A lot of people are hitting mid-life from the first western generation significantly less well-off than their parents. They grew up with expectations set by their environment which they’re now realizing isn’t realistic at all. It’s not really their fault for having those expectations, it was a reality they witnessed with their own eyes.
I think this fairly nebulous anxiety over the disconnect between expectation and reality is the root cause of a lot of various flavours of anti-social behavior. It’s just a roulette spin of who they end up blaming.
Andrew Tate misogyny, MAGA fascism, Xenophobia, Anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, full-on neo nazis etc etc, I think the surprising uptake of these otherwise fringe ideas are just people subconsciously grasping for explanation of why the world (and by extension their lives) “just isn’t right”.
So yah, layer than onto regular mid-life crises, it’s a powder keg.
And I think this is where so much MAGA support comes from. They heavily lean into acknowledgement that things AREN’T good. They’re BAD. You’re NOT CRAZY for thinking they’re FUCKED, and the urgency you feel is APPROPRIATE.
In the US at least, it’s the right offering radical change. It’s fucking idiotic change guaranteed to blow up in your face before the leopards come to chew it off… but goddamnit it’s radical. It at least matches the energy level of the angst. The Dems are offering piecemeal incremental bland realistic changes that while certainly for the better, they won’t rock the boat too hard.
We were told that if we went and got a college degree, we would have a well-paying, decent (which is to say, doesn’t treat us like crap) job out the door and that the degree would pay for itself within a few years.
We were told this over and over and over again, and that, if you went for any other path, you were a fuckup.
My theory:
A lot of people are hitting mid-life from the first western generation significantly less well-off than their parents. They grew up with expectations set by their environment which they’re now realizing isn’t realistic at all. It’s not really their fault for having those expectations, it was a reality they witnessed with their own eyes.
I think this fairly nebulous anxiety over the disconnect between expectation and reality is the root cause of a lot of various flavours of anti-social behavior. It’s just a roulette spin of who they end up blaming.
Andrew Tate misogyny, MAGA fascism, Xenophobia, Anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, full-on neo nazis etc etc, I think the surprising uptake of these otherwise fringe ideas are just people subconsciously grasping for explanation of why the world (and by extension their lives) “just isn’t right”.
So yah, layer than onto regular mid-life crises, it’s a powder keg.
And I think this is where so much MAGA support comes from. They heavily lean into acknowledgement that things AREN’T good. They’re BAD. You’re NOT CRAZY for thinking they’re FUCKED, and the urgency you feel is APPROPRIATE.
In the US at least, it’s the right offering radical change. It’s fucking idiotic change guaranteed to blow up in your face before the leopards come to chew it off… but goddamnit it’s radical. It at least matches the energy level of the angst. The Dems are offering piecemeal incremental bland realistic changes that while certainly for the better, they won’t rock the boat too hard.
We were told that if we went and got a college degree, we would have a well-paying, decent (which is to say, doesn’t treat us like crap) job out the door and that the degree would pay for itself within a few years.
We were told this over and over and over again, and that, if you went for any other path, you were a fuckup.
What a scam it was.