The Disappearance of Virtue From American Politics

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

For Sasse to whine about Americans losing their sense of personal integrity and discipline is akin to Rommel complaining that Germans have lost their respect for human rights and consideration of other cultures.

I'll take Sasse seriously when he leaves the party that nominated a foul-mouthed bullying con-artist with the civility of a rabid wombat for the Presidency, and not one second sooner.

[JA]

My point is that the "hippie" movement is only a small part of the 1960's and the cultural changes of that era.  My point was that the parenting changes post-WWII, which manifested themselves through the '60s as these children came of age, explain much of the downhill trends seen since then.  These demographic/generational changes form the core of the decline in morality.  Granted, I think we may be talking about different things, since we likely see issues like economic inequality a bit differently, so we are going to disagree on how to interpret neoliberalism, but I'd imagine that where there is common ground - the basic social institutions, represented by things like divorce rates, out of wedlock births work force participation, social network strength, etc. very much have their roots in problems of societal changes in the 1960s.

The millennial generation (along with the tail end of Gen X) has actually reversed a lot of these trends and in many cases it dates back to the mid 1990's right when they began coming of age. And early signs thus far suggest that this will be the case with Homelanders aka Gen Z as well.

-Youth risk behavior as monitored by the CDC has been declining across the board from 1991-2015. These risk behaviors include not wearing a bicycle helmet or seatbelt, having sex, drinking alcohol, and smoking cigarettes, etc.
-Teen pregnancy, birth rate, and abortion rate have all fallen since they peaked in the 90's.
-Crime rates have plummeted 60-70% since 1995.
-Suicide rates among the youth have been steadily declining since the 90's.
-From 1990 to 2013, the share of high school grads with AP course credit rose from 12% to 39%
-Record breaking high school graduation rates for millennials so far.
-SAT scores have been rising, particular for math, which is amazing given that more and more teenagers are now taking the test.

Sources: I, II, III, IIII.

I think this is why a lot of the "family values" rhetoric from the GOP doesn't resonate well with millennials. They're already by and large doing the things they've been asked to do. And even then they get berated by boomers who accuse them of a lot of society's moral degradation when by most accounts, boomers constituted higher crime rates, drug use, teen pregnancy, etc. when they were coming of age.

Despite the countless and mounting pieces of evidence that demonstrate millennials, especially ones born in the '90s, are overall the most exemplary of all groups - especially at this age - the attacks are relentless. Apparently, when older people completely screw up a society, it is the norm to throw all the blame onto those who come after them. Even if we did every last thing they could want us to, they would still whine and complain about how awful we are. I just hope millennials do not do the same thing to future generations.

[Virginiá]

Despite the countless and mounting pieces of evidence that demonstrate millennials, especially ones born in the '90s, are overall the most exemplary of all groups - especially at this age - the attacks are relentless. Apparently, when older people completely screw up a society, it is the norm to throw all the blame onto those who come after them. Even if we did every last thing they could want us to, they would still whine and complain about how awful we are. I just hope millennials do not do the same thing to future generations.

I wonder if their scorn has been amplified by Millennials not thinking along similar lines, or acting like they do. It's easy to put the blame on us if they can convince themselves that, "if they just voted like we do, behaved like we do, thought like we do and stopped fighting us on everything, we could fix this mess!"

After all, it's much harder to look at one's own actions and the consequences of them than it is to just pass the blame.

[Hindsight was 2020]

My point is that the "hippie" movement is only a small part of the 1960's and the cultural changes of that era.  My point was that the parenting changes post-WWII, which manifested themselves through the '60s as these children came of age, explain much of the downhill trends seen since then.  These demographic/generational changes form the core of the decline in morality.  Granted, I think we may be talking about different things, since we likely see issues like economic inequality a bit differently, so we are going to disagree on how to interpret neoliberalism, but I'd imagine that where there is common ground - the basic social institutions, represented by things like divorce rates, out of wedlock births work force participation, social network strength, etc. very much have their roots in problems of societal changes in the 1960s.

