Open Letter to Millennial Socialists (esp. of Montgomery County)

[Anonymous]

Dear millennial socialists on Twitter,

I have some words for you which may sound tough on your feelings, but please realize that I was you less than ten years ago.

I'm sure you have heard this before, but it is time - in fact, long overdue - to start taking responsibility for your own destiny. Thankfully, our free-enterprise system enables you to do just that.
Yes, it sucks that you may have to shack up with roommates for longer than you had hoped. Yes, it's too bad that you have a six-figure student loan debt with a five-figure salary, and that your ability to regurgitate the words of your leftist professor of Feminist Critique of Medieval French Literature did not result in high-paying jobs falling into your lap upon graduation. Maybe it's hard enough that - participation trophies from your parents notwithstanding - you are not all destined for greatness, or even for DC, as you should have learned after your second unpaid internship didn't hire you full time. Even better would be to realize that you might have wanted to opt for a lower-tier school if you weren't competitive enough to get scholarships for your first choice school.

My wish for you is to stop whining on Twitter and start taking positive actions to better yourselves and stop using "your generation" and its "injustices" as an excuse or a status of victimhood. This may hurt to realize, but as you are whining on twitter about your loans and low salaries and high costs and "systematic oppression," many of us elder millennials and X-ennials are advancing our careers into managerial positions and quietly hitting other life milestones getting married, having children, buying houses. All of those things that you swore Baby Boomers conspired to prevent you from doing.

If you are not hitting these milestones, there may be different reasons, but they are much more related to your own decision making than they are to "the man" or "the machine" or "the system." If your arts degree landed you a $50K paper pusher job you don't like, well, this is where ingenuity, resourcefulness, risk taking, and creativity come in. Yes, it's hard. Life is supposed to be hard. With obstacles and challenges and curveballs. This is not unique to your generation. Yes, some specific challenges are unique to those in your age range, and it may appear that your parents had it easier, but let me tell you, they didn't. Their obstacles were just different. Not unique to any generation is the need to hustle.

Regarding a recent thread about "jobs that pay $100K where you can work 40 hours a week" or something along those lines. What I think some younger millennials believe is that one arrives at these jobs just by checking the boxes and staying out of trouble. No, this lifestyle is work toward, competed for, and earned. There is a reason why your 20s and 30s are one's physical prime. This is when you are supposed to put in the bulk of work to reap the benefits of in your 50s and 60s and beyond. Your 20s and 30s are not intended for brunching, Netflixing, and tweeting angrily when your boss asks you to stay late. These are the years when the hustling is done. Don't waste them complaining about the need to hustle when you are not actually doing it. The beautiful thing about capitalism is that there is nothing institutionally preventing you from doing so.

Millennial socialists using their iPhones to retweet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with rose emojis remind me of Philip Rearden from Atlas Shrugged - the wannabe social justice intellectual who finds his work is not valued and finds he has to rely on producers of industry for his own well-being while biting the hand that feeds him.

Why am I posting this in the Local Politics section of DCUM? First, I find that many DCUM users will echo my message, and might share my sentiments that intended to be of tough love, not derision. Second, that I have increasingly noticed the presence of DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) types popping up around Montgomery County.
MoCo elected two Socialists to the Maryland General Assembly and a Socialist as County Executive.
A lot of these people, you may recognize some of their Twitter handles, are staunch supporters of Marc Elrich. If two thirds of Elrich's base are older homeowners who oppose development, a good one third of his supporters are younger millennials/post-millennial college students and Bernie Bros. These are the people I am talking about. (Mr. Elrich and his NIMBY policies have nothing in the interests of elder millennials/GenX successful professionals who are trying to buy homes and raise families) Instead of making the most of the free market system, they ask for free stuff, whine on Twitter, blame "the rich" (if you hate the rich so much, why do you live in Bethesda?) for their lack of success and look to Elrich, Bernie, and AOC to solve their problems. They virtue signal about the environment and gentrification and poverty while trying to shame those who fail their purity tests. Instead of recognizing how their lack of financial success results from their own decisions and work ethic, they'd rather cover up and/or justify their shortcomings with an "edgy" identity as a Socialist.

