boutons_deux
07-12-2013, 10:12 AM
The ‘B’ Word: Republicans Fan the Flames of Ageism
“The average Republican primary voter is deceased,” Frank Luntz, Fox News commentator and GOP uber-pollster, said in February.
His advice for wooing younger voters? “Don’t give them terminology they don’t understand.” It’s about “communicating a simple phrase, three words: ‘I get it.’ ”
Luntz was sharing his prescription for dumbing down political rhetoric with outlier tea party candidate Allen West on a new website called Next Generation TV (http://www.nextgeneration.tv/), but as The New York Times reported June 29, GOP stalwarts are taking his advice, courting millennials (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/us/politics/republicans-paint-clinton-as-old-news-for-2016-presidential-election.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0), the 80 million potential voters born from about 1980 to 2000, mostly by cracking wise about Democrats of a certain age. Electing Hillary Clinton would be like going back in time, Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s campaign strategist, told reporters: “She’s been around since the ’70s.” Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell compared the 2016 Democratic field to “a rerun of ‘The Golden Girls.’ ”
The nasty edge of Republican rhetoric isn’t new, but Luntz, a master of the zeitgeist, is exploiting fears that run deeper than election strategy. Ironically, thrice-married serial cheater Newt Gingrich introduced the backlash against baby boomers, rallying conservatives against counterculture permissiveness in the 1990s. But boomer bashing has taken on a new character. With the future looking bleaker all the time, Americans are externalizing their fears. Trashing people over 40—or worse, 50—is not only socially acceptable, but a form of self-protection.
Don’t fret: It’s not you whose tech skills are outdated, or whose liberal arts education makes you dead weight in The New New Economy. It’s those pathetic former hipsters who followed their bliss instead of covering their asses. Job discrimination against boomers is rampant, from the help wanted ads that tell you not to apply if you don’t want to use Dropbox to the kiss-off phrase delivered to one of my friends: “Sorry, but we’re looking for some leadership from the millennials.”
...
What few millennials seem to realize is that libertarian hero Ronald Reagan’s “transformative” presidency began the decline of civil society in the U.S. Perhaps that’s too much history for an ahistorical generation. What Reagan, a farm boy turned Southern Californian, “transformed” was the traditional anti-government bias of the American West into a social movement. By defunding schools, mental health services and health care, all the things that make people feel good about government, the Reagan administration laid the groundwork not only for today’s disaffection with the rule of law, but, in a worst-case scenario, for a failed state.
etc
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_b_word_republicans_fan_the_flames_of_ageism_20 130709/ (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_b_word_republicans_fan_the_flames_of_ageism_20 130709/)
So you Boomer Bashers have been suckered into Boomer Bashing by VRWC/Repug campaign to woo millenials to their Repugs' demograhpically lost cause.
So in fact, Boomer Bashing is not but yet another polarizing, divisive, inflammatory, and profoundly dishonest, bad-faith Repug strategy to try to carve out some supporters to vote against their own best interests.
“The average Republican primary voter is deceased,” Frank Luntz, Fox News commentator and GOP uber-pollster, said in February.
His advice for wooing younger voters? “Don’t give them terminology they don’t understand.” It’s about “communicating a simple phrase, three words: ‘I get it.’ ”
Luntz was sharing his prescription for dumbing down political rhetoric with outlier tea party candidate Allen West on a new website called Next Generation TV (http://www.nextgeneration.tv/), but as The New York Times reported June 29, GOP stalwarts are taking his advice, courting millennials (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/us/politics/republicans-paint-clinton-as-old-news-for-2016-presidential-election.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0), the 80 million potential voters born from about 1980 to 2000, mostly by cracking wise about Democrats of a certain age. Electing Hillary Clinton would be like going back in time, Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s campaign strategist, told reporters: “She’s been around since the ’70s.” Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell compared the 2016 Democratic field to “a rerun of ‘The Golden Girls.’ ”
The nasty edge of Republican rhetoric isn’t new, but Luntz, a master of the zeitgeist, is exploiting fears that run deeper than election strategy. Ironically, thrice-married serial cheater Newt Gingrich introduced the backlash against baby boomers, rallying conservatives against counterculture permissiveness in the 1990s. But boomer bashing has taken on a new character. With the future looking bleaker all the time, Americans are externalizing their fears. Trashing people over 40—or worse, 50—is not only socially acceptable, but a form of self-protection.
Don’t fret: It’s not you whose tech skills are outdated, or whose liberal arts education makes you dead weight in The New New Economy. It’s those pathetic former hipsters who followed their bliss instead of covering their asses. Job discrimination against boomers is rampant, from the help wanted ads that tell you not to apply if you don’t want to use Dropbox to the kiss-off phrase delivered to one of my friends: “Sorry, but we’re looking for some leadership from the millennials.”
...
What few millennials seem to realize is that libertarian hero Ronald Reagan’s “transformative” presidency began the decline of civil society in the U.S. Perhaps that’s too much history for an ahistorical generation. What Reagan, a farm boy turned Southern Californian, “transformed” was the traditional anti-government bias of the American West into a social movement. By defunding schools, mental health services and health care, all the things that make people feel good about government, the Reagan administration laid the groundwork not only for today’s disaffection with the rule of law, but, in a worst-case scenario, for a failed state.
etc
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_b_word_republicans_fan_the_flames_of_ageism_20 130709/ (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_b_word_republicans_fan_the_flames_of_ageism_20 130709/)
So you Boomer Bashers have been suckered into Boomer Bashing by VRWC/Repug campaign to woo millenials to their Repugs' demograhpically lost cause.
So in fact, Boomer Bashing is not but yet another polarizing, divisive, inflammatory, and profoundly dishonest, bad-faith Repug strategy to try to carve out some supporters to vote against their own best interests.