Voices in My Head
Boomers are Ok. It’s the Power Gap that Sucks.
Boomers versus Millennial wars are a waste of energy, a misdirection of anger, and clearly a plot to distract us from the real struggle (Okay, the plot part may be a little over the top). In fact, it’s too easy to broadly define either of these demographics. The labels are just a demographer’s way of categorizing broad groups of people. It tells you very little about the millions of us Boomers who have been fighting for social justice since we were sixteen years old (I’m turning 71 this week). And it doesn’t define Millennials either. A recent Washington Post column by Holly Scott who teaches history at Piedmont Virginia Community College and is the author of “Younger than that Now: the Politics of Age in the 1960s” talked about “…the charge those boomers are responsible for everything that ails us — from stingy social policies to climate change denial.”
Scott, and I agree, describes that simplification as “flattening out the differences among baby boomers.” But it also, “misnames the target of youth frustration today.” All this angst and name-calling across generations distracts us all from the real issue of our day, power. Who has it and who doesn’t? How did they get it? Why don’t we all have that power? Our problem is we are all suffering from a Power Gap. And we better do something about it before it’s too late.
The Boomer Memes
When I first saw the “Ok Boomer” memes, I giggled. Been there, done that. Then, I realized some folks on both sides of the generational divide were taking this much more seriously than I initially thought. This is the 2019 version of the Generation Gap that we all experienced in the sixties. Boomers, please don’t forget when we all threatened our parents (the so-called Greatest or Silent Generation) with never speaking to them again. Or the temper tantrums of “Don’t trust anyone over 30!” We rebelled with our long hair, music, fashion, slang, protest marches, drugs, and some of us even got into physical altercations with at least one of our parents. We cough it now up to youthful immaturity and “what the hell did we know?” Well, we knew enough to know that the world around us was blowing up.
The old post-world war two order was undergoing cataclysmic change and we were right in the middle of it. From civil rights to Vietnam to women’s rights to everything in between, we were not only rioting in the streets and burning shit, but we were also organizing in our neighborhoods against bad schools, poor housing, corrupt cops, and an unequal justice system. This is the story of the United States of America. Every generation in this country’s history, those before us, our generation and those after us, have its heroes who took on the old order and shook it up to advance justice, equality, and the rights of working-class people. You would not believe that from the divisions that seem to exist today.
Today, we have to contend with more labels that tell us nothing about who we really are. The Greatest Generation, Boomers, my 42-year old son’s Generation X, my 27-year old son’s Millennials, and now Generation Z. Personally, I think these are lazy labels that do nothing to create a fuller picture of the times many of us have lived or currently live in: a constantly changing world fraught with threats and promises.
Boomers knew what those threats were back in the sixties. Many of them continue today. Some are worst than before. But, the foundation set then by the struggles of that time and the times before that has brought us to this point so that we have more tools to take on the injustices of this time. We’ve done good things but the reality is some boomers have forgotten where they came from and that those injustices did not suddenly end when we turned 30 or 40 or yes, even now, 71. (Did I just say 71?) We all need to take a moment and chill.
We All Need to Chill
The generations that came after Boomers also need to chill. If Millennials and Gen-Zs think every Boomer and every Gen-Xer is trying to screw them, then you, along with all of us, are really screwed. We should be taking the time to study a little American History, break down how we got to this point, and conclude who is really winning from these generational wars. I know it’s not us. Instead, we spend too much time screaming at the television, our car radios, our phones, and each other and only hear back the echo of our voices.
I know it is hard, even frustratingly-blood-boiling-want-to-hit-someone-hard. These are perilous times and the powerful political and media voices are so loud that we can’t even think straight. But real injustices continue. While some boomers, like some before them, condescend to the next generations, many of us are facing real threats to our Social Security, Medicare, and the ability to finance our older years because we didn’t save enough or the Great Recession depleted us. We may not have the exact same problems as Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z but we all share many of the same concerns about the politics of the day, the institutions that are supposed to serve us because we pay for them, and the future that we will all be in as long as we live that long.
So, we can all fall back into stereotypes and memes about “those people” and everyone else, but that’s only gotten us to where we are today. Or we (Greatest, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z) can do something about it. The 2018 election gave me hope that we can begin taking back power because we decided that we wanted to do something about income inequality, healthcare, affordable housing, jobs, climate change, and the direction of this country. What we all seem to agree on is that this nation is not on the right track. According to RealClear Politics, 58.8% versus 35.3% of Americans polled believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction.
Taking Back Power
Many of us are doing something about it. According to the U.S. Census, “voter turnout went up among all voting age and major racial and ethnic groups” in 2018. Fifty-three percent of voting-age citizens cast ballots then. That was the highest midterm turnout in four decades. The breakdown was historic:
- Among 18- to 29-year-olds, voter turnout went from 20 percent in 2014 to 36 percent in 2018, the largest percentage point increase for any age group — a 79 percent jump.
- Among men and women, voter turnout increased by 11 and 12 percentage points respectively.
- Voter turnout increased among non-Hispanic Asians by 13 percentage points, a 49 percent increase.
- Among Hispanics, voter turnout increased by 13 percentage points, a 50 percent increase in Hispanic voter turnout.
- Non-Hispanic black voter turnout increased by 11 percentage points.
There was greater participation with voters who had higher levels of education. Native-born and naturalized citizen voting both increased by 12 percentage points.
Boomers and Millennials Together
This engagement doesn’t include daily political activism everywhere in America. I may be oversimplifying the significance but as a student of American History and the media, I’ve concluded that a sea change in generational attitudes is happening. If you can get away from the noise and see and hear what is happening on the ground, there is greater agreement about the state of where we are and where we want to go. We may not all agree on how we get there but we know that we cannot go back.
Making decisions about our present and future as a nation begins with us as individuals. We must break through these walls of demographic anxiety, stop blaming each other, and start working together on solutions that benefit everyone, not just the rich, not just the privileged, not just those who fit some narrow definition of what it means to be an American. We need to break out of close-minded information silos and learn about the power struggles around us. We need to learn to fill the power gap or we will not survive as communities or as a nation. To get anything done, we need to refocus on the ideals that will redefine us as a nation.
