There are so many ways in which my generation, like all generations, is not doing well. But a few more baby boomers voted for Vice President Kamala Harris than former President Donald Trump. About 51% of millennials (who coined the sarcastic phrase “OK Boomer”) also voted for Harris, which was 1% lower than their votes for Joe Biden in 2020. Fifty-five percent of Gen Z voters voted for Harris, but there was a 6% increase in their votes for Trump. Boomers were the only generation to increase support for Trump’s opponents (by 3%).
I don’t want to criticize young voters or go overboard in defending boomers. To defend and/or reclaim our democracy, we must stop the generational “blame game.” Then we need to engage in intergenerational, intercultural discussions and talk to political opponents. We need to share the ways that younger voters are facing interconnected threats that are very similar to what we faced as boomers. It is not okay that the boomers and subsequent generations have failed to adequately defend our democratic rights. But I suspect we have all fallen short for very similar reasons: our inability to confront the dramatic increase in economic inequality.
Boomers started out as the happiest generation of all time; During our first decades, we benefited from the greatest economic boom in history. Boomers didn’t lead the anti-war, civil and women’s rights movements, or the sexual revolution, but many of us participated. I always assumed Oklahoma boomers were more conservative than progressive. But most of my friends supported campaigns ranging from fighting global warming to fighting genocide in Central America.
Boomer support for Ronald Reagan shocked me
I was amazed then President Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. Boomers supported him at about the same rate they supported Trump this year. However, in 1984voters “ages 25 to 34 also voted heavily for Reagan, 56% to 44%,” while “self-identified young professionals chose Reagan (67% to 32%).”
Almost spending the night in my Central Park neighborhood during the Reagan administrationit seemed like the world was coming to an end. So many well-paying blue-collar jobs quickly disappeared. As a result of Reagan’s deregulation, banks, savings and loans collapsed, and his housing and urban development scandal resulted in abandoned homes on every block. A disproportionate number of families who lost their homes were black. I had just gotten my PhD, but I would have four or five part-time jobs. The mortgage interest on our house was 16%.
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Also a foreshadowing of the 21st century, the end of the Fairness Doctrine, which encouraged fair and accurate reporting, and the rise of right-wing “astroturf” think tank propaganda helped convince the victims of “Reaganomics” that he had “made America great again.”
And perhaps most importantly, the boomers succumbed to commercialism. We let television push us to put our individual desires above community values. And in the 1990s, elite boomers used the Internet to expand the fake news epidemic.
Like the wrote the conservative historian Max BootReaganism paved the way for Trumpism, as baby boomers and subsequent generations failed to consider the consequences of tax policy.
Boot wrote: “Those consequences include inflation of more than 9% and unemployment of more than 10%; the loss of 1.9 million jobs; a 45% cut in school meals funding; 45% of unemployed people did not receive unemployment insurance; a 1983 budget deficit of $200 billion; and shrinking the middle class, increasing profits for the rich and increasing suffering for the poor. Long-term effects include a 570% increase in the mortality gap between people with lower and higher incomes; by 2020, the inequality gap was wider than that of almost any developed country.“
We need to teach young people about history
Too many young people are unaware of this history, but instead of placing blame, we should also consider the inability of older generations to teach our history. Even before corporate school reform replaced meaningful education, too many educators failed to push back against the replacement of history and civics with teach-to-the-test mandates.
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After recently talking to non-voters from Generation Z, who had no interest and little knowledge of the democratic process, I came across the 21stcentury standards that I was assigned to teach, including the rise of totalitarianism in the 1920s and 1930s, the causes of World War II, the Holocaust, the origins of the Cold War, the creation of the United Nations, and postwar colonialism.
We planned to cover these standards in one 55-minute lesson!
In the same way, the younger generations are being damaged by social media. But older generations failed to share insights about critical thinking, digital literacy and ethics with young people. The conversations we should have started in the 1990s must be prioritized today.
We need to shift the discussion away from specific political campaign mistakes and discuss the past four decades of structural changes that have increased inequality, led to right-wing hate-filled propaganda, and caused too many Americans to give up on democracy. A first step should be for members of all generations, both left and right, to admit that we have had it good and that we have had it bad.
John Thompson
John Thompson is a former Oklahoma City public school teacher.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: We must address inequality in America. Can Baby Boomers Help? | Opinion