• masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    “the majority of boomers that voted to support conservative politicians since 1980”

    This is inaccurate again.

    1. Boomers is a generation of people, not Americans. The majority of boomer aged people around the world did not vote for conservative politicians in the way you’re describing.

    2. the majority of American boomers didn’t even vote for them. Are you sure that Republicans have held more offices, for longer, then Democrats? Are you sure it’s not just that they’ve been more effective at accomplishing their goals? Even if that is the case, given voter turnout rates, it’s not the majority of that generation, just of who turned out to vote.

    This is sort of how discussion works. You’re also doing this. You’re saying rich people instead of “politically active rich people supplying money to XYZ, while ignoring those born into money and disconnected or lottery winners, or whatever other issue with syntax I can dig up.

    No, it’s fundamentally different. You can never change being a boomer, you can change whether or not you’re rich.

    They’re happy to live in the GOPs alternate reality rather than face the reality of what they’ve done.

    Your own sentence points out the issue. You yourself instinctually scoped it down to those living in the GOPs reality, which is a tiny fraction of the billions of boomers.

    At the end of the day, you have to ask what the purpose of blame is. Is it so that you can vent? That’s human, but helpful only to you, and only in the extremely short term while it feels satisfying. In the long term constantly ascribing blame just makes you bitter and makes you see calculated ill intent where there’s just chance, systemic effects, or ignorance.

    Blame is useful as a tool only so much as it can actually effect future change in the world.

    And baming an entire generation for ‘being conservative’ evidently isn’t accomplishing anything given how conservative gen z and alpha are. This isn’t the kind of blame anyone can draw any meaningful lessons from. Systemically reducing wealth and class inequality is.

    • chris@links.openriver.net
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      2 days ago

      I thought it was assumed we were discussing American boomers since we were discussing American elections. The continued drill down isn’t really useful except if you’re trying to miss the point.

      But really considering the past couple days of our exchanges. I’m saying boomers as this shortcut. I could as easily be saying conservatives, and probably be running in to less trouble while having a much more accurate net. So I blame conservative voters let’s say, and we will let the data speak to how many boomers that does or doesn’t catch.

      To your other point, blame is useful in my mind to establish a record, consequences, and future disincentive. I don’t blame to feel better. I blame because I want to see bad action be consequenced.

      If for a generation American republican voters can produce what they have produced, but be held blameless as a product of their time, or because billionaires are more powerful, then why not just forget everyone else and only act in my own short term self interest while enjoying all the benefits of the society I’m voting to destroy for the next generation?

      Those individuals need to wear trickledown economics, and the Iraq war, and the Afghanistan war, and climate inaction, financial collapses, deregulation, massive debt, the return of fascism, open racism, and everything else they supported as badges for history to see and judge them. No one went to jail for lying to start the Iraq war. No one went to jail for any of the multiple financial crises in my lifetime. Everyone was let out of jail for attempting to violently overthrow the election of 2020. Nobody is going to jail over the Epstein stuff.

      I blame the rich like you do. I also blame their useful, selfish, nationalistic idiots. I want them all held to account on the road to a better society. Blame as the first step to consequences.

      Otherwise you can’t achieve a better society or even if you did they’ll be happy to dismantle it in the name of their short term personal benefit as soon as they can.