The millennial generation (along with the tail end of Gen X) has actually reversed a lot of these trends and in many cases it dates back to the mid 1990's right when they began coming of age. And early signs thus far suggest that this will be the case with Homelanders aka Gen Z as well.

-Youth risk behavior as monitored by the CDC has been declining across the board from 1991-2015. These risk behaviors include not wearing a bicycle helmet or seatbelt, having sex, drinking alcohol, and smoking cigarettes, etc.
-Teen pregnancy, birth rate, and abortion rate have all fallen since they peaked in the 90's.
-Crime rates have plummeted 60-70% since 1995.
-Suicide rates among the youth have been steadily declining since the 90's.
-From 1990 to 2013, the share of high school grads with AP course credit rose from 12% to 39%
-Record breaking high school graduation rates for millennials so far.
-SAT scores have been rising, particular for math, which is amazing given that more and more teenagers are now taking the test.

Sources: I, II, III, IIII.

I think this is why a lot of the "family values" rhetoric from the GOP doesn't resonate well with millennials. They're already by and large doing the things they've been asked to do. And even then they get berated by boomers who accuse them of a lot of society's moral degradation when by most accounts, boomers constituted higher crime rates, drug use, teen pregnancy, etc. when they were coming of age.

^this x10000000000000

[JA]

Despite the countless and mounting pieces of evidence that demonstrate millennials, especially ones born in the '90s, are overall the most exemplary of all groups - especially at this age - the attacks are relentless. Apparently, when older people completely screw up a society, it is the norm to throw all the blame onto those who come after them. Even if we did every last thing they could want us to, they would still whine and complain about how awful we are. I just hope millennials do not do the same thing to future generations.

I wonder if their scorn has been amplified by Millennials not thinking along similar lines, or acting like they do. It's easy to put the blame on us if they can convince themselves that, "if they just voted like we do, behaved like we do, thought like we do and stopped fighting us on everything, we could fix this mess!"

After all, it's much harder to look at one's own actions and the consequences of them than it is to just pass the blame.

I've wondered the same thing. There is a very substantial generational divide in politics and religion; millennials are considerably more liberal and secular than their parents and grandparents. We were also the biggest supporters of Obama and Sanders, along with most likely to vote for Clinton or third party. If you notice, most of the complaining is done by older White people, primarily because we depart considerably from their political values of blind patriotism, Christian moralism, and Reaganesque "rugged individualism."

Not to mention economic conditions today make responsibly achieving certain benchmarks of adulthood, such as owning a car, buying a house, getting married, and having children, less realistic and often require considerably more time and effort. We not only have to graduate college with a 4-year degree, but land an (typically unpaid) internship and/or volunteer, gain a year or more of work experience before we can even obtain an entry level job, earn relatively little pay in said job while remaining in a precarious position that demands longer work hours, greater flexibility, and more skills, and afford expenses, such as rent in most cities which often exceeds $1,200 a month. I'm not sure how adding the expenses of saving for a home, covering the costs of raising a child, and all that is realistic on a $30-40,000 a year salary.

[Technocracy Timmy]

What I find incredible about the social indicators of millennials is that they've done all of this while being the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in American history. Millennials are far more likely than older generations to be members of a marginalized or disadvantaged racial/ethnic/immigrant group and yet they have been able to collectively improve over older generations by various social metrics.

If you think that most social indicators looked particularly bad for the Boomers when they were teenagers, you should take another look at how that cohort is doing now.

Very true. The prison population is rapidly aging for example.


If anybody else is interested, a lot of these social indicators were predicted in 1991 and 1997 by Neil Howe (who was the person I linked to in most of my sources) and William Strauss. These two researchers came to the conclusion after countless amounts of research on american generations that there's a cyclical nature towards generational aging. They thought that millennials would end up being very similar to their G.I. grandparents/great grandparents. Like them, we'd be more group/civic oriented, less confrontational, and would engage far less in risky behaviors. They predicted that millennials would also be more focused on outer world problems rather than the inner world spirituality that defined the baby boomers with the consciousness revolution.

