Not a shill. I recognize the real issue is the wealth gap, the thing to realize though is the boomers created and continue increasing said gap. It's been their voting record that pushed the part of civil rights to the center by learning the wrong lesson from McGovern, by being Reagan democrats, by putting Clinton into office and fawning over him ever since when he presided over one of the largest most rapid-pace technological booms in history and still increased the poverty class. The boomers consistently vote as conservative as they can, they vote for corporatist policies, and you want to know why? Because their spending power saved from having lived during economic boom times means they lost the least of any age group by a long shot in the recent recession and this is so because they have much greater spending power than the other groups.
The reality is that they have consistently been the largest voting block in the country, and consistently voted to construct and empower the 0.1% to grow the wealth gap. Yes, it's the 0.1% that is the problem, they have woven a narrative that the boomers have bought into, and by their voting the boomers have genuinely caused our current corporatocracy.
They are not the enemy, but if we don't get the Millenials and Gen X voter block to act, the boomers will only continue to increase the influence of the 0.1%.
One of the biggest things people need to realize is there is a distinct core piece moral argument at the root of left vs. right wings that is quite simple. It works like this:
If you have one person who works really hard and get's very little, or a lot, and then you have one person who doesn't work hard and get's very little or get's a lot - what they get for their work isn't the point. The point is that the person who ends up working hard and the person who doesn't are in a situation where we try to decide: Should we give more to the one that didn't get a lot so they have equal gain? Or should we punish the one who didn't get a lot because he didn't do what he was supposed to - as proven by his meager earnings?
On the left side, people say we should give more to him that is lacking to help him out in becoming equal with his social peers.
On the right side, people say we should punish or ignore him that didn't do what was necessary to become equal with his social peers.
This is why the left wants to increase the social safety net, and the right wants to increase the earners earnings.
This decision is cleanly split along age lines too, older people consistently believe that those who have more earned it, and thus deserve it, and those who don't - didn't do what they were supposed to (go to college, or work harder, or spend less, or whatever) and thus they don't deserve it.
The Millennial and Gen X generation thinks those that haven't great means didn't get into the situation due to their own actions, but rather got their due to circumstances beyond their control.
The Boomers lived in an economy that was far closer to a meritocracy for decades where hard work could get you ahead, that economy is long gone however and they believe that it's due to policies not enforcing people's necessity to work hard.
For example: When they interviewed people who voted in Kentucky for a governor who promised to get rid of the medicare expansion when vast portions of of their population is relying on it, they got a consistent message from people; people would tell the same story over and over: "I work very hard to take care of myself (these people are frequently in poverty and still working hard, do note), but my uncle|cousin|neighbor|person-i-know get's government money and doesn't work as hard as me. I want that taken away from them because I don't get it, and it's not fair that they do"
This is back to what I was saying about punishing those who don't work hard, even when someone does work very hard and get's nothing, if they land on the moral side of punishing to bring "equality" they vote right, if they come down on the side of helping to bring "equality" by increasing that hard-workers minimum wage for instance, they vote left.
I'm not trying to blame-shift here and say we shouldn't be going after the 0.1%, I would love to get the Boomers on our side so that everyone in the lower wage class of all age groups vote's together to solve wealth inequality through aiding the lower classes. It's just been consistently shown that the Boomers are not on our side, rather they vote for the corporate interests because their historical experience is of an economy where they (worked hard|got a college education|did something) to get ahead, and so they believe it's not fair to help people who don't get ahead because those people just didn't do the things they were supposed to (in their minds)
