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The Kids Are Not Entirely Wrong

Old Bathos
@OldBathos
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One lesson from the coming end of full GOP federal control is that a mere absence of Democrats in power does nothing to reverse disastrous fiscal trends. Neither entitlements nor overspending in general have been, or soon will be, rethought or reformed by anyone in power.

Young people in the West may be drawn to some spectacularly stupid, even evil, ideologies, but it is hard to dispute the perception that the older generations have been lousy stewards of our Western heritage, of our governments and of our societal wealth and have instead left the young holding the bag with respect to ballooning deficits, bad immigration policies and opportunities constrained by poor education delivered at great cost.

The necessary enormous economic growth rate, fiscal discipline and daring, creative transitions away from purely governmental health and retirement programs seem like a fairy-tale solution, receding further all the time. Corrupt politicians will only consider short-term solutions (higher payroll taxes, supplemental infusions from general revenues, ever-larger deficits) to get past the next election, even if knowingly making things worse and harder to fix.

Despite setbacks from actual scientific data, the climate cult may have new life and continue its larger insidious effects. It is not just the many millions funneled to grifters, otherwise unemployable activists and pet projects of the very rich, or even the billions in subsidies for grossly inadequate “green” energy technologies. The greatest damage will be due to the elimination of viable, reliable, abundant low-cost energy. Without energy, growth is crippled, the means of escape from the vortex of fiscal irresponsibility is lost, and the appeal of dependence on government increases—not to mention the weird despair the cult induces some to forego reproduction and normal planning with long-term adverse effects...

“Saving” social security, “saving” the planet and “saving” our democracy can easily seem like the final trifecta of “saving” decline, failure and societal collapse.

Happy Monday!

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Discussion (5)

  • DonG (Here.We.Go.)@DonG
    Old Bathos (View Post):

    Young people in the West may be drawn to some spectacularly stupid even evil ideologies but it is hard to dispute the perception that the older generations have been lousy stewards of our Western heritage

    The midterm election replaced a lot of Boomer politicians in the GOP with Gen-Y in Dems. When the GOP comes back, it will not be with Boomer politicians. The Dems will try to side-step the generational divide by extracting more taxes from high earners and the wealthy, but there is not enough money to cover over all the problems and their wishlist.

  • Nanocelt TheContrarian@NanoceltTheContrarian

    Ask any of the upcoming generations whether, if given the choice, they would send their SS tax to the federal government or put it in their IRA or 401K. Or, if given the choice, they would put their Medicare taxes in their own health savings account or send it to the federal government.

    (That is, if given the option to opt our of SOcial Security and Medicare, they would take it)

    If they prefer sending their money to the federal government, then their coming problems will be on themselves.

    I agree the baby boomers have blown the lid off the federal fisk. BUt if the upcoming generation wants to do the same, they will have no one to blame but themselves.

    Why no Republican candidate will run on such a platform is explained by the demonization of Thomas Savings (a SS and Medicare Trustee under W) recommendations on shifting to a privatized SS/Medicare system. That plan was presented in the early 2000s and resulted in Democrats running ads of Paul Ryan pushing granny off a cliff in a wheelchair. The younger generations should be able to see through such demagoguery, but I doubt they would ever choose freedom over top down government systems forced on everyone. Why are SS and Medicare not voluntary programs for those who want and need them, rather than one size fits all centralized systems, which will fail financially and leave the next generations high and dry?

  • David Foster@DavidFoster

    "the older generations have been lousy stewards of our Western heritage, of our governments and of our societal wealth"…if someone is 40, they have been voting (or able to vote) for 22 years….even if they are 30, it's 12 years. And surveys that I've seen all show that younger people are *more* likely to vote for Leftist candidates an for Dems generally, who are precisely the ones who have been most destructive of Western heritage and societal wealth.

  • Lord Rabbit von Hasenpfeffer@ape2ag
    ReplyingtoDavid Foster

    David Foster (View Comment):

    "the older generations have been lousy stewards of our Western heritage, of our governments and of our societal wealth"…if someone is 40, they have been voting (or able to vote) for 22 years….even if they are 30, it's 12 years. And surveys that I've seen all show that younger people are *more* likely to vote for Leftist candidates an for Dems generally, who are precisely the ones who have been most destructive of Western heritage and societal wealth.

    This is basically the-worse-the-better where the downsides of leftist policies create constituencies for the left because leftist patronage and protection becomes more valuable with declining material conditions. There is no equivalent to this on the right.

  • Lord Rabbit von Hasenpfeffer@ape2ag

    It's all about the postwar consensus. It's not quite right to say that it is failing. Rather it's premises are being followed to their logical conclusions with extreme negative practical outcomes. The postwar consensus isn't just the system of institutions that managed international relations in the Cold War era and since. It's a comprehensive socio-political system imposed at the end of World War II that is at its heart a morality built around intrusive and comprehensive egalitarianism and oikophobic individual autonomy. It not only governed international politics, but also entrenched the managerial state in America.

    In defense of the postwar consensus, under its aegis, we experienced an unprecedented global expansion of material prosperity. But that ended 20 years ago. No one is better off in aggregate. The trend is obscured by people in developed countries having fewer children to maintain their standard of living while 3rd worlders move to rich countries to improve their standard of living (and replace the children never born). This isn't sustainable. Consider these graphs.

    Pasted image
    Pasted image

    The postwar consensus is consuming its substrate. The postwar consensus will not outlive white westerners. In a myriad of other ways, alluded to in the OP, its eating its seed corn.

    Buckley conservatism accepted the premises of the postwar consensus, retconning them into the Constitution or the New Testament, but resisted following them to their logical conclusions. This was a tenuous position. They could never win only lose or at best fight to a draw only to lose at a later date. A variety of heterodox thinkers on the right have tried to roll back the postwar consensus or reform it. They found their champion in Trump, but with this election outcome reform has failed. The reformers have failed. There will be no soft landing. Maybe if Trump hadn't done tariffs. Maybe if he hadn't invaded Iran. Maybe if Charlie Kirk hadn't been killed. It was always a very narrow path.

    Now we are left spiraling towards a more dramatic terminus of the postwar consensus. What does that look like? It took a global catastrophe the scale of WW2 to implement it. We might expect something of similar scope to end it.