Screeds like this are why the phrase “OK, Boomer” was invented.
The author, a man in his 60s, speaks as if his decision to vote for Trump makes total sense in light of his life experience and generational journey. What a load of utter, unalloyed crap. I and most of my friends were just a year or two behind him on that same generational journey and have spent a good part of that time rolling our eyes at the way our older siblings indulged their whims without a thought of anyone else, and then excused their bad behavior with stories that painted them as heroes of the bad movie they directed.
…OK, Boomer.
When it suited you to have drug-fueled sex in airbrushed vans after stadium rock shows, and evade responsibility to the tune of “Freebird,” you did that and told us it was the best thing in the world. When it suited you to avoid the draft, you did that and told us it was the best thing in the world. When it suited you to throw yourself a tax break party and shift the burden of failing infrastructure and national debt on to future generations and told us…well, you know what you told us. When you decided to abandon your thoughtless, self-indulgent hedonism for thoughtless, self-indulgent evangelical Christianism, you did that and told us it was the best thing in the world, and we who didn’t believe as you did were the worst.
And now, after years spent complaining that the political realities of a first-world democracy were too big, complicated and worst of all, so often not about you, you have gotten your wish: somebody as venal, egotistical and self-serving as you have always been. This crass opportunist made politics entertaining like a Bruce Willis movie instead of boring like C-Span. And he not only exhibits all the crummy, selfish attitudes that younger generations are so right to call you out on, he does it on a scale you don’t have the money to accomplish. He is your generation’s worst self turned into a gilded idol and you can’t get enough of it.
But we have had enough of you. We don’t see you in the rosy tones you paint yourself. I’m with Gen-Y on this. You have had your moment to show a moral compass and adult character, but you didn’t, and you won’t. So don’t expect the rest of us to give you any respect for that.
