A Baby Boomer Explains What’s Wrong with Millennials

Well, now you know.

The problem is twofold. First, we Baby Boomers raised a generation of selfish, entitled brats. (I do not include my own children in that description, and if that seems hypocritical and self-serving — well, you don’t know my kids.)

Second, in their entitled brattiness, an alarming percentage of that generation — the Millennials — has embraced socialism.

That’s a disaster for this country because socialism is not just an evil ideology, although it is that — responsible, in its various iterations (including communism and fascism) for somewhere in the neighborhood of 110 million murders just in the last century or so. Nor is it merely an absurd economic system, although it is that, too, ignoring the immutable law of supply and demand as well as basic human nature.

No, socialism is, above all, a simplistic, childish worldview whose adherents seem perpetually stuck in preschool, demanding that everyone receive exactly the same number of cookies and insisting that “it’s not fair” that Suzy is prettier, Jimmy can run faster, and Rachael is better at flashcards.

Why, then, are so many Millennials so enamored of this vile and utterly impractical ideology — despite the fact that, if implemented, it would actually crush their dreams?

After all, most young people these days seem to desire two things above all else: to live in a socialist utopia and to become internet millionaires — completely oblivious to the reality that those two pipe dreams cancel each other out. Entrepreneurship requires free markets, which is why there are no hipsters happily blogging away for six-figure salaries in Caracas or Havana coffee shops.

Clearly, we’re talking about a bunch of overgrown preschoolers who have been so coddled and protected all their lives that they have no idea what it means to live in the real world and are frightened by their occasional glimpses of it.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had a few years ago with one of my sons, then in his mid-20s and shopping for car insurance. “Adulting is hard,” he quipped over the phone. Thankfully, he was just kidding.

But too many of his generation genuinely feel that way. Faced with the pressures of growing up, they have apparently decided it’s much easier to opt out. And if Mommy and Daddy will no longer provide the necessities of life — as well as most of their wants — then society must. Such is the appeal of socialism.

Perhaps this explains why so many young adults are still acting out juvenile fantasies well into their 30s. A few examples from the Trump administration come to mind.

You may recall that following the 2016 election, a group of Millennials at one government agency decided to join “#theresistance,” dubbing themselves “Dumbledore’s Army.”

Like all Americans, they were free to disagree with Trump’s policies all they wanted. (Although, as government employees, they did have a certain obligation to either carry out those policies or resign.) And the Harry Potter books are great for young readers. But that’s exactly what they are: books for kids. “Adults” who invoke children’s fantasies to advance their political agenda simply cannot be taken seriously.

Not to be outdone, a group of female members of Congress, mostly Millennials, attempted to show their disapproval during one of President Trump’s State of the Union addresses by standing and holding up three fingers while chanting “H.R. three!”

The chant was in reference to a bill lowering the cost of insulin, something I could probably get behind. But there’s no question that the “three-finger salute” was also a nod to Katniss Everdeen, heroine of the Hunger Games trilogy.

And then there are those women who dress up as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale to protest policies they don’t like. That may not be a children’s book, but it certainly evinces a childlike perspective, one that has nothing to do with reality in the United States of America.

(There is an ideology in the world that promotes exactly the kind of behavior described in The Handmaid’s Tale. But we’re not allowed to criticize it lest we be branded as religious bigots.)

Playing dress-up is a common activity among children. Adults, theoretically, should have outgrown it. If they haven’t — well, maybe they’re not really adults, and the rest of us should pay about as much attention to what they say as we do to the disjointed ramblings of toddlers.

Unfortunately, these particular overgrown toddlers, the same ones who were pitching fits in grocery stores thirty years ago, are now running our schools, staffing our agencies, and driving much of public policy.

That certainly explains a lot.