• moon@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Why are they the butt of so many jokes?

    A little bit of ageism, but also it feels like they’re fair game since their vote is the most sought after and politicians bend over backwards to keep them happy.

    It’s great that we take care of our elders, but when they get Triple lock pensions guaranteed by both parties while young people are saddled with increasingly higher student loan debts and higher rents/mortgages, resentments build up. They have in many ways voted to fuck the country and youth over the years as well. So it feels more like punching up than punching down

    • themadcodger@kbin.earth
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      7 months ago

      Makes me feel slightly better knowing that we’re not the only ones getting actively screwed over by the older folks.

      Fuck Reagan and Fuck Thatcher.

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      It’s great that we take care of our elders

      You mean of our rich people.

      Because the government treats our non-rich elders like shit, just like the rest of us, there are over 2 million pensionaries living in poverty in the UK (and many more millions just shy of it who don’t make the statistics but are still struggling):

      https://ageing-better.org.uk/news/50-years-progress-against-pensioner-poverty-under-threat-state-ageing

      https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/16/nearly-1m-uk-pensioners-deprivation-official-figures

      Yes, there are probably more rich people who are pensionaries than other generations, because they had a significantly easier economy to navigate, and of course more time to accumulate wealth, but don’t confuse that class divide with the divisive propaganda spread to maintain a generational divide to keep us from joining forces against those who have and continue to exploit us (the general population, of all ages, back when the pensionaries were young, and still now).

      • moon@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        I agree that we need class consciousness and to unite the working class across the generations, but age is still a dividing line for Tory and Labour voters.

        The majority of people over 60 voted for Conservatives in the 2019 election. It was 57% Conservative for those aged 60-69, and 67% for those over 70. Age is still a predictor of how Conservative people vote, so the generation divide isn’t just propaganda. And young people know this from their lived experiences.

        I will say that it’s not the elderly’s fault. All of the media that caters to them is Conservative-leaning at best, and full-on Far-Right at worst. We won’t change anything in the country until we shut down the bullshit that pollutes the airwaves, newspapers and social media