Did Republicans Break the Millennials?

Phantasmal said:
You should try reading for content, it really help when you discuss issues. He was talking about very specific insuits, not insults in general.

Laughing at people who thanked you, too. They should read for content as well.
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You mean like the left's continual idea of labeling others as Nazi's and/or racists, for no other reason then it's become the left's "go to phrases"??
 
cawacko said:
Government grew at a higher rate under GWB than it had under any President since LBJ.
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What makes you think that? Take a look here:

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total

In FY 2001 (Bush's first fiscal year), total government spending was $3,436 billion. In FY 2009, it was $5,969 billion. That's 7.1% growth, annualized. By comparison, in the Reagan years, we went from $1073 billion to $1905 billion. That's 7.4% annualized growth. Between FY 1969 and FY 1974 (Nixon) we went from $296 billion to $453 billion, which is 8.9% annualized. Certainly the GW Bush era looks like a crazy orgy of government spending next to the austerity of the Obama years, but it doesn't look out of line with prior periods.
 
Oneuli said:
What makes you think that? Take a look here:

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total

In FY 2001 (Bush's first fiscal year), total government spending was $3,436 billion. In FY 2009, it was $5,969 billion. That's 7.1% growth, annualized. By comparison, in the Reagan years, we went from $1073 billion to $1905 billion. That's 7.4% annualized growth. Between FY 1969 and FY 1974 (Nixon) we went from $296 billion to $453 billion, which is 8.9% annualized. Certainly the GW Bush era looks like a crazy orgy of government spending next to the austerity of the Obama years, but it doesn't look out of line with prior periods.
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I’d have to google search to find the articles but it was well reported during the bush years his expansion of government
 
Cypress said:
A good insight.

Republicans and rightwing message board posters have also spent careers hollering about and condemning European "socialism".

At this point, I am pretty sure every millennial who does not live in a trailer park is aware that Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Canada, Netherlands, France are pretty decent places to live. And if they are examples of "socialism", then socialism does not sound too bad at all!
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Then why did you leave out Venezuela and even the countries you've mentioned don't claim to socialists and instead call themselves Democratic Socialists, which is nothing more then a play on words?
 
Evmetro said:
Way back in the early 1960's, the 45 step plan for communists to take over America was read into congressional record.

https://rense.com/general32/americ.htm

None of the 45 goals had been achieved at that time, and the Americans of that time knew that the goals could only be achieved if the country was taken over. When you refer to millennials rejecting the GOP, I agree. Not only do I agree, but I raise you rejection of the Democrat party. Millenials are the manifestation of the 1963 plan to take over America, and they reject both parties as per goal #15 in that plan that I linked above.
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Wow. Little early to be drinking, isn't it?
 
USFREEDOM911 said:
Then why did you leave out Venezuela and even the countries you've mentioned don't claim to socialists and instead call themselves Democratic Socialists, which is nothing more then a play on words?
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"Socialist" and "Democratic Socialist" are not the same thing, Timmeh.

Pro-tip: words have meanings. I suggest you check that out.
 
cawacko said:
I’d have to google search to find the articles but it was well reported during the bush years his expansion of government
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Certainly federal government spending rose on Bush's watch, largely thanks to his multi-trillion-dollar blunder into Iraq. But I'm looking at total government spending, not just federal spending, since total government spending is the relevant factor for the idea I'm exploring here (the idea that government austerity contributed to millennials developing a different attitude towards capitalism). It wasn't just federal jobs that were very hard to come by in the last decade or so, but civil service jobs in general. That helped to hollow out the middle class, and disproportionately denied entry to the middle class for younger people (since generally the government-job downsizing took the form of greatly reduced hiring, rather than firing existing workers).
 
cawacko said:
Baby boomers were supposedly tearing down the system, not into money, into civil rights etc. and now they are the ones folks are cheering for to die. Will millennials have the same political beliefs in 20 to 30 years that they have today? It’s possible. But history also shows us people’s beliefs can change as they age.
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Boomers believed in the system though -looks like millenials do not.
all they have to do is get a job for money instead of looking for "satisfaction at the work place"
Plenty of really good paying jobs out there
 
Cypress said:
@ post one.

Is there anything less cool, and more repellent than a conservative millennial?

Probably not!

