Hispanic Fanatic

Recently, I wrote about the burden of nostalgia, and that many of my fellow Gen Xers inexplicably miss the 1980s.

Well, I didn’t give enough credit to my generation in one respect, which is that we tend to be more socially and politically liberal than our elders. OK, maybe you don’t think that’s a good thing, but I certainly do. And many Gen Xers agree with me.

In fact, 36 percent of Gen Xers have mostly liberal attitudes, while just 23 percent have mostly conservative attitudes.

For the younger generation — the much-maligned Millennials — the gap is even more pronounced. Half of Millennials (50 percent) are “Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, while just 34% affiliate with or lean to the GOP.” Furthermore, “Millennials who identify with the GOP are also less conservative than Republicans in other generations.”

The Pew Research Center breaks it down like this: “In short, not only are Millennials less likely than older generations to identify as Republicans, but even those who do express significantly less conservative values than do their elders. No such generational divide exists among Democrats.”

OK, we all know that younger people tend to be more liberal than older ones. That’s not a shocker. But the ideological gap between Millennials and Boomers is vast (in terms of percentages) and deep (in terms of actual issues).

So the idea that Millennials will suddenly go all Tea Party on us as they age is highly unlikely. Yet many conservative commentators insist exactly that, in the same way that they’ve been shouting for decades that Latinos are really Republicans but don’t know it.

Speaking of that absurd notion — which has only become more glaringly ridiculous during this election year — let’s not forget that 22 percent of Millennials are Hispanic. Put another way, about 60 percent of all Latinos are Millennials or younger, compared to about 40 percent of whites.

So we have the combination of young and Latino poised to take over America, much to the chagrin of older white right-wingers. And those Hispanic Millennials have two overlapping demographic reasons for being liberal.

What does this mean for the future of conservatism in general and the Republican Party in particular? Well, in my next post, I will expand on the second reason the GOP should fear Latino Millennials.

And that’s what the kids call a teaser.

A few months ago, I wrote a rebuttal to all those parenting writers and mommy bloggers who insist that Gen X had the most awesomest and totally radical upbringing ever.

My article did not exactly go viral. I think it didn’t catch on because I pointed out, via facts and statistics, that it really wasn’t that great to grow up in the 1980s.

Apparently, this is not a popular position.

So you can imagine my annoyance when my social media feed was recently clogged with yet another trending article waxing nostalgic about those good old days.

You know the type of article I’m talking about. They are usually 10,000-word manifestos, written by Gen Xers, that hit the following points:

1. Our parents ignored us or treated us like slave labor (and it was great!)
2. We walked on freeways at midnight to go play in abandoned junkyards (and it was great!)
3. We didn’t get coddled or get awards for participation (and it was great!)
4. Kids today have it too soft (and that sucks!)

And so and so on, always without any data or links or any outside analysis that might support the writer’s viewpoint. These articles are huge hits on the internet, despite the fact (or perhaps because) they all pretty much read the same.

I won’t get into the myriad reasons why this overly sentimental mindset is flawed (after all, I wrote a whole article about that already).

I will just add something that I neglected to mention the first time through. All of these articles that get under my skin have the added benefit of coming from people who invariably grew up in white, middle-class suburbs. And now as adults, these writers just assume we all came from that same background and/or live under those circumstances today.

So whenever these writers gush about watching the Brady Bunch and then playing in their cul-de-sac until Dad came home from his office job, I zone out.

Let’s just say that lots of Hispanics, and presumably African Americans, didn’t have this experience. Hell, a lot of white rural and/or poor kids didn’t have this experience.

But the assumption holds that the baseline of normal is white, middle-class suburban. Yeah, that’s a bit irksome.

So do me a favor, and please stop forwarding these articles to me. I don’t buy their premise.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to my old Journey and Def Leppard albums.