Just seeing this article over on the
Daily Kos and I think he's raising some interesting observations. It crosses far too many topics to try and shoehorn into another topic, so I've created this one.
Dear millennials: back in the 1980s a lot of us worked like hell to try to stop the Reagan revolution. We failed. This may be our last chance to save American democracy and the American middle-class.
When my boomer generation was the same average age as your millennial generation is today, back in 1990, our generation held 21.3% of the nation’s wealth. Louise and I shared in that wealth; although we were still in our 30s, in 1990 we owned a profitable small business (our fourth) and a nice home in suburban Atlanta.
That was, in fact, the “American dream.” It was normal then. My dad (born 1928), who worked in a tool-and-die shop, was able to buy a house, a new car every two years, and take a two-week vacation every year because the middle class in America before Reagan had a pretty damn good life. He retired in the 1990s with a full pension that let him and my mom travel the world.
Your generation today, in contrast, is about the same number of people but holds only 4.6% of the nation’s wealth and, if you’re the same age I was in 1990, you’re most likely struggling to own a home, are deeply in debt, and find it nearly impossible to start a small business.
The article lays out how the GOP has targeted wages, education, healthcare and then housing. In summary:
This 42-year-long process, with Reagan’s original massive tax cuts amplified by trillions more in tax cuts for the morbidly rich from the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations, has produced a $50 trillion transfer of real wealth from the middle class to the top 1%.
Not really sure about how he ends it though:
I’m so embarrassed to have to say this, but my generation let this happen. Back in the 1980s, huge numbers of Boomers voted for the Reagan Revolution that kicked off this whole political and economic death spiral. The guilt is largely ours.
And now, these Republicans are trying to marinate your children in their white supremacy and racism by forcing teachers to push a false narrative about American history — all while they try to rig our elections by purging millions of minority, Boomer, and Millennial voters from the rolls.
The good news, however, is that, increasingly, our two generation are working together to throw Republicans out of office and elect progressive Democrats who understand these issues and know how to do something about it.
From the 80-year-old Senator Bernie Sanders to 19-year-old progressive candidate for the Ohio House Sam Lawrence (now endorsed by Sherrod Brown and me!), progressives are growing in political power at the same time America is waking up from the fog of bullshit Republicans have been crop-dusting over us since 1981.
All is not lost; change is in the air.
Get out there. Get active. Tag, we’re it!
He sounds like he has hope; I'm having a hard time believing we can change the path we've all been marched down.