I just got into a kerfuffle with a young woman on Facebook who was trolling @ewarren to drop out. She was a bit rude to Warren, but not obnoxious like so many Bernie Bros. At the risk of getting pilloried by the “Bros”, I am going to tweet a thread with my reply to her...
She pointed out that I was wrong that Bernie can’t win—even the Fox polls have him winning. Here is my reply
“ I’m telling you, the polls are wrong on that. I was of your mindset as well—I thought he could win in 2016–...
“ I’m telling you, the polls are wrong on that. I was of your mindset as well—I thought he could win in 2016–...
–but I’ve had extended conversations with many boomers this year who are quite liberal (I’ve sadly ditched my tRumpster friends—at least on facebook) and I was stunned by how many of them were saying “I won’t vote for a socialist.” ...
The boomers are already on medicare. They paid off their student loans. Bernie means higher taxes to them. I’m GenX. My daughter is a Millennial and a Bernie fan. I understand why the ideas are attractive because I see my daughter & her husband experience the economic challenges
I am personally willing to pay higher taxes to not worry about those things for my daughter and my future grandchildren. But the majority of boomers CANNOT understand why younger generations are “whining about loans and health care.”
If I had a dollar for every time I heard them say that “millennials live beyond their means” they “should have had a summer job to pay for college, I did” if they “got a real 9-5 job with good health insurance and stayed there for decades instead of job-hopping” etc etc...
If I had a dollar for each time I heard that, I’d move up a tax bracket. Most of them simply do not understand that it is different. That the world of their youth is gone. I am an historian by training. I teach what the Boomers lived through...
They see Marshal Stalin, the Berlin Wall, Soviet Tanks crushing protesters in Prague in ‘68, their friends killed in Vietnam fighting to stop what they see as exactly what Bernie wants to bring in to America...
It does not matter that Bernie’s socialism is more like Sweden or Denmark. Fear of socialism was baked into their DNA in the same way that fear of school shootings and global climate change is baked into yours...
And they are FAR more reliable in going to the polls. I hope to heaven that millennials and GenZ—who are big enough to overshadow the Boomers IF they all get their s**t together and actually vote—can pull this off if he’s the nom...
Warren offers similar plans as Bernie, w/o being tarred w/the label socialist.Many Boomers are sick to the stomach over tRump but the specter of ALL of their childhood nightmares—of nukes, of no luxuries, of friends who died in Vietnam—is AS powerful an enemy as tRumpism for them
Even if Bernie wins, we will lose the down ticket races. We’ll lose Texas and Kentucky Senate races. Possibly the House. NONE of his program will get passed. THAT is the political reality. I will 100% vote Bernie if he is the nom. But it will be a bloodbath in November.
NOBODY hopes more than me that I am totally wrong on this and that I will have to eat my words on November 4th. My fear... is that I am right. /end
