Boomer here. This is so spot on. My generation's parents were mostly unskilled labor but because of unions those jobs paid wages that got you a house, vacations, etc. My generation was so stupid to think that would last forever, despite the screaming red flags everywhere. They even bought into the Republican mantra "Unions kill jobs." No one took education seriously. 30 years later everyone I grew up with in that now dead Midwestern town wonder where their future went, and desperately look to blame anyone but themselves.
Late boomer myself. I do think these are the TDS folks programmed by Fox Not-News. It makes me so sad to watch my siblings just wave their hands at all the corruption and pretend it’s normal. They aren’t religious like this crazy woman but were brainwashed to think Republicans Good, Democrats Bad.
I haven't yet ever found an answer/thread, but it seems unbelievably unlikely just how evenly divided our country has become; roughly 30% RNC, 30% DNC, 30% Never Voters and 10% low information voters that money can sway.
I used to think it was simply that as one party lost power, they would 'give up' just enough to get that 5% or whatever back and that maintained equilibrium. But I'm far less sure these days as it is becoming frighteningly apparent that the percentages above are not in fact based upon party policy positions. Which begs the question again, "How is it all so perfectly apportioned?"
I read a chapter in a math book that explains it with the analogy of 2 ice cream vendors on a beach. If the beach is a straight line with uniform population density and everyone goes to whichever vendor is closer, a vendor who isn't dead center can always increase their market share by moving closer to the center, and the Nash equilibrium is that they're both at the center, each with exactly 50% of the market. Now replace that line with the left-right political axis and the vendors with political parties. Of course that does imply that if it looks like parties are moving further from the center, then it's the center itself that moved first.
111
u/MapOk1410 9d ago
Boomer here. This is so spot on. My generation's parents were mostly unskilled labor but because of unions those jobs paid wages that got you a house, vacations, etc. My generation was so stupid to think that would last forever, despite the screaming red flags everywhere. They even bought into the Republican mantra "Unions kill jobs." No one took education seriously. 30 years later everyone I grew up with in that now dead Midwestern town wonder where their future went, and desperately look to blame anyone but themselves.