Day: June 25, 2016

The Brexit vote, as is Trump support, is a primarily a generational divide. The older Silent and Baby Boom generations are extending a giant middle finger to the X and Millenial Generations, a one last Fuck You. Jack Lennard:

Let’s look at the voter demographics. The "Leave" vote was overwhelmingly carried by those over the age of 65, whereas according to pre-vote polling, 72 percent of those who were aged 18 to 24 favored "Remain." [...] Despite young people having to live with the decision of the referendum for an average of 69 years, it has been decided for them by people who will only have to live with it for an average of 16 years. Put simply: The long-term effects of Brexit will not be felt by those who overwhelmingly voted for it. Because they will be dead. This is a final middle-fingered salute to the young from the baby boomer generation. Not content with racking up insurmountable debt, not content with destroying any hopes of sustainable property prices or stable career paths, not content with enjoying the benefits of free education and generous pension schemes before burning down the ladder they climbed up, the baby boomers have given one last turd on the doorstep of the younger generation. My generation will not enjoy the free movement to 27 different countries and the workers’ rights that rescued Britain from the "sick man of Europe" era of the 1970s. For us, there will be no golden age of economic hope and glory. UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage’s sickening elation at "independence day for the United Kingdom" (surely a joke, given the context of violent colonialism that Britain herself exported to the world over the last centuries, yet sadly deadly serious) heralds nothing but a grim forecast of turmoil.

Where the Greatest Generation of the Depression era and World War II was the best generation, the Silent and Baby Boom Generations have been among the worst ever to walk on this Earth.