The "Your Sons and Your Daughters Are Beyond Your Command" Edition
The path to stability lies through our youth. Will we help them attain it?
The Summer
I feel like we’ve learned a lot about hubris this summer. The loss of the submarine Titan attempting to visit the Titanic is almost too on-the-nose as an allegory: four rich dudes (and a kid whose loss should be mourned) went down in a submarine designed by a spoiled billionaire who thought he was smarter than everyone who’d ever tried setting standards for submersibles, all to see a shipwreck built and operated by men who also believed it unsinkable and hadn’t taken obvious safety precautions. And while the builders of the Titanic had no regard for the lives of the poor migrants in steerage trying to make passage to the U.S., we saw the recovery effort for the Titan take place in gruesome parallel with effectively no effort to save drowning migrants in the Mediterranean, to say nothing of the Rio Grande.
We’ve also seen hubris come up and bite Vladimir Putin in the ass, as the war he assumed would be a cakewalk has turned into the humiliation of a mutiny. As I write this, it’s impossible to say with certainty what just happened with Yevgeni Prigozhin and Wagner, but this much is certain: Russia and Putin are much, much weaker for this.
But how can I discuss hubris in the spring-summer of 2023 without noting the federal indictments of Former Second Confederate President Donald Trump? Of course he kept classified material he shouldn’t have—who thought he wouldn’t? On the various Jan. 6 crimes, he does have a number of arguments relating to the First Amendment and/or his responsibility to execute laws if he believes there was electoral fraud. I don’t know what Jack Smith plans to charge, and I won’t judge it because I’m not a lawyer. But what I’ll never forget is this: when Trump was told on Jan. 6 that many of his supporters were being turned away from his rally because they were caught with weapons at the metal detectors, he ordered the detectors removed, and said, “They’re not here to hurt me.” He knew they were armed and dangerous, and he sent them out against his enemies. If that isn’t a crime, the word has no meaning.
Finally, there’s the hubris of our Guardian Council, who feel free to create new laws out of whole cloth, even in cases not properly before them. But honestly I’m far less troubled by their rulings, offensive as they are, than I am by their blatant, almost gleeful displays of public corruption. A court that has no sense of limits isn’t worthy of the legitimacy we need for it to function. They’ve declared themselves just one more political body, meaning the U.S. doesn’t have a truly distinct judicial branch anymore.
What do these events have in common? They relate directly to my main point:
· The fifth victim of the Titan, a 19-year-old, was “terrified” of the trip and did it only to please his dad;
· The various old, shabby Mafiosi struggling for control of Russia are getting their asses handed to them by a 45-year-old comedian, his 49-year-old commanding general, and their “woke” army;
· From attacks on the rights of women and sexual minorities to wiping out President Biden’s student loan relief plan, the Supreme Court first and foremost is attacking people under 40.
The Big Idea
The term “patriarchy” usually is used by feminists to critique male domination of society, and this isn’t inaccurate, but it is incomplete; just being a man doesn’t make one a patriarch. One has to be a father to become a patriarch—it’s a generational term even more than it is a gendered one. In the original Roman Latin sense of the word, the patriarch’s literal power of life and death over his children extended to his male children as much as his female ones. Count on stupid incels to fight for “patriarchy” when they aren’t even eligible to join it!
The instability we see in the United States today is, I increasingly think, first and foremost a generational struggle, even as it sometimes resembles a race, gender, or class struggle. There’s increasing data to indicate that Millennials and especially Gen Z have swung left and have no plans of going back. This ties into pretty good research that, rather than the old saw that people become more conservative with age, successive generations actually attain a political awareness in their teens and 20s, and largely stick with that alignment through their lifetimes.
Meanwhile, the Greatest Generation raised under FDR is gone, the small Silent Generation disappearing fast, the Boomers firmly right-wing, and Gen X skewing slightly right. As an Xer, I have some theories why my generation is slightly right, but the bigger point is Millennials are the largest current demographic, and more Gen Zers are turning 18 every day while Boomers die their deaths of despair and vaccine refusal. Much as we worry about Biden against Trump, the 2024 electorate will be more favorable to Biden than the 2016 or 2020 ones—if young voters turn out.
Why have Millennials and Zs swung left? I think it’s because they’ve realized their parents and grandparents simply don’t love them.
Too harsh? Well, people who’ve come of age since 2000 are a generation who’ve been in constant fear of being murdered in their schoolrooms, and none of the authority figures in their lives have managed to do anything about that, or even really tried. And honestly, mass shootings are a minor matter compared to the impacts of climate change, which youth can see happening around them even as so many elders try to convince them it’s not even happening. Their formative experiences of government and politics are Iraq, Katrina, and the financial crash—not exactly a combo that gives you confidence in government and institutions. When they first saw Barack Obama appeal to them, they saw that their elders’ response was to say he was a Kenyan Muslim. And then of course Trump. It’s honestly a miracle these kids haven’t murdered us all in our beds.
The younger generations are browner than us, more open to sexual differences than us, and with good reason pretty certain they’ll not be as prosperous as us, starting with student debts and moving into home ownership, the solvency of entitlements, and the very survivability of the planet. They are pissed, and hard to mobilize because they doubt government’s ability to do anything—but they are key to big- and small-D democratic success. If they can be mobilized, they can’t be stopped.
So what do we need to do? Listen to them! Cater to them! Build platforms and policies around them! The greatest weakness in our geriatric Democratic leadership is they might just be too old to shut up and listen and let the youth lead them.
What do the youth—generously defined as 18-40 here—want? First, they want women to have bodily autonomy. Thanks to the Roberts Court for just dropping a campaign-winning issue into Democrats’ laps! They want some form of gun control; anything will do. They want their LGBTQ friends to be safe and happy. They want climate and economic security. And they are done with their parents and grandparents selling them down the river with complete indifference to them, their children, or their own future grandchildren. They are sick of the dead hand of patriarchy.
So they’ll fall into Democrats’ laps? We should be so lucky! Remember, they have no history of government working for them. Personally, the Biden Administration has exceeded my expectations dramatically, but I can see how, between inflation (falling, but still frustrating for consumers), right-wing media balanced by both-sides media, and the inescapable fact of Biden’s age, people might be looking around for a better option.
But folks, that option is not RFK Jr. Like the No Labels grifters, RFK Jr. is just another astro-turfed Maga attempt to suck votes away from Biden. This one might even be dumber, though: as he continues to focus his outreach on conservative media, espouse loony conspiracy theories, and claim Russia is the good guy in Ukraine, RFK is running a campaign more designed to peel off Maga voters, and just might do them more damage. He might actually be trying out to be Trump’s running mate.
So what are the key moves to lock down Millennial and Gen Z support? I’d posit the following:
1. Go into the culture war swinging! Embrace gender equality and LGBTQ rights, from abortion to marriage and everything in between. Go all-in, don’t get caught up in nuances like the tiny number of transgendered girls on student sports teams. Say your opponent is a Nazi asshole! Say America fights book burning! Say America’s founders endorsed no religion! Say Indiana Jones is the good guy against Nazis, and demand to know who’s against him!
2. Go straight at the Supreme Court with demands for ethics, term limits, and court expansion to 13, the number of district courts;
3. Continue to hammer the Magas as the party of insurrection, violence, and authoritarianism outside the American mainstream. They are eager to help with this!
4. Pledge to support Ukraine to the bitter end—its struggle has broad appeal with younger populations who are seeing for the first time (for them) America Doing The Right Thing abroad, in the aid of an endearing young leader and a media-savvy, relatable people; meanwhile, Magas have embraced the sick version of masculinity embodied in Putin’s Russia;
5. Abandon the concept of “BIPOC,” an idea meant to broaden the constituency of people invested in minority rights to embrace Blacks, Indigenous, and People of Color. Well-intentioned, this gravely misunderstands ethnic dynamics in America. Black and Indigenous peoples have a truly distinct American experience in that America came to be without their voluntary participation. But other non-European ethnic groups have experiences in America far more similar to white ethnic groups like the Irish, Germans, Italians, or Slavs. All of these have faced considerable discrimination at different points (and sometimes still do), but they freely chose to come to America, and ultimately the definition of “American” has managed to fit around them, even as Blacks and the Indigenous have remained tied to unfair asterisks. We should care about the well-being and advancement of all these groups, but for campaign purposes treating them as a unitary body is a sure path to driving a meaningful number of them into GOP arms when they should be winnable demographics. An easy first step? Shut down anyone who uses the term “Latinx,” which is an insanely insulting colonialist effort to force gender-based change to a major world language. Native Spanish-speakers will change Spanish when they damn well feel like it. Engage “POC” as you’d engage White voters, because that’s how many want to be understood—not as “White” per se, but not as an oppressed minority either. Engage Black and Indigenous votes differently, because they are mature enough to realize they are in a different position, and because their unique historical situation gives them unique policy interests that should be supported. Finally, as more and more young people of color are some form of multiracial, we need to give them time to get older and define their own identities.
The New York Times has details on Trump’s plans to weaponize and personalize the government if he’s reelected. I would not be surprised if they changed oaths of office to swear fealty to the President.
Christians are freaking out because their denominations are dying out. Meanwhile, atheists are the most-likely voters in America.
Insurgencies first and foremost are competitions for governance. From the IRA to ISIS to the Taliban to the Viet Cong, violence is a tool to advance governance. Zoya Teirstein’s brilliant article shows how even morons like the Oathkeepers can adopt that model, and how it will only become more relevant as climate change creates more challenges governments will struggle to address.
You’d think Republicans who controlled the local legislature and executive would be happy, but instead they just get crazier. Anne Applebaum highlights how Tennessee just doubles down on the fascism.
Security Sector Reform
I just finished a week teaching a class on stability operations at the Army War College, and it was a good reminder that there is way, way more to crime and security than guys with guns.
Police killings reduce Black voter turnout by 6% in the one-mile radius of the killing. They have no such impact on White or Latino voting. Definitely no perverse incentives there!
