their narrow perspective later despite their young generation.
Every millennial I personally know that isn’t left leaning either comes from a wealthy family, and doesn’t understand how much privilege they have (and how that colors their political perspectives), or has never voted and doesn’t know the first thing about how the government works. Just that the government and corporations are screwing them somehow.
We’ll see. Many people thought the boomers were going to be much different, too. Including the generation older than boomers.
That is how democracy works though. You vote and the majority chooses how the country is run.
Or how it should work, anyway. We end up rules by a minority party pretty often because our system is broken.
Well, we were mostly ignored since there is not as many of us, so not only did marketing mostly ignore us, the politicians mostly did, too. It’s why you hear about Gen Y and boomers.
Not just Gen X. 5 years or so ago (would likely have been younger millennials or older gen z participants) or so I posted a comment to a thread on Reddit saying that everyone should vote and participate. I was voted down to the negative triple digits with dozens of responses about how voting doesn’t work and is unimportant.
To your point, I’m Xillenial myself and definitely recall that defeatist bullshit when I was in high school.
It’s true, that happens to our generation as well and it’s beyond shameful. You should know, though, that a lot of the voting apathy online is from the 50 Yuan Army and the RIDF.
I also think that older generations who weren’t wealthy just accepted that life sucked and there was nothing they could do to make it better. I believe that Millenials to an extent (depends on age) and pretty much all Gen Z have determined that life sucking isn’t a good thing and they are going to fix it.
So. Just like millennials then?
Or are you forgetting about the idiotic waste of political capital that was occupy Wall Street?
Was it a waste of capital? A whole generation of people had their opinions altered.
Are you expecting me to say millennials were appreciably better? We are, but going over the bar isn’t difficult when you’d have to dig up dinosaur bones to go under it.
Hey look - it’s “gen whine” to tell everyone else it’s their fault.
The saddest thing of all? The idea of “generations” is 100% bullshit. It’s just one more way that the elitists can divide up the country and set people at each other’s throats, just like all the culture war stuff they whip up.
They know if people join up across generations and across artificial cultural/racial divides, the elitists are going to be under a microscope.
Not gonna lie - I was with you in the first sentence… But if you honestly think “they” are purposefully manipulating “the people” on a grand scale then you’re in the same conspiracy crazy pot as MAGA.
Oh, I don’t think there is one unified “they”; I think one part is marketers constantly trying to co-opt what is “cool” and then sell it back to people. If giving people a sense that “my generation” spends money on these goods and services and “that generation” does this, it serves the purposes of marketing, not the targets of that marketing.
And pols use code-switching in much the same way. I think elitists are going to keep this going - a populace that is atomized as much as possible is going to be easier to keep pitching the worst aspects of capitalism to, and if they think “that generation” is the source of their ills, (rather than taking a close look at who wields all the power and the money) so much the better.
#7thgradedeep
Gutfeld is a fascist fuck, just like the rest of that network.
And judging by that Hitler-esque screed, he knows it.
Isn’t he supposed to be the funny one? Like, he’s the right wing equivalent of Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, etc? How does one go from comedy to “we should start a civil war”?
Elections don’t work when you keep getting rejected for your unpopular ideas yet keep trying them every year instead of changing funny how that works
Too late for them to pivot, far too late. They can’t change anything without losing the base. And the current state of the GOP isn’t about to be trusted by any new voters they might hope to attract.
tl;dr: GOP’s dead and doesn’t know it yet.
That, or they get their way and turn this country into a total fascist shitshow.
Me and my fiancée had the conversation the other night that it feels like if the GOP wins a supermajority, there’ll be acetal fucking blood in the streets.
The best part is they knew. In 2016 they knew exactly what effect trump would have and after he won they shut up and fell into line and helped it happen.
Watching the crows come home to roost has been cathartic.
They knew in 2012 and still decided to double down on the confederate aka southern strategy. They didn’t call it the Lost Cause for nothing.
The GOP can’t be called dead while it still controls the House and a majority of Statehouses. They might not have actually published a platform in 2020, but whatever it is they stand for still appeals to certain voters, even if their actions are against those same voters’ best interests.
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He’s right in a way. Elections don’t work to elect the far right candidates that the Republicans keep putting forward. The problem doesn’t lie with elections, though. If Republicans regained their sanity and went with candidates that moderate Republicans and independents could support, they would win more elections.
Of course, that’s crazy talk. Instead, they will move even further right and advocate for getting rid of democracy to make things “more fair” for them.
Except the ‘elections’ DO ‘work’ where they have gerrymandered the shit out of places. And look, they have a majority in the Senate where they can rat-fuck anything that has a whisper of equality, justice, fairness, or PROGRESS towards a nicer, better world.
And why?!?!?
Because not only are home-grown fascists supporting them, but LOTS of dark money from Russia and China are pumping up their campaign finances and social media effluent.
LOTS of dark money from Russia and China are pumping up their campaign finances and social media effluent.
This is the biggest driver IMO, as these far right dipshits are all chasing social media engagement and then wonder why they’re electoral prospects suffer anywhere they don’t have a finger on the scales.
Gerrymandering definitely helps them, but there are limits to this tool. If Republicans gerrymander an area and there’s a blue wave, they might not be able to stop it. This upsets the Republicans because they think they’ve rigged this race and how dare the voters defy what should have happened.
The Boomers are slowly dying out and, with them, a large part of the Republican base. (Boomers are about a third Republican, a third Democrat, and a third Independent.).
My generation, GenX, tends to be about 44% Democrat, 30% Republican, and 27% Independent. That’s a loss for Republicans, but one they could gerrymander past.
