Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

Election Shapes Up As a Battle of Generations

Now that Donald Trump has named his VP running mate, it’s pretty clear he’s aiming for the youth vote to take him to the White House and build a legacy—or should I say dynasty?—for generations. In the Senate, where average age is 65, Vance, age 38, is the youngest Republican senator. He is also the first Millennial nominated to the vice presidential office. And he comes with a compelling story that became a New York Times bestseller. Not by any stretch a working man, he does present a contrast to the Orange One.

With wife Usha Chilukuri Vance, daughter of Indian immigrants, and three photogenic children, Vance, the Catholic convert, has bona fide Christian leanings and seems tailor-made to balance Trump’s gross immorality and sketchy antics. We can imagine the Vances as models of quiet domesticity next to ads that feature bloody-eared Trump’s July 13 fist pumping and mouthing “Fight. Fight. Fight” to the camera.

Not that Vance will try to buck any of his boss’s ideas. or the ideas of Trump’s RNC handlers. Vance is pro-life, pro-Israel and anti-Ukraine. He is an election-denier and favors walls against immigration. Interesting, isn’t it, that both candidates are anti-immigration and married to stay-at-home women with roots in other cultures. And both candidates are strong supporters of the oil and gas industries and anxious to take down Joe Biden’s green energy initiatives.

What does this mean for the most well-armed generation of Americans? It means that change will probably not be peaceful. While nonviolent protest gave women and minorities voting rights, education, jobs and a place at the tables of government, unhinged MAGA supporters will use strong-armed tactics. It’s like Jan. 6 coming to our neighborhoods.

Until Millennials (1981-1996) came along, Baby Boomers (1946-1964) were the bubble in the population charts. Their babyhood created suburbs and Levittowns, their teen years dominated American culture with groundbreaking TV and movies, rock and roll, sexuality and rebellion. Reaching adulthood as the war in Vietnam came along, it was inevitable that this huge bubble of teenage angst, facing a military draft, would develop strategies of evasion, resistance and protest.

Fortunately, Boomers came of age at the time when Americans were learning about Nelson Mandela and Jawaharlal Nehru who, in turn, had learned about Mahatma Gandhi and the power of peaceful resistance. American protesters adopted nonviolent strategies to protest war and inequality. Radical ideas that might have come to violence instead became issues to study and speak about, to organize and march about. Huge protest marches like the 1963 March on Washington led by Martin Luther King brought more than 200,000 citizens to Washington, D.C., to demand fair housing and jobs and, by the way, sent King’s eloquent “I Have A Dream” speech to unconcerned Americans.

As early as 1965, protesters gathered in D.C. to protest the Vietnam War. The first protest march brought 15,000 to 25,000 to Washington. It was organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which later organized marches in New York (400,000 protesters) and San Francisco where 10,000 flowed into Kezar Stadium. In 1967, 35,000 marched on the Pentagon. There was at least one major march every year. Learning from their successes, students occupied campus buildings, burned draft cards and shut down major roads. Their successes probably had many explanations. SDS was well-organized, with chapters on many campuses. And the police were less well-armed. It was also quite rare for a citizen to be carrying a gun.

By 1968, which was the last time there was a major political convention in Chicago, serious protesters had been joined by jokesters like the Yippies, who promised to spike convention water with LSD and make love in the streets. Permits were denied and Mayor Richard Daley called out thousands of police and National Guard. The gatherings were noisy, attention-getting and chaotic. Protesters were beaten in front of delegates, but no one was shot. In fact, as far as I could tell from searching the internet, only four people were killed in all the Vietnam protests—the tragic deaths of college students killed by Ohio National Guards, while the students were peacefully protesting at Kent State University on May 4, 1970.

As the July 13 Trump-rally shooting proved, kids are now armed with military-style weapons and they still take their futures in their hands and try to make statements. It was marvelously lucky that more folks weren’t killed or maimed during that shooting.

In 2022, the Heritage Foundation released Project 2025 to put conservative ideas into words and give Trump allies a blueprint for the future. In their vision, immigrants will be deported and women’s rights will vanish along with the gains of LGBTQ persons. Industry and the rich will be the big winners with tax cuts and the elimination of climate-affirming energy gains. Co-operation and education will be the big losers.

Making America great again could lead us directly into the past.

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2024

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