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- Check in on your elders pls.
Which group do you think is feeling more optimistic about the ‘state of the nation’ right now: young people or older people? Follow up question: Have you checked in on your elders lately? Because according to the latest Essential poll they’re… not doing great, mindset-wise. Friend of Zee Feed Lizzie (and co-founder of the excellent Project Planet) asked me to look into the surprising poll result - you can check it out for yourself here.
The poll asked respondents: In general, would you say that Australia is heading in the right direction or is it off on the wrong track?
For people aged 18-34, it was an even split – 40% think we’re headed in the right direction, 41% think we’re going in the wrong direction. But for people aged 55+ a worrying 61% think Australia is headed on the wrong track. For this age group, the belief that things are going wrong has been steadily increasing since 2022.
We’ve been told so much about how dire things are for young people, how disproportionately expensive and hopeless… So why do Gen X and Boomers feel less optimistic than us?
There is a tendency to assume that, because older demographics in Australia are more likely to have conservative values and beliefs than younger demographics, they are ‘angry’ at social and political progress. While there’s definitely a bit of that going on, it’s unfair and overly simplistic to put it all down to ‘outdated beliefs’ – but we’ll come back to that in a bit.
Here’s what I think is going on:
While decades of neoliberal thinking and policy making have had the greatest impact on young people today, that doesn’t mean it exclusively impacts us. In areas like health care and aged care, rising costs and inaccessibility are pressing issues for the 55+ demographic.
The proportion of renters aged 55+ has increased in every census since 1996 – 20% of this age group were renting in 2021. And even for those who do own their home, the rates out outright homeownership (i.e: completely paid, no mortgage) has steadily declined. About 43% of homeowners had no mortgage in 1996, but in 2021 this was only 29%. Without any meaningful changes to address the cost of housing on the political agenda, more Australians than ever will enter retirement as renters or with a mortgage still to pay. That’s terrifying.
Even in the shitty current circumstances, young people have the benefit of time on their side – things could still change! There is more time to work, build up your super, try to figure out a plan for the twilight of life. Some days it might feel like a long shot, but at least it’s still there to take.
Not so for those approaching or past retirement age. Increased costs and shitty economic conditions are their reality now. If you’re not wealthy (most are not!), the promise that “working hard will make it all worth it in the end” has turned out to be a lie at the cruellest moment.
Now back to the political beliefs. I very much doubt the pessimism is solely being driven by conservative culture war shit like January 26 and “why doesn’t Gen Z want to work these days?” I keep coming back to what economist Alison Pennington told me last year: “Australians generally have a social democratic impulse. They believe the government has a responsibility to provide good living standards for all. And it’s important to remember they also fought to make their lives better thinking that it would be setting their kids up as well.”
The people 55+ who think this country is going off the rails have experienced a very different political landscape than the one we’ve got now. They came of age in the 70s and 80s, under Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam (Labor), Malcolm Fraser (Coalition) and Bob Hawke (Labor); a 55-year-old would have voted in a federal election for the first time in 1987, the third consecutive win for Hawke.
Hawke has been ranked the second best Australian Prime Minister in history (Whitlam came in at #7). Imagine that being your formative experience of a federal government, and then 30 years later it’s… Scott Morrison?
There’s a clue in the data that backs up this theory. The percentage of people who think the country is off-track temporarily drops to 26% in June 2022, right after the federal election. The nation had undeniably voted for a Labor government that promised to deliver progressivism, and the June 2022 poll marks the moment that older Australians were waiting to see if Albanese’s Labor government would be a return to the form of the 70s and 80s Labor governments.
As we all know, it did not.
And so each month the 55+ voters have become more and more disillusioned with the direction this nation is heading, led by an incrementalist government and a Labor prime minister who has sacrificed his own morals.
Working together across generational lines is essential if we want to improve the state of this country for everyone. Class solidarity is a huge component of this – renter’s rights are renter’s rights, regardless of whether you’re a 19-year-old or 44-year-old or 72-year-old tenant.
Another quote from Alison to end on, which remains as relevant as ever: “This is exactly what our detractors want us to do – to be divided and focused on looking at the current pie and fighting over who gets what. That pie has been getting smaller and smaller for decades under neoliberalism, and our goal is to expand the pie and share it better. I think we’ll find lots of people on our side in that shared goal.”
Good stuff on Zee Feed rn:
Smart stuff on the Internet 💭
All the stuff I found on the web that made me think, smile, or have an ‘aha!’ moment. Spend your Sunday reading them – you'll be better off for it:
Rock ‘n’ Roll McDonald: On Trump at Maccas, his happy place on the Yeah Nah Review substack
Please, I am begging you: if you only click on one link in this whole email, let it be this – the funniest and most insightful assessment of Donald Trump I have ever read. Finally, Trump makes sense to me. “It is 2024 and people are still asking “who” and “what” Donald Trump is, and “how” did he come about, when it’s right on display like the options on a drive-thru menu. Trump is a thickshake. Trump is chicken nuggets. Trump is a quarterpounder. Trump is Grimace — a vaguely indefinable blob that should not exist but does, if only as a mascot for an empire running on blood and slavery.”
The Misogyny of Gen Z Men Has Been Overstated on the New York Times
“The reason that the gender gap in voting seems so pronounced is not because young men have become dramatically more conservative. It’s because of the political galvanization of the young women… Among likely voters under 30, women overwhelmingly support Kamala Harris over Trump by a nearly 50-point margin. But young men also prefer Harris; 53 percent of likely male voters support the vice president versus just 36 percent for Trump.”
Ethel Cain says we are in an irony epidemic – is she right? on Dazed
Would love to discuss this in the Australian context… “The album [Preacher’s Daughter] is a harrowing and beautiful tale, follows the fictional Ethel Cain as she’s sexually assaulted by her father, sold into prostitution by her lover Isaiah, and ultimately murdered and cannibalised by him. Anhedönia has said Ethel Cain is a darker reflection of herself, yet people reduce the album’s painful themes to tired memes that never seem to die.”
‘I hate the night’: Life in Gaza amid the incessant sounds of war on the Guardian
A powerful interactive piece sharing the sounds of Gaza at night and during the day. It’s one thing to read words on a page, another entirely to listen to buzzing drones, crunching rubble, and soft, tired sobbing.