re: #146 Blind Frog Belly White

I was reminded, after reading about Millennials’ greater acceptance of Socialism, of Tom Nichols’ pet theory on economic inequality, which states that the problem is not that economic inequality is so great, but that nowadays we can use the internet to compare our lives with people better off than we are, which makes us unhappy.

For example, he thinks the problem for Millennials is not that they have fewer opportunities than their parents, or that all the trappings of successful adult life are so much farther out of their reach, or that they are buried under debt for education we told them is the key to a happy successful life if not an absolute necessity, but which doesn’t get them the highly paid jobs we got at their ages. No, the problem is that they know that others are doing better. If they didn’t KNOW that, they’d be happy with living with their parents at the age of 30.

He expanded on this the other day, saying it was the driving force behind Trump’s ascendancy. Trump’s supporters, he claimed, were upset, not because all the jobs where they live went away, or because they see the benefits of being white - which for some was the only thing going for them - diminishing. No, it was that they saw the rich doing better than them. He thinks this envy made them susceptible to con men like Trump.

Like a lot of folks - and I include myself - Nichols loves his theory. But like a large subset of those who love their theories, he twists and distorts reality to fit it. For example, it ignores the fact that most Trumpkins worship the VERY rich, and even the just plain old rich. But they HATE, with the heat of a thousand suns, the folks who went off to college and now are doing just a bit better than they are. And they were all pretty happy with the idea of a tax cut that barely did anything for them, but made things for the very rich a lot better.

Plus, how do you explain their sneering contempt for those less well off than they are?

Speaking as a Millnennial, I think what it is for us, we see Capitalism painted as this awesome system and so much superior to awful, yucky Socialism and we’re just not falling for it. I forget woh said it here, hell may have been you yourself but Capitalism is great for innovation but when it comes to basic needs, it does lack. And frankly when we’re told that we do nothing but complain when we have a tough time finding work by people who had to pay much less for college, got paid much better out of college, etc, yeah it annoys us. I don’t identify myself as a Socialist but I sure as hell don’t like the Capitalist worship that many fall into either.