I'm sorry, but caring about these things does not make you a better person than me. I have a five-year-old; I also care about climate change and want her to grow up in a clean environment. But you have to understand, the reason why true progressive activism among adults is so laudable is that there are trade-offs to be made. It's one thing to march and protest and organize when you schedule it around Netflix and brunch; it's truly another when you have a young child and a demanding job and a house to take care of. And I say this, not saying that the 20-year-old liberal with a heart must become a 30-year-old conservative if he/she has a brain; I say this as a moderate Democrat who understands that there is context and there are tradeoffs to make.

So please, do us all a favor, and get off Twitter. Put your noses to the grindstone, work harder at your jobs, produce something of value, create a life for yourselves. Capitalism, unlike socialism, enables you to do so.

Signed,

a 35-year-old X-ennial who truly was this person into her late 20s.

[Anonymous]

Solution: open primaries. Elrich won the primary by 77 votes when it was spread across 6 Dem candidates. If we had open primaries, the general election would have results in 2 Dems on the ballot, at least one who was moderate.

That said, so far Elrich has been running a fairly responsible government, especially fiscally (though still pandering to unions). I was expecting a lot worse from him. In fact, a lot of the millennial socialists in MoCo are getting mad and say he let them down -- that's a good sign.

[Anonymous]

My take as an "old" Gen-Xer is that the millennial generation is much like the ones before. They believe that they have things harder than the generations before and that being smart and having a laudable degree is enough to get ahead in the world.

The main difference I see is that there are far more millennials percentage-wise than previous generations that don't understand the zero-sum game that there are only limited opportunities for the young and entry-level and that just being smart and well-credentialed is not enough. And just because you are smart and well-credentialed does not mean that you get to leap-frog other people with more experience than you and get the positions that you think you think you deserve. There are many more in this generation that are well-credentialed than in past generations, in part, because so many more are going to college and going to prestigious colleges. A substantially greater number of millennials believe that they deserve to be able to get the good jobs and don't have to work hard and pay their dues to get ahead. They also think that after a year on the job, they deserve to be promoted or get a big raise for doing what other people are doing. While there are still a lot of millennials that break the mold and work-hard, take lower level jobs and work their way up, there are far fewer of them percentage-wise of their generation than in previous generations. There are far more who don't think they have to take a lower paying job, do the grunt work, work the holidays or extra hours to pay their dues. The ones that behave more like earlier generations, take the second-tier school for lower loans, take the lower paying job to get a foot in the door, work hard to show they deserve the opportunity, do the work that no one else wants to show their commitment and do their work well to prove their diligence, are the ones who will get ahead. The growing number who think that their expensive degree and just being smart should be an automatic ticket to the fast track are the ones who I find themselves doing what OP complains about.

[Anonymous]

Lol @ quoting “Atlas Shrugged.”

Get a life, OP. Or at least reference better books!

[Anonymous]

Cool story, OP! Tell it again! I like the part where you pretend to be very old and wise and dispense sage advice but then tell us you're 35!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My take as an "old" Gen-Xer is that the millennial generation is much like the ones before. They believe that they have things harder than the generations before and that being smart and having a laudable degree is enough to get ahead in the world.

The main difference I see is that there are far more millennials percentage-wise than previous generations that don't understand the zero-sum game that there are only limited opportunities for the young and entry-level and that just being smart and well-credentialed is not enough. And just because you are smart and well-credentialed does not mean that you get to leap-frog other people with more experience than you and get the positions that you think you think you deserve. There are many more in this generation that are well-credentialed than in past generations, in part, because so many more are going to college and going to prestigious colleges. A substantially greater number of millennials believe that they deserve to be able to get the good jobs and don't have to work hard and pay their dues to get ahead. They also think that after a year on the job, they deserve to be promoted or get a big raise for doing what other people are doing. While there are still a lot of millennials that break the mold and work-hard, take lower level jobs and work their way up, there are far fewer of them percentage-wise of their generation than in previous generations. There are far more who don't think they have to take a lower paying job, do the grunt work, work the holidays or extra hours to pay their dues. The ones that behave more like earlier generations, take the second-tier school for lower loans, take the lower paying job to get a foot in the door, work hard to show they deserve the opportunity, do the work that no one else wants to show their commitment and do their work well to prove their diligence, are the ones who will get ahead. The growing number who think that their expensive degree and just being smart should be an automatic ticket to the fast track are the ones who I find themselves doing what OP complains about.

