Same here. Sample pool is roughly half Libs, half centrists/GOPers. Sadly even the latter-day Reaganites in their late 40s/early 50s are utterly stuck in the suburban rat race mentality. HS Prom. Getting Billy or Mary to the good college (with crushing debt). Redoing the kitchen. Posting pics of the recent Cancun trip on FB. Etc, etc...
Part of me thinks that if they focus too long on the pandemic lockdowns and the Vaxx plan and the insane foreign policy and mass immigration and rising crime and social unrest, they will buckle mentally....so instead they are consciously doubling down on keeping up with the Joneses and life pre-2020 to the best they can.
If there is one silver-lining, if you can even call it that, it is the slow creep of "something unsettling" happening to the economy with every trip to the grocery store and gas station. That they talk about. Not in a scared way. But more in a "I see it" way. Many don't want to show or admit they are actually struggling (b/c it flies in the face of that they are not, in fact, keeping up with the Joneses) and this would be a tacit admission they may be f*****.
Exactly this. They know deep down, but they are working really hard to try and maintain the bubble the guy in the video talks about. It's fingers in the ears, singing lalalalalala.
Love of the bubble is what motivates denial. Gen Z and Millennials didn't get the bubble. Boomers have the biggest bubble, but it's popping faster than for Gen X because they see their kids and grandkids, some peers, struggling and with no opportunities for income, housing, and healthcare. In my experience, if sleeping Gen Xers see this, they immediately call it personal failure. Sometimes they are worse about that than boomers.
It occurs to me.... the latchkey generation grew up practicing denial to cope with some of their realities as kids. This is part of what makes them tough, practical, and stoic though, which can be a major asset when it's time to deal with reality. Hope they break through soon.
Same here. Sample pool is roughly half Libs, half centrists/GOPers. Sadly even the latter-day Reaganites in their late 40s/early 50s are utterly stuck in the suburban rat race mentality. HS Prom. Getting Billy or Mary to the good college (with crushing debt). Redoing the kitchen. Posting pics of the recent Cancun trip on FB. Etc, etc...
Part of me thinks that if they focus too long on the pandemic lockdowns and the Vaxx plan and the insane foreign policy and mass immigration and rising crime and social unrest, they will buckle mentally....so instead they are consciously doubling down on keeping up with the Joneses and life pre-2020 to the best they can.
If there is one silver-lining, if you can even call it that, it is the slow creep of "something unsettling" happening to the economy with every trip to the grocery store and gas station. That they talk about. Not in a scared way. But more in a "I see it" way. Many don't want to show or admit they are actually struggling (b/c it flies in the face of that they are not, in fact, keeping up with the Joneses) and this would be a tacit admission they may be f*****.
Exactly this. They know deep down, but they are working really hard to try and maintain the bubble the guy in the video talks about. It's fingers in the ears, singing lalalalalala.
Love of the bubble is what motivates denial. Gen Z and Millennials didn't get the bubble. Boomers have the biggest bubble, but it's popping faster than for Gen X because they see their kids and grandkids, some peers, struggling and with no opportunities for income, housing, and healthcare. In my experience, if sleeping Gen Xers see this, they immediately call it personal failure. Sometimes they are worse about that than boomers.
It occurs to me.... the latchkey generation grew up practicing denial to cope with some of their realities as kids. This is part of what makes them tough, practical, and stoic though, which can be a major asset when it's time to deal with reality. Hope they break through soon.