Democratic Primaries

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1239165106543456264.html


Anand Giridharadas
@AnandWrites

We are living in a moment of passive-aggressive generational warfare.

Boomers are voting in ways that would steal the future from young people.

And many young people are shrugging off the virus in ways that risk stealing the future from boomers.

We are asking many young people to sacrifice, and they should. We are telling them that, while they risk little by getting infected, they endanger others. We are telling them we’re in this together.

But when young people make similar claims in politics, do their elders listen?
The virus isn’t the beginning of our social contract.

Young people have been voting for real change for years now, only to have it thwarted by older voters.

They want guaranteed healthcare, but people who already have care can’t be moved to send down the ladder.

This is why we shouldn’t be selective in our we-are-all-in-this-together arguments. Because it’s a maxim that is always true, not just when it benefits you.

It’s true about staying home from bars. And it’s true about paid sick leave and Medicare for All.

Feeling in-this-together with people is a societal habit. There’s a reason it is in short supply right now during the virus. Because we haven’t been cultivating this habit in our politics and civic life.

So, yes, #StayTheFHome. But also: Vote for policies that help others.

If you look at any opinion survey of young people, young people are not the reason we have a low minimum wage, bad healthcare, job insecurity, unaffordable debt, etc.

Young people have been voting overwhelmingly for a we-are-all-in-this-together society and being rejected.

The message a young person might take from living in this era is: I guess we’re all in it for ourselves.

That is a message that’s going to get a lot of people killed in this crisis. It’s wrong and needs to be fought. But it can’t just be fought by telling people to stay home.

We are living on the back end of a four-decade cultural project to make us disbelieve in having each other’s back.

As we fight the virus, we must remember that this is the larger battle we’re in — and enlisting in it may be the key to beating the virus.