I Feel Proud

I know it's going to be a long road but...

I am a late gen X guy (1979). When I was growing up it was Metallica, Nirvana and Alice in Chains during the Grunge Rock era.

Our music was all about anger and a sense of dissolution. “Here we are now, entertain us” was kind of like the mantra of our time in middle and highschool.

I didn’t grow up in the time of the white picket fence, two kids and a dog. I was in the era of when the home PC was just starting to get traction and the internet was beginning to become a thing for everyone.

My parents and my grandparents were what I would call middle class. My grandfather was a truck driver and was able to support a 6 person household on one salary. He was able to buy a home and a vehicle and retire at 55 years old.

My father was a civil engineer and was able to support a family of five. The Reagan era however was definitely starting to cause a larger wealth disparity as I was growing up. Things weren’t quite as easy as previous years.

Now we are clearly at a tipping point. One salary clearly isn’t enough to sustain an average household without struggling and taking on debt. The wealth disparity is clearly at an all time high. The money I earn at my non substack job would be considered a lower class (working poor) job. We are just able to get by. One missed payday and we would be in a world of hurt.

On the other hand we have been privileged compared to most. My wife and I have parents who have been willing to help us if we get stuck. So we have been able to get out of a number of financial situations thanks to their generosity. I could not be more appreciative.

I do know however that many did not get that kind of privilege through the years. I will be the first to say that I have no idea how challenging it must be to people who don’t have that kind of safety net.

I also know that with the upcoming cuts to things like medicaid, food stamps and social security are going to make things that much harder. Hopefully that completely aggregious, hurtful, punishing bill doesn’t pass.

But as I said on the title of this article “I Am Proud”. Many of the people from my generation have had a very nonchalant, I don’t care kind of attitude. I now think that a line has been crossed. Now gen X has woken up and it is a force to be reckoned with. We have a store of rage that has been building for years. We are the ones that grew up thinking that if we finish highschool, gather a mountain of debt for college and never be able to pay it back. Meanwhile, not being able to get that job that you went to school for and still being shackled with a huge debt that can’t even be discharged in bankruptcy.

At the same time it has stopped us all from prosperity unless we had families that were really wealthy. I think that this has caused a lot of anger between ourselves and the baby boomers because. The gen Xers have worked just as hard but have continued to struggle because salary has never caught up with the cost of living. Now this group of billionaires and multi millionaires want to push everyone down even farther as it hurts people that are the least well off.

For me, and I don’t think I'm alone here, we have reached the boiling point. We cannot continue to be beaten down this economic ladder anymore. Everyone should have opportunity to prosper, and this stupid “Big Beautiful Bill” will do nothing but hurt everyone except the super rich. I think we all have a right to feel angry.

I have been to three protest now and plan to be at more. I would like to say I am astounded at the number of people from my generation that are showing up. We are being loud, we are showing making our voices heard and we are being persistent and resistant. I don’t see any end in sight. I think gen X is standing tall and I just feel so glad to be a part of it.

I know we have a long way to go when it comes to getting this government back on track, but I believe if we continue to show up, we will win.

There has been a lot of blatantly bad news and the main stream media continues to ignore us. The media pushes a watered down version of what Trump and his goons are trying to do.

Many of us are now parents and just like Rep. Swalwell said, “I have a bullshit detector” and it stinks.

Trump can threaten and send out rage tweets about Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen all he wants. That is not going to slow down the ferocious pushback that is coming.

Our protests are getting bigger and louder. We will continue to push back at these terrible executive orders and the punitive laws that take away basic human rights.

We will not let that happen, and those weasels are going to have to go through me and the rest of my generation to continue doing what they are doing, consequences be damned. I am here for it and I know you all are too. The next big protests are coming in mid June as well as well as many other gatherings between. I am sure you are reasonably close to one nearby. If you can’t go, write postcards, make phone calls to your congress people or try to convince others to go. This is all hands on deck.

I think we will be defined by what we do in this time of struggle. Will we capitulate or will we fight back? One thing I learned is that if you stand up to a bully and hit back, they will back down. And deep down the people that wrote this “Big Beautiful Bill” know that it is harmful. The regime is actively trying to hurt the people of this nation.

And the reason?

GREED

It will take all of us in this fight and I think we gen Xers are up for it!

I love you all,

Erik

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