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ALPERN AT LARGE - Young American adults (Millennials and Gen Z) have been inundated since Day One that their lives are going to be pointless, with both decreased opportunities than their parents, and that their nation is the problem, not the solution, to fix Planet Earth.
So it’s hardly a shocker to learn that an Axios poll notes that the percentage of young Americans who say that they are “extremely proud” to be American has plummeted down to only 18%.
The poll states that patriotism in general has gone down amongst all American adults, with 85% in 2013 of those aged 18-29 being extremely or very proud to be an American.
However, although the percentage expressing extreme pride intensified after 9/11 only to lower since 2005 that continues to this day.
George W. Bush bogging us down in Iran?
Check.
George W. Bush letting a Great Recession happen, and then Barack Obama doing everything wrong to fix it, creating a Second Great Depression!
Check.
Horribly divisive elections and rhetoric from Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden?
Check.
Unaffordable housing, rising utility and grocery prices, and fewer good career opportunities (not just jobs, but careers with benefits)?
Check.
A gaslighting media, and hordes of adults stating that THEY are fine, and pulling up the ladder behind them, and away from youth and young adults?
Check.
Participation awards just for having a pulse, and expectations that push the notion that “everyone can be a winner”?
Check.
Finally, an education system that teaches no vocational job skills and career paths, teaches no fiscal literacy, teaches that Western thought and history is evil and tyrannical, and leaves so many behind in the middle class?
Check, and Mate.
In the most recent Gallup poll, Americans 55 and older were nearly 3 times more likely to be extremely prideful of their national identify than younger generations, but this is in large part explained by how many of them are Republicans.
And…shocker! 60% of Republicans are “extremely proud” to be American, while only 33% of independents and 29% of Democrats in the poll stating the same…
…but in all three groups, younger adults don’t share this positive sentiment with their older counterparts.
So…where do we go with this?
First, we stop teaching kids that their nation is evil. Flawed, like all nations and cultures, and guilty of horrible things (also like all nations and cultures), but yet the world wants to come to the U.S. well beyond any goal of financial better.
Second, stop promoting “those old white men” who wrote the Constitution as inherently racist and evil.
The world has sought to emulate (including Latin American, Asian, and African nations) in one way, shape or form. The Renaissance and Reformation meant something, as was the Great Enlightenment prevalent in Western nations…while the rest of the world, from Eastern Europe to Asia was going in the opposite direction.
Create affordable housing—capture and hold onto water in reservoirs, jettison the faux-environmentalists who are merely misanthropes, and focus on either CARBON-BASED FUELS or NUCLEAR POWER as something that will allow us an affordable utility system that allows health and quality of life.
Suck it up and go with the science.
Encourage women’s rights and all the reduced population that is caused by that effort, affecting North America (including Mexico), Japan, and Europe.
The population of this planet, and all the environmental impacts we have (including the manmade components of global warming) appears to be peaking by the middle of this century and will be going way down by the year 2100.
Stop the gaslighting and scaremongering and focus on real science.
In other words, do the right, scientific, enlightened, honest, and Western-based educational and cultural things that made this nation great, and thereby made this world great.
Stop bashing America and give our youth something to love and fight for.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
