The Left's Generation Gap Needs to be Addressed & How It's Pushing My Involvement into Electoral Politics

I handed in 11 more signatures to get Ameya Pawar on to the Illinois Democratic ticket for Illinois governor. We're making good progress toward this goal, but it doesn't hurt to get more. I would say something about it's not time to slack except, well, considering the number of signatures others have gotten pounding the pavement dwarfs how many I've gotten among friends and social media. I like to think that I got signatures from people who wouldn't have signed a petition because they'd be too focused and busy to be stopped on the street by a stranger (which, arguably, I'd likely do).

But back to my motivations for taking part in the Pawar campaign that I started discussing in the last entry, which focused on the Clinton 2016 campaign focusing too much on the national, Presidential election and not understanding the importance of local and state elections or even reaching out to people face-to-face and making appearances, both in no-doubt Democrat strongholds, swing states that lean toward Democrats, and even states/areas that have no sympathy to Democrats. Long-term wise, I'm trying to ingratiate myself a little more into the party and get political experience, so I can try pushing the party to take these matters more seriously.

It seems the DNC has made some progress in appreciating this argument well before I published that post, as Democrats have a fair amount of US Congress and State Congress seats since Election 2016. This article has refreshed my sense of hope since most of the results of elections for seats in Congresses that I've heard about since then have resolved in the favor of Republicans. These nine seats don't give us reason to rest easy, though. Democrats have had these more than expected victories, but I'm sure they have had success because of the hard work of campaign workers and volunteers getting the word out to the people in face-to-face interactions and drafting good messages. The fight has to continue and kept up possibly even harder once the crazy Right ideologies get out of our governments.

The next big election that I hope works out in favor of Democrats is for the Alabama US Senate seat that Session left behind when he accepted the office of the US Attorney General. Ray Moore has won the Republican primary, and per updates from his Democrat opponent, Doug Jones, polls have the two of them neck-and-neck with 50% going Moore's way and the rest going Jones's way. Hopefully that will flip more toward Jones by the time Alabama has their general election for the US Senate seat. Hopefully my $5 per week donation to Jones's campaign helps him get there.

Now I want to get into cohort generation gap in the Democratic party we have right now. This Medium article that I had posted in the last entry really gets into the issue pretty good in. If you don't have the time to click on the link and read the article, the Republican party has done a great job keeping what momentum they had going with Generation X and generally pushed their positions really hard (the years Gen X was being born and growing up, the Religious Right and NRA were growing and indoctrinating the generation). On the other hand, the Democratic party has done much to recruit Gen X, get them ready for office, and keep a balanced force to work against the GOP.

If anything, from my experience, Gen Xers have either tended to being apolitical or tend toward the extremes, both Left and Right, with and without guidance of the Establishment, but the Left has probably had much less guidance from the Establishment. Take a look at WTO protests in Seattle during the late '90s, then I would also take as a counter example the recent violent rallies in Charlottesville.

The article doesn't get into these types of details, but it does a good job of characterizing Gen Xers as a disillusioned generation, the lack of guidance they've received, and also the country-wide historical events that occurred to encourage their disillusionment, like the Housing Crisis/Great Recession occurring during the time when we should have been breaking out of our listless early careers into a more confident time for them, when we should have had ourselves more figured out and ready to push more toward success or get shot down in a blaze of glory. Nonetheless, I still have to wonder how much the Great Recession would have to do with it, though we also had 9/11 and the dot.com bubble before that (even though coming from the perspective of the insurance industry, 9/11 did play a part in building up the Housing Bubble since insurance companies didn't want to insure commercial property in big cities, so a lot of corporations and businesses couldn't get mortgages and loans needed to make purchases, but residential property looked safe vs the peril of terrorism).

A few months ago, I had an interesting argument on Facebook with someone that turned out to be a Millennial. It revolved around the bullying that Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski received during the "skinny repeal" debate/voting back in June. This person and I agreed on final goals, but we disagreed on a few things that reflect on the current moment. They wanted to celebrate these two women for being tough and voting for what they believed was right but didn't believe that much could be done about the bullying from men, while I argued that this bullying from men was shameful and that something needs to be done to stop it.

One of the more interesting differences, though, was my belief that this behavior was considered a norm now and that people have to consciously and actively fight it for everyone to be treated equally because if we let up, these norms will continue, and the advances we've made, such as same-sex marriage and other progressive advances we made during the Obama years will reverse. I also argue that we have to vote and get involved in electoral politics and get on our elected officials cases more and challenge people with privilege to behave better. This other person, though, believes that we have the momentum of history behind us. We have to vote, rally, and go to protests to fight to make things better, but they seemed to believe that doing so was just a formality and that we're doing fine with the momentum, not that we have to really change minds and fight back norms. Rather, we just have to keep the momentum going.

I feel like our two mentalities illustrate some of the differences that come from the experiences of two different generations. Doing the math, I figured out that I got out of college and entered the adult world right after the dot.com bubble burst (seriously, I went back to college at the end of the summer, economy was soaring, awesome interest rates everywhere; I entered the adult world at the top of the calendar year after that, a CD I still had with an awesome interest rate but everywhere, interest rates for bank accounts had fallen into the pits) and George W Bush became our President.

The person I was arguing with on Facebook, they started high school when I had entered the adult world and George W Bush took office, they started college during Bush's second term and spent some time in Europe afterward. . .then entered the US adult world when Obama took office in 2008. No wonder this person thought we had the momentum of history toward social liberalism behind us! Conscious life started for them when Obama started fixing the economy, got the Affordable Care Act passed through Congress, same-sex marriage became the law of the land, gay men and lesbians could openly serve in the military.

Man, I remembered "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" but until I heard an Alistair Cooke Letters of America re-broadcast podcast episode about the negotiations that occurred after Campaigning Bill Clinton saying that he would get the military to allow gays and lesbians into service then President Bill Clinton had to accept "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I also remember Rodney King and the LA Riots that occurred after the cops that beat him were acquitted (but apparently, based on another episode of Alistair Cooke's, a couple of them were declared guilty of civil rights violations). The last couple years of cops shooting black men and other abuses against black people have been very reminiscent of King, except smartphones weren't a thing and portable video equipment was just becoming something that someone on the street might have with them randomly. To me, the last year or so of the Obama administration and the taking on the mantle of President by [45] feels like a huge whip lash back pedaling to times when I was a teenager with the desire by the Right to go even further back to a time before I was born but was taught about in middle school and high school.

But until I saw the article about Gen Xers not being involved in Democratic party, I had never thought about it much, but I see it now, and it makes me realize that we have a lot of catching up to do that has to be done fast. First things first, we don't have a Gen Xer on the left with the name recognition or even the beginning of presence to run for the office of US President with much chance of success unless they go into hyper gear now. After all, Obama is still a Baby Boomer. He was on the late end, close to being a Gen Xer, but he's still a Baby Boomer.

Who do we have for Gen Xers to run for Senators and House seats? Arguably, we probably have some Millenials that can start running for these positions soon. Older left Millenials can probably make some headway since they should have more inkling of Gen X sensibilities than younger Millennials. Nonetheless having someone in a generation helps to appeal to the same generation quite a bit. The GOP with Gen Xers already in their establishment doesn't help because they will be able to understand the experiences of other Gen Xers, be able to articulate their arguments and solutions in ways that have a likelier chance of appealing to Gen Xers, not sounding too stodgy but also not sounding too inexperienced.

This left Establishment break in generations will also make it harder to reach Millennials, harder to get them to naturally come into the Establishment as they connect with people a little older but who they may already have organic connections with rather than people from a couple generations older trying to get them interested in electoral politics and the Establishment. Maybe MIllennials have a better time with their elders, but among the Gen Xers I'm familiar with, seeing eye to eye with Baby Boomers can be a bit difficult. That's something we need to work on, as losing touch and connection with our history gets a little sad and contributes to a feeling of disconnection, not like we haven't felt that enough throughout our lives. . ..

But what it comes down to: The DNC needs to get more Gen Xers and Millennials involved in their Establishment. The Establishment will have to change, and the Gen Xers and Millennials will be the vehicles to make that change happen to adapt to the present and future, which in some ways, will probably be more like the ideals that the Baby Boomers had during their teenage and college years since many of their disteablishment views and utopian ideals influenced us more than they might think. Yes, we all understand that Adulthood is more complicated and sophisticated than we had ever thought, but with social and economic inequality, global climate change leading to the extinction of humanity and other animal life for at least the foreseeable future, the rise of bigotry, the rise of tyranny and fascism, and all the horrible things that have become more prevalent in recent years, but deep under our bitterness, we have some hope, but we also have the angst to fight back, if only someone could help us see how things work and show us how to fight back.

As learned in that Facebook argument and since November, we have to fight for our rights, we have to fight for equality, we have to fight for compassion, we have to fight for our existence. So volunteering for the Ameya Pawar campaign for Illinois Governor is one of my first steps to learn how these things work, how to infiltrate the Establishment, and how to influence it to focus again on localities and on the younger generations, Generation X, the Millennials, and Generation Z because, frankly, if we don't start focusing on these things, the Democratic party really should just step aside to let step up the Progressives, the Socialists, the Environmentantalists, the Social Justice Warriors and others further Left than them because they have the stomach for a fight. There might be a lot more stumbling if they don't receive guidance from the Establishment, but at least they have the grit, the energy, the gumption, and the understanding of today's world to know how to work the everyday things (because seriously, why the hell are we having so many issues with e-mails?!) and work with the voters from their generations.

We would rather have your help, but if you're not there to give it, we'll have to try our best. For now, though, I'm pushing for the more gradual approach by trying to become more part of the Establishment. There may come a time, though, when Gen X and the Millenials don't have the patience to learn.

Obama deserved the vacation he has taken since he left office and he has had his plate full dealing with attacks by Trump, but you gave us lefties, especially a lot of us young ones, hope for the future by getting involved. Nonetheless, President Obama, at the end of your time as active President, you had mentioned plans about "coaching" young talent. Well, I think it's time for that coaching to start.

And to my fellow Gen X and Millennial Lefties, I think it's time we start doing our own outreach and learning. We won't always have our older generations to learn from, and we'll need to start at some point, much like we've had to do so many times in the past. We may not be able to wait on them, even though we should welcome them when they offer help (which we may not have always been so good about doing in the past).

More of us need to get involved in electoral campaigns. I haven't done the best job in the Pawar campaign that I'm volunteering in, but I'm doing it. I've learned a little. I'm hoping to learn more. And whatever happens here, I plan to get involved in other campaigns and maybe some other positions that possibly become available. I want to help make the world better, and you know what? Politics is one way to do that until I get means in some other way (you know, like through finishing a novel, accummulating more cash, etc. etc., which I'm trying to do, but politics seem to be a more expedient and more far reaching approach for the better).

So I'm doing what I can, and I plan to write in the next entry a little bit more about the types of vision, ambitions, and thoughts that I have for these political things on a more personal level. In the meantime, though, if anyone has any ideas, connections, or whatever that I can develop my political acumen, develop the acumen of these two generations and/or work on putting together more outreach to these two generations to inspire and teach them to get more involved, please feel free to comment. I welcome the tips and advice.

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