Sunday, November 10, 2019

"OK Boomer!" is a good retort. A better one might be "Go, Boomer, Go!"

OK Boomer!

It's a thing now, a quick retort by members of a younger generation when a Baby Boomer rambles on about the good ol' days and why youngsters are causing the USA to go to hell in a handbasket.

First question from a Millennial: What's a handbasket?

Baby Boomer: A basket carried by hand.

Millennial: We don't believe in hell.

Boomer: The hell you say.

We're always talking around one another. That may be the case until every last Boomer goes to his/her/its heavenly reward.

Millennial: We don't believe in heaven.

OK Millennial, what I'm actually pointing out is that the Baby Boomer Death Clock at Incendar shows that a Boomer dies every 18.2 seconds and that already today (as of 11:47 a.m. MST), 4,746 Boomers have died. As of right now, 64,914,430 Boomer are "still alive" and 20,443,571 are "dead." Percentage-wise, this is 23.9503896% of available Boomers. In the world of demographics, this is known as "cohort replacement."

A better Millennial chant might be: Go, Boomer, Go!

Meanwhile, we waste precious time in clashes with each other instead of concentrating on the real threat which, of course, is Donald Trump and Trumpism. We can find common ground here. I am a Boomer Liberal and many Millennials are liberal, much more liberal than their parents and grandparents. This is especially true if you are an urban dweller. Wyoming is much more rural than urban which partly explains Trump's continuing popularity. I live in the state's largest city, Cheyenne. But even here, I am an anomaly. Cheyenne is located on the cusp of blue-state Colorado, but it is almost as conservative as the rest of the state. County Democrats were devastated in the 2016 legislative races. MAGA hats are not everywhere but there are enough of them to make a Liberal pause before launching an anti-Trump tirade in public. Being a blowhard is a Trump thing. But liberals can be obnoxious, too. When I was part of a Democrat/Republican panel interviewed on radio the night of Obama's 2008 win, the radio host said the worst thing about Obama's election was having to listen to remarks from his liberal friends for the next four years. Eight years, as it turned out.

And then came Trump. His diehard fans haven't STFU since.

OK Millennials, listen up. I won't give advice to, or cast aspersions on, your generation if you do just one thing: get out and vote in 2020. If Millennials registered and voted for the Democrat a year from now, Trump would be history. I realize that I am an elder giving advice, and that it's appropriate to roll your eyes and then say "OK Boomer." I can handle that. What I can't handle is another four years of Trump.

Can you?

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