New Republic writer can’t understand why Millennials aren’t protesting Government Shutdown
Could it be because they were expecting “hope” from Obama and got the opposite? Could it be because they’re graduating from college and facing record high unemployment? Could it be because they’re figuring out that they are going to pay for Obamacare?
I’m just thinking out loud here, Michael Kazin.
Why Aren’t Those New, Millennial Liberals Protesting the Shutdown?
Is a new, young left really on the rise? A few weeks ago, Peter Beinart wrote a long online essay which argued strongly in the affirmative. It drew a lot of attention—20,000 “Likes” and almost 5,000 tweets, at last count. And it made a lot of the progressives who read it feel better about politics than at any time since Mitt Romney learned 47 percent was actually the percentage of his popular vote.
Beinart cobbled together an impressive set of poll results to show that Millennials (Americans under 30) swing left on a broad range of issues—from such obvious ones as same-sex marriage, immigration reform, and military intervention abroad to more surprising ones, like favoring labor unions and preferring a bigger welfare state to a smaller and cheaper version. They also embrace the message of Occupy and even prefer socialism to capitalism, although no pollster seems to have asked them to define those famously slippery terms.
Given their views, large numbers of Millennials should be protesting vigorously as the House GOP holds the state and the economy hostage to an agenda straight out of a Rush Limbaugh show. They should be surrounding the Capitol to defend Obamacare and blast the Republicans for denying food stamps to millions of poor people. They should be clogging the phone lines to Congress to announce a grand mobilization to overturn the GOP majority in 2014. It’s our government, they ought to declare. Boehner, Cantor, and their band of militants have no right to bankrupt or shut it down.
Alas, the only Americans who seem upset enough to organize, at least in large enough numbers for the media to notice, belong to the Tea Party—most of whose zealots are old enough to have voted for Ronald Reagan. Where’s that new left when we need it?
They’re living in their parents’ basements, genius.
Why Aren't Those New, Millennial Liberals Protesting the Shutdown? (The New Republic)
Comments
Well, golly, of course they are liberal.
A) So what I when I was in my teens to my mid-20’s. I didn’t know better.
For instance: I was pro-choice, and, full disclosure, even was part of (she wanted and I agreed to) an abortion. Then later it really bothered me. I mean like bothered me on a deeper level than I ever thought it would.
Then I find out the whole story of Roe V. Wade was bullsh*t. She had (falsely, she later admitted) claimed to have been raped. Her attorneys KNEW it was false, and lied to the Supreme Court. She’s now an ardent pro-lifer, and no one in the MSM or academia mentions that when they mention Roe.
B) They’ve had the history, the bloody muderous history, of socialism and communism re-written into this “it was just implemented wrong” rose-colored-lenses version.
During the 50-70’s even the communists called communism “world socialism”, but today those who push the incremental imposition of socialism/communism have re-defined the terms, re-written the history, and present the idealist theory that has been tried and never worked.
C) In every instance the sellers of “tolerance” have silenced their opposition. Most of these kids have never HEARD the other side of liberal arguments.
At best these former students have heard the far left argument, and a middle of the road, or SLIGHTLY right-ist version of an argument. And even then, I’ve noticed in classes I took, “news” programs I’ve watched, or regurgitated by some well meaning person – the “conservative” argument presented to them is about the WORST version of what a leftist would call a “conservative” argument – specificially picked because it is so bad.
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Then, later in life, when they run into reality, or they learn some unbiased history of the failure of socialism/communism and the human toll of it, and when they have to pay bills – then most folks become conservatives – or more conservative.
They have left the utopian fantasy world of academia, live in reality, and – gee – somehow those idealistic theories don’t work. In fact, they find out, that most of these theories have been tried – over and over and over – and have failed so badly.
Yea – millenials are liberals – but I’m not surprised.
Steven