If you are fearful that the new generation of voters don't get it, read this article written by Alyssa Ahlgren. I think her analysis of why they think the way they do is exactly correct.

"I'm sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of Democratic candidates calling for policies to "fix" the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around. I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook's, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we've become completely blind to it. Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose. These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don't give them a second thought. We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty. One. Times. Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful.

Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, "An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity."

Never saw American prosperity. Let that sink in. When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I've ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Now, I'm not attributing Miss Ocasio-Cortez's words to outright dishonesty. I do think she whole-heartedly believes the words she said to be true. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided. My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let's just say I didn't have the popular opinion, but I digress.

Let me lay down some universal truths really quick. The United States of America has lifted more people out of abject poverty, spread more freedom and democracy, and has created more innovation in technology and medicine than any other nation in human history. Not only that but our citizenry continually breaks world records with charitable donations, the rags to riches story is not only possible in America but not uncommon, we have the strongest purchasing power on earth, and we encompass 25% of the world's GDP. The list goes on. However, these universal truths don't matter. We are told that income inequality is an existential crisis (even though this is not an indicator of prosperity, some of the poorest countries in the world have low-income inequality), we are told that we are oppressed by capitalism (even though it's brought about more freedom and wealth to the most people than any other system in world history), we are told that the only way we will acquire the benefits of true prosperity is through socialism and centralization of federal power (even though history has proven time and again this only brings tyranny and suffering).

Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country. People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they've never seen prosperity, and as a result, elect politicians dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism. Why? The answer is this, my generation has ONLY seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn't live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, or see the rise and fall of socialism and communism. We don't know what it's like not to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don't have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it's spreading like a plague.

With the current political climate giving rise to the misguided idea of a socialist utopia, will we see the light? Or will we have to lose it all to realize that what we have now is true prosperity? Destroying the free market will undo what millions of people have died to achieve.

My generation is becoming the largest voting bloc in the country. We have an opportunity to continue to propel us forward with the gifts capitalism and democracy has given us. The other option is that we can fall into the trap of entitlement and relapse into restrictive socialist destitution. The choice doesn't seem too hard, does it?" Amen and Amen

Alyssa Ahlgren

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I've decided to accept the fact - I'll always be a big kid!

Sure, you can buy a coffee anywhere and drink it while you play in your phone.

But how many own a house?

How many will have retirement funds or a pension?


(or they way things are going, would be able to get an abortion 2 years from now)

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When America was "great"

That's a steaming pile of privileged ignorance, conflagration of technology and disposable commodity culture for prosperity. Real wages have been stagnant for 20 years, nearly all new created wealth goes to 1%, and the environment is being devastated.

It's a wine mom philosophy concocted to excuse self indulgent materialism. If you never set foot outside a bubble of affluence i guess the U.S. might look like that. There are no poor, let them eat cake?

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".

Edited: 06/13/2019 at 06:01 PM by RustyTruck

Millions have no food.

Millions have no healthcare.

Millions have zero in retirement.

To compare the US with somewhere like Namibia is simply ridiculous.

Blah, blah, blah, be grateful you have a job and an 87 Accord to get you there. Sorry, but that life still sucks.





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I was right.

have to agree with the writer on much of it. we have it so amazingly good here that people take it for granted. most younger people havent been anywhere or done anything to give them real perspective and it is night a day compared to those that have. dont get pissy with what she wrote, it was an honest and fair take. it is true that we get stuck comparing ourselves to ourselves, but honestly that is ok as long as perspective is maintained. we have it so good compared to most of the world, but when you compare now to our past, we have fallen a good bit from our exceedingly high standards. so yeah, we gotta strive to improve and to stop the free fall

Countless numbers of younger people bust their asses, yet the don't achieve anywhere near what their parent did at the same stage in their lives. Financial security, home ownership...the simple achievements of the past are no longer simple. That's the point.

The author of the letter is a Right leaning commentator. It was penned with a purpose.

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I was right.

you seem to imply that because she leans right her words should be discounted. of course it was penned with purpose, every opinion piece ever written is regardless of political ideology. so? i agree with the rest of what you wrote, but your point wasnt hers. her point is that we take what we have for granted, dont appreciate it, and lack perspective. she is correct

Edited: 06/14/2019 at 05:05 AM by RiddleMe

>>>>. "her point is that we take what we have for granted, dont appreciate it, and lack perspective. she is correct" <<<<

The problem with the young left's argument is that they place too much consideration on the "me". It is pretty easy bitching about hunger in America when you're sipping on a $6 latte. They would be horribly befuddled if they were placed in a pre-3G, wi-fi less, world with no Amazon or Uber.