IMO this is a huge part of the problem. In the old days, colleges and universities weren't for everyone and weren't supposed to be for everyone. Now, some people are going to college who shouldn't be, and those are the people in student debt. The kind of people who are of college-going intellect of previous days are the ones who get scholarships today. Everyone else should realize that instead of digging themselves in a financial hole, they should get trade jobs instead. And no, this doesn't solidify an oppressive class structure - one can work hard in a trade and then get into management and then own a business. A much better trajectory than paper-pusher in an office with a huge student debt.

As for Montgomery County - one of those two socialists is in my district. Vaugh Stewart's social housing bill is dead on arrival, and I think the people who support it the most probably don't even know what it means. It just sounds cool.
But yeas I agree with OP that there are a disturbing number of loud socialists in Montgomery County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lol @ quoting “Atlas Shrugged.”

Get a life, OP. Or at least reference better books!

Amen!

[Anonymous]

TL;DR

[Anonymous]

I'm in my 50s and a centrist so I don't agree with the pragmatics behind the progressive ideals but I see where they have merit. When DH and I graduated from grad school we had about 20K in debt and were able to pay off most of our costs by working or through TA fellow ships. Our lives would have been very different if we had come out with 600K in debt. Even state school costs have sky rocketed and due to the high cost of private colleges the competition to get into state schools is insane. DH and I have spent our working lives saving not only for retirement but saving for college for our kids and we're still worried. Our own parents are shocked at what college will cost for their grandkids.

The millenials will inherit climate change at a point where it can't be turned back. I think it certainly makes sense for them to care. Plus if they don't, well then the planet is absolutely screwed.

You can be old but you have to live in the current world. The past is gone and clinging to perceptions that defined a bygone era while blaming reality on the young is just delusion.

[Anonymous]

What a condescending load of bollocks!

I’m sure the Millennial Socialists you have in mind are going to hop off twitter in favor of “saving” from a random person on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear millennial socialists on Twitter,

I have some words for you which may sound tough on your feelings, but please realize that I was you less than ten years ago.

I'm sure you have heard this before, but it is time - in fact, long overdue - to start taking responsibility for your own destiny. Thankfully, our free-enterprise system enables you to do just that.
Yes, it sucks that you may have to shack up with roommates for longer than you had hoped. Yes, it's too bad that you have a six-figure student loan debt with a five-figure salary, and that your ability to regurgitate the words of your leftist professor of Feminist Critique of Medieval French Literature did not result in high-paying jobs falling into your lap upon graduation. Maybe it's hard enough that - participation trophies from your parents notwithstanding - you are not all destined for greatness, or even for DC, as you should have learned after your second unpaid internship didn't hire you full time. Even better would be to realize that you might have wanted to opt for a lower-tier school if you weren't competitive enough to get scholarships for your first choice school.

My wish for you is to stop whining on Twitter and start taking positive actions to better yourselves and stop using "your generation" and its "injustices" as an excuse or a status of victimhood. This may hurt to realize, but as you are whining on twitter about your loans and low salaries and high costs and "systematic oppression," many of us elder millennials and X-ennials are advancing our careers into managerial positions and quietly hitting other life milestones getting married, having children, buying houses. All of those things that you swore Baby Boomers conspired to prevent you from doing.

If you are not hitting these milestones, there may be different reasons, but they are much more related to your own decision making than they are to "the man" or "the machine" or "the system." If your arts degree landed you a $50K paper pusher job you don't like, well, this is where ingenuity, resourcefulness, risk taking, and creativity come in. Yes, it's hard. Life is supposed to be hard. With obstacles and challenges and curveballs. This is not unique to your generation. Yes, some specific challenges are unique to those in your age range, and it may appear that your parents had it easier, but let me tell you, they didn't. Their obstacles were just different. Not unique to any generation is the need to hustle.

Regarding a recent thread about "jobs that pay $100K where you can work 40 hours a week" or something along those lines. What I think some younger millennials believe is that one arrives at these jobs just by checking the boxes and staying out of trouble. No, this lifestyle is work toward, competed for, and earned. There is a reason why your 20s and 30s are one's physical prime. This is when you are supposed to put in the bulk of work to reap the benefits of in your 50s and 60s and beyond. Your 20s and 30s are not intended for brunching, Netflixing, and tweeting angrily when your boss asks you to stay late. These are the years when the hustling is done. Don't waste them complaining about the need to hustle when you are not actually doing it. The beautiful thing about capitalism is that there is nothing institutionally preventing you from doing so.

Millennial socialists using their iPhones to retweet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with rose emojis remind me of Philip Rearden from Atlas Shrugged - the wannabe social justice intellectual who finds his work is not valued and finds he has to rely on producers of industry for his own well-being while biting the hand that feeds him.

Why am I posting this in the Local Politics section of DCUM? First, I find that many DCUM users will echo my message, and might share my sentiments that intended to be of tough love, not derision. Second, that I have increasingly noticed the presence of DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) types popping up around Montgomery County.
MoCo elected two Socialists to the Maryland General Assembly and a Socialist as County Executive.
A lot of these people, you may recognize some of their Twitter handles, are staunch supporters of Marc Elrich. If two thirds of Elrich's base are older homeowners who oppose development, a good one third of his supporters are younger millennials/post-millennial college students and Bernie Bros. These are the people I am talking about. (Mr. Elrich and his NIMBY policies have nothing in the interests of elder millennials/GenX successful professionals who are trying to buy homes and raise families) Instead of making the most of the free market system, they ask for free stuff, whine on Twitter, blame "the rich" (if you hate the rich so much, why do you live in Bethesda?) for their lack of success and look to Elrich, Bernie, and AOC to solve their problems. They virtue signal about the environment and gentrification and poverty while trying to shame those who fail their purity tests. Instead of recognizing how their lack of financial success results from their own decisions and work ethic, they'd rather cover up and/or justify their shortcomings with an "edgy" identity as a Socialist.

I'm sorry, but caring about these things does not make you a better person than me. I have a five-year-old; I also care about climate change and want her to grow up in a clean environment. But you have to understand, the reason why true progressive activism among adults is so laudable is that there are trade-offs to be made. It's one thing to march and protest and organize when you schedule it around Netflix and brunch; it's truly another when you have a young child and a demanding job and a house to take care of. And I say this, not saying that the 20-year-old liberal with a heart must become a 30-year-old conservative if he/she has a brain; I say this as a moderate Democrat who understands that there is context and there are tradeoffs to make.

So please, do us all a favor, and get off Twitter. Put your noses to the grindstone, work harder at your jobs, produce something of value, create a life for yourselves. Capitalism, unlike socialism, enables you to do so.

Signed,

a 35-year-old X-ennial who truly was this person into her late 20s.

BraVO!!!! Please go into the school systems and give this speech. Much needed.

[Anonymous]

What a pathetic load of crap.

[Anonymous]

Tl;dr.

I am an older millennial with a kid, a job, ongoing career advancement, and student debt paid off. I ALSO think there are huge problems of inequality, suffering due to lack of medical access, and environmental risks and impacts in this country even though I'm doing fine myself. I will donate and vote accordingly. This isn't a pull yourself up by your bootstraps issue here, sometimes it's not all about you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tl;dr.

I am an older millennial with a kid, a job, ongoing career advancement, and student debt paid off. I ALSO think there are huge problems of inequality, suffering due to lack of medical access, and environmental risks and impacts in this country even though I'm doing fine myself. I will donate and vote accordingly. This isn't a pull yourself up by your bootstraps issue here, sometimes it's not all about you.

+1.

I'm doing fine, but I care about people who aren't. We are all in this together.

[Anonymous]

The millennial “problem” seems to be restricted to the very expensive coastal cities.

DH’s job puts him in contact with plenty of young millenials in flyover who occupy junior level positions in his company and they are all buying houses and living comfortable lives. In places like Tampa, Atlanta, Charlotte, Phoenix, Denver and Columbus. Most of them came out of state universities. They’re doing just fine.

From what I can tell the issue is that some millenials who have flocked to places like DC or NYC or California have discovered they’re falling behind in those markets but refuse to move to a more affordable city are now complaining about unfair life is. Well, my response is to grow up. No one is owed an UMC life in DC or NYC. You want to stay in those places? Figure out what you need to do. If you can’t make it, move elsewhere if you want a better quality of life.