During the 90's this seemed impossible to people at the time. Older Americans thought millennials would be just as bad if not worse than Xers and boomers were in their youth since the 90's saw certain social metrics peak in their severity (see my sources listed above). Strauss and Howe contested this and said that millennials would be raised in a much more protective environment by their moral crusading baby boomer parents and that crime rates, teen pregnancy, risky behaviors, etc. would decline as millennials came of age.

[Sumner 1868]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

[Badger]

Typical conservative. Virtue has often been a minority in American politics. Andrew Jackson, anyone? The Senate's refusal to regulate lynching? Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter? Well cultivated individuals have generally been a minority.

Ben Sasse is the poster boy of the GOP's economic nihilism wing. What is virtuous about cutting my brother's Medicaid to fund wars abroad?

Not to pick a fight, but you DO realize that is part and parcel of TRUMP'S budget, right?

[Badger]

Ahhh...Ben sASSe, another all talk do nothing Senate seat warmer who complains about the discourse of our politics but drops to his knees and approves anything daddy Trump wants.

Yeah...I'm sure all these kids watching your president and party are really gonna come away with upstanding virtues.

In fairness, wasn't he among the hardcore #NeverTrump-ers during the election?

[Badger]

"What's the matter with these darn kids of today?", installment # 34,806 since the dawn of civilization.

[Sumner 1868]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

[Badger]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Well, that's an interesting question. Avoiding the inevitable debate over the Great Society's benefits/harms, what since then has the boomer generation passed of historical note? Reagan's tax cuts are debatable, but more importantly the boomers still were largely newcomers rather than leaders of Congress and the government. The Americans with Disabilities Act? The Clinton Administration's balanced budgets? The ACA?

I may slap myself in the forehead when someone points out something obvious I'm currently missing, but for now there appear to be slim pickings for a contender.....

[JA]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

Baby Boomers gave us Clinton, Bush II, Obama, and Trump. Their political era has been marked by neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and Trumpism.

[Sumner 1868]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

I know that. The point is their has been a lot of legislation with very great consequences under Boomer-dominated government.

[Badger]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

I know that. The point is their has been a lot of legislation with very great consequences under Boomer-dominated government.

Such as?

[Badger]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

I know that. The point is their has been a lot of legislation with very great consequences under Boomer-dominated government.

Such as?

[JA]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

I know that. The point is their has been a lot of legislation with very great consequences under Boomer-dominated government.

Aside from gay marriage legalization and the (rather awful, but considerably better than nothing) ACA, what legislation? I seem to recall repeal of glass-steagall, welfare reform, mass incarceration, Iraq War and lies of WMDs, massive budget deficits and irresponsible tax policies, an election contest between Clinton and Trump (both preferred by the older generations, albeit Trump more so), re-election of Bush, Bush tax cuts, attempts at privatizing Social Security, refusal to provide amnesty for undocumented immigrants, widespread Islamophobia, and now "fake news" conspiracy theory nationalism.

[Technocracy Timmy]

How are we defining generations and political legislation though? Reagan came from the same generation as JFK yet they had very different politics.

Reagan probably better than anybody else really tapped into the anti-establishment, individualistic, and moralistic nature of the baby boomer generation who ushered in the consciousness revolution. FDR also tapped into the Greatest Generation's optimistic can do attitude and teamwork centered approach to problem solving even though he was older than them.

[Badger]

Ahhh...Ben sASSe, another all talk do nothing Senate seat warmer who complains about the discourse of our politics but drops to his knees and approves anything daddy Trump wants.

Yeah...I'm sure all these kids watching your president and party are really gonna come away with upstanding virtues.

In fairness, wasn't he among the hardcore #NeverTrump-ers during the election?

Yeah...because he figured Trump would lose and he would look good and then he could act holier than thou like he put his morals before politics.

