Monday 17 December 2018

The coming of the youthquake and the end of the broflake

The coming of the youthquake and the end of the broflake

There is a week to go to the Winter Solstice. I hear on Radio 4 that the most popular new word of the year "youthquake". It's apt my generation the baby boomers are fading away and with it it's discourse. It's fine and necessary for this process to begin. There are those who struggle with their mortality and power but for me it's not a thing to be resisted. In the last two years some have sort to deny the inevitable, they have fled to Trump, to Farage or Lepen. Yet Canute line they have failed to stem the tide. The sea if their faith reached high water mark in June 2016 and in November of the same year. After Brexit the Left and Corbyn emerged; in Alabama three days ago the tide turned there. It's no longer acceptable for men and in particular for powerful men to harrass, assault and group women. The tide running now will sweep away the baby boomers now crying about witchunts against them. We have transgender rights, variable identities and sexualitied are seen as nothing more than the concerns of the person they belong to.

Another word of the year is broflake it applies to men who fear political or cultural change. Trump and Farage are the Platonic form of the broflaje and their time is coming to end. Two years ago I speculated on a paradigm shift . I commented that I was not sure who would win the populist authoritarian right or the decentralised socialism of Jeremy Corbyn, Caroline Lucas and Bernie Sanders. Two years on and the tide runs to the left. I still here the bitter old men and some younger whine and moan about nothing but how evil the EU is and how terrible the witchhunt on sexual harassment is. Yet the broflakes are fading and the snowflakes are growing. Like Elrond I see the passing of my generation and am glad of it. It's time for the paradigm to change, the hope to grow and new possibilities to emerge. The broflakes turn to damaging drugs and psychosis. They escape into homophobia, racism islamophobia and sexism. They fear the other, they fear change and project their anxieties on to those they fear. Yet my fine broflakes you cannot stop what is happening and you like me will pass away. And that is both necessary and just..now is the time for renewal as the baby boomers are replaced.

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