Ageism is the last permissible —even supported— prejudice on the left. But like all bigotry, it seeds vulnerability in everyone buying into it.
And it doesn’t really matter whether you think ol’ folks are just a drain on society or automatic conservatives or whatever you may believe about them. Those beliefs are irrelevant compared to how the party stands to gain or lose from how you speak and act.
Do the math. The ‘senior’ age cohort is only growing all the time. If YOU aren’t there yet yourself, you will be someday ... if you’re lucky.
Meanwhile, how smart is it to alienate them by speaking of them and treating them as if they don’t know what they’re talking about, or are interested solely in their own benefit at the cost of everyone else’s … or that the mileage and road conditions of the years they’ve put in working for their families and communities, and all they’ve seen in the process, has made them too stupid for any valid role in society?
How politically smart is it to make a large number of enemies unnecessarily?
Insult and politically assault older people, and you drive them to suspect all other political stances you might PREFER they would take. After all, almost no one younger trusts anyone who behaves like an enemy, so why should anyone older?
Numerically, every Dem under age 60 in this country NEEDS every possible ally OVER 60 that we can get. FULL ALLIES — equals. Not as patronized minorities bullshitted to. Because people over 60 —and over 70, even over 80— are less and less a minority all the time.
And we sure as hell do not need more voters driven into the arms of the other side because of our attitude toward them.
If you live long enough, you’re gonna need the same things then that elders need now, only more so, because things are getting tougher all the time. And no, it’s not any particular age range causing that. In fact, younger Americans may want to take a hard look at their own lifetime-to-now consuming behavior and political activity before casting any stones.
Simply put, despise what older people need at your own risk. Despise their lifetime, painfully won experience at your own risk: those who’ve studied longest have learned the most. And developed insight from it. True in scholarship, true in politics, true in life.
And by the way, if you’re youngish and have lived until now —and given that older people ARE more responsible about voting than younger people are— the odds are that many people now older are among those who gave you your start in life and helped you get this far, individually and communally. Surely Dems don’t want to go imitating Mitt Romney saying you built it all yourself — realistically, we all know for a fact that it’s thanks to others around us, no matter how unseen (or ignored, or pridefully egotistically dismissed), that each of us is here at all, whether it’s comfortable to acknowledge or not.
As bad as the world may seem, it’s people now in their 80s and 90s who set the modern peace and freedom and environment movements going, and people in their 70s who came forward to put their shoulders to wheel, and people in their 60s who stepped up next. Without all of THEM, none of us might be here at all.
There’s been a saying in the disabled community for a long time now, “Nothing about us without us.” That’s true too of all liberation movements. It’s what’s owed, humanistically, TO every liberation movement, from all the rest of us.
"Humanity is but a single Brotherhood: so, make peace with your brethren." Qur’an 49:10 Chapter (49) Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt (“The Dwellings”)
But don’t worry — it’s not that hard to change. None of us has to be perfect at it. We just need to up our solidarity game a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more.
“Repel Evil by that which is better.” Qur’an 41:34, Chapter (41) Surat Fussilat (“Explaining in Detail”)