The above tweet is part of what is now a consistent theme, where the online right are attacking pretty much every identifiable cohort of voters. Lots of women are starting to realise that the average Restore supporter doesn’t actually like women, and there’s also rich seam of anti-boomer sentiment. There’s been a lot of this about lately. Intergenerational relations are not good, and the kids are most definitely not alright.
As it happens, I do have some sympathy for the Zoomers. The job market is shit, career prospects are in the toilet, there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and there is no reward for doing everything the way you’re supposed to. I think of the shortfalls in my own life and most of them are the consequences of my poor decision-making, but the young ‘uns are completely shafted whatever they do. They can do everything right and still not get a foot on the ladder. They end up saddled with student debt and useless qualifications, and are still expected to endure the same hardships.
To then be told by relatively wealthy pensioners that they just have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, work had and save hard, is more than a little bit insulting. Most people in their twenties are now spending half of what they earn on rent, and the average age of first time buyers is creeping upward. Not forgetting that the squeezed middle are taxed into oblivion to pay for the health and welfare of just about everybody else. The resentment is palpable.
The difference, I suppose, is that for the Boomer generation there were things like career progression, job security, and returns on investments. The light at the end of the tunnel made it worth enduring hardships. Anyone under forty, though, is probably never going to be able to completely retire, and will still be lumbered with a six figure mortgage even in their later years - if they can get one at all.
For the most part, Boomers and Gen X have enjoyed Britain as a relatively prosperous, safe, ethnically homogenous and functioning country, whereas Zoomers are inheriting a broken, dysfunctional, tyrannical multicultural shit tip on the brink of low grade civil war, only to be told by their elders that their politics are beyond the pale. Unlike my generation, Zoomers feel that nothing is owed to those who preceded them. Boomers did not fight for our freedoms the way their own parents did.
This intergenerational conflict turns sour in politics because there is a new breed of Zoomer nationalist with a very different political ideology to older Boomers, who see the civic nationalism of Boomers as outdated and counter to their own interests. They’re not wholly wrong about that when the kids are being told that the third worlders they have to compete with even for menial jobs are “just as British” as them. A wholly different perspective to Boomers who have likely served in the forces alongside people from all over the Commonwealth.
Regardless of outliers, there is an archetypal Boomer who very much does conform to the stereotype of being totally ignorant of the hardships the kids are facing, while entitled, completely self-absorbed, and selfish.
As with most stereotypes though, there comes a point where its overuse becomes toxic to political discourse, where the word “boomer” has become synonymous with “any elder with a different opinion”. It is most observable on the right, where parties like Reform mainly pander to their Boomer base, while saying nothing about the shredded social contract - to the extent that the Zoomers don’t feel that any party of the right caters for them.
The problem for Restore, though, having attracted a cohort of very online Zoomer nationalists is that they’re running out of people to hate. They’ve made their feelings known about Jews, Muslims, women, boomers, civnats, Tories, and most of the media, and there are more and more people realising they’re not welcome in the party.
A functioning party would be able to harness this resentment and turn it into corrective policy, but with Lowe having put his party in the hands of Zoomer nationalists with no adult supervision, all the party is doing is offending the people it actually needs. Its ideological purity spiral was already bad enough, but it is fast becoming a kids club where nobody but the most comically bigoted is welcome.
It’s a very odd situation: so called ‘Boomers’ seem to involve anyone before 2000.
And there are different dynamics for each generation. My mum (1940 Dob) inherited post war poverty but invested and was able to watch her property purchase accumulate worth as inflation/recovery took effect, but it was extremely hard.
I (GenX) came of age at the end of the eighties where that brief flourishing of growth and low inflation saw my parents actually genuinely become materially more wealthy, but I faced a job market flat on its face and inflation going bonkers by the early nineties. I only mustered enough collateral in the early teenies to buy a house. Before it was rent rent rent. 15 years of rent and saving.
I can’t speak for all the following generations but my step son (born 2000) and therefore I think a GenZ has got eventually a decent job but is still renting. He probably won’t buy a house until his late 30s in as much as I did. The difference will be the cascade effect of the end of the boomer generation. I recently inherited 100k through the house sale of my deceased mum’s property.
Most of that is being reinvested. Eventually my sons will receive a similar boost. Providing I continue my path to avoid paying for a care home by aiming to shuffle off this mortal coil in my seventies.
The Boomer effect will cascade for some eventually, but its effect will be uneven, and longevity and low retirement ages aren’t helping.
But the younger generations need to make tactical decisions like the older generations did. House share in the sticks. Commute from lower value areas and put the money into savings. Don’t expect the ‘model’ in your early thirties. The model doesn’t exist if in fact it ever did.
Be rational not resentful of older generations.
There are opportunities for younger people I never had. Not least the crushing polarity of education results which is rapidly disappearing in the rear view mirror.
The government can and should help by closing down the absurdity of the triple lock.
Categorising people into convenient and arbitrary age groups is bunk. The term "Boomer" and it's offspring was originally coined by lifestyle journalists in the 70s for glossy coffee table magazines. It's a pseudo science and has no place in sociology.
The idea that because you were born into a randomly determined 20 year age range that determines your tastes, your cultural markers, your personality and political opinions is stupid when you think about it. So someone born in 1946 shares all these "Boomer" traits with someone born in 1964? Ludicrous.
Lumping people as "Boomer", "Zoomers" etc is how the Right do identity politics. They use it to engineer intergenerational conflict. The people smeared as Boomers, and it is always used as a slur, never a compliment, are our parents and grandparents. Reject the terms, don't play identity politics and divide and rule. Don't be a leftist.