Lacewing wrote:the widespread acknowledgement that this could be really, really bad . . . I may be wrong... but I really don't see this as some "small thing" that will quiet down and become the new normal... and it seems that a lot of other people have the same impression... to a degree unlike anything we've experienced before.
We've never before had a generation that needed "trigger warnings" for speech or ideas that they disagree with, a generation that is so fragile when it comes to alternate views and behavior, a generation that would need to have exams made optional because the candidate they were supporting wasn't elected, and so on. The millennials in question would have likely reacted the same way to George W. Bush, (and surely they would have reacted the same way to Reagan even earlier) , but they were too young when the younger Bush was first elected to care about it in the same way then (and of course they weren't born yet when Reagan was elected). The ways millennials react reminds me a bit of how some movies show younger folks reacting in late 17th Century Massachusette re the Salem Witch Trials. It's a bit like mass hysteria at the slightest provocation. It's just that now we're branding people racists, sexists, etc. instead of witches.
So I don't think that this has anything to do with Trump, really. It has to do with the dispositions and beliefs of the millennials in question. A lot of millennials have some serious problems, in my view, although older generations, the generations who raised them and who educated them, are to blame for a lot of it.
And after all, millennials are really the only ones who are worked up re thinking that Trump is a racist, sexist, etc. Most older folks don't care about that (well, and partially because they think the rhetotic of the millennials and the folks force-feeding that crap to the millennials (such as some college professors) is ridiculous). Older folks rather care about their employment situation, their tax burdens, their housing and health care situations, education for their kids, etc. That's how Trump got elected in the first place. People were not confident that Hillary would have a positive impact on those financial and practical issues that impact folks' daily lives.
I don't think they're wasting their time, and I do think this sort of unrest makes a statement and bolsters/transforms more than we see on the surface.
I pretty much always think that protests are a waste of time. I've thought that since I was a kid and people were protesting the Vietnam War. The U.S. didn't exit Vietnam because of the protestors--don't forget that protests about it were going on for
years. We exited because the war was no longer beneficial, including no longer financially feasible, to the folks in power at the time.
Do you think significant change/evolution is needed, and if so, how do you think it would best come about?
I'd like to see significant change come about, but what I'd like to see instead of what we have isn't something that anyone else really agrees with me on, lol. I explained a little bit of it in the thread about a "base wage" or whatever it was.
The only way that I think significant change would come about, that an effective revolution would come about, is if most folks didn't have work, homes, health care, etc. That's the stuff that people care about. If they're set on those ends, they're content.
The world isn't promising them much as adults -- and the world (as seen by many) needs to evolve -- so this is their chance to DO SOMETHING toward that goal -- even if it's at great sacrifice.
A big problem there is the employment situation, but a lot of what led to that has been the fact that so much work has been farmed out to other countries. That's part of what Trump campaigned on--he wants to do something about that. All those folks who lost their good-paying jobs in states like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, etc. responded to this. They didn't believe that Hillary would try to change their situation. They believe that Trump would try to do this. Whether he'll be able to is another issue, though. It's far more complicated than one person making a decision to change it.
It's like a big play on a stage... with changing scenes and costumes... and the actors keep swapping in and out... but that makes it no less compelling to participate passionately in.
