It’s interesting to see so many older people so terrified of something as relatively innocuous and unlikely as Bernie Sanders having had the slim possibility of being president.
They are more frightened of that prospect than of Trump winning — which I can’t make sense of, really.
I suspect part of it is that Sanders is an implicit critique of the entire ethos under which they’ve lived their whole lives — and during which they’ve indeliberately but nevertheless in a very real and direct way harmed their own offspring. Though they are not the first couple of generations to bring great harm upon their own progeny, those in the 45- to 75 age cohort are perhaps the first to do so with the most awareness — possible or actual — that it was being done and how to stop it if they so wished.
They did not and do not wish that, it turns out.
This guilt must be an enormous and insuperable weight. Otherwise, how to explain Kevin Drum, Lance Mannion and their weird maundering posts about how Bernie Sanders is some Josef Mengele-level corrupt evil genius.
Just some New Deal democrat whose party has retreated so far from him he’s had to call himself a socialist.
For those who’ve demonstrably made the world worse for their own children, how could they support a candidate like Bernie Sanders, or like Jill Stein, when this is a condemnation of their very selves?
They could not, of course. The human psyche does not permit such things, such self-negation.
It’s not just guilt. They had plenty of time and plenty of things to feel guilty about within the last 40 years. Why now would they feel guilty out of all of the times? It’s also the first generation (Millennials) to outnumber them (specifically the Boomers) have come of age and like I said, they WILL shift the political conversation around entitlements and climate change in ways their elders will not be able to control. It’s the beginning of reckoning.
It’s interesting you mention 45 year olds. I don’t feel affinity with a lot of early to middle Xers politically. To me, if you were old enough to vote for Reagan, Bush Elder or Bill Clinton you experienced having your vote count in a way that I and others around my age haven’t. And it’s not just in Presidential elections but local ones as well.
“Why now would they feel guilty out of all of the times?”
I think it’s the reality of climate change combined with the obviously-worsening prospects of nearly anyone young (also partially due to climate change).
The experience of having your vote count — that’s a good way of putting it. The system hadn’t yet been completely co-opted then, so I think you’re right.