Trump does have a fan boy base in the 18 to 29 age bracket. Sadly, I believe most of them are either buck-toothed racist hillbillies, or misogynistic INCEL losers.

One major shift I have been noticing: Elderly conservatives have no idea that their attempts at throwing out archaic and outdated cold war expressions (aka, Bolshevik, commie, Marxist) are having less and less effect.

No one under the age of 40 remembers the Cold War, and attempts to paint liberals as witting allies of ruthless Stalinists just fall flat on their face. I actually feel a little bit embarrassed for the octogenarian teabaggers who still think their use of Bolshevik insults are clever, or have any effect whatsoever. Essentially, is seems that elderly teabaggers are unaware that what might have seemed clever, funny, and effective in 1953, just ain't cutting the mustard in 2019!
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Maybe because there was never anything funny about the mass murders and atrocities of the Marxists, or their sympathizers and enablers. Actually, it's all much funnier post-1991.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
Synthetic opiates are necessary pain medication for many people.
Sadly, they are addictive to a significant minority of people.
Most legitimate users are not susceptible to opioid addiction, but over-aggressive control over the drugs will cause a lot of unnecessary suffering.

Thus, the opioid fervor is one cause that I don't support.

I care more about pain relief than I do about the safety of drug abusers. I know that they have a genetic weakness, and I feel bad for them, but not to the extent that I'd deny medication to those who need it by making synthetic opiates unnecessarily difficult to get. I trust doctors over legislators when it comes to making medical decisions.
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awesome. trust the doctor/patient relationship. Pain management is REAL MEDICINE.
Unfortunately the DEA isn't listening
 
Oneuli said:
Certainly federal government spending rose on Bush's watch, largely thanks to his multi-trillion-dollar blunder into Iraq. But I'm looking at total government spending, not just federal spending, since total government spending is the relevant factor for the idea I'm exploring here (the idea that government austerity contributed to millennials developing a different attitude towards capitalism). It wasn't just federal jobs that were very hard to come by in the last decade or so, but civil service jobs in general. That helped to hollow out the middle class, and disproportionately denied entry to the middle class for younger people (since generally the government-job downsizing took the form of greatly reduced hiring, rather than firing existing workers).
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If millennials think the road to the middle class or above is through government jobs I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe it speaks to the failings of our education system that millennials lack the understanding of what made America the worlds economic superpower
 
cawacko said:
If millennials think the road to the middle class or above is through government jobs I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe it speaks to the failings of our education system that millennials lack the understanding of what made America the worlds economic superpower
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Government jobs have, traditionally, been a major path to the middle class. That's simply a fact. If you don't realize it, it might speak to the failings of our education system, which in large parts of the country has been derailed by right-wingers pushing an agenda.
 
Oneuli said:
Government jobs have, traditionally, been a major path to the middle class. That's simply a fact. If you don't realize it, it might speak to the failings of our education system, which in large parts of the country has been derailed by right-wingers pushing an agenda.
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A non agenda driven school would teach our kids government jobs are the key to your future success? Lord help us all
 
Hello Oneuli, and we are so glad to have your participation here,

Oneuli said:
As someone who grew up in a traditionally conservative Asian American immigrant family, I've heard a lot of my elders bemoaning the state of 'kids these days.' Now granted, that's an age-old pastime of the elder generation, but this time I think there's something to it, in the sense that young people today really are markedly different in a number of ways than prior generations of Americans.

For starters, it seems Millennials today are less into consumerism. There's a never-ending line of articles about how "millennials are killing X," where X is often a consumer item that was previously an aspirational or status-displaying purchase for Americans: wines, country clubs, designer brands, golf, sports cars, and so on. At first ,this was attributable to the fact Millennials had little money: they were loaded with college debt and had trouble finding steady work during and for years after the 2008 financial crisis. But with unemployment very low now even for younger people, and incomes rising, we haven't seen a pick-up in those consumerist habits. Instead, if the upwardly-mobile young people I know are any guide, we're getting a surge in millennials looking for ways to define themselves outside of careerism and consumption, and often a focus on retiring young (or paying off loans and then moving to a more fulfilling, low-earning job).

