You can laugh at the boomers all you want but the American left in the 1960s and 70s were armed militants and fervent trade union organizers. They lost the fight in the end and many turned reactionary eventually, but they did put up a fight.

Gen X and some of the Millennials had the Iraq War protest and Occupy Wall Street. A significant downgrade and no longer armed but ok, the spirit was still there. I’m gonna throw in the Bernie movement in 2016 for the Millennials as well though the bar was already low.

I don’t know what Gen Z has though. Seems like they are more interested in online cultural critiques but that’s about it.

I have lived long enough to witness the dwindling fighting spirit over the years. Young people would rather hide in virtual spaces and embrace doomerism than to organize on the ground. They are reactionary in the very real sense of the word in that they have given up the fight to change the world for the better, and simply waiting for the inevitability of the status quo to fall apart.

Maybe the post-Bernie era has crushed all fighting spirit, but if the bar was that low, then they were never going to succeed in the first place.