Soon, it will be foolish to trust anyone over the age of 30. Our parents used to say that about their parents, and now, for completely different reasons, it is time for us to say that about our own.
The future doesn’t look good. Our parents were too willing to listen to the lies of oil companies about global climate change. They are also going to expect politicians to help them pay for medical care after they retire.
Our generation needs to demand drastic changes in our superstructure to preserve coastlines, and our parents will want drastic changes in welfare programs.
One of my professors believed every major trend in American history for the past 50 years could be traced back to the baby boomers. He referred to them as a proverbial goat sliding down a python. He said when people think of the 1950s, they think of increased automobile ownership and suburban houses because the baby boomers were children and needed seatbelts and bedrooms.
The 1960s were a time of change and revolution because the baby boomers were teenagers. The 1970s were full of bad taste because the baby boomers were college age, and the 1980s were the “greed” years because they became working professionals.
During the next decade, they will retire-if they haven’t already-and join the AARP. They will become the most powerful voting demographic the nation has ever seen.
Having already paid for public education and sent their children through college, it is unlikely they will have an interest in OUR children’s educations. They will want the government to help them afford the best medical care the nation can provide.
While our generation does have some obligation to take care of our parents’ generation, they have allowed a few problems to persist that we will have to fix. We will have to become more politically involved in order to force those changes. We will have to become more involved just to provide educations and build roads.
Today the elderly have the best voter turnout of any age group. The AARP is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the country. Even now, many presidential candidates are looking forward to the future with new plans for Medicare.
Our generation cannot afford to just go along with what the baby boomers want and pay for their medication discounts because we owe it to them. We’ve got to save the world’s coastlines and find a way to defeat the giant coal lobby.
Not since the 1960s has such a perfect storm been brewing. The battles we will face in the next decade will probably not be over civil rights, urban poverty or a war in Vietnam. They will likely be more serious and the global implications, if we fail, more dire.
In order to save the America we hope to inherit, as well as the world, the apathy typical of voters ages 18 to 25 will have to end. We must not only begin voting, but attend caucus meetings, donate to politicians, run for city councils and join our own lobbying groups.
We have time to prepare, but we must begin now. The baby boomers have begun preparing already, and they’re backed by investment portfolios they’ve been building for 40 years.