Millennials are also completely disgusted with the GOP. Sure, young people have long preferred the Democrats (since 1992, at least), but the magnitude of that preference has become extreme. Between 1992 and 2004, Democrats won the 18-29 vote by between two and 19 points. Even as late as the 2006 mid-term, it was just 22 points. But in the 2018 Congressional election, it was a stunning 35 point gap in favor of Democrats. And even among the 30-39 demographic, which is nearly always competitive and often tilts to the Republicans, the gap in favor of Democrats was 22 points.

Millennials aren't just rejecting the GOP. They're even rejecting triangulating Democrats, in favor of more radically liberal options. The term "socialist," which was rejected by all but the extreme for most of the period between WWII and the early 2000s is now something electable politicians proudly wear, and millions of young people proudly support.

You can also see a greater focus on "work/life balance," which is showing up in more insistence on paid maternity and paternity leave, and a surprisingly large decline in average annual working hours for full-time workers in the US (from 1834 in 2000 down to 1783 most recently, which is like taking six extra days off per year).

From a conservative/Republican perspective, something has gone terribly wrong with Millennials. But the irony here is that we probably have those very conservatives and Republicans to thank for the dramatic change in mindset of this generation, relative to earlier ones. For over seven decades, young people came up in an atmosphere where, even if they first entered the workforce in tough times, prosperity (and the siren song of 'keeping up with the Joneses') was just a few years away. For example, the early 1990s were rough on Generation X, but the recession was fairly short, and after a couple years of jobless recovery, was followed by a very strong growth cycle. There wasn't time to abandon dreams of material wealth or to give up on establishment politics.

What changed this time was that conservatives in Congress imposed government austerity. You won't find another period like 2009-2016, in American history, in terms of having such absurdly low government spending growth, nor a period so long of government employment shrinkage. You can see it here, in terms of government employment:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USGOVT

Before the start of the Obama administration, the longest the nation had ever gone without government payrolls showing net expansion was 73 months -- which entailed the massive demobilization following WWII. Generally, it was rare to go more than a year or two without government payrolls expanding. We've now gone 103 months with a net decline of government payrolls, including all but the first few months of the Obama administration.

You can see a similar pattern with this data, which measures spending levels.

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total

You simply won't find a period as long as the present one with so little government spending growth. This is the closest thing to sustained austerity in US economic history. The result is that we've had a whole generation that was all but shut out of stable civil servant positions, and which had little opportunity for material advancement for the better part of a decade. This altered the traditional "rat race" American mentality, in that generation, to something closer to traditional Western European cultural values. Since your chances of being better off than your parents was dwindling, defining success in those terms just wasn't appealing. Instead, the youth culture rejected capitalist values and found meaning along other cultural avenues. In fact, there's a pride in making do with less -- a coupon-clipping, decluttering, reduce/re-use, freegan pride.

This may, in fact, be a good thing, long term. A culture of material acquisition and status competition is dangerous from the perspective of environmental burden. It's better for people to find happiness in less material, more sustainable ways, rather than slaving long hours to buy a bunch of plastic crap they don't need. But from the perspective of a Republican or conservative, this change in culture is unfamiliar and troubling (see the constant freak-outs here about the new socialism). So, it's fascinating that it may ultimately be attributable in large part to the austerity politics they pushed during the Obama years. In essence, they broke the Millennials -- turning them into the first generation in living memory that was genuinely skeptical of capitalism and the traditional US culture of acquisition. They denied the Millennials the "gateway drugs" of capitalism during their formative years, and so an unprecedented chunk of the generation never got hooked.
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Excellent observation!

And very intelligently presented.

Makes very much sense.

Thanks for sharing this thought.
 
Oneuli said:
As someone who grew up in a traditionally conservative Asian American immigrant family, I've heard a lot of my elders bemoaning the state of 'kids these days.' Now granted, that's an age-old pastime of the elder generation, but this time I think there's something to it, in the sense that young people today really are markedly different in a number of ways than prior generations of Americans.

For starters, it seems Millennials today are less into consumerism. There's a never-ending line of articles about how "millennials are killing X," where X is often a consumer item that was previously an aspirational or status-displaying purchase for Americans: wines, country clubs, designer brands, golf, sports cars, and so on. At first ,this was attributable to the fact Millennials had little money: they were loaded with college debt and had trouble finding steady work during and for years after the 2008 financial crisis. But with unemployment very low now even for younger people, and incomes rising, we haven't seen a pick-up in those consumerist habits. Instead, if the upwardly-mobile young people I know are any guide, we're getting a surge in millennials looking for ways to define themselves outside of careerism and consumption, and often a focus on retiring young (or paying off loans and then moving to a more fulfilling, low-earning job).

