I can see it in my parents: they're increasingly upset and blame a so-in-so in government for being "an idiot", but it's not over the same things that my generation is, and it's not wholly defined by party politics or culture wars either, though they are drawn to the messaging and engage with the soap operas of the news cycle. It's a much bigger affront for them when something new is being tried that "obviously doesn't work", because their opinion was set back when the options were different and fewer - and the people who thought differently back then didn't survive: surviving sets norms.
Combine that with the looming pains and fears of age and now they are just axiomatically conservative. No change, change doesn't work, change is a grift. Invest in winners. Faced with a broad reinvention of the world that ignores their opinions and shuffles around policy and value chains pragmatically with the available constraints, they are terrified.
Some people give a shit about others. Some do not. If you don’t like how things are or how they’re going, act to change them. Other people are.
And some degree of this age bracket and the workforce also correlates with health issues, disability, and recent decreases in life expectancy (not excluding the opioid epidemic and covid impacts).
For older Gen X that worked out but younger Gen X not so much.
The younger generations are just fed up at this point and preparing to cease power before the impotent Gen X can.
Time dilation, recency bias, and all that. Anything that happened before you were born is all history, right?
English major?
1946 + 65 = 2011.
The boomer vanguard is going to be in their 80s soon.
And the millennials are starting to turn 40.
"...then one day you find ten years have got behind you"