Now that Trump won, Sasse literally dropped to his knees overnight. At this point, he's wearing out his pair of complementary Trump knee pads. Sassee will rubber stamp everything Trump wants...just like Flake, McCain, Lindsey...all of them

Well, let's make it clear that other than a few neoconservative (God I hate using that word) foreign policy issues (one can count the Muslim ban under that category) almost no Republicans opposed--or oppose--Trump's actual (professed) policy positions, Sasse included. The opposition was primarily for the nasty visceral overt level of crudeness and prejudice Trump exuded (exudes).

Call it a character check Trump failed for many Republicans. None of that would ever change Sasse or others from supporting a wholesale slashing of the social safety net and upper income taxes, keeping barriers up for illegals from getting citizenship, etc.

[Sumner 1868]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

I know that. The point is their has been a lot of legislation with very great consequences under Boomer-dominated government.

Such as?

-Family Leave Act
-NAFTA/WTO
-Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (i.e., "the crime bill")
-Telecmmunications deregulation
-Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
-Defense of Marriage Act
-S-CHIP
-Copyright Term Extension Act
-Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
-USA Patriot ACt
-Homeland Security Act
-Help America Vote Act
-Homeland Security ACt
-Medicare Part D
-Bank and auto bailouts

We could also include the legislation of Obama's first two years as the Congress was largely Boomer-dominated. While I don't approve of most of what I listed, they were all certainly of significance.

[Badger]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

I know that. The point is their has been a lot of legislation with very great consequences under Boomer-dominated government.

Such as?

-Family Leave Act
-NAFTA/WTO
-Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (i.e., "the crime bill")
-Telecmmunications deregulation
-Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
-Defense of Marriage Act
-S-CHIP
-Copyright Term Extension Act
-Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
-USA Patriot ACt
-Homeland Security Act
-Help America Vote Act
-Homeland Security ACt
-Medicare Part D
-Bank and auto bailouts

We could also include the legislation of Obama's first two years as the Congress was largely Boomer-dominated. While I don't approve of most of what I listed, they were all certainly of significance.

Did you just Wikipedia "Major" legislation passed since 1990? Most of that stuff is pretty small beer in importance or impact compared to most of the Great Society (again, whether you disagree or agree with it). "The Copyright Term Extension Act"? Really?? Yeah, Head Start is practically forgotten under that legislative behemoth.

The only one of these that might go beyond being an asterisk in a history book is maybe the Family Medical Leave Act. Even though most of the Congressional leadership was still very much Greatest Generationers, I suppose it being backed and signed into law by the first boomer president gives them some credit for passage.

Beyond that, these are mostly nothingburgers relatively speaking. The Homeland Security act, for all the post-911 shakeups in government, was mostly about administrative and government reorganizations rather than actually creating something new.

I know I cautioned against judging the debatable merits rather than the impact of legislation, but I question whether The Patriot Act (or at least some of its provisions) will be well-regarded by history. And I'm definitely calling BS on the Defense of Marriage Act. That odious piece of homophobic legislation was crap. You might as well include the Anti-Slave Fugitive Act on such a list. And like said ACT, DOMA was of minimal long-term impact considering it was undermined by state statutes and found unconstitutional barely 20 years later.

No, for good or ill the boomer's most influential legislative "accomplishments" beyond FMLA I guess would be the post-911 authorizations for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus arguably the ACA (the greatest expansion of healthcare coverage since 1965, which would've approached universal coverage in Lieberman hadn't turned his back on long-claimed support for such coverage and single-handedly killed the public option).

Wow, that's a pretty lacking list compared to their forebearers.

[Sumner 1868]

Did you just Wikipedia "Major" legislation passed since 1990?

No, I remembered most of them from a thread we had a while back on past legislation.

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That could be said about most of American legislative history.

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It's significant regardless. Certainly the Fugitive Slave Act was significant.

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Who are we referring to? The founders? The Reconstruction era? The GIs? Someone else?

[Technocracy Timmy]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This post was a joke right?

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

to be honest, i think what we are seeing isn't a "disappearance of virtue", but rather the exact opposite — a growing sense of morality on the left

[Torie]

Not really. These things go up and down. We have had some really vicious periods in American politics.