Senator Clinton's Grumpy Old Man Strategy
by Matt Stoller, Fri May 26, 2006 at 08:12:14 AM EDT
In remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce convention recently, the senator from New York lashed out at young people who she said were growing up in a culture of instant gratification."They don't know what work is," she claimed. "They think work is a four-letter word."
And what was it like for Mrs. Clinton? She'll be happy to tell you: "You know, I grew up in a home with one TV set, and we didn't get that right off the bat," she explained. According to Mrs. Clinton, this "improved your negotiating skills because you had to argue about what channel you were going to watch, even though there were only three."
Well, I also grew up in a home with one TV set. And there were only three channels in my house, too. And we also argued about what to watch. So what?
That's the way it was for just about everyone at that time and place in the life of our country. But it's not like that anymore. And hasn't been for a long time.
Mrs. Clinton seems to be suffering from that demographic epidemic called "boomer-geezeritis."
When they're not getting liposuction or trying to have their crow's feet removed or going deaf at a Stones concert, America's windy, bloated, tiresome baby boomers are now whining about overindulged young people.
The former first lady has blamed cable TV, high-speed Internet, cell phones and iPods for creating a culture that "really argues against hard work" and makes today's kids lazy. She says "kids, for whatever reason, think they're entitled to go right to the top with $50,000 or $75,000 jobs when they have not done anything to earn their way up."
I frankly can't imagine whose kids Mrs. Clinton is talking about.
She certainly isn't talking about her own kid, Chelsea, who didn't have to settle for $50,000 or even $75,000 in her first job but sailed into a consulting gig right out of school, reportedly for a six-figure salary. Ironically, mom still had to apologize to Chelsea for these remarks, telling her daughter, "I just wanted to set the bar high." What a joke!
In fact, Mrs. Clinton should have apologized to all the non-Chelseas in America: the millions of young adults who get little or nothing handed to them.
I've thought for awhile that Hillary Clinton is a weak candidate, not because she's a bad person but because she's been cocooned since 1993 in a cloud of advisors. These comments about youth, who are clearly the voting group that Democrats need to create a long-term governing majority, suggest just that.
There are 75 million Americans born in the 1980s and 1990s, which is a quarter of the US population. The youth voting group is the ONLY group in which Democrats gained votes percentage-wise from 2000 to 2004. It is the only reliably Democratic voting block in terms of age cohort. Now let's leave aside the woeful underinvestment in young people by progressive groups. And let's leave aside the consistent 'I'm not going after young people because they don't vote' refrain from the consultantocracy. And let's leave aside the general disdain for the young volunteers that make campaigns happen.
These comments by Hillary Clinton, which I'm sure are widespread, don't make any of these arguments. This is just pure unadulterated hatred of young people.
Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and Atrios are all pointing out that the notion that young people must face a cold hard world through some sort of a brutal awakening is weird and out of place. I would add that this next generation has grown up with public spaces in which to interact, which I never really did. These spaces are on the internet, and weird stuff happens there. But while there's some bad stuff online, like child predators, this isn't strictly new (see the priesthood). What is new is that there is now a giant space for kids to form relationships, build their own personality, play with social rules, learn and tinker, form and manage communities, fight and settle arguments, and experience the ability to exert some control over their lives and surroundings. This is what politics is. They know how to do it already, and they are turning on to the political process. You can see it in the pop culture if you're looking.
Regardless, it doesn't really matter. Hating your most vital voting block is dumb.
Tags: Hillary Clinton (all tags)
-----------
myDD - skin
-----------
34 Comments