I make fun of the Council on Foreign Relations as the absolute epicenter of conventional wisdom—and they are—but they make an excellent point here. “In fact, if students are not being protected from the wanton use of force, then questions should be asked about whether the United States is even a functioning sovereign state at all.” Gosh, and the youth are disenchanted with the status quo?
Robert Klemko has an excellent Washington Post piece about the short-handedness of police recruiting. Understrength forces find fascist officers moving to red states, while young people want nothing to do with policing at all. All I know is this hard-won counterinsurgency lesson: bad police is worse than no police is worse than good police.
Everyone is a “responsible gun owner” until the moment their weapon is used to shoot someone.
The Times has a story from Brooklyn that shows how “security” and “policing” are not the same thing. It’s just a question of community involvement.
I’ve said before that Atlanta’s “Cop City” is only necessary for people who anticipate conducting broad urban counterinsurgency operations. The lengths to which city, state, and police leadership will go to get their “train to repress us” center should alarm you.
I can’t imagine a stronger argument for legalizing drugs than the fact that drug overdose deaths increase after police raids. Unless, of course, you think addicts are just losers who deserve to die.
I continue to believe that the military doesn’t radicalize people (or increase suicide risks) so much as it is an attractive place for people susceptible to radicalization. These people are deeply unhappy with their lives, and are seeking dramatic, transformative life changes like the military or extremist groups.
It’s pretty wild that we live in a country with enough mass shootings to be able to draw statistical conclusions about them. It’s also pretty wild that politically-motivated killings are only a fraction of the total. But of that fraction, the overwhelming number comes from right-wing extremists.
Crime is going down across the U.S. American Prospect shows that, whatever’s causing the decrease, it has nothing to do with policing.
Vice has a good piece on what escalating right-wing violence looks like at a local level in an unexpected place—Los Angeles. I’ll repeat what I’ve said before: if you’re going to participate in public actions, go ready to take a beating, or ready to fight. Do not assume your non-violence will be respected! Either way, medical training and equipment is good to have.
Several editions back I noted Ron DeSantis wasn’t being radical forming a State Guard—they’re fairly common in several states as supports to the National Guard. But even DeSantis’s volunteers seem to think he’s really forming stormtroopers, and they want no part of it.
Good Reads
There’s no question that, whatever is going well with younger people, men in America are in a crisis. We can oppose patriarchy and still worry about men. Christine Emba has a great (long) read about dealing with men in distress. As I’ve said before, we need to develop a positive vision of masculinity, and even the experts are st. Nobody’s making a “Ken” movie!
Catalist reports on just how the 2022 election played out. As long as Trump and DeSantis keep dragging Maga right, the Dem coalition should stay strong.
I’ve noted here before that Liberals are not going to attain much of what they seek through traditional political means. This organized protest against guns in Colorado is audacious, but worthy of respect and emulation.
One aspect of the 2020 elections that makes me optimistic and I think a lot of people miss is that Dems ran with one hand tied behind their backs: they gave up their ground game in the name of COVID protection, which the Magas didn’t do. But we won anyway! Now the inherently-grifting nature of Maga has seeped into its own operations, and that’s a major force-multiplier for us.
If you won’t believe me, believe Professor Dan Drezner: things really are looking up!
Even young Republicans want more gun control. Trust the youth!
The problem with this “abandon the culture wars” approach that might be electorally successful is that it’s morally repugnant. There is no “culture war,” there’s a “culture genocide:” some people are saying, “we’d like to live our lives,” and others are saying “we’d rather kill you than see that happen.” In this case, neutrality is complicity.
Hey, Boomers are spending a lot of money while their children and grandchildren are struggling? It’s almost as if they didn’t love their own kids and grandkids or are waging a patriarchal war or something!
I criticize the mainstream media a lot for “both sides” reporting, so here’s a special kudos to NBC’s Ben Collins for winning the Annenberg School’s Walter Cronkite Award. His point: it’s well past time for journalism to double down on advocating for the truth, and combatting those who oppose it.
It must be frightening to keep showing up to the school board and town council and zoning meetings full of vitriolic Magas, but Christian Science Monitor’s Courtney Martin shows we can win the day if we keep showing up.
We use “rural” as a political synonym for whites, but Democracy Docket has a great story about mobilizing minorities in rural regions.
I have a lot of complaints about Liberal Patriot—they are trapped in the 1990s—but they can run a good poll, and this one has good data. A lot of people don’t love Joe Biden, but they prefer him to the alternatives. That will do! Remember, you’ve got just one vote, no matter how passionate or not you are.
Do you live in a nice blue community? Keep an eye out for Moms for Liberty. Their capacity for infiltration is impressive. I apologize for stereotyping, but if you’ve got a Lululemon in your community, you might have MFL too. And MFL jumps straight to the Proud Boys.
Finally, I commend to you this excellent work of political jujitsu by the Biden campaign, turning a Marjorie Taylor Greene speech into a truly inspiring Biden endorsement. It’s really hard to get people to listen to policy and economic talk, but having a hook like this garners a lot of attention. Give whoever thought of this a raise!
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