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Dora Hates You

Ah Alyssa. Getting old? Slipping into the "kids these days" mode? She'd be right at home on here.

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add a signature since I'm here in profile anyway

any generation would befuddled if placed in the past

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I troll 2L.com to be a better person in real life

Edited: 06/14/2019 at 06:43 AM by stokedpanda

She seems to lack the perspective to understand how that came about in the 1930 to 1970 period. She is either unaware of or ignoring that the structural changes to our tax and regulatory structure that were made in that period are now being undone. How about life expectancy? That is back sliding compared to other prosperous mixed economies. She says not to worry about income inequality. Some is good and expected. You need that carrot to get people to be productive. But too much leads to power imbalances that destabilize economies and lead to revolutions. In the 1920s this country had a small and massively wealthy upper class and things pretty much sucked for everybody else. Then the oligarchs fucked themselves in the markets and it all went to shit. But the war happened and after the war the government taxed the shit out of the top end and pushed that money into the broader economy by building insanely ambitious hydropower projects, the interstate highway system, building massive inland water navigation projects, dykeing off Lake O and wrecking the Kissimmee River. The thing is, that didn't happen by the government taking ownership of private companies. It just re-jiggered the economy from the bottom up. Sure some of the big projects are big environmental disasters. But they were good for economic activity. That contrasts with the disaster of full communism. See, there is a balance that she is ignoring right along with the shithole sections of this country outside of her little coffee house district. Seems irony is lost on her that she is in a coffee shop in the prosperous progressive city of Minneapolis. Maybe she should pop into a coffee shop in eastern Kentucky to write her next piece.

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Old GOP dudes and their coffee shop zero:

Loving America and wishing better for people are mutually exclusive.

Wrong and that is why you are completely out of touch

Says the kid from nice little northern Wisconsin town. "Entire generation" is an overstatement. But there's a crap ton of kids coming up that literally have never "seen" as in "Been a part of" American Prosperity. Something tells me that Ahlgren has no clue what life was like in the neighborhood where Cortez grew up.

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Edited: 06/14/2019 at 07:06 AM by scombrid

I have been saying the same thing for awhile. If they elect progs, though, they will get to see some real suffering. That's what I don't understand about those people - we have it great and they want throw away everything that got us to this point and go to systems that have been proven to not work. Not only do they not work, they cause human suffering, and lots of it.

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I :heart; Q

She's found a good niche to get attention. She's bigly famous in that crowd now.

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Thing were run in the 1920s the way that the GOP wants to run things now. That turned out well. We went into the Great Depression. The Nazis took over Germany. Russia went full retard. Yeah, lets Make The World Great Again.

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I dont think the younger generations have it in them to do the big projects that propelled the prosperity of the past. They want to make their money from behind the keyboard. The industrial revolution required blood and sweat. Kids these days dont have it. All the labor would be outsourced to non-Americans that are willing to bust their ass.

You kind of have to look at where people's motives are.

Do the race-baiters attain more money and power by healing the race problems in America or by keeping as many people as possible whipped into a frenzy?

Is more grant money being handed out to for studies on how our environment has improved since the industrial revolution or those geared towards doom and gloom?

Where is the incentive for Democrats to fix the immigration problem? As long as it exists, they get to tell eveyone how mean the Republicans are and are counting on the illegals as one-day Democrat voters.

Then you have the people who are like the old jackass on the board of a condo association. They are pissed off. They enjoy being pissed off. They want to tell others that they are doing something wrong because it makes them feel good about themselves. The virtue signalers and social justice warriors.

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"The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," - George Bernard Shaw

“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f—k things up.” - Barack Obama

“End of quote. Repeat the line.” - wise words from Joe Biden

Edited: 06/14/2019 at 07:11 AM by Sniper

You can't fund those big projects with regressive taxes either when 10% of the population holds 90% of the wealth. That is where we were in 1920. Then the great Depression and WWII happened and the rebuilding of the post war period happened and was funded with progressive taxes. Damn good thing we didn't go full retard like Russia.

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The rise of authoritarianism depends on a mythology of nationalist exceptionalism and delegitimization of opposition. Gaslighting: nothing is wrong, everything is wonderful, pay no attention to the teacher living in her car, the baby with measles, and the dead black man illuminated by flashing blue lights.

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".