Are Most MAGA Republicans Gen X?

We're supposed to be more Rage Against the Machine, not more Ted Nugent

Yesterday’s news that Trump won the election made me realize something: millions of Americans who know the Greatest Generation defeated the Nazis in WW2 said to themselves “I want to go down in history as the Worst Generation by voting for the fascist dictators who will turn the US into a theocracy”.

Unfortunately, it’s Gen X that’s getting called out for re-electing Trump. With everything else we’re the “Forgotten Generation” but suddenly they all remembered we exist, how interesting. On social media, people are angrily sharing a chart that outlines the age demographics of Republican voters, but they’re mistakenly saying the chart reveals that it was mostly Gen-Xers who voted Republican. Gen X is currently between the ages of 44-59, not 45-64.

Removing all the Boomers who were lumped in with us would reduce that 53% big time

That said, far too many of our generation were bullies and mean girls who peaked in high school. They support Trump because they want to live vicariously through his narcissism and relive their glory years picking on the smart kids and creative kids. Authoritarian bullies can only be happy when they’re pushing someone around. Studies show the more conservative a school district is, the bigger the bullying problem is in the schools. Of course; conservatism is attractive to small-minded tyrants who then teach their children how to be abusive jerks.

These are people who silently root for the villains in the movies, who enjoy watching the rape scenes in movies, and who identified with Ogre and Stan Gable in Revenge of the Nerds. Basically, we’re surrounded by more psychopaths than we thought we were.

I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, we’re talking about a country in which roughly half its people wanted so badly to preserve their right to enslave other people they were willing to die trying, and that was only 160 years ago. Their asshole descendants are alive today and they have something their ancestors didn’t: the power of the internet to spread lies and propaganda to brainwash more idiots.

Remember when Dee Snider of Twisted Sister spoke out against conservative politicians using the ultimate ‘80s anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It” in their rallies? It sucks to admit it but a shit ton of Gen-Xers grew up to be like the assholes that inspired the song’s rebellious message.

It’s typical for tyrants and bullies to gaslight their minions into believing they’re the persecuted ones, so we can safely assume they knew exactly what they were doing when they attempted to hijack the real message behind this song

When GenX was growing up, we repeatedly saw examples in history of the good guys winning. I remember breathing a sigh of relief to know how lucky I was to be born after so many social ills and evil regimes had been defeated and left in the dust to be recorded for the history books. Everything from ending slavery and Jim Crow laws to women getting the right to vote and legalizing no-fault divorce showed us that our country always makes progress. The message was love always wins.

The psychopaths and ignoramuses of the country have risen up to declare their desire for hate to win. The most awful people in the US look back on the progress we made and see it all as regressive decisions that led to the erosion of society. They blame no-fault divorce for “broken homes and damaged children”, they’re racists who want to repeal the legalization of interracial marriage out of fears that white people will be no more (the stupid as hell “Great Replacement Theory”), they even fight against banning child marriages, for fuck’s sake. MAGA Republicans have successfully bamboozled people into believing they’re the party that stands for “freedom”. The only freedom I see them fight for is the freedom to legally get away with being bullies again.

While it’s tempting to say life was better in the ‘80s, when it felt like most of our societal issues were in the past, the truth is we were still dealing with a host of issues. LGBTQ people had few legal protections (if any), most states still hadn’t outlawed marital rape, the Reagan administration made the homeless population multiply and ignored the AIDS crisis, and marijuana was being condemned as a “gateway drug” (studies have shown it’s not) while millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted imprisoning people for growing, smoking, and selling it. No bueno.

The GenXers who voted for Trump embarrass the rest of our generation. I’ve discovered several other GenX content creators on YouTube, Substack, and Threads and at first I’m like ‘Oh cool, someone I can befriend who does something similar’. Then I keep reading/watching just to discover they’re Trump supporters promoting Toxic Nostalgia. Yuck. We’re supposed to be the Fuck Around & Find Out Generation, not the Pathetic Religious Oppressors generation.

You can look back on our childhood with both reverence and disdain, it doesn’t have to be a false dichotomy. A balanced perspective is severely lacking when someone only acknowledges the positive and turns a blind eye to the negative, or vice versa.

During the weeks leading up to the election, I was filled with hope. So many wonderful people were posting # WeWillNotGoBack, # IUnderstandtheAssignment, and # ICompletedtheAssignment. Harris and Walz would’ve made a GenXcellent team in the White House.

I want to see the good people in this country band together to say “we’re not gonna take it!” Since the bullies want to fuck around, they can find out what what we’re made of.