> Of course you can’t ignore the rise of social media since 2010, but what about the level of control, structure, and surveillance that most young people have been subjected to over the same arc of time?
Add on top the permacrises/polycrisis time we're in.
My generation, we entered the workforce right during the 2008ff financial crisis. The Europeans got further fucked by the Euro crisis 2010, which crippled our career entries, and lasted for years with its consequences.
In parallel, in 2011 the Arab Spring broke out, leading to years of wars and refugees. Then in 2014, the Russians made their first move into Ukraine, and the migration crisis began that then fully escalated in 2015. Right in the midst of that, the US elected the 45th and we all know how that one went. As the migration crisis died down to manageable levels in 2019, we only had a few months of rest, as at the end of 2019 COVID hit the entire world - and before that was over, the Russians went into the rest of Ukraine. That in turn led to cost of living exploding, now also across the world instead of "just" in the urban agglomeration eras.
And the entire time, the far-right and authoritarians have been on the rise worldwide, politicians are doing nothing to meaningfully combat climate change or the demographic crisis or ever rising cost-of-living cost and income/wealth disparities.
And then people, particularly the Boomer generation, have the audacity of calling us snowflakes, weak, "depression is just a trend" or whatever? They created all this mess, they're all set in cheap homes they paid off decades ago, when wages were still worth something, while we've been fighting for survival? And our younger brothers and sisters have it even worse than we have, they saw us and our parents struggle all these years.
> Right in the midst of that, the US elected the 45th and we all know how that one went.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past 7 years (through Trump, Brexit and Covid) it’s that propaganda works.
See how you listed concrete issues for most of your complaints, but nothing specific for Trump? Just “we all know”. But if you actually think about his presidency, and ignore the fear mongering and propaganda, nothing bad actually happened! (Covid is, of course, another example, but whereas the virus itself wasn’t that bad, the governments’ reactions to it, was.)
> See how you listed concrete issues for most of your complaints, but nothing specific for Trump? Just “we all know”.
Because I don't wish to get too political here, not for stuff I'd assume to indeed be general knowledge:
- the fight of Conservatives and the far-right against LGBT rights and abortion rights (I'll admit the SC decision Dobbs v. Jackson happened later, during Biden's term, but Trump and McConnell set the stage for this with their SC judge picks). LGBT youth already face a significantly higher risk of suicide, no need to make that intentionally worse.
- Trump incited a coup with thousands marching on and invading the US Capitol as a result, and nearly getting a high amount of Senators killed or kidnapped (there's enough evidence to suggest it's mostly the actions of Eugene Goodman that led to this not happening [1]).
- related to this, there has been a marked, massive and sustained increase in political violence during his term, mostly from the far-right [2], as well as a general polarization of US society.
- Trump leading the US out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, the most pressing issue for our generation
- Trump's abysmal handling of Covid and himself spreading fake news (hydroxychloroquine, Chinese lab conspiracy myth), leading to 1.1 million deaths [7], a complete breakdown of trust in something as basic and vital as vaccines [3] or masks or public health in general. Anthony Fauci had to deal with people threatening his life for years [4][5].
- Trump, the self-proclaimed "king of debt" who promised to reduce the debt prior to taking office, instead massively increased the US national debt [6]. I'll give a tiny pass due to Covid effects, but that's about it - better handling of the pandemic could have saved a lot of that money.
- Trump fanning the flames on the Israel-Palestine conflict by relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem. No matter one's stance on that conflict, it's undeniable that this move had a net negative effect. (Also note that Trump proposed a "deal" to solve that conflict that never happened in the end)
- Trump mocked media, women, disabled people, veterans, minorities relentlessly throughout his campaign, his term and after it. The resulting disgraceful decline of political conversation quality will have lasting effects (Overton effect), not to mention it was behavior completely unworthy of the President of the US.
- In his final days in office, Trump pushed the "Big Steal" lie so hard that it completely eroded trust in democracy itself among wide parts of the population [8]. To this day, he has not admitted he has legally lost the 2020 election (compared to Al Gore in the way sketchier 2000 elections). For me, this is the biggest most negative effect on the future - how much are free and fair elections actually worth if significant parts of the population do not believe that the elections were free and fair?
Add on top the permacrises/polycrisis time we're in.
My generation, we entered the workforce right during the 2008ff financial crisis. The Europeans got further fucked by the Euro crisis 2010, which crippled our career entries, and lasted for years with its consequences.
In parallel, in 2011 the Arab Spring broke out, leading to years of wars and refugees. Then in 2014, the Russians made their first move into Ukraine, and the migration crisis began that then fully escalated in 2015. Right in the midst of that, the US elected the 45th and we all know how that one went. As the migration crisis died down to manageable levels in 2019, we only had a few months of rest, as at the end of 2019 COVID hit the entire world - and before that was over, the Russians went into the rest of Ukraine. That in turn led to cost of living exploding, now also across the world instead of "just" in the urban agglomeration eras.
And the entire time, the far-right and authoritarians have been on the rise worldwide, politicians are doing nothing to meaningfully combat climate change or the demographic crisis or ever rising cost-of-living cost and income/wealth disparities.
And then people, particularly the Boomer generation, have the audacity of calling us snowflakes, weak, "depression is just a trend" or whatever? They created all this mess, they're all set in cheap homes they paid off decades ago, when wages were still worth something, while we've been fighting for survival? And our younger brothers and sisters have it even worse than we have, they saw us and our parents struggle all these years.