I think seniors may hate Trump as much as under 35s now. What the hell is wrong with Generation X? They're the real problem, not boomers.
Ironically enough, my parents conform to the stereotype (of boomers being ardently pro-Trump). My stepmother is a Gen-Xer (born in 1965) and although she cannot vote, as she's not a U.S. citizen, she hates Trump. But my father on the other hand, is a Baby Boomer (born in 1947), and he's on board with the Trump Train. My stepmother has told me of occasions where they've passed Trump supporters, or people with Trump flags, on the road, and how he's blown his horn at them to express his support. I thought he was wavering because of Trump's handling of the pandemic and race relations, but no, he's still with him.
I am a Boomer, and I can tell you that my generation is severely polarized in politics -- as in economic realities. Those of us who have had to work sh!tty jobs much of our lives are decent enough. In such jobs one must adopt humility and lowered expectations as survival skills. Our economic elites are obnoxious people who have created rigid low ceilings of opportunity for the rest of us. People can get around those rigid low ceilings... if they are born into the elites. We have the majority of the Vietnam-era veterans who got little out of their service. We also have the most rapacious executives in American history, and they are richly rewarded for treating subordinates badly.
Many of us took seriously the advice from school guidance counselors that whatever one does, do not do assembly-line work. Do anything else! The problem? Only the dumbest of us did that work. The problem is that the jobs disappeared because Big Business accommodated that habit by offshoring such jobs. What was usually the most reliable route out of poverty for people of modest skill and intellect vanished in America and appeared in the Third World. Such work is no more mind-numbing than other work similarly repetitive and numbing. Machine-paced work is exactly what one needs to make unions possible. Unions faded in importance and with them the workers with a liberal bent.
I am a Gen-Exer and we are severely polarized in politics as well, perhaps most significantly in "Down State Oregon"...
Mill-working jobs used to provide extremely decent rates of compensation, regardless of if it was a Family-Owned Business and Non-Union, but still did prevailing wages and Medical Compensation for Mill Workers which was almost a Gompers style: "Good Days Wages for a Hard Days Work"...
The "Logging Jobs" in Oregon and the "Spotted Owl" false dichotomy and politically orchestrated by Republican Leaders in Oregon, *when all of us knew* that Timber harvest levels could not continue, and Mill Workers were "casual labor", when the big Companies who dominated the vast majority of supplying the logs to the mills, were shifting their operations elsewhere while literally destroying an entire forest eco-system, and that small mills would collapse first.
Interestingly enough the war between the Independent Loggers "Gypos" vs the large Timber Companies still exists behind the smokescreen of #TimberUnity... where it was pitched to my next door neighbor who was working on a logging gig in South Tillamook County, while trying to complete his college degree at Oregon State University, and his background from a part of Oregon, where muddin' was practically a national sport, fishing was almost an every day occasion, plus he had three weapons, for various occasions: AR-15 Target Shooting, 22 Hunting Rifle with scopes for Deer Hunting, and a 9 MM for target shooting (or just in case for home self defense.)
So to get back to the topic in hand briefly...
Rural Oregon mill jobs collapsed, because of over-harvesting, plus smaller family owned Mills could not afford the retooling costs....
Many of those workers gravitated to other Industrial and Factory jobs throughout Downstate Oregon, or even honestly in historical Pulp Mill Union Towns such as Oregon City...
The Oregon Economy shifted sometime around the Reagan Recession where 40% of the State Economy a decade back was surpassed by the Tech Sector, where they exploited the cheap labor rates of skilled OR MFG workers to invest in retraining technology....
Wasn't a perfect solution, but damn I can't tell you how many of the "Old Timers" came from "Timber Mill Precision Machining Factories to the Tech Sector...
Still... even though when I first came back to the Factory started at the bottom of the line tons more comments about: "Don't like Trump, but at least he bringing jobs back to America"...
Haven't heard any positive comment in any way shape or form for the past Year or so for Trump, even though my ear is to the pavement when it comes to the line-workers at the Factory Floor...
Apologies bit of a ramble OR does not equal MI.... but still reminds of that book from Murray Bookchin that expands some of the of the concepts of Post-Industrial Society...
