When I started this blog, I was looking for history to turn.
I thought the Iraq War would be a turning point. I thought the election of Barack Obama would be a turning point. I thought Hillary Clinton would be a turning point. I thought January 6 would be a turning point.
None of that happened. The reason is that we live so long. Maybe we live too long.
Look at President Johnson addressing Congress on voting rights in 1965. Notice the weak old man in the upper right-hand corner of the picture. He was John H. McCormack. He was the Speaker of the House. On that day he was 74 years old.
Today Joe Biden is 79. Nancy Pelosi is 81. Even vice president Kamala Harris, at 57, is older than then-vice president Hubert Humphrey, who was 54.
We live longer than ever today, but our beliefs don’t change. They harden as we age. Only the grave takes those beliefs out of the system.
For too many Americans today, politics remains stuck in the 1960s. We remain stuck in Vietnam, in the lessons and the assumptions of that time. To be liberal is to be for disorder. To be conservative is to be for order.
That’s not true anymore. Quite the opposite.
But January 6 didn’t change anyone’s views on that. Joe Biden’s speech today didn’t change that.
What will change it is the continual cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. What changes it are new lessons learned by new generations.
The COVID pandemic is what will change our future history. It will remove over 1 million Americans before it’s over. Most will be older Americans. Most will be people who refused vaccinations. Most will be Trump supporters.
Meanwhile, a new generation is coming to power. It’s a generation that has been denied the full blessings of our economy for their lifetimes. Millennials are not as rich as their parents. Millions still don’t have careers, only gigs. I have two living in my house right now. Those born after the millennials have it even rougher, and they’re angrier about it. I don’t blame them.
We know how these people are voting, and we know what they’re thinking. The status quo won’t answer for them. They demand action, as they should, to save mankind from its destruction by the oil powers.
Every day, a few old boomers die. Every day another member of Generation Z comes of age.
That’s how change will happen. It’s time for my generation to get out of the way and let the kids take over. The kids are all right.
