Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Martin68

Martin68's Journal
Martin68's Journal
September 11, 2022

And there are x-ers and y-ers and z-ers and mill-ers who have voted for Trump, or not voted.

I agree with the Kiss fans vs the Dead fans point. Yes, there were many in our generation who were conservatives and voted for Nixon, Reagan, the two Bushes, and Trump. But the problem wasn't boomers or x-ers, or y-ers or any particular generation, but the people who voted for the Republican Party (or didn't vote). The Democrats have a large majority in the nation, but Democrats are known for being lazy voters. Sound familiar? Distrust of the system, and the knowledge that the game was crooked, discouraged as many in the boomer generation as the "unknown quantities" in subsequent generations (OK that was an algebra joke. I'm sorry. I said I was a boomer).

We disrupted the Democratic Chicago Convention to express our outrage about the Vietnam War, and the Democratic Party's major role in prosecuting that war. We? Well, not "me." I voted for Eugene McCarthy, a war hero, a liberal, and a powerful voice against the Vietnam War. Nixon won every single state except Massachusetts because he had announced that he had a "secret plan" to end the War. His secret plan was - "Run Away!" The fact is, the Democratic Party strongly supported the war (our president, LBJ, was running it). They National Guard shot some of us at Kent State. The FBI infiltrated anti-war groups kept files on them all. The FBI bugged Martin Luther King because he had made one or two mildly critical statements about the war. We watched John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin L. King and Malcolm-X get gunned down by "whoever."

A lot of us boomers were good people: idealistic, activist, and well-educated. Every generation has a conservative element, a liberal one, and many in the middle who are hard to motivate. Our enemy, is MAGAs, not a particular generation. I think a lot of boomers learned something from our own history, and it has made us hyper-aware of the importance of engaging in the political system, no matter how stressful that might be. That means voting, at least. We have re-engaged and are doing what we can to fix the country before it's too late. Sorry for the rant.

Profile Information

Name: Martin Johnson
Gender: Male
Hometown: Virginia
Home country: U.S.A.
Current location: Charlottesville, VA
Member since: Tue Jun 8, 2010, 02:30 PM
Number of posts: 22,776

About Martin68

Martin Johnson Charlottesville, VA
Latest Discussions»Martin68's Journal