No More Respect

Watching a former porn model present a former drug addict with a medal is how we all imagined 2020 would go, right? https://t.co/1KeuNKe2Qw

— Frank the Bunny (@DeadBunnyFrank) February 5, 2020

I cannot recall exactly how many times I was admonished to "respect my elders" as a child but it was a nonzero number. The idea holds for most people, most of the time. You are supposed to grow intellectually as a person and acquire wisdom, achievements, good works, and knowledge as you grow older.

Then there are Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump. Old, white men who have been coddled and rewarded with material success for many long decades now without any of the qualities that would garner respect from the standard of my grandparents' generation. They deserve nothing because they have earned nothing and are, intellectually, still children. All of the coddling and wealth extraction has gone into nothing more virtuous than stoking their own egos and insulating them from reality.

The hashtag #okayboomer has gained a little bit of traction recently and boy do they hate it (see here, here, here, and here). I also do not like over-generalizations but as an historian working with generalizations really comes with the territory. It is simply impossible to describe individual or even small groups of an entire generation without using them, finding common traits that to a greater or lessor extent characterize the larger group. Especially not within the constraints of a medium like blogging. That said, the ground rule here is: if an individual boomer is among the 63 million republicans who voted for Trump, or one of the 14 million Limbaugh listeners then my generalizations about boomers hold; if you were born between 1946 and 1964 but have not aligned with these two monsters and have tried to understand science, the harsh reality for many younger Americans, and the simple fact that you don't know everything but want to continue to learn then the generalizations do not apply.

I can also state with some confidence that narcissistic assholes like Limbaugh and Trump have probably existed in every generational cohort since the founding of Jamestown. But like so many things about the boomers, the size of that cohort has allowed more of every personality type to influence the larger society. Just as more do gooders during the Civil Rights Movement, black and white, allowed for change and improvement over the very strong objections of the elders. But what happened after that? A lot. What happened to those do gooders since the 1960s and how did so many boomers fall under Rush Limbaugh's spell? From the perspective of a younger person like myself, the majority of boomers had this small span of youthful activism and a far longer stretch of greed, self-indulgence, nihilism, authoritarianism, decadence, narcissism, and gullibility. There had to be some measure of gullibility, Limbaugh isn't that smart, charismatic, or persuasive to win over such a huge audience. Historians, linguists, sociologists, and concerned citizens will be studying why so many boomers embraced fascism... long before Donald Trump ever announced he wanted to sully the office of President with his doughy ass.

So this, then, is the real reason why I no longer reflexively "respect my elders". I cannot put my finger on exactly when first I realized that a boomer who was lecturing me on something I was "too young and stupid" to understand was completely full of shit. But I started noticing it more and more, especially after each "adult" milestone. You could always tell when a lecture was coming and that the precious advice they were offering was almost never solicited or welcome. Usually the unqualified ranting came when you were in a situation that made it difficult or awkward to extricate one's self from, like the dinner table or in a car. That combination of helplessness and entrapment in their victims must give these "conservative" boomers a real feeling of power. The same power that Limbaugh exercises over them.

Watching the porn model, mail order trophy bride of a wannabe gangster pin the presidential medal of freedom around the neck of a bully really hits it home how much this cult leader has degenerated the nation. That medal is now just a trinket to all the worthy beneficiaries that came before. Throw the outdated axiom of respecting our elders out the window, respect must be earned. Never again assume that someone has wisdom and should be deferred to because they are older. This generation of baby boomer conservatives, led by Limbaugh and Trump, never again get the benefit of the doubt. Never again do any of us have to take criticisms from boomers seriously when they sound like the hollow spouting of Limbaugh.