Millennials are 52% Democrat, 27% Independent, and 21% Republican. GenZ is 52% Democrat, 31% Independent, and 17% Republican. As these two generations take over, not even the most aggressive gerrymandering will help.
Republicans are facing a potential collapse of public support in all but the deepest red areas. This is why they are looking for non-democracy solutions like “state legislatures can override the elections if the voters decide wrong” or even outright “get rid of democracy and install a (Republican) king.”
A healthy political party, facing obsolescence, would change their platform to attract more voters. Perhaps a “theoretical healthy Republican party” could drop the “LGBTQ folks are evil” stuff as well as the “overthrow elections” garbage. They could stick to fiscal conservatism and might make headway that way. Unfortunately, the real Republican party believes that if the voters won’t support the Republicans’ views, then it’s the voters that need to go.
(And, yes, foreign dark money factors into this to a large extent. It amplifies their party and keeps them around long after they should have died off.)
Gen X here. Reagan was such a productive fraud. Goddam his filthy soul.
I’m just glad that I’m not a flyover state middle aged parochial fool. I mean, I’m fool enough as it is, but worldly enough to steer clear of MAGA shitforbrains-itis.
I still think Ronnie Raygun might have done more damage in one administration than nearly any other. Though donnie’s one term is arguably worse. Maybe some distance of time might tell.
But Ronnie’s wrecking crew really, really got things going. And the infection persists - so much nonsense that started with that bunch is still with us today, and much of it has taken root in the Democratic Party, too. See: Clinton’s administration, for instance.
And if anyone wants to test the “liberal media” nonsense a bit, just see how they treat Raygun’s admin - the collective hagiographies are nauseating. And the way in which Iran/Contra is treated (more like: “covered up”) - which is far, far, far worse than Watergate. So many boomers attached “-gate” to every scandal since Watergate, but they should have been finding ways to tie things back to Iran/Contra after that.
Pre-internet innocence, eh?
I think so many boomers were trained to chant stuff at LBJ and were so shocked by Nixon (and were so worn out from things in the 60s overall) that they got into a lot of self-indulgent things and self-help. Not to mention switching to chemicals that dulled the senses like booze and cocaine and very schmaltzy music in the 70s and started being good little yuppies by the time the 80s rolled around that they mostly stayed quiet about Ronnie Raygun. Now that their asses were not really on the line via a draft for Vietnam, most of them got very complacent.
Again, this is very much general terms. Not all boomers, and again, most of the stuff about “generations” is hokum. The notion that people in their teens and twenties are going to be self-centered narcissist twits is hardly a new observation, nor is it confined to one generation in particular. The technology and the specific complaints of older generations may change in their details, but it’s an old story. Boomers were probably unique in the West for being the first that were so studied/catered to/marketed to and being SO large in numbers. Their every whim was catered to for the most part - if they wanted to protest for Civil Rights, for gay rights, against the war, try out different religions/cults, experiment with chemicals, pose as communists, then, later, get totally self-indulgent in the extreme - there was not a whole lot other groups could really do to stop them - the best that could be done was to make sure they were diverted into mostly harmless posturing and sell back their own culture to them in order to keep the capitalist game going. As long as they kept working and buying stuff.
When Gen X started to come into their own - most people shrugged, as their numbers were smaller. And boomers wanted to think they’ve seen and done it all…
My parents are Boomers and very well thought-out folk. Both scientists and left wing. Generous towards demographic failings on the lower end of financial clout in recognising that society has failed most people and continues to do so.
We were rich in cultural capital but relatively lower middle class in finances.
I’ve developed a rather more strict and harsh view of ‘aspirational’ values when it comes to Veblen Goods and status. My patience with society’s failings are much less generous.
Poor education, crime, and border insecurity all occurred in the past 3 years? Got it Gutfeld.
Poor education? I thought that was the GOP’s goal, like not even joking?
“Poor education” is a dog-whistle meaning anything that doesn’t indoctrinate kids into Christian Nationalism.
- National Christianism. Don’t let these Nat-Cs try to dodge what they’re doing.
FYI: Christian nationalism is a type of religious nationalism that is affiliated with Christianity, in which the end goal is to achieve an absolute Christian theocracy within a society.
I know that, I was making a joke about the christian nationalists being fascists and making a lazy joke/comparing to Nazis.
You gotta admit, flipping the words around makes the abbreviation catchier and more descriptive.
I guess I don’t agree because the words already have that connotation for me.
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Curious: how closely related is it to dominionism or reconstructionism? Those were a couple of movements that were really rampant twenty years ago—well, they’d been around longer than than that but they were really ramping things up after 9/11, especially into Dubya’s second term
In his mind, teaching kids that black people are ok and gays exist is ‘poor education.’
They came out against teaching critical thinking in Texas. Official GOP platform. Not even kidding.
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. It’s fucking criminal.
Here’s to Dominion & Smartmatic making him yet another unemployed #fascist, soon.
Tv celebrity who would never pick up a rifle in a conflict calls for other people to die.
Elections do work, we’re weeding these fuckers out slowly but surely.
Elections do work, Greg.
Geez, a radical right winger being unpatriotic and calling for sedition. Just a day ending in y in ReelMurica these days…
Be the first to hide and cry if it happned.
If it didn’t ha e every confidence he knew exactly what he’s saying I would use this as a great example of a back propagating argument. Where you start with the conclusion then argue backwards.
Republicans should be in power -> because they aren’t that means the system that determines power is broken.
Gutfeld!
Fucking hack ass failed ass comedian.
I’m not a big fan of the guy’s politics but he’s right:
“If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.” - David Frum
It was a threat, not a warning.
I’m sure a bunch of obese and untrained LARPers will overcome a professional army with no trouble at all.
