When our generation is the age of the current Republican base, will we be even less likely to cooperate? We're already well-versed in attacking each other online and we are much more entrenched in the capitalist, winner-takes-all, I-must-win-while-you-must-suffer-and-be-embarrassed mentality of the 21st century. Our beliefs are further hardened every day by even more partisan sources of information (combined with the conviction that opposing sources of news are not just wrong but evil). At least today's seniors enjoyed some semblance of balanced reporting and remember a time when compromise and civility in Congress were much more common.
I'm not arguing for a return to those days. As a whole, life and society is orders of magnitude better than the current generation of seniors ever dreamed it could be. But at some point we have to move forward. I don't understand why we must always make it more difficult than it can be.
The best part is that I don't think another 9/11 or market collapse is required to make great, positive, progressive change. We are having a hard enough time passing minimal gun policy reform after a kindergarten massacre. Quite the opposite. Recent evidence indicates that those fighting to maintain the status quo, or worse, a return to a time that can and will never again exist, efficiently and effectively manipulate public opinion to make war with and bail out those least in need and least worthy of public funding and support.
Instead, we need a great moment. We must find it. We must take advantage. We can create it or it can be spontaneous. Maybe both. But we need to prove, definitively, forever and for always, that the ideas, beliefs and values are unquestionably superior to the alternative promoted by people seeking to appeal to a base of voters that is dying faster than they realize.
Or, we must accept that our ideas for the future are not as compelling as sexism, racism and bigotry. I think we're better than that.