FT Alphaville's David Keohane may be a gerocidal maniac.
At first I thought his "Kill the old" mantra was a simple eccentricity, sort of like the "Eat the rich" signs I used to see stenciled on the sidewalk outside the tower, but I just did a search of the Financial Times website and it returned 43 hits for "Kill the old". All on the flagship blog.
So I tried to comfort myself with the thought that at least I'll go out with a neologism to my credit, insomuch as a quick Google search for "gerocidal" turns up only nine hits and those appear to be misspellings of genocidal.
But then I Googled the root noun, gerocide, and there are scores of uses, properly spelled.
Now I just feel like taking out a couple millennials as I go down.
Let's get ready to rumble!
Y'all ready for this?
From the Orange County Register:
The old issues of class, race and geography may still dominate coverage of our changing political landscape, but perhaps a more compelling divide relates to generations. American politics are being shaped by two gigantic generations – the baby boomers and their offspring, the millennials – as well as smaller cohorts of Generation X, who preceded the millennials, and what has been known as the Silent Generation, who preceded the boomers.
Both the boomers and the Silents gradually have moved to the right as they have aged. Other factors underpin this trend, such as the fact that boomers are overwhelmingly white – well over 70 percent compared with roughly 58 percent for millennials. People in their 50s and 60s have seen their incomes and net worth rise while millennials have done far worse, at this stage of their lives, than previous generations.
Although millennials are more numerous than boomers, the elderly are a growing portion of the population, and they tend to vote in bigger numbers. Voters over age 65 turn out at a rate above 70 percent, while barely 40 percent of those under 25 cast ballots. That may be one factor in why this presidential campaign is dominated not by youth, but by aging figures like Donald Trump (69), Hillary Clinton (67) and Bernie Sanders (74).
The Silent GenerationLeading generational analysts – Neil Howe, Morley Winograd, Mike Hais – have suggested that the experiences people have growing up shape political beliefs throughout their lives. This does not mean that people do not change as they age, but where they started remains a key factor in determining how far these changes spread within a generation.
The now-passing Greatest Generation – the group that survived the Depression and the Second World War – were largely shaped by the experiences of the New Deal and the boom of the postwar era. This has made them consistently less conservative than successor generations, and they have retained their Democratic affiliations.
In contrast, the Silents – many of whom grew up under President Dwight Eisenhower and during the Cold War – have gradually moved toward the Republican column. After generally supporting the Democrats in 2006, they have backed GOP candidates but remain surprisingly balanced in their affiliations; Pew estimates Silents who at least lean Republican constitute 47 percent, versus 44 percent Democratic.
Surprisingly, Silent Generation Democrats are not much more socially conservative on issues – such as gay marriage, abortion and climate change – than the younger generation. But Silent Generation Republicans are far more socially conservative than their younger counterparts, particularly on immigration. This may be one factor that keeps the Donald Trump energizer bunny animated....MORE
