The Last Good Generation: Gen X

Bridgit Phetasy:

Last week a New York Times/Siena poll found that Americans of every generation shifted to the left over the last two years -- except for one: Generation X.

Liberal Boomers, Millennials and Gen Zers were gobsmacked.

"What's wrong with Gen X?" they demanded.

As a member of that generation I'm here to tell you: Absolutely nothing.

In fact, we're the only thing standing between this country and communism -- the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency generation.

In the '90s they called us slackers. Now we're middle-aged, menopausal and holding the door at the Alamo.

Have you even said "thank you"?

No mystery why we're like this: It's because we were neglected -- latchkey kids who ate saltines for dinner.

Many of our parents got divorced and forgot they had children, which was fine because we were busy getting blackout drunk in hayfields and smoking weed in garages.

We also bullied each other -- and it made us resilient.

I'm only half kidding when I say the anti-bullying movement launched this country's decline.

Nobody came to save us, so we never expected the government to, either.

Our whole political philosophy could fit on a bumper sticker: Leave us alone.

And we vote on the basis of which party is more likely to do so.

...

You can't shame us into voting the way you want; we're immune to that emotional manipulation and bullying.

Generationally, we're the middle child.

We've got Boomers on one side going "just get a good job at the factory," Millennials on the other asking "what if the factory were a co-op?" and Zoomers off filming TikTok dances on the factory floor.

We're the ones who remember the Cold War and the internet before it ate everyone's brain, so we don't fall for every Russian psy-op that gets injected into the discourse. Thank you, "Red Dawn."

And yes, I know Gen X is irritatingly obsessed with itself. In our defense, nobody else was paying attention to us.

That's completely true. It's provably true -- the Boomers were such a big generation that the media continued to push Boomer-era bands and Boomer-era bullshit (hippie liberalism, Woodstock) even when we became adults. We all naively believed that when we became adults the culture would reflect our preferences, but no, it was all Boomer Crap all the time.

Until the Millennials came of age -- and then the culture shifted from Boomer-dominated to Millennial-dominated.

Not a day of Gen X dominated.

...

So leave it to us, the slackers.

The latchkey kids raised on divorce, hose water and indifference, now caring for four sets of aging boomers, paying for everyone's benefits and mowing the lawn on Saturday.

We didn't ask for the job. We never ask for anything. That's kind of the point.

Give a guy a 30-year mortgage and a backyard, and he won't want revolution.

He'll want a Traeger grill.

Unrelated: Unexpectedly, October's job creation numbers smashed expectations.

Wages went up, too.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 165,000 in October, and the unemployment rate changed little at 4.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in professional and business services, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing.

...

In October, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 14 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $38.00. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.1 percent. In October, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 12 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $32.75.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:40 PM

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