Sure, sure, but in the US, they never forgave Johnson for the '68 civil rights act and managed to elect Republicans for 78% of the time from 1970-present.
Comment on Can you believe all those wildfires in [your country here]?
modestmeme@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ha ha sure, 200 years of Industrial Revolution but it’s the “boomers” fault.
Univ3rse@lemmynsfw.com 3 weeks ago
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
the US, they never forgave Johnson for the '68 civil rights act
Johnson passed the '68 Civil Rights Act, but failed to actively enforce it. The subsequent Nixon/Reagan Southern Realignment involved some of the most deliberate and calculated voter disenfranchisement in the country’s storied history of voter disenfranchisement.
Consequently, states like Texas and Louisiana and Georgia and Florida can host enormous pools of liberal and progressive voters who are blacklisted, caged, gerrymandered, or outright felonized. The lay (white) American only kinda-sorta understands it is happening (thanks to the tsunami of “Record High Crime!” news hysterics), while voter turnout rates stay abnormally low relative to their global neighbors.
What we saw following the Kennedy assassination in '64 was functionally a coup. Blaming “the American voters” for the subsequent composition of Congress and the White House makes about as much sense as blaming Egyptians for el-Sisi or Russians for Putin. This is a white settler government running an armed occupation, not a liberal democracy in any meaningful sense of the word.
Univ3rse@lemmynsfw.com 3 weeks ago
By the numbers, the majority of whites continuously vote R. In fact, they haven’t voted majority D since, you guessed it, the civil rights act was signed. They are complicit and want these things. I’m not sure where this idea that they are being dragged about had come from, but they are actively choosing this every election cycle.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
In fact, they haven’t voted majority D since, you guessed it, the civil rights act was signed.
By state, that’s clearly untrue. Vermont and Massachusetts and Minnesota and Oregon would be blood-red if the split was purely racial.
This is a very regionalized phenomenon and heavily predicated on the way governors and state legislatures have historically dictated enfranchisement.
they are actively choosing this every election cycle
In 2008, Obama enjoyed a slight majority of support over McCain among white voters. And that’s without discussing the landslide support he saw in the Midwest relative to Clinton.
There’s also a strong youth vote trend that favors progressive politicians, even (perhaps especially) among white voters. Meanwhile, older Black and Asian and Hispanic voters lean conservative relative to their ethnic mean.
Even then, voter participation in the US is abysmal - hoovering in the 50-70% range. To crib from Beto O’Rourke’s favorite lines, America isn’t a conservative country, its a non-voting country. White people aren’t choosing, any more than their colored peers. They are having their politicians pre-selected and force-fed to them by a handful of wealthy, ideological radicals. This leads to some of the worst approval ratings for elected representatives in the world.
modestmeme@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“They” elected the Republicans? Voter turnout then and now says all ages were/are complicit in sitting on their hands. Boomer hate, though trendy and scores internet points, does nothing to resolve the current world situation and the future… Boomers are dying off rapidly. Whose fault will it be next…?
Univ3rse@lemmynsfw.com 3 weeks ago
Well, of course, they’ve taught their children their shitty views and so on and so forth. I can’t even mic up with randos on a game without them hurling slurs in my direction.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s survivorship bias. The folks who survived from 1946 to 2025 were in the economic cohort with the least stress, the most accumulated wealth, and the most egregious consumption habits. Can’t blame all the Americans who died of black lung in the coal fields or were left destitute after midwestern industrialization or got wiped out during the AIDS epidemic or from heart disease or smoker’s lung or COVID or the 40k car fatalities/year, cause they’re not around anymore.
Safe to assume anyone still around does, in fact, carry a disproportionate share of the blame.
0ndead@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
This. Modern climate change wasn’t really understood until the 70s.
AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
While partially true, we have known that greenhouse gasses contributed to climate change since the 19th century:
In the late 19th century, scientists first argued that human emissions of greenhouse gases could change Earth’s energy balance and climate. The existence of the greenhouse effect, while not named as such, was proposed as early as 1824 by Joseph Fourier. The argument and the evidence were further strengthened by Claude Pouillet in 1827 and 1838. In 1856 Eunice Newton Foote demonstrated that the warming effect of the sun is greater for air with water vapour than for dry air, and the effect is even greater with carbon dioxide.
en.wikipedia.org/…/History_of_climate_change_scie…
It is true, however, that our knowledge greatly increased in the 1960s and 70s.
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
50% of fossil carbon has been released in the last 30 years.
modestmeme@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is wrong. It’s 20-25%. And the last 50 years includes a whole bunch on non-boomers and a massive industrialization of Asia. WTF is up with you people and “boomers”? There’s always going to be old people. And all of them were formerly young people.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
‘Boomers’ as a term originated as, and is actually specific to American Baby Boomers.
The generation that lived through the most anomalous economic boom in US history, assumed that was actually normal, and consistently voted as a general block to ensure that the climate would be destroyed for their grandchildren, children, and deliciously ironically, even themselves as they are now all set to retire.
modestmeme@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Two questions: 1) Who you gonna blame when they’re all dead and 2) What are other, apparently superior “generations”, en masse, doing to realize a better world?
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I didn’t say a word about boomers, I was replying to a post about the industrial revolution and 200 years ago.
But to get back to my point, in 1993 the cumulative emissions were 861 billion tons and in 2023 it was 1770 billion tons. So almost perfectly doubled in 30 years.
ourworldindata.org/…/cumulative-co2-emissions-reg…
breecher@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
So it was gen z who did it then.
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Hi shit for brains. I was replying to a comment about the industrial revolution beginning 200 years ago. I wasn’t making a comment on gen z or baby boomers. I was pointing out that the people alive today are the ones responsible for climate change - not the people who lived over a hundred years ago. Bless you, I hope you have a great day.