The First Spoiled Generation

 

I am part of the Baby Boomer Generation.  The children of the Greatest Generation.  The Baby Boomers grew up during what has been called the Golden Age of America.  After The Depression and World War II, America emerged as the dominant world power.  The 50s and 60s were times of progress, prosperity and promise; certainly for white folks at any rate.  We stopped briefly to protest in the late 60’s.  The 70’s were a bit of a rough patch.  But then we caught the next big wave of the 80’s and 90’s.  And many of us ended up living very well….still do.

So what’s wrong with that?  Maybe nothing or maybe everything.  But what is clear is that we Baby Boomers were the First Spoiled Generation.  And that has had enormous consequences for this nation.   Our children became the First Generation begat by Spoiled Parents.  That circle of indulgence and entitlement, once begun, remains unbroken and grows ever wider.  What we are experiencing in 2022 goes back to that First Spoiled Generation of Baby Boomers.

It's interesting to watch Baby Boomers try and find the reset button.  We think if we can sound and act like our parents and grandparents, then maybe it’s not too late to set things right.  Once upon a time Billy Joel sang “We Didn’t Start The Fire”.  And he might have been right.  But we darn sure poured gasoline on it.  We didn’t destroy the foundations and cornerstones of our society, we just ignored them.  We even celebrated that ignorance and neglect with our music and our movies. 

Aging Baby Boomers now talk about God and Faith and Family Values as if we were the last upholders of moral virtue.  But we know the truth.  We just don’t like to admit it.  We opened a Pandora’s box of sexual liberation, drugs and materialism.  Divorce rates skyrocketed.  Addictive behaviors got worse.  Too many of our kids and grandkids struggle with mental and physical health issues.   We grew to enjoy raw sex and graphic violence in our entertainment.  So we got more and more of it.  And now that there are lines being crossed which we could never have imagined; we self-righteously object and demand a return to those good old family values.

Boomers are angry.  But more than angry they are scared.  We know that we have sown the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind.  America would look much different today if we Baby Boomers had been faithful to God and Family.  It’s now up to the younger generation to find the way.  The best thing Baby Boomers can do is confess our sins and stop preaching. We’ve done enough already.

"Teach your children well. Their father's hell will slowly go by.  And feed them on your dreams, the ones they picked, the ones you'll know by." - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (written by Jeff Healey)

Why The Democrats Need Trump

 

“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections.  It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment…that which they cannot anticipate.” – Sun Tzu

If anyone seriously believes that the Democrats are actually trying to disqualify Donald Trump from running for President in 2024, they would do well to read Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” and pay attention.  The Democrats are playing chess while the MAGA Republicans are playing checkers. 

 

There is a reason why Democratic backed operatives are quietly funding Trump backed candidates going into the mid-term elections.  There is a reason why left-leaning judges, agencies and Congressional Democrats are relentless in their pursuit of Trump and his supporters; and it has little to do with “January 6^th”.  It has a lot to do with the upcoming mid-terms; and everything to do with the 2024 Presidential Race.

 

The best thing the Democrats have to run on is their defense of democracy against the MAGA/Trump Republican assault.  Presidential elections are won and lost in the swing states and swing states can be won or lost in a few zip codes.  The Democrats know that the Republican base is going to vote Republican, including those Republicans who can’t stand Trump.  But they will vote for him anyway simply because they believe where the Democrats want to take this country is even worse.  So for the Democrats it comes down to capturing Independents who cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump.  Best case they vote Democrat, but perhaps they just don’t vote period which is better than having them vote Republican.  And that often is enough to move the needle in a swing state.

 

Secondly for the Democrats it comes down to turn out.  They need a highly motivated base of voters.  They know that most Republicans will vote.  But the Democrats tend to struggle with turnout.  So the focus has to be on “The Fight”.  The fight to save democracy, the fight to protect women's rights, the fight to retain and extend all of the personal freedoms that have been won over the past 60 or so years.  The fight to save the planet, the fight for social justice, the fight to end gun violence, the fight for your right to party, but most of all… the fight for Democrats to stay in power.

 

“The Fight” is all the Democrats have to run on.  Their economic policies have failed.  They have mishandled virtually every encounter with our enemies around the world.  Crime has surged wherever Democrats are in charge.  They have failed to protect our borders.  Their leaders are incompetent, incoherent and delusional; even more so than the Republican leadership which is quite an accomplishment in itself. 

 

Every fight needs a hero and a villain.  And in America, our heroes and villains are defined by journalists and media personalities, teachers and educators, artists and entertainers along with wealthy globalist elites;  most all of whom lean left.  The bigger the villain: the bigger the battle to be fought.  Who better to be that villain than Donald J. Trump?