Millennials are also completely disgusted with the GOP. Sure, young people have long preferred the Democrats (since 1992, at least), but the magnitude of that preference has become extreme. Between 1992 and 2004, Democrats won the 18-29 vote by between two and 19 points. Even as late as the 2006 mid-term, it was just 22 points. But in the 2018 Congressional election, it was a stunning 35 point gap in favor of Democrats. And even among the 30-39 demographic, which is nearly always competitive and often tilts to the Republicans, the gap in favor of Democrats was 22 points.

Millennials aren't just rejecting the GOP. They're even rejecting triangulating Democrats, in favor of more radically liberal options. The term "socialist," which was rejected by all but the extreme for most of the period between WWII and the early 2000s is now something electable politicians proudly wear, and millions of young people proudly support.

You can also see a greater focus on "work/life balance," which is showing up in more insistence on paid maternity and paternity leave, and a surprisingly large decline in average annual working hours for full-time workers in the US (from 1834 in 2000 down to 1783 most recently, which is like taking six extra days off per year).

From a conservative/Republican perspective, something has gone terribly wrong with Millennials. But the irony here is that we probably have those very conservatives and Republicans to thank for the dramatic change in mindset of this generation, relative to earlier ones. For over seven decades, young people came up in an atmosphere where, even if they first entered the workforce in tough times, prosperity (and the siren song of 'keeping up with the Joneses') was just a few years away. For example, the early 1990s were rough on Generation X, but the recession was fairly short, and after a couple years of jobless recovery, was followed by a very strong growth cycle. There wasn't time to abandon dreams of material wealth or to give up on establishment politics.

What changed this time was that conservatives in Congress imposed government austerity. You won't find another period like 2009-2016, in American history, in terms of having such absurdly low government spending growth, nor a period so long of government employment shrinkage. You can see it here, in terms of government employment:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USGOVT

Before the start of the Obama administration, the longest the nation had ever gone without government payrolls showing net expansion was 73 months -- which entailed the massive demobilization following WWII. Generally, it was rare to go more than a year or two without government payrolls expanding. We've now gone 103 months with a net decline of government payrolls, including all but the first few months of the Obama administration.

You can see a similar pattern with this data, which measures spending levels.

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total

You simply won't find a period as long as the present one with so little government spending growth. This is the closest thing to sustained austerity in US economic history. The result is that we've had a whole generation that was all but shut out of stable civil servant positions, and which had little opportunity for material advancement for the better part of a decade. This altered the traditional "rat race" American mentality, in that generation, to something closer to traditional Western European cultural values. Since your chances of being better off than your parents was dwindling, defining success in those terms just wasn't appealing. Instead, the youth culture rejected capitalist values and found meaning along other cultural avenues. In fact, there's a pride in making do with less -- a coupon-clipping, decluttering, reduce/re-use, freegan pride.

This may, in fact, be a good thing, long term. A culture of material acquisition and status competition is dangerous from the perspective of environmental burden. It's better for people to find happiness in less material, more sustainable ways, rather than slaving long hours to buy a bunch of plastic crap they don't need. But from the perspective of a Republican or conservative, this change in culture is unfamiliar and troubling (see the constant freak-outs here about the new socialism). So, it's fascinating that it may ultimately be attributable in large part to the austerity politics they pushed during the Obama years. In essence, they broke the Millennials -- turning them into the first generation in living memory that was genuinely skeptical of capitalism and the traditional US culture of acquisition. They denied the Millennials the "gateway drugs" of capitalism during their formative years, and so an unprecedented chunk of the generation never got hooked.
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I wouldn't say the younger generation, just as those before it, are that ideologically invested to frame years of austerity as the basis for thier current beliefs

Their young, anxious, view everything optimisticly, and see Gov't as the solution to many of the problems afflicting the current society. For example, they see millions without health care and don't understand why the Gov't can't do anything to remedy the situation. Being educated, they are smart enough to know letting the market address handle the situation isn't, nor has ever, addressed the problem, which brings us to where we are today

Perhaps they are not all wrong, but as someone above mentioned, most start out this way and in aging evolve to more moderate positions in time
 
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