Bernie's Cubbyhole Gap

I mentioned a while back that I had a grand-niece, Carrie, who is about 22, a doctoral graduate student, and is considerably left of me politically.  Having heard that she was to be attending a Bernie Sanders rally and speech in Minnesota, where she is in school, I imagine her parents were a bit flabbergasted and wondering where they went wrong, at least from a political training stance -- Carrie is a wonderful young lady, when she is not at a Bernie Sanders rally.

I was less upset by the whole affair than her parents, and somewhat less upset than her grandmother, who is my sister-in-law.  In fact, it bothered me very little, principally because I understand what turns young people into receptive socialists.

Hint: it's the same thing that turns people past 30 into more conservative thinkers.

About a dozen times in the 330 or so articles on this site, I have alluded back to a piece I did on what I called the "cubbyhole theory of maturity."  In essence -- but please read it anyway -- I note that people's experiences accumulate over time and help us associate causes and effects. In fact, while we learn many, many things over decades, no lesson is more important than that wherein we learn that action A is likely to produce result B, because it did so before.

My niece, as I noted, is 22.  She is attending a Bernie Sanders rally because she thinks somehow that the good senator has actual answers to what ails the USA; I think that's pretty much a substantive answer to why she will be there.

My Best Girl and I will, suffice it to say, not be there.  Admittedly that's mainly because we don't live anywhere near Minnesota, but I can assure you that, were Sanders speaking next door, it would not occur to us to attend.  And that's for a similar reason; it is because we think somehow that the good senator thinks he has actual answers to what ails the USA.  It's a fine difference.

At 22, young humans are far from having the ability to associate cause and effect.  Accordingly, they fail to recognize the importance of proposing solutions that have actually worked before.  Youth is perpetually and stubbornly idealistic.  When a pied piper like Bernie Sanders insists that he can pay for all sorts of things by simply taxing the "rich", they are only too willing to believe, because it sounds good.  Kind of like Robin Hood, you know?

But their thought sequence stops there and becomes immobile, even when you point out that ideas such as Sanders has proposed have not worked before, or that they are crushed under the weight of pesky facts.

Sanders will tout his universal health care proposal, all supposedly government (i.e., taxpayer)-paid, like Scandinavia and Germany.  Now, that sounds just great until you peel back the layers and realize how much rationing of health care goes on there; how the quality of care lags behind that available in the USA (though not always to all); how long the waits for some treatments are, all because there is no incentive to advance care.  The USA may not have the best health care insurance, but we certainly have the best health care -- and that's a big difference.  Even before you note that we are already almost $20 trillion in debt.

Youth stops far short of looking at the failures of what is proposed that is in use elsewhere -- with weak results.  The facts are an inconvenient truth.

Sanders will tout his plan to hike tax rates, hugely, to pay for his health care proposal.  Youth just loves that (see above).  Robin Hood, yay!  Now that all sounds great too, until you peel back the layers and do the math.  That would be the math that says that if you seized all the assets of the wealthiest 2% of the USA -- not just their income but their property -- you would not be able to run the government even a year, and that's now, before all the senator's giveaways.  At that point you've got no "rich" left, and you have a bankrupt government with $20 trillion in debt and no source of money to pay for it.

Youth stops far short of looking at that.  Without the maturity to recognize that something that failed before will fail again in the same model, they, well, go to Sanders rallies.  Without the maturity to project the mid and long-term impact of unsustainable plans, they vote for socialists.

Youth will always disproportionately lean left.  It sounds so good, especially when you simply don't know to take into account past experience and cause-and-effect factors.  I get it, and I don't even blame them.  I was 17 when I looked up and realized that leftism was so untenable that it needed a Stalin, or a Mao with a murderous hand to force it upon a citizenry.

The young people in the USA will figure it out.  Unfortunately when they do, there will be a whole new crop of young people who haven't